Glory Ho

We were walking home from Taxim, Istanbul that April. A little lost, but a little found, toward the Galata Bridge with its fresh fisherman and seagull-swarming mosque views. If you squinted, they became a cartoon, a postcard with all the requirements: third-grade drawing birds, blue sky, pink lights, the domes and turrets of a castle untouched by Disney. We’d strayed from the group, taking an expensive taxi from Sultanhamet to the wild deluge of energy we’d discovered the night before. The noiseand stares and men and hosts and moustached-lips and voices and lack of space on those streets is a rush. . .my senses were on a trip that only few would find twice in one visit. Tonight we swallowed the mussels with glee, buying one clamshell after another. We exchanged lyra for food that tasted richer than cash, our smiles for knowing eyes, a cigarette for a brown-handed flame. We felt engaged. Within a glory. Fighting to stay there. But it neared early morning, the jazz club had been closed, and as we strolled past Galata Tower, the ghost of a Turkish princess surely crying within its walls, the steep slide of cobbleston up. A brick-walled room with a ballroom sized chandelier. Medieval bolts stood guard at the windows, but nothing could keep the sound from a prison break. The last stragglers at a well-attended party, their friendly intoxication became easy company, their dancing a free show. It was dark. I remember the men, but not their instruments. The sound but not the song. The feeling but not the words to help you understand. Like a dream where you only get to watch as your thoughts are unraveled into the air, it’s a little blurry. A little drunk from not just wine, but such raw discovery. This is Istanbul. The first time.

by glory-ho at 10:12:05 am