Dogs of Istanbul...Unite!

I have spent much of my time in Turkey suffering from a heat-addled brain.

The only solution I can find is to stay inside at all times, stationed next to the window to catch the breeze. I feel guilty because I am supposed to be sightseeing, absorbing the local culture and history. But all our sightseeing trips so far have resulted in headaches, dehydration, and eventually such irrational crabbiness that Rashed is forced to bundle me home, give me a rehydration drink (a Bangladeshi specialty--a tablespoon of sugar, a pinch of salt, a glass of water--electrolytes, hurrah!), and send me off to a cold shower, at which point I suddenly come to my senses and wonder if the last few hours really happened.

So...when friends and family ask how I'm liking Turkey...I haven't really known what to say.

But I do now.

Dogs.

Leave it to dogs to raise my spirits. They didn't at first, though.

When we first got to Turkey, we stayed with a friend of a relative, in her guest room, which had one window, and was fairly quiet, if stuffy. Now, that friend has been so unprecedented-ly gracious as to let us rent her apartment when our apartment plans fell through--and to leave and go live with a friend herself! So, we moved into her cooler bedroom, which has more windows, one of which looks out on some fairly busy streets.

The first night, we were appreciating the cool breeze when it started. One dog began to bark. Then another joined in. Then a whole gang of them in chorus. We wondered where they were--it was all apartment buildings around here, who has a yard full of dogs?

It was annoying, but I love dogs, so I didn't mind too much. Now we enjoy our concert every night, though it's never been as loud as the first time.

But that's not all. Today, I was writing by the window, when an ambulance siren rang out on one of the streets below. It sounded strange, with extra notes. Then I realized what those notes were. Dogs, several of them, howling along with the siren, periodically adjusting their pitch to get it just right. Another ambulance followed the first, and the dogs continued. Then I spotted one in the park across the street behind our building. Do the dogs sit in the park at night, serenading us? Maybe so.

The dogs of Bursa, a city a few hours from Istanbul, have a different manner of warming up their vocal chords. We spent some time there, visiting the parents of the girl whose apartment we're staying in. There, when the Muslim call to prayer started up at the nearby mosques, it was joined by some unexpected harmony. The family dogs howled in unison, warbling away with the prayer caller.

Unexpectedly, as I write this back in Istanbul, the call for the evening prayer starts. A few dogs start barking, then raise their voices and join in. I go to the window and look out into the darkness dotted by window lights. The howling wafts back to me, entwined with the religious words, from what seem like dogs stationed in different parts of the neighborhood, just as callers at several different mosques broadcast their words from different areas of the city.

So perhaps dogs everywhere enjoy lifting their voices in unity, just like humans.

The dogs of Turkey make me smile.

Return

Home for the holidays.
For several days I had been expecting to see someone I knew in my hometown. Familiar faces get more scarce as the years go by, but as it was Christmas time, I thought other people might be visiting.
No one.
Sitting at home, getting frustrated.
I woke up one morning knowing I was supposed to go looking.
That afternoon, I set out, walking east, expecting to see someone. I knew several people who lived in that direction. Bundled up, I slid on ice, stepped over snow banks. I was recovering from a cold, and each frosty breath I took cleared my head.
But it was still missing. Where? I saw no one I knew.
I crossed the street and walked there. I tiptoed over a bridge and paused to search the stream below. Icy water, empty.
Trouble ahead. The sidewalk ended. The street was icy and winding, with occasional cars. Safer to go home.
I threw one desperate look east, scanning the horizon. No.
With a sigh, I turned back, picking my way around sidewalks that were skating rinks, while I had no skates.
My head down, I struggled to discern the message in my finding nothing.
Suddenly, movement ahead made me look up. I was crossing the street to a corner house.
A young collie was smiling at me. Leaving its front yard, it trotted towards me, then leapt up, shaking my hands and stretching to kiss my face.
I looked at the house, then back at the dog. I remembered 4 years earlier. I was on a walk and feeling lost, and a thick old collie trotted out of its front yard to greet me as if it knew me. I saw it a few more times and was always greeted with a smile. A year or two after that, I walked by that way, but never saw the dog again. It had been old, I thought. But I missed it like an old friend.
Back in the present, I looked down at this lean, bright collie, who grinned ecstatically when I petted him, like he had found something.
The dog's owner called him inside, and he went without looking back. I watched him go, and then continued my walk. I had a scarf around my mouth against the cold, and under it, I laughed with relief.
I had gone out looking for an old friend, and one found me. Except this old friend was new, and special. This dog knew that recognition sometimes strikes at nonsensical times, and that acting on it with pure love is higher wisdom than second-guessing oneself and being embarassed into feigning ignorance.
I spent much of high school pulling back in some way from people I felt this connection with, afraid of what it meant. If it was a boy, did it mean he was my soulmate? If it was a girl, did it mean we were supposed to be best friends?
Easier to hide under an ironic nonchalance. Easier to deal with friendly people I felt no connection with.
For me, these moments of recognition continue to be mysterious, but I try not to let my imagination get carried away with what they should mean. In their purest form, I believe they serve as affirmations, affirmations that each human being is special in a deeper way than is usually apparent. If we pretend this recognition does not exist, we might rob ourselves or someone else of a moment of affirmation. But if we make too much of it, then we might steal something from them or disappoint ourselves--attribute this special feeling to them and feel bereft when they leave us. But I don't think these moments reside in people. I think they are a gift of Something greater. The dog awoke something in me that perhaps is always there but falls asleep. I do not have to own the dog for me to feel this connection, this third party that arrives in my heart after our meeting.
I had set out to find one of the people I had hid from in high school. The dog found me and did not hide and affirmed my presence, brightening my life. May I not hide from others but greet them as special without requiring more of them or of myself.