Potential

Coming to Kusadasi, I knew what to expect because of the last two visits. Our summer home needs a lot of work. It wasn't a fixer-upper, but it has become a fixer-upper, which would be fun - but Tolga's parents and brothers are living here too and its hard to see my family living in a fixer-upper. Nonetheless, they are a hardy bunch, accepting things as they are and as they hope they will be.

I, on the other hand, like to do things about it. I'm not comfortable just sitting when there is work to be done. I was watching a clip by a researcher. She was told "Life is messy," and her response was, "So let's clean it up and organize it." I know the feeling. I also know there is something wrong there - that my reaction is rooted in something I can't quite put my finger on, or I'm not ready to put my finger on . . .

So back to the here and now. Our yard turned into a rainforest for several reasons. It's the rainy season and so the grass is growing well. The last few visits, I have gone around and pulled out a gazillion weeds from the root. There are still weeds, but now there's a lot more grass than weeds. Secondly, Baba loves to plant things. He makes little projects for himself and you can see these projects around the garden. He's slowly digging up the good soil from side of the house to deliver to the flower beds. The result is holes on our south side, and an even flower bed on the west side. Our banana tree is growing well so he hacked of parts of it an replanted these parts in the sunlight hoping the branches would fair better. I hope so too because there is nothing more beautiful then bananas fresh off the tree. The young banana branches are next to his new lemon tree, and his recently planted olive tree. Next comes the young plum trees, a pomegranate tree, an almond tree, and a palm. The pomegranate tree is the biggest and its branches have been cinched together by a piece of garden hose in order to keep the branches from tangling into one another. This all besides the seven fully grown mandarin trees.

You can also see signs of Hakan's projects around the home. It's more like a trail of projects, like the path you'd follow after a tornado. In the front is a half-built storage depot. There is an opening for two small windows, a door, and a roof. Hakan has loaded some things into the storage area, but it is full. Next the the storage is a mound of dirt, from where the ground was dug out - last time we were here I had hauled all the left over bricks to the side, along with the broken cement pieces. I will be raking through the entire yard this time because Hakan's new project was the beautiful third floor balcony. Hakan and Gokhan are visionaries I guess because alls I saw was a big mess. Hakan had demolished the third floor storage room to open it up for narrow balcony - throwing all of the cement from the roof, onto the balcony, and into the yard. I don't think he meant to, and I suppose if we had the money for a dumpster he would have made a cleaner job . . . but instead there is rubble everywhere. Hakan, since our last visit hired a tractor to carry most of the rubble away, but somebody also wheeled some of the rubble into the lot next to us. In addition our balcony is full of things that were stored inside third floor storage.

Yesterday, while deciding over coffee which project to tackle first, I went upstairs to inspect. I learned why Gokhan was sleeping on the coach down stairs. The third floor was blocked with things that had been removed from the storage. The new balcony wasn't properly waterproofed, and so rain had seeped through the cement and the bedroom underneath was saturated with mold, and I found my first project: make bedroom livable so people can sleep on beds.

So, I changed my clothes, put on a bandana and eyeglasses. Filled a bucket with bleach water and began scrubbing the ceiling. Soon Hakan arrived and immediately dived into his own projects. He cleared the third floor of junk (adding it to our terrace mess), brought down the electric mower and began mowing everything in the yard (I think he even mowed a tree).

To be continued today . . .