...and waking.

astrid kerr has me repeat --

every morning i wake

immaculate --

sometimes with an expletive added for emphasis.

today mo and i went for a further tour of olive groves, heading down a hardpack dirt road and from there through a tiny little passageway between two whitewashed houses, barely wide enough for us to fit, that emptied into the town square with the same grey bricks in the road that i have seen everywhere in turkey, interlocked bricks that make a grid about which the road veers and curves while the grid stays square. we stopped at a tea shop where everyone watched us approach and where mo seemed to know many people and where everyone wore rubber boots but us and one guy my age with a scruffy beard and a ché guevarra shirt, who wore ankleboots tied over his ankles.

there we were joined by a man with a knife clipped to the back of his belt and a cell phone to the front who took us out to look at the trees; but we did not go far, and soon we were turning the truck back around and heading back to the tea shop for round two; this time sage tea. across from where we sat a tile design in the brick wall very interesting, and a mosque with brick and mortar minarets made with decorative bricks too.

back to home with a headache something fierce from the bright sun. went home to nap and recover; mo gave me fizzy aspirin dissolved in water; he tended to ugur too, as she has a fever.

this has been a heldback week, and it is coming up on my last week here with mo. that makes me a little bit sad. but every morning i wake

f___ing immaculate.

and things happen because they need to happen.

astrid arrives may 12.

upstairs now to pack for an overnight trip to denizli and the salt flats of pammukale, and by the time i am back maybe i will have unstuck enough to figure out how to thank my generous host.