Sunday morning I decided to go to church. Of course, I don’t really go to church as I don’t practice a religion, but I decided that I needed some private time to concentrate on my insides. So I went down to the waterside with my guitar and a book, and I spent all morning in the gentle sunshine and wind, playing guitar. It was the most pleasant morning that I have had for some time. People came and sat close to me for a song or two, then meandered on, never actually interrupting me. Then I finished reading, “Invisible Cities” by Calvino, which is overly appropriate for starting as exploration of a city as multi-faceted as Istanbul. For awhile I watched the spray from the waves made by ferries crash against the docks, and then I watched the people around me: young couples, old women with and without dogs, with and without roses, young men, old men, boys selling nuts. No one had anywhere to be or anything to do. I loved it.
But the thing about this park that struck me as most queer is the variety of trees: pine, palm, birch, oak, and others that I cannot recognize, all in the same park- growing in clumps together. It is like the diversity of this city cannot be stopped from even permeating the flora.
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