SEA, THE CONFIDANT OF MY HEART
New roads have to be found, painful, thorny, roads trodden by bleeding feet and maybe the important thing is the road, just like in Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.” Finding new roads, yes.
By Nevin Ulusoy
Ralph Waldo Emerson, famous American writer and poet, mentions the healing power of nature. His intimate friend Walt Whitman also says that even if everybody leaves us, nature is with us. Whenever we go near it, nature hugs us, birds perch on our sad window, the trees never look at us with a frown, they are always there, they embrace our heart that never obeys. “Trees, they sleep and wake, like us” as in a song, “A Dream Like That”, feeling nature that way, the tree turning to the beloved, songs as well. Trees know how light is hidden in our darkness inside, even when you think you have found your way you struggle with various deadlocks, ways are not straight and you never want a plain way, you prefer melancholy to ordinary peace, even though you know the thorns make you bleed.
I feel that sea is an unbelievable source of peace, especially in Istanbul, especially Bosphorous. You feel that the cliffs are closed, the calling of the sixth floor, “burning fire in our brain” that Baudelaire mentions are buried in cool water. A bitter sadness, that never-ending, deep hollowness, that we can be seen in our sadness, the books do not write about, leaves unfinished what we call life, because “a person is another’s hollowness” as in a song by Hüsnü Arkan. This song tells us our situation, the missing part inside maybe we cannot name, say even to ourselves. But that hollowness, oh that hollowness, sharp as the dagger, the wound, brutal, makes you breathless. I talk to the sea then, I know it embraces, will embrace me with its soft-waved breath. As I breathe in its odour, I feel I am enlivened at every breath. We gaze at each other for hours, I tell her everything with my eyes, its heart is unlimited, I am a “Sea Without A Shore”, just like in the tremendous song by “Ezginin Günlüğü”, seagulls then, a smile on my lips.
Whenever we go near it, nature hugs us, birds perch on our sad window, the trees never look at us with a frown, they are always there, they embrace our heart that never obeys.
Is it because I am lonely and quiet, I hear the whispers of the moon, I feel that the waves of the sea understand what passes through my mind? The raindrops that lean on the window, I touch and caress them. The waves speak the same language with me, my language that most do not understand, maybe nobody understands. This language is full of pain sometimes, is it me that loves melancholy, it is as if those waves embrace me, their smell dazzles me, they take me to the world of dreams that nobody else knows. My whole being full of that smell, sounds, I wander full of light, seagulls again, they take me on their wings, we salute the clouds, we share laughs that nobody hears, sun, how I love you, my wounded heart knows that only you can warm it, my sun, my yellow love. When I am eye-to-eye with the seagulls blue-green caresses my ears and a boat sails far ahead, I raise my head again, it presents its beauty to my eyes dazzled with the love of the sun. Some people walk near me, I am frightened of getting lost in that world of dreams, always staying in that riot of colours. My heart has not learned that fear is useless, to fear, what can it stop and maybe what we fear is better for us. We insist on order, let us go astray sometimes. Our palaces inside want some change maybe and our heart does not feel these wishes in the lake of habits by forgetting its feelings. Oh, songs, melodies, the unique magic of notes, they are the borders of the dream world, the ornaments of my unlimitedness. When my head is dizzy with this dreamy intoxication, do not raindrops fall on my eyes? I know that we cannot have all we want, I know, the waves always tell me, the unique waves of the sea of my Istanbul. My city hugs me, my one and only that I have come back after having wandered a lot, my hometown that has been a fire burning in my heart with the yearning for it, my heaven. I have dreamed of singing to it for months, now we sing together. My heart always wishes for moments of joy, but is it sadness that it attracts secretly? “Hush” say the waves, they see I stare, my eyes, my eyes are burning, what a beautiful colour blue is, bosphorous blue, my eyes gaze at the world of dreams that is being opened. I walk near the pigeons, they are not afraid of me, I take their photos, they are fine that way, we are fine, am I fine? They say it is going to rain later, a nice blue wind is blowing, seagulls are screaming, the wind is blue. There are pigeons and seagulls here, but seagulls are different, I am in love with them, below their wings my world of dreams opens. Autumn, what spells you cast in Istanbul. Is “Indian Summer” by The Doors written for you, it is long, love in Istanbul. Winter is far away now, but the winter is also beautiful, oh, but the beauty of spring in Istanbul cannot be reached. Words, words are like mountains in me, oh, my helpless loneliness, then streaming like a spring, even my world of dreams is understood, oh, danger, danger, never-ending fears. It will happen whether you fear or not, do I have another place to live in, I will embrace my book, waves, songs. The days are never on fire with fears, nights never burn. It is never too early for love, time goes away “Like Ships”, fire is extinguished and gone. Trees know it, when I hug them, they have been telling me since my childhood. My sea, my dear, what is the use of knowing? But I have you, you, you embrace me, I know, my longing. The sky that chills me all over with its endless breath, sends its clouds of love to me, protects me, protects, with its waves, white ships, gives me my joy, takes away my sadness, presses me to its bosom. My sadness, I am getting old but that sadness does not end, my feeling of abyss,only I know that depth and also my sea, “I am a sea without shores”, my nights, my nights. With what obstacles people surround themselves and the most loved is the god of tradition, the one we can never get rid of. Marguerita Duras says:
-”Do you know, everything is happening as it happened in China ten thousand years ago” with her Chinese lover’s speech who she knows she can never be with until the end in her book “L’Amant de la Chine du Nord”. It is all certain, who is going to marry who, how they are going to live, the children, nobody can change them, the god of tradition must be always satisfied. Years years later they talk on the phone, the time that has gone by, feelings, not forgotten, both knew they were not going to be forgotten, never to be forgotten, why did it happen that way? New roads have to be found, painful, thorny, roads trodden by bleeding feet and maybe the important thing is the road, just like in Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.” Finding new roads, yes.
I wanted to walk in the rain in Istanbul, drench in the rain of my Istanbul, feel the shivering in the rain. When you have an idea you can never get rid of in your mind, the black blue sea that you gaze for a long long time is always in your eyes, you want to drench in rain and want your whole being to burst into the tears you cannot shed. I got on the bus, there was nobody, I looked out of the window, it was as if I went back years ago, I was going back home from university. The streets were full of puddles again, I smiled, my feet were getting wet slowly. Dear Forough Farrokhzad’s poem I feel deep down that has the same name with the great director Abbas Kiarostami’s marvellous film occured to my mind on the way, on my way that I have to find again, a little quotation:
“Behind this window, a stranger
Worries about me and you.
You in greenery,
Lay your hands-those burning memories-
On my loving hands.
And entrust your lips, replete with life’s warmth,
To the touch of my loving lips
The wind will carry us!
The wind will carry us!”