It feels like superman died!

It has been almost a week now. I still get sad at random moments during the day.

After seeing the deaths of many young or middle-aged people when I was a kid, I remember telling myself that I won’t get upset if a person lived a life full of bitter/sweet memories and died at a reasonably old age (like at least 70) because she/he lived a good life, there are people dying at much younger ages, and we are all going to die anyways.

But I am still upset even though he was 71. Because I feel like superman died. He was a very nontraditional superman but he was my superman. I thought maybe I can feel better if I write as I always do.

Even though I had heard his name before, what really introduced me to Lou Reed was reading Trainspotting in high school. Trainspotting gave me a good list of musicians to be discovered; Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, etc., and shaped some branches of my music taste. From that list, Lou Reed was the one who left the biggest impression on me, because he not only became one of my favorite musicians, but also one of my favorite poets and storytellers. His love for literature was all over his work and he offered me a goldmine for underground literature in addition to his music and poetry.

He was one of the most important figures in my life who made me love and respect people as they are, especially the ones marginalized by the society, because he often wrote about drug addicts, transvestites, prostitutes, etc. But more importantly, many times he made me accept who I am whenever I felt like an outcast and hated myself for it.

He was one of the main reasons that during my bachelor’s my first academic paper’s topic was prostitutes or I visited a penitentiary regularly to voluntarily work with female prisoners.

He was sometimes a substitute for my mom and dad at nights I had hard time to go to sleep. When I was lying in bed alone in my 19m² studio in Lausanne last September with a high fever on a Saturday night, his voice put me to sleep making me dream about a beautiful Sunday Morning.

To a girl like me who gets extremely bored while listening to famous love songs like Unchained Melody or I Will Always Love You, he gave her favorite love song, I’m Sticking With You.

He gave me some of my favorite movie scenes; like when Perfect Day plays in Trainspotting or when Venus in Furs plays in Last Days.

I often felt drunk or high by just listening to some of his songs.

He was always there to say everything is going to be alright in various ways when I was broken.

And he will always be there with his songs whenever and wherever I need him. But it still feels like superman died.

You don’t always need to have bombs and cranes to run down someone’s home.

When I look back to my childhood, in all my greatest memories there is Istanbul. 

We lived in Zonguldak but both my mom and dad had studied in Istanbul and my mom’s close family members were living there. Thus, we very often visit Istanbul during various holidays.

For me a typical wonderful Istanbul day usually started early in the morning because of my dad waking up so early. Then we had a nice breakfast and went out to catch the bus 55T. 55T was my favorite bus when I was a kid because it connected my grandma’s house to Istiklal Street.

The first thing to do in Istiklal Street was to go for a movie for one of the matinees with my dad. Usually mom joined us after the first film since she couldn’t stand seeing two films a day. Therefore, my dad and I picked the morning movie among one of the cool horror films or weird independent films.

The theater choice was also important. Our first choice was to see a film in Emek Theater. I was in love with Emek. Coming from a small city like Zonguldak, it was the most beautiful theater I had ever seen in my life. With its carvings on the walls and ceilings, the smell of history inside, its big white dog on the floor at the entrance, its irreplaceable staff that I have witnessed getting older and older; it was just glamorous to me.

If we didn’t really like the film screened in Emek, we checked the old small theaters, like Beyoglu Theater that had amazing paintings on the walls and insisted on showing films that weren’t screened in most of the big cinemas.

After the first film, the next stop was Mercan in Cicek Pasaji. This was the place where my dad slowly taught me how to properly drink and eat stuffed and fried mussels. To be honest, I initially hated both the mussels and beer when I was a kid. It’s amazing to see that years later Mercan’s mussels became the thing I craved for the most while doing my PhD in Lausanne.

After the mussels and before the next film, we stopped by Inci, which is a small and cozy pastry where the most famous profiteroles in Istanbul are prepared and for me the place that I ate the best profiteroles ever.

After Inci, we saw a second film; this time a romantic one or a drama since my mom was also with us. Then we took 55T back to my snow white grandma.

