Cat is king.

They are everywhere. They are haughty pedestrians strolling the pavements. No rooftop is deserted, they are in plant pots, they are on cars and scooters. A little scruffy sometimes, but well-fed by the people of the city. Carpet lined boxes and cushions are put out for their leisure. Food and water is left.

There are dogs too...

I like it. What is it?

This thing I like doing: going to the supermarket in a foreign country and inspecting everything. Seeing what the locals are buying to cook with. There aren't any supermarkets in Beyoglu, but wandering around Cihangir yesterday, I came upon two. Happiness.

Spot doubtful Christmas party dresses on 2nd floor.

So many different kinds of eggs and lentils! I left with a litre of cherry juice and some almond body lotion. I will be back.

Further down the road the Muezzin started his noonday call to prayer. I was so close that it reverberated against my heart. So passionate and plaintive. I had to lean against a wall until the end.

Saw some ladies up ahead - they were laughing at me. The minuscule old one walked up to me, gas canister in hand and we had a long chat. Didn't understand a thing. But it was full of goodwill and laughter. She crossed the road and walked to her house. Turned around and waved. Oh this world we live in. ❤ ❤ ❤

The simplicity of good things.

We turned down one of the small winding streets off Istiklal Caddesi and had supper at a small restaurant. Flat chargrilled bread with a dish of finely chopped tomatoes, chili, parsley, olive oil and pomegranate molasses.

Behind us there was a man sitting and cooking over a fire, underneath a big copper hood. We had minced lamb kebabs with crispy edges. Yoghurt, mint, grilled chilies - the long green ones. A beer each.

Piles of pomegranates everywhere. You stand and watch as they press a glassfull. It's dazzling.

If I had to make a sweeping first impression of the Turks: they are first and foremost friendly. Yes, some of the men stare. It was worse in Rome. They are a nation of fast walkers. I couldn't be happier.

The Dark Stream.

Eugene Marais, youngest child, mystic number thirteen. 1871-1936

South African history thrills me. A kindred spirit recommended The Dark Stream some months ago and I was lucky enough to find a copy at Kwagga Books in Kalk Bay. I'm only halfway through, but I look forward to reading another installment every night. I love Leon Rousseau's turn of phrase. Of E.M.'s father Jan, he has this to say: "He was a rather pathetic King Lear, Transvaal style."

Like most South Africans with an interest in literature, I knew a few things about Eugene Marais, namely that he was a poet (we read a large body of his work at school), he was a journalist, a doctor, a naturalist and a lawyer. A morphine addict who eventually committed suicide.  Fewer may know that he was educated in English, not Afrikaans. He was a hypnotist, a psycho-analyst. He could interpret dreams and he charmed many women. When he returned from his sojourn in London, he wore gold Kruger Rands for buttons and shoes with long pointed toes.

It's hard to imagine exactly what South Africa must have been like back then. This book makes it so much more real. The things people were dealing with: the Boer War, women and children dying by their thousands in the camps. Corruption in the government. People were traveling great distances, going to foreign countries by ship, undertaking expeditions into the unmapped wild. They were writing letters. They were filled with superstition. They were struck down by malaria, by childhood diseases and by childbirth itself.

"...the most perfect female in body and mind, that God ever planted in South Africa." E.M.'s soft-eyed beauty Aletta Beyers from Natal. She died eight days after giving birth to their son, after barely two years of marriage.

Too heavy to take with me on the plane, this book, but I'll happily keep it on my bookshelf for years to come, right there next to Deneys Reitz's Commando.

Thursday's child has far to go.

In my dream last night I was trying to climb a steep and sandy cliff. Large noses poked out of the sand, taunting me. A tall man hollered from the top of the cliff, he said: Come around this way!

On the other side, the sand was meshed with thick tree roots. Just before I reached the top, the cliff overhang started crumbling. As it exploded the man reached down for my right hand. I grabbed his left foot, and linked in this fashion we were launched high up into the air.

A thought flashed through my mind as we plummeted down from the sky: Please don't let this man break.

Seconds before impact, the world slowed down and we landed with a small thump on a soft grass mat.

The people there cheered and laughed.
It's magic! Julle is getoor!

I woke with a start just after two to the sound of heavy raindrops on the skylights. A thunder storm in the making. It's a blue day: wet leaves and Jacaranda carnage. I wish it were easier to take a leap of faith and I know why it isn't. I wish I could stay at home today - just me and the howling wind for company.

The way we live.

Seeing in a different way.

Working in film has changed the way I experience movies. I find it hard not to be over-analytical. It's particularly difficult when I watch something that I worked on. I watched Lord of War the other night. 2004: I was subcontracted to work on one set only - a swish New York apartment. As I watched I found it impossible not to feel what was happening behind and around the camera. And then the circles get wider. I remembered driving to the studio on cold winter mornings, the refinery's flame wavering in the predawn light. One day I had to dress a child's bedroom in near darkness, while listening to Nicholas Cage rehearsing his lines through a paper thin wall. I remembered that feeling of unsettledness - I loved a boyfriend to distraction, for I was coming to the realization that he couldn't love me back. Long talks over soup and whiskey at Cafe Ganesh. Even though no mirrors were broken,  many years of bad luck and sadness would follow.
But I didn't know that then.

Arcadia asked the other day if things get easier as you get older. My answer is Yes and No, but mostly Yes. May the wonder never stop.

A word about comments...

Thank You, Sweet Marie, for pointing out via email that your comments weren't reflecting on my blog. It seems that some settings had changed without me being aware of it. I haven't been spending much time here, tis true. So... when I checked this morning, there were 26 comments awaiting moderation! I feel like a sheep at Christmastime. Thank you all - I'll be reading them throughout the day.

Peonies. My first.

Waterlily.

God speed all the bakers at dawn.

A year ago when I moved to this place, I would hear the baker leaving at four in the morning to bake his croissants. I would wonder about the apartment in the sky and what it is that drives someone to do what they do. Now it's me living in the sky and leaving at dawn. On the road I pass trucks and I listen to the Blues. I wonder about the Vissershok Road working girls, they recognize me now and wave, skimpy dresses fluttering in the breeze. One morning, an overturned vegetable truck, people spilling into the road for spoils. Bright orange cardinals explode from the reeds. The moon rising like some huge luminous egg, a barn on fire.

Sometimes I shout with frustration, but I know that these are special times.

And my honey and I, we are far apart, but he sends me Turkish hearts.