title: ...
form: letter
31.10.2000/TUESDAY
You are saying that you are unhappy. I am thinking how can one be unhappy. How unhappy I used to be in the past. It seems to me that I forgot how to be unhappy. Not that I am happy now.
I am receiving an e-mail from Alex. Two minutes to go...
No, it’s very slow, it seems to take much longer than two minutes. But it makes no difference, I have to leave soon.
Can we return to what we postponed? Does it depend on what you postponed, or what were postponed are included in the list of the unhappiness factors. I’m not sure. It might be relative.
For the last few days I am reading one of the books of Paul Auster, entitled Leviathan. I started with pronouncing it. By thinking how should it be pronounced...
It is the same Paul Auster we know. A talent to narrate a story in a pleasant and easy to read manner, his characters not much changing, he cannot separate his life from his pratagonists, but he always manages to plot nice story. Unlike R.B. Let it be.
I read only a few pages, but there are a number of nice touches. I should leave reading now. Will the spell be broken? I couldn’t receive Alex’s mail. But I shall continue.
17.50
...
01.11.2000/WEDNESDAY
I could not write yesterday. I had to ride the bus standing up on my way home. Then I practiced Aikido. It wasn’t bad. I was so tired and nervous when I reached home, and I needed to be alone...I can’t endure it, I mean I can’t endure that state of mind where I am nervous, where I may or may not seek somebody to blame it on, where I don’t want to talk, but everybody tries to talk to me obstinately, so I keep on thinking why they don’t remain silent, why they show up at the room I stand. The last night was that way. Aikido balanced me.
I was talking about Auster’s novel. There are some things I like in the Maria character in that book. The things she started to make not for art’s sake turn into art. But what is important is not that. What I like is the train of all those weird thoughts. For example, she begins to chase a person in the morning and takes photos of him all day...She finds a telephone book on the street, calls all the numbers recorded there and takes photos of them in order to try to know and find the owner of the book.
They look like simple ideas, but they remind me how my mind limits me. The originality of plainness is always enchanting.
Recently I frequently find myself thinking of my former lover. I don’t think I remember him because I’m yearning for him. I think I remember him because I yearn for yearning somebody. But sometimes those thoughts get so intense that I feel like I will hear about him one way or another. The more I think of him, the more the intense happiness we experienced hits me. What are remembered aftermath of an affair are always the good things. The ordeal I suffered looks not to have left traces.
Now I remember the day I saw you on television. I am not sure how it should have been, but your voice wasn’t what it should have been. How do you manage to appear different every time? When I think of you and have a clear picture of you in my mind, an element of smoke, an element of being lost always accompanies the picture emerging in my mind. Even if I am sure your mind is alert, your eyes always look as if you lost some things. It is probably because of this reason I thought your voice didn’t match your appearance. And what is stranger that all these feelings emerge when I write this letter...I didn’t know I was thinking this way. In fact, I should have known you better, I should have at least observed you better in order to be eligible for making all these comments. But I don’t even know your face very well. I only know it enough to recognize you...
You are living in Galatasaray. So I think you saw the exhibition held at YKM. I didn’t see it, but I liked all those transparencies displayed on its windows and all those colors reflecting from its panes very much. How beautiful its lights were.
Now ‘Catcher in the Rye’ springs to my mind...I wonder why? I was late to read it, I read it in England. It had a small red cover (do you like the red of pomegranate? I love it.) I read its original, and wondered how was its Turkish translation, because the author’s style is so wonderful! Talk of a child pretending to be an adult, many colloquial words, a likeable attempt. You are getting to love the book as you read it.
I will have the house painted. I hate cleaning and painting works. My feline feelings arise when the furniture are moved, when I experience that nightmarish untidiness, I feel like my privacy is invaded.
Do you like cinnamon? Its odor, its flavor? It turns me on. Cinnamon-based puddings, soaps, body gels. Oh, I don’t know why do I think of cinnamon now.
Do you know I am little sad at heart? Now it is the film festival time in London. Same time last year I was spending all my money on British Film Institute with the film program in my hand. I can’t believe how fast did this year pass. It rains...waters, waters...
And there was that day, I always remember it. It was Saturday. I didn’t work, so I was able to go to the movies at week days. But Michael had no time. Michael is my best friend there. It is very strange, you meet your future best friends generally at high school or university. The ones you meet afterwards tend not to be good friends. But I don’t want to think of a life without Michael. He is a person never missing what are happening around him, what weird things do the people do, but never making comments about them or never judging them. I told him many things. And some of them were the things I know he would not approve. But his readiness to listen to me and his habit of never judging me and of trying to understand the things I tell are only some of his characteristics I like. Every moment we spent together is alive in my memory. Especially the night my father left. And just thinking of it brings tears to my eyes even now. The food he cooked, everything we talked. A nightmarish Indian film we saw at the film festival, Ai no Corrida, the way he taught me to write essay at the library. I never thought I could feel so close to a person –other than my existing very close friends–. I notice we both are unable to believe how time flies while we are talking. Sometimes I want only him to be my side. And there are some things I can share only with him. I think I really miss him.
And do you know the other factor having to do with London? I think I loved to be a stranger in a different country. Naturally, I wouldn’t liked if it was Arabia. It gives you a feeling like you are an outsider to everything. You are outside, looking inside. Now I feel really sad.
I feel like crying...
Never mind.
...
11.11.2000
A last and short page. I wanted to add it to my letter before sending it, so I decided to write in the ferryboat, but I couldn’t do it.
These purplish or crimson- or orange-like yellow pages are the last ones.
For all the things I could not write (the period of time I thought to write about)...
Love
