is love enough?

I argued with my brother-in-law tonight.

Gokhan is a little over a year younger than me and gentle-hearted - so it was surprising (and a little impressive) that he fought with me.  Even more impressive was Baba intervening to stop our shouting match - it was the first time I saw Baba do something fatherly, and I really appreciated it.

Gokhan, who has been jobless for the past 7 months, and has not had steady work (or steady work but no pay...which is a thing here) for the past ??? years - he finally got a job.  A job that is offering a great salary and a villa to stay in - in a party/vacation town.  The huge downside is we will be working 12 hour days, 14 days in a row, and then one day off.  Which, apparently, is illegal.  Gokhan is a mechanical engineer and has many licenses that make him very qualified and capable, but the job market is so desperate - it seems employers have taken full advantage of this by offering low low salaries, long work days/weeks, and unreliable pay.  This new job is at least offering a well-deserved salary and villa to him.

Gokhan was offered the job on a trial basis, and as it is with all work in Turkey, before he begins he must get a health report as well as some other official reports.  We were going to go to the National Park with our cousins on Tuesday, but delayed the trip so Gokhan could get his paperwork in order for his new job.  We were going to take Gokhan with us, while someone stayed home with Baba.

The family has been going on and on about how Baba can have no sugar and no salt and how he's not eating anything these days and how he is malnourished and how he can't be left alone.  It's all very dramatic and full of partial truths.

But, we've all agreed, multiple times, that he can't be left alone.

And so, Friday we went to the National Park, and Gokhan agreed to stay home with his father.  He had one more piece of paperwork to be signed and he planned on having the neighbor watch Baba while he did this.

When we got home today, Gokhan wasn't around - he had gone to the beach.

There is a part of me that isn't surprised or bothered.  I know Gokhan can't be trusted with certain things.  I know that he is selfish about somethings.  I know that he is lazy in general.  Just like I know that there is no meanness in him, that he would do anything I ask, and he does help out the family.  At first, I only asked lightly why he left Baba.  He said he told my cousin on the phone.

Okay, a misunderstanding maybe.
"Did you get your papers signed?"
"Yeah, but I went there and they had to email the head of the department, and I had to go there to get it signed."
"Go where?"
"To the hospital."
"You went to the hospital?"
"Only for  a half an hour."
(The hospital itself is a half-an-hour away).
"Was the neighbor still here?"
"No, Baba was sleeping when I left."
"YOU LEFT BABA TWO TIMES TODAY WHEN THAT WAS YOUR ONE JOB?!?"

Gokhan stormed off yelling something and I stormed after him and we yelled at each other.
"Why are you mad?  This was your job today, we all trusted you, and you didn't do it!"
"I don't understand you!"  (I yelled the first sentence in English because I was so mad).
"You promised you'd stay with him and you left him twice!"
"Yeah, so?"
"This is your father!"
"This is my father!"
"Yes, this is your father!"
"This is my father!"

Okay, so we are not so good at fighting.

Here's the thing with all of this that I'm going to try to put to words.

I know how Gokhan is - I know that he has had very little responsibility in his life, and in many ways because of lack of experience - he just doesn't think farther then himself sometimes.  This is why he usually has to be asked to do things, and even then - the consequences of him not doing what you asked are usually so mild - he has not experienced his irresponsibility either.  He forgot to pick something up at the market - no problem, Tolga will get it.  He forgot to feed the birds, no problem, his mom will do it.  He didn't wake up to his alarm for work - his mom will wake him up.  He didn't get his salary, his brother will buy his food/give him bus money/etc.

Tolga accepts people as they are - that's one of his amazing qualities, and I've seen how empowering it is in myself and in his family.  To my independent side/family/culture - many would call it enabling.  But I've never understood how the healthy or right thing to do has been to cut someone out of your life.  Especially family.  Especially hurting family.  Addicts have always broken my heart,  there is something about them that I know we all suffer from ... that black hole in our souls that thinks it can't be loved.

There have been two warring parts in me for some time now - a part that is learning to accept people as they are, including myself - and a part that refuses to accept some things, a part the demands change.

Now, I know logically, any demands on my heart are not going to end well.  But it's still there.  Gokhan is supposed to be my brother.  I am supposed to be able to trust him.  When he says something, I want to believe him.  When he promises something, I expect him to do what he promised.  I have to trust my brother with important things.

So when Gokhan failed today - a part of me wants to be really really mad at him.  I want to not forgive him, not call him my brother, not ever expect a thing from him again.  It wasn't today's failure, it was what I already suspected - that I couldn't count on him, that he was selfish and far from the man we all want him to be.

and yet, Gokhan's failure is my failure.

