a room of one's own
Finally, finally, finally, my couch-surfing odyssey has ended, and for the first time since Turkey, I have a room that's truly my own. And what a room it is: large and sunny, high-ceilinged and wood-floored, in a big and beautiful duplex apartment on the southwestern edge of Prospect Park. I'm spending more than I wanted to, but I'll manage it somehow, and what I'm getting for the price is a magnificent deal. For those who know Brooklyn: those three-storied limestone terraced houses that line the park on the western and southern sides? We live in the top two floors of one, facing the park, and on a corner no less (so extra windows, and extra light). It's only a three-month sublet, which is proper given my uncertainty about job plans, but I'm already so in love with the place that I'm thinking about looking for people to take over the lease with me.
Moving has been an arduous process (I did it all via subway, in nasty cold weather, over the course of three days) but everything is finally here--everything that's not in Seattle or England, which is to say, more than half of my books. But the books that are here are now liberated from boxes, haphazardly laid out on inadequate shelves; my clothes are in a closet (two, actually) and not a suitcase, the Uzbek suzani carried in a suitcase for so long is spilling out over a loveseat, on top of a green Burmese longyi; the soft woven blanket I carried to Oxford and back is on the bed; and the red-framed copy of a famous Matrakçi miniature of sixteenth-century İstanbul has resumed its rightful place above my desk. The place is truly my own territory now, beacuse I've cooked my first meal (spicy masoor dal with rice and curd) in its kitchen. And I am over the moon with sheer joy.
The particular serendipity of my arrival in this place (after many disappointments and false leads, and much vexation and crying on the phone to poor thariel) is that the person who's sublet the room to me--found quite randomly through a craigslist ad--happens to be an Armenian from İstanbul (he held the room for me partly out of approval of the fact I'd worked at Bianet). His girlfriend is a distant relative of Nazim Hikmet's, and she and I chatted in the corridor today, in Turkish--not as rusty as I feared, because I've been hearing it on the subways here and there, to my delight. They're moving out (I'll be living with an Irish photographer interning for Magnum, an aspiring fashion designer, a writer-with-a-day-job, and an intern at the Village Voice) but the apartment is still filled with little fragments of İstanbul--a kilim on the floor upstairs, a Karagöz silhouette pinned to the wall, empty glass jars in the kitchen whose lids bear brandnames like Koşka and Balparmak--and so the place feels blessedly right: I'm home. At last. About bloody time. And you are all invited to dinner.
Moving has been an arduous process (I did it all via subway, in nasty cold weather, over the course of three days) but everything is finally here--everything that's not in Seattle or England, which is to say, more than half of my books. But the books that are here are now liberated from boxes, haphazardly laid out on inadequate shelves; my clothes are in a closet (two, actually) and not a suitcase, the Uzbek suzani carried in a suitcase for so long is spilling out over a loveseat, on top of a green Burmese longyi; the soft woven blanket I carried to Oxford and back is on the bed; and the red-framed copy of a famous Matrakçi miniature of sixteenth-century İstanbul has resumed its rightful place above my desk. The place is truly my own territory now, beacuse I've cooked my first meal (spicy masoor dal with rice and curd) in its kitchen. And I am over the moon with sheer joy.
The particular serendipity of my arrival in this place (after many disappointments and false leads, and much vexation and crying on the phone to poor thariel) is that the person who's sublet the room to me--found quite randomly through a craigslist ad--happens to be an Armenian from İstanbul (he held the room for me partly out of approval of the fact I'd worked at Bianet). His girlfriend is a distant relative of Nazim Hikmet's, and she and I chatted in the corridor today, in Turkish--not as rusty as I feared, because I've been hearing it on the subways here and there, to my delight. They're moving out (I'll be living with an Irish photographer interning for Magnum, an aspiring fashion designer, a writer-with-a-day-job, and an intern at the Village Voice) but the apartment is still filled with little fragments of İstanbul--a kilim on the floor upstairs, a Karagöz silhouette pinned to the wall, empty glass jars in the kitchen whose lids bear brandnames like Koşka and Balparmak--and so the place feels blessedly right: I'm home. At last. About bloody time. And you are all invited to dinner.
posted by kitabet at 7:13 PM
1 Comments:
it is very cold. yes.
and ur new apartment sounds great. all the best for the job! i might just be heading back across the atlantic for spring break. when i told S i wasn't planning on turning up, his face fell. so i just felt quite sorry (and pleased of course) and might just go after all!
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