No Music In My Life: Lucca and Istanbul

Some will ask my why I prefer to write in English. And I will tell them that I am not very much self-confident in writing in Turkish. The reason is that if I cannot write in the best way in Turkish I am ashamed. But in English you can be informal. You can be light and say things that are not so much in place but maybe necessary to be told. The reason I am writing is that I want to share some comments of mine about the city of Lucca and Istanbul. Life, love, music and our generation in general will be the sub-subjects of this text.

I came here to be silent, to keep silence, to say less, to listen more, to see more, to know more, to feel more. I came here not to run from here to there, not listening to myself. What if I listen to myself? Suddenly a Frankestein comes up and says, "I am angry with how life goes". Or was it the Frankestein that I had met in Istanbul that came out of my heart and mind and shouted at others that life is not worth living so that I would take their lives to save them from this burden? Was it the narcissistic person now knowing that every breath taken in life is heavier than anything, even love, even family, even profession?

I realized that since I came here I am not so sorry to be alone. I am more than glad. I am not shouting anymore. I am smiling more. Although people say that I am stressed, although I am not earning money at the moment, although I am not very responsible from time to time, I feel real happiness.

But then... I learnt something. Something that hurts me. One of my best friends has gone through a tough operation. A beautiful girl, a clever girl, a good person, a perfect woman, a perfect friend... a person who wants to do everything nicely, correctly, perfectly. Do you know how I felt? I felt strange. I did not believe. I did not think so much. But I saw her in my dream. She was in love with her lover. The lover was in love with her. I saw that some iron bars were coming out of the breasts of a lady and then I woke up. Iron bars coming out from the nipples of a lady. What a twisted soul, what a fucked up mind you have here? It was creative though. It could be something that could be drawn.

This friend of mind told me once: "I am expecting you to write your book."
And now I am saying to her: "I am expecting to live your life, don't give a damn about others, responsibilities, about future, live your life. You are beautiful, you are clever, you are the best, you are the most innocent of all the persons and you still do not live your life because you are too much into responsibilities and being a perfect person." I LOVE HER.

She knows I am happy. I am happy for god's sake. I have to be happy, as I am so lucky.
I had not been listening to music for a long time. The strange thing is that when music stopped in my life, I started to sink down. Also my love, when he stopped music, he felt the absence of it and it was the kind of absence that I could not fill. In Istanbul there was no music, there were the noises of the cars, there was the money flying all over us pretending to be clouds, there were the noises of the high-heeled shoes walking too fast... where did it go anyway? I did not miss it. I listened to some concerts, but I had lost my soul. I could not listen to the music of my soul. It was lost. It was like losing one religion, that is for sure. It was more like losing one's best friend. It was like a friend who went far away and never came back for the winter holiday. I missed her, too.

Something that makes me feel complete when I am with my girlfriends, cannot be filled by anything else. And when they are away, I feel that a big part of the music is also gone.

But my soul was asking: What is wrong with you? Who do you live for? The psychologist answered: You live for yourself. No, I said I want to live for my mother. The psychologist said: You have to live for yourself. Thanks, but I want to live for my lover. The psychologist said: But you are going to kill him and you have already killed yourself if you have accepted to live for others. But sorry, I should have said, it has been a long time that I had lived for the others. I was living for the others without wanting to live for them. And that is why my soul was somewhere else while my body was somewhere else. The psychologist did not study political science, I was from the middle class: I was so much afraid to lose what I have got:)

It had been a long time that I had expressed myself. In Istanbul, Istanbul expressed herself, that bitch, she knew it too well. And she made fun of my high heeled shoes with her ups and downs. And I told her that I prefer villages. She asked me if I could milk the cows and I said "well, actually, no". Get the hell out of here, was her answer and she told me, money counts here, patience counts... if you will not take it, go somewhere else.

I saw that the governorship was quick to build buildings and close old cinemas. All the nostalgia was gone. History was being cleared out of our heads. Were these people crazy that they have seen buildings as stocks of dollars and euros? They built skyscrapers and ruined the beautiful Topkapı Palace, Haghia Sophia profile. And nobody really cared. Every body had series to watch and everybody had books to study. Everybody had bills to pay so nobody said anything while our freedom was being taken our hands and our history was erased.

I found history in Lucca. I found the walls that stood as they did 1000 years ago. And I saw that people were not so much obsessed with having big shopping malls. They were not crazy about having McDonalds or Starbucks. They had the cafes that they had 60 years ago. They were standing against the time. Why cannot I stand why cannot we stand? Why do we have to change? Change change change in order to win win win. There is no winning if you have not an old cinema, there is no winning if you erase the sociological and spatial memory. There is nothing permanent if you are always choosing the temporary or contemporary...

I lost the music, I lost my soul and now I am winning back again. Because I have decided to stand strong. Just like her, my blue-eyed friend, just like her, my brown-eyed friend. I love them. And what they had given me was not given neither by songs, nor by lovers, nor by Istanbul, or Lucca. The music continues.