This is me too.  I have failed people I loved, many times.  I still remember being called selfish when I was 20 years old, and to this day it haunts me, because I never thought of myself as selfish and from then on, I see it in me all the time.  And honestly, I'm pretty far from the person I want to be too.

And condemning myself, or Gokhan, is never gonna get us there.  But I'm not sure I can let love get me there either.

The Umbrella Incident

I am not sure even where to begin, but I can't stop thinking about it, so I have to write about it.

It's summertime and we are in Kusadasi, staying at our summer home.  We live in a community called  Nür Site, a short walk from the beach, maybe 150 meters.  The entire walk is through Idarecelar Site a crowded, old, established community where our uncle/aunt/cousins/cousin's children live.  They live in a very tiny, but two floor home, closest to the beach - with a small grassy area before the beach, and then of course the beach itself.

The uncle is Anne's oldest brother.  His wife is pure evil, apparently.  His son is crazy and despicable. Their grandchildren are still young and sweet.  Sometimes we are getting along, sometimes we are not.  I never know actually because I'm never a part of the drama - but mean things have been said, crazy things have been threatened - apparently there is some drama every couple of years.

We are having an "on" year.

Another cousin, visiting from Istanbul, is still on the "off" year when it comes to this family.  I brought her and her son and my children down to the beach today and she was purposely avoiding their house, or being seen by them.  They had said some bad things about her mother, I guess.

On the beach there are some umbrellas.  There are poles in the sand, and under the sand is a block of cement to secure the metal poles.  On top of the poles are wood/bamboo woven umbrellas.  Several years ago, only Idracelar Site had these umbrellas, but then other communities (including ours) complained that it was a public beach and they had to share.  They didn't share their umbrellas, but they moved over and two more communities added umbrellas.  Since Ramazan has finished, the beach has been pretty full and it has been hard to find an umbrella. We had been using whichever umbrella we could find open, but today the guard had begun.

There is a worker, hired by Idarecelar to do odd jobs, and one of them is to guard the communities umbrellas.  He removes or places the umbrella tops on the poles when people come and go.  I run into him every year.  Every year he tells me I can't sit under their umbrellas.  Sometimes he lets me if its not too crowded, most times he doesn't.  I don't really care because I'm in the water with the kids the whole time and then we leave.  However, when Anne comes, she must sit under an umbrella - being older and all - and even when she's with me and has explained to the man that her Abi lives right over there, he still won't allow it.

Today, when we came - we took the last umbrella on the beach - and it was Idarecelar's umbrella.  The guard came over and told my cousin we couldn't sit there.  I was talking on the phone with Tolga so I didn't interfere as my middle-aged cousin has a loud mouth and can hold her own.  I told Tolga what was going on, kind of laughing, and Tolga instantly got mad.  First he wanted to talk to the guy, then he wanted to talk to my cousin.

I was gonna just dismiss it all, but at the same time - I understand my husband, and I love him for it.  He wants to fight for me.  He's frustrated that he has to be away, and so more than usual, he is ready even needing to fight for me.  Teoman was already in the water which was calm and clear today - so I handed the phone to my cousin and moved to the water's edge to be close to Teoman.  My cousin came a bit later - she had lost the fight, the man had taken away the umbrella top from where we were sitting even after she explained our uncle lived there.  She was mad, but I just shrugged.  She said Tolga was going to call our uncle/cousin to sort it out.

I as able to swim on my own for the first time - my cousin watched the kids and I went out to the water and it was beautiful.  I thanked God for out beautiful ocean and for such a place as this.  I love the beauty of swimming in the aqua seas of the warm Mediterranean waters.  I took the kids in the water and we were laughing - they were loving it - it was beautiful.

I noticed a commotion on the beach.  I kind of scoffed, look at that, someone else is mad about the umbrellas.  The man was storming across the beach in a bright red shirt and bright blue shorts with a grey head of hair.  I noticed our cousin's wife on scene, and lots of other Turks getting involved while the entire beach watched this man.

Then I realized this man was Hakan, my brother-in-law.

