one day in konya

there are tulips everywhere in konya and their petals were still wet with dew when i started exploring the morning of the day i spent there.

konya is pretty and made me say wow for being so pretty. part of me wishes i'd stayed more than one day but part of me is glad i had to be quick and careful with my time there. i got up early. i got out early. i packed light, leaving what i could in the hotel reception to be picked up later.

the main street of downtown konya is called mevlana -- for mevlana celaleddin rumi, the mystic poet and dervish who made his home here. at one end of this street is the mevlana museum. at the other is the alledin park, a hill with a simple brick mosque at the top and ringed by tea gardens. along the main street there are men seated with brass and bristle brushes and all colours of shoe polish. vendors sell strawberries from carts, and these bruised yellow fruits that look like pears but weren't.

everyone is well dressed. most of the women cover their hair with scarves. some wear black from head to toe and cover their faces. the men wear wool suits, often with sweaters underneath, sometimes with wool hats.

it was the day of a tulip festival in a grassy park with many flowerbeds. to celebrate, courtly music by an ensemble of musicians in satin robes of green or red with gold and upholstered hats. the conductor made sweeping movements with a crescent-moon sceptre, ONE, two, three (and) ONE, two, three (and). a drummer used a padded drum stick on one face of the bass drum and a wooden drumstick on the other, to give one deep thumpy sound and the clickier rhythms on top. another played kettledrums with big movements. the winds played in unison -- two trumpets, two clarients and an oboe, all playing melody, with no harmony. harmony instead of colour: tulips and the green grass.

the mevlana museum -- all about Rumi -- was packed. a second, with a "clearly" compulsive patron, was closed for upkeep: unfortunate, though the electricians working there gave me tea. there was a very neat side museum that was a re-creation of a turn of the century upperclass house: portraits of scholars in libraries and men arm in arm in black and white; exposed rafters of dark wood, kilim upon kilim on the floor, with tread marks; low coarse cushions, machines with iron gears, a film projector, iron bells over the doorways; a musket crossed over a rabbit pelt tacked to an embroidered panel. dark colours and creaky stairs.

the mosque at the other end of mevlana street was simple -- four-way arches in the brick roof with evenly spaced columns going in four directions. when i went back outside it was picnic time in the park: everywhere people crunching seeds as they walked. men circulated with magazines of cotton candy hung from tall sticks, floating pink clouds over peoples' heads, and the sharp ripe snap of tulip stems as children gathered flowers into stubby bouquets. the bell and the clackclack of the tramcar that would take me that night to the bus station: one day in konya.