Later when I had to pick a college for my bachelor’s, of course, I had no other choices than colleges in Istanbul.

Whenever my parents came for a visit, we kept our routine with slight differences like one move instead of two or skipping either Mercan or Inci. We added more people to our routine from friends and family and enjoyed this routine more and more.

I kept finding myself in small theaters like Beyoglu whenever I felt depressed or had a problem; most of the time being the only one in the theater. They were the perfect hiding places for me; made me felt like I was at a safe place, I had peace, I was with family, I was home.

Among all the festival films I watched during college, the ones shown in Emek gave me a more distinct joy and happiness.

Often times I preferred eating a profiterole at Inci instead of eating a proper meal when I was in Istiklal Street.

Now I am in grad school in Lausanne and this routine is always the most important thing in my TODO list when I visit home, which is completely Istanbul now since my parents also live there.

During my first year I managed to perform this routine completely.

During my second year, Emek Theater was closed.

During my third year, Beyoglu Theater was decided to be closed.

Now I am in my fourth year and Inci Pastry is closing down.

You don’t always destroy one’s home by using dangerous weapons or big machinery in one shot. You can destroy it very slowly and painfully over the years; by cutting the ropes that give the real idea of attachment, belonging, and hence home one by one.

I didn’t decide to do my PhD abroad to leave home. I came here to eventually come back home as a more resourceful individual. However, people who are somehow chosen to represent me by people other than me are crashing down not just my home but also other homes, passion of many, and soul and history of Istanbul by destroying various landmarks.

And I cannot do anything against it.

We cannot do anything against it.

Please tell me to which home I am going to be back to in a couple of years or later?

Back in Lausanne!

I had never thought that I would be this upset because of coming to Europe from US. But I know the reason; it is all the people I had to say “goodbye” in the end.

If I write in the order that I had to say “goodbye”;

- greek brother; who taught me that it is ok to do mistakes in my work as long as I learn from them.

- good old friends from undergrad (Yasemin, Yigit, Kivanc, Ezgi); who made me remember once again that even if you don’t contact with good old friends for a long time, once you do, you can always start from where you left off as if you have never separated.

- aunt and cousins; who took me back to the years before I left Zonguldak and come to Istanbul for my university and made me realize that the everyday family routine is not actually something boring like I always thought it would be and it can give back to you the peace you often lose while working. I cannot really realize this when I visit my parents because it is usually not for more than a week and we try to do bazillion fun things during that week which doesn’t quite allow any routine but which gives me peace in some other way.


I came back to Lausanne,

weirded out when I heard the French speaking people on the streets due to hearing only Americanish for the last two weeks,

got into my apartment,

felt like a stranger to the place

till I called two good new friends (one greek, one turkish) for tea and then watched a movie with them. :)

Life is nice to me as long as I know how to feel not alone! :)

"This is the end of an era!"[1]

Last week, I finished another series; Six Feet Under.

And it kicked OZ from its top spot at my favorite series list. :)

If I'd like to summarize the whole experience in one sentence it would be

“We're all fucked up and people who really really love us are the ones who love us even though they know we're so fucked up.”


This is what I saw in the far from wonderful relationships of Dave and Keith, Brenda and Nate, Brenda and Billy, Brenda-Billy and their parents, Claire and Ruth, Ruth and George, Federico and Venessa, Claire and Ted, …


And as Claire drove away from home to New York for building the life she wants to lead for herself, I just cried my brains out. There were three reasons for this.

One, I remember the day I left home for university. The excitement I had for being independent and on my own for the first time in my life, coming from a little city like Zonguldak to a big city like Istanbul. Even though I visited Istanbul many many times, it was always with my parents. Now it was only me to discover what that beautiful and chaotic city has to offer to me and I sucked it as much as I can. But also the fact that the safe walls you had before, being cracked after leaving home and becoming more and more cracked as years go by, bit me whenever I was watching a film alone (by being the only audience) in a little wrecked independent theater.

