Our kids had never been to Kosovo, but they’d heard of it for years, their parents regaling them with romantic tales of a war-torn land as the backdrop for our family’s origin. Touching Kosovar soil meant connecting them to an important piece of their existence, context for future conversations. Turkey, on the other hand—they remember this place on their own.
Finn is the only one who hasn’t crossed the border to Turkey; we returned to the United States when I was five months pregnant with him.
Though we can’t stay in Turkey long, we need to be here. Reed took his first breath here, Tate grew from a toddler to schoolgirl here, and Finn was conceived here. This place is in our family blood. We lived here for three years and made a home for ourselves, five stories up in an apartment high-rise overlooking the Aegean Sea. We’d watch cruise ships glide past as we ate our breakfast on the patio, made friends with the man down the street who sold the best rotisserie chicken, and learned the back routes to avoid traffic during rush hour. We were making plans for Tate to start kindergarten in Izmir when, due to health reasons, we suddenly needed to relocate to the States. We’ve long made peace with that abrupt transition in our lives, but we made an oath to keep Turkey a significant part of our life. It is good to step on its soil again.
It’s the first full morning in Izmir, city of four million, and I am nursing a latte from a park bench where I’ve sat many times before. The kids are playing on the playground as though five years haven’t passed. Our neighborhood grocery store is on the right, and I’ve just bought two of my favorite cooking staples from our life here—ka?ar, a substitute for cheddar, and Milka bars for chocolate chips. Five years ago, I was annoyed that common American commodities were nowhere to be found, but this morning it is charming. How resourceful this made me, I ponder. How outside-the-box I had to think. My past self is rolling her eyes at me with contempt.
In the last hour, I have surprised myself. As if on autopilot, I knew the exact whereabouts of canned tomatoes, toothpaste, and g?zleme. Those grocery aisles are hallowed. It’s where I learned to get over myself. Pity parties got me nowhere.
It’s hard to live far away from home, but Turkey can be breathtaking.
I curl my sleeves over my fists, shivering from wind whipping in from the Aegean a mile away. Snow pours over Kosovar hills seven hundred miles to the north, and two days ago we kissed good-bye to our Albanian friends from fifteen years ago, when I was a college graduate and in love with a boy. Now, I’m on a Turkish bench in the throes of young motherhood, thanks to the same boy.
“Hey, Mom, I remember this slide!” Tate yells from the playground.
“Yep. You’d go careening so fast you’d slam your bottom to the ground with a thud.” I’d have to scoop her in my arms with a peck on the cheek because of that steep slide.
“And I remember this swing set, how it’s so low to the ground, your feet drag!” she yells, running to the merry-go-round with the tacky ducks and bears, paint chipped and worn.
“That’s it,” Kyle declares, handing me his coffee. “I’m going in.” He climbs a ladder to a slide, spooks the kids, and they shriek with delight. Parents on benches next to me wide-eye him, incredulous a grown man would scale a plaything. Just the same, I think, recalling the familiar response to our parenting here. I smile and dig out my camera, and an old woman points at my youngest and shakes her head. I know she’s appalled he’s not wearing a winter hat. The temperature is sixty-five degrees.
Turkey is complicated, chock-full of paradoxes. It’s a delightful place to sightsee, with vividly colored rugs and ceramics, stunning beaches, otherworldly food, and more historic sights than you could explore in a lifetime. I remember one of my earliest visits, standing on a balcony overlooking the bay and someone saying, “Archaeologists have unearthed at least twenty layers of civilization underneath the surface. There’s a reason it’s taken so long to build a decent metro system here—every time we dig, we find something important.”
After two visits to Turkey ten years ago, Kyle and I knew we wanted to live here. But living here, raising a family and working as a foreigner, is different from being a tourist. Cultural mores are confusing—when company comes to dinner, when do we serve the ?ay and when do we present the bowl of fruit without being rude? Sexism is rampant—even in secular Izmir, women still cannot sign their own housing contracts. Schools are tough—the mathematics curriculum is impressive, but pint-sized bullies tend to run the place. The language takes years to conquer, a lifetime to master—the longest word in Turkish is Muvaffakiyetsizle?tiricile?tiriveremeyebileceklerimizdenmi?sinizcesine. Thankfully, it’s not very useful (it means “As though you are from those whom we may not be able to easily make into a maker of unsuccessful ones”).
But . . . Turkey. Turkey has a sizable portion of the world’s best landscapes, historical sites, food, and humanity. For personal reasons, it’s for the best we no longer live here. But we’ll never tire of coming back.
High on our Turkish agenda: eating. I crave Turkish food on gray, drizzly afternoons—mercimek ?orbasi, a creamy, tomato-based lentil soup, followed by a steaming cup of ?ay. I crave Turkish food when the summer sun is relentless—tavuk dürüm, a chicken wrap, chased with a chocolaty Magnum ice cream bar. God gave the Turks an extra dose of culinary prowess.
We make a list in our notebooks of the must-have provisions during our week: g?zleme (several flavors), kiremitte, iskender, pide of various sorts—tavuklu, ku?ba??l? ka?arl?, k?ymal?; tavuk dürüm, d?ner kebap, mercimek ?orbasi, k?fte, manti, lahmacun, baklava, and a traditional Turkish breakfast. There aren’t enough meals on our calendar, but we’ll try. Our gastronomical jaunt takes high priority.
Pide is Turkish pizza, long and narrow, edges folded to encrust melted sheep’s cheese and toppings like minced lamb, or my preference, chicken. Baked in a wood-fire oven, it’s served piping hot with a side of arugula, sliced tomato and lemon, and biber sal?as?, a cool, piquant red pepper paste. Pile on veggies, smear the paste, fold the pide in half, turn your head, and feast. We have this delivered to our apartment three times.
I stop for a quick g?zleme whenever we’re out because it’s my favorite. One afternoon I’m having ?ay with an American friend who still lives here while my kids join hers for a community art class, and I order a pumpkin g?zleme. This savory pastry is filled with anything from ground beef to spinach to feta to potato, but pumpkin takes me back.
“Oh, my gosh, I think the last time I had pumpkin g?zleme was at the water park,” I tell my friend Andie.
“The water park? That’s weird,” she says.