Loving Istanbul

It's another weekend, another Saturday in the eternity of time that follows one after another in life. I'm questioning what's going through my mind to the accompaniment of slow music. I'm alone with myself. 

After saying a few words to the first person we meet, we always ask the following question: "Where are you from brother or where is your hometown?" As if expecting such a question, he tells you about his hometown and starts talking about his hometown. And he tells you about it with such appetite, he finds such beautiful things, brings them together and arranges them one after the other, that you suddenly feel love for that city you have never seen. Perhaps that love takes you towards that city. One day you realize that you have come to that city that you have dreamed of. But you can't find the city that person told you about, in fact, you have a hard time making a connection between that beautiful city full of mystery and the city you are visiting now.

In fact, the irrelevance is not because of the difference between the city you heard about and the city you see, but because you don't belong to that city. When you are asked the same question, you may draw a "utopian" picture of your own city. When you talk about the city you live in or your hometown, you include various foods, flavors and human landscapes in your narrative. You tell about the history of the city, how many thousands of years old its historical monuments are, and you always mention that an important item or invention for humanity was "first" created or discovered in your hometown. The fact that it was the first is important, you underline it several times. 

However, when you are living in your city, which you describe with a mythical air, when you are struggling with problems, suffering the noise of the city, breathing its polluted air, struggling with its disorganization, your mouth is not dripping with honey at all. But when you are abroad or when you are telling someone or some people who are not from your city about your city, honey drips from your mouth. This is not only true for you, it is also true for me, it is also true for others. Because what makes a city a city is not its tall buildings, not its parks, not its gardens, not its modern plazas or huge shopping malls. It is neither the sea, nor the soil, nor the sidewalks, nor the trees, nor anything else.

What makes a city a city is whatever draws you in, whatever makes sense to you. What makes a city a city is that it belongs to you, that it harbors your dreams and is home to your hopes for the future. It belongs to you, its tradition reflects you, its culture describes you, even the smell of the soil is familiar, every corner of your lungs knows its air. Everywhere you travel, every breath you breathe, every corner you rest in are memories that make it your home. Even if the grocery store on that corner is replaced by a market, you will somehow smell that smell. Because you know the past of that city. You have memories there, you have hopes, you have woven your dreams in every nook and cranny. 

What makes a city a "hometown" for you is what you know, what you love, what makes you feel good when you see it. Otherwise, we could all pack up our bags, ask where the most beautiful city in the world is and move there. It may indeed be a very beautiful place. But it can never be your hometown, it cannot be yours. You cannot feel that you belong to that beautiful city. You remain a stranger, you find yourself attached to the edge of the city like a hand. You cannot find a place for yourself in the heart of the city. No matter how much we take root there, we cannot be from there.

Because the real city is our own city, which is ours, which reflects us, which we describe as if we were describing ourselves. As the poet says, "whether we go or stay, that village (city) is our village (city)." Every effort we make to transform that city into something better, better and better makes us a little more local, a little more concerned about the problems of that city, a little more in love with its values. To accompany Sezen Aksu;

"Lie down on a stone in the middle of Kanlıca,

I swam the tears from my eyes towards Hisar..." 

you want to say. You want to go to Istanbul. It is easy to ask why we love Istanbul, but the answer is very deep. Especially for me.

I sometimes find myself in Cahit Sıtkı's lines when I think of Istanbul.

"I remember it like a bliss,

That's the smell of jasmine,

Recess is on me,

A summer evening,

At the Kandilli pier."

(Continue with Turgut Uyar)

"We laughed like children, you remember

Grand Bazaar, Mahmutpasa, vendors

Hand in hand, on foot in a lightness.

It was a morning, beautiful and fresh

It was spring..."

And so on,

"I looked at you from a hill yesterday, dear Istanbul!

I have not seen anywhere I have not traveled, anywhere I have not loved.

As long as I live, sit on the throne of my heart!

Loving just one of your neighborhoods is worth a lifetime."

and dive into Istanbul with Yahya Kemâl.

Stay with love and respect