Two, as they showed how each character dies in the future while Claire is driving away, I remembered the people I've lost, how death became a simple part of life for me when I was a kid due to facing the death of many people who were really close and special to me, how I couldn't get upset when I hear a relatively old person dying. Yes, a series that takes place in a funeral home was perfect for me.

And three, listening to “Breath Me” from Sia during this whole ending scene.

This series marked the end of an era for me. I felt like I grew a bit more. There are many more striking issues from the series that I'd love to write about but I don't know how I can really mix all of them here and write about it but I might write about them one by one later, or just keep them for myself, I don't know. This post is just for showing the effect of the last 10 mins of a TV series that was so special to me.


[1] “Friends”

Istiklal Avenue Diary

When I was here, I used to can't decide which films to go to because there were so many options. But this time I couldn't find a film to go to. Two of my favorite movie theaters are closed. The remaining ones, except for Beyoglu Theater, show films like “Twilight” or “The Sorcerer's Apprentice”. So almost no independent films or European cinema anymore. =(

In Ada Bookshop, they introduced a new section called “Vampirizm” for the vampire related books. I assume this is due to the effect of “Twilight” books and I liked it. Even though, I didn't read “Twilight” and am not keen on reading it, I like vampire related literature a lot. It's nice to have a section for this.

The police in Istiklal Street use mini-coopers or jeeps. Some people get shocked when they see these cars. I heard reactions like “wow, our government is actually rich!”. I found this funny and I don't like seeing cop-cars here. Actually, I don't like seeing cars at all here.

The shops in Halep Passage change places in the passage but remain the same. Also, it's always easy to find things for a present in this passage that reflects my thoughts about the person I buy the present to.

This street changes rapidly and some of the things I really really liked about it are long gone now. I wish I could bring them back. However, it still makes me happy to be here.

Even just walking here makes me happy.

Because I have some of the most striking memories of my life here. Some of the most important people of my life became one of the most important people of my life here. This street let me be who I am without caring about the other people around here. So it keeps the beautiful, joyful moments of my life. It keeps my excitements, discoveries. It keeps my shameful, heart-broken memories. And no matter how rapidly it changes, it'll continue keeping them for me, ready to give them to me whenever I visit.

"When you're going to love you as much as I do"

This sentence is from the song "Winter" which is written by Tori Amos. Whenever, I listen to this song, it reminds me of my parents because various things that can indicate the meaning in this sentence are said to me by my parents.

I've never loved myself as much as my parents love me. There were times, especially in my high school years, that I questioned this situation a lot. How could they love me this much? I didn't do anything to deserve this love. I always felt bad about this whenever I saw how hard my mom tried to stop my tears, or my dad hurting even more than I do whenever I had a stupid clumsy accident.

But then I understood when I started university. That was the first time I left my parents for that long and I realized what they really are to me. They aren't just my parents, but they are also my best friends, my best teachers, and my companions. Seeing my mom crying destroys my heart and I just want to hug her and cry with her. When I see my dad locking himself in his own world because he is really sad, I try any stupid thing that can get him out of that world and cheer him up. Whenever they have a fight and get separated to different rooms of the same house, I rapidly go back and forth between them, like a tennis ball, to make them forget what just happened. When I can't hear from them for a while I get worried, as they get worried when they can't hear from me.

Now they are also my kids and I also have to be their parents now as much as they have to be my parents, although I am not as good as them yet in being a parent.
Considering someone as your kid makes you realize how meaningless the rest of the world compared to him/her. That's how I understood how can my parents love and value me even more than I do.

We are the three musketeers no matter where we are. :)




For the interested the full lyrics of "Winter" is as follows. (And I love you dear Tori Amos)
I think Tori Amos wrote it for her dad.


Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove
I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"Your must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"
He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Boys get discovered as winter melts
Flowers competing for the sun
Years go by and I'm here still waiting
Withering where some snowman was
Mirror mirror where's the crystal palace
But I only can see myself
Skating around the truth who I am
But I know dad the ice is getting thin

When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

Hair is gray
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses have gone ahead
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change
My dear