We came into the shore and Hakan was screaming at people.  I thought he was going to explode.  I learned later that he had pulled up and stormed up and down the beach saying, "Where is Adam?  Who's Adam!"  Hakan had come to us and asked who the man was and his mouth was downturned and his head seem to barely contain his rage.  There was no use in stopping him, or even greeting him - he had come to take care of a problem.  The man was sitting on the bench in-between some people - I don't know if he was hiding or if he didn't realize what was happening but as we came to the beach we pointed out the man.  In the meantime, others had come up to Hakan and men began to collect to see what the problem was.  The guard finally stood up (once we had pointed hime out) and approached Hakan and Hakan began screaming at the man.  I don't really know what was said, and it seems the guard was trying to hold his ground - maybe he was feeling safe with all the men around.  He and Hakan were about the same size and Hakan shoved him.  Apparently, his plan was come straight up to the man and punch him.  I'm glad he didn't - and I'm hoping he chose not to in the end because we were near.  I don't think I could have stomached it.

My uncle's daughter-in-law was there too - and eventually I saw my uncle himself - 81 years old, trying to comprehend what's going on.  The cousin next to me was trying to say her piece as well, but Hakan ordered her to stay out of it.  My cousin shut up right away, but not for long.  Her 12 year old son started crying, which eventually pulled her out of the mess.  I'm sure the yelling scared him - and I knew the feeling.

Hakan had screamed at the man to bring the umbrella for us right away.  Right away!  I wasn't sure if he looked like a child having a hissy-fit, or a man trying not to fight.

And here's what I keep thinking about it: Hakan fought for us, for his brother.  He knew Tolga was mad and he stepped into Tolga's shoes -  and fought for us as.  He left work, drove a half hour to our beach to fight for us.  Over an umbrella.  An umbrella!  But then again, this is Turkey, and it was more than that - stuff I don't fully understand, but I know and trust Tolga, and thus his brother Hakan.  And Hakan didn't back down - people were trying to calm him down, they were trying to maybe change his mind or disagree - and Hakan wouldn't be deterred.  You disrespected my family -  they are my children too - and I will not stop until that wrong has been righted.

My own brothers would fight for me, sure - but never like that, and never over something so seemingly small.  Maybe for their own pride they would (yep, witnessed that at a bar once...), surely over big things - but yelling and screaming and making a scene - leaving work and their own responsibilities?  I think that is my heritage coming out -- too reticent, too righteous of attitudes, too proud even to let ourselves show such emotion ... I mean, I always knew Hakan would come if ever I needed him no matter what - but I would have never asked him to come for something like this - and yet, there he was.

I am very moved by the scene - Tolga has always told me (and I always believed him) - but today I saw what my brother would do for me, for us, if ever we needed anything.

How did it end?  I'm still not sure.  We left the beach, talked to the polis who had been called, talked to our uncle, and went home.

Apparently, if I go to the beach again, the umbrellas are mine.  Hakan said, "This is Turkey.  You have to be this way to be respected."

inhibitions

I'm reading a book.  It's quite amazing, that I'm reading.  I started this book during my haircut, and I've continued reading it at nights.  I've been sitting my kids next to me with their books, hoping to set a good example... they always pick this box of books given to them by an aunt.  It's twelve mini books with a winter theme, and sometimes they look at the pictures, but most of the time they build things with the books.  Or, while I'm reading, one of them will insist I read one of these five "page" mini books to them over and over and over again.  Tomris will say, "No read mama!  This one!"  So I get aggravated and try to finish a page or paragraph or sentence of my own while they fight over their book building blocks, or sit on me, or take my book from my hands.

Anyhow, I'm reading The Things They Carried and I have so many things to write about it.  There was a painfully beautiful description that really struck me.  The author was writing about motivations for going to war, and he claimed that for most - they went to war because they were too afraid not to die.  They went out of fear - fear of embarrassment, fear of being shamed.  It wasn't courage that made a soldier run to death, it was the fear of being the one who didn't go, who didn't move, who ran away.

It wasn't until the middle of the book that he confessed his turning point.  He had been drafted, and was waiting for the call and one day, he cracked - literally heard something crack inside himself and he took off and ran for the Canadian border.  He took up some lodging near the border and the old Minnesota man never asked him what he was doing there.  For six days they shared meals together, sat on the porch, and did chores to close up the lodge for the winter.  On the last day, the old man took the young man out fishing.  They dropped their lines twenty meters from the Canadian side.  The  young man realized the older had done this on purpose, never speaking, never looking up - and the young man realized looking into the Canadian wilderness that he didn't have the courage to run.  That was the brave thing to do - to run away as he felt he should, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.  He was afraid of the embarrassment and shame, and he began crying.  He cried hard because he realized he would have to go to war, and not for bravery nor courage - but out of plain and simple fear, weakness, and embarrassment.

How many times have all of us made decisions in life out of fear, fear of embarrassment, or shame?  Not out of our courage, but out of you weakness?  Paralysis even.  Ugh.