<< she once was a true love of mine >>

i hope you will come visit me this year at the north country fair.

the children in bare feet are what do it for me. and the afternoon workshops where the performers team up and fiddle around on stage together and one takes the mike and says, alright, this one's in B, and from there they just wing it. they say, when you get to the bridge, jump! and you can sure squeeze a lot of music out of three chords and twelve bars.

and sitting on the grass at dusk as the opening acts tune up. and how one year it rained the whole weekend and that made it even better, splashy and muddy and the performers in communal rubber boots and how caroline mark therefore sang these boots are made for walkin.

it is my favourite of the summer festivals by far. it takes place on the longest day of the year and it is so far north that the sun hardly sets.

and it will be my birthday.

i am a star child. and i hope you will come visit.

<< if you're travellin' in the north country fair
where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
remember me to the one who lives there
she once was a true love of mine. >>

stay beautiful, you and me both : )

<< i loved you for your body >>

i have seized control of the hostel sound system and we are listening to leonard cohen with a vengeance.



this feeling, it hides in the dusty rafters.

today to help defray some of the cost of my extended stay in goreme i helped the hostel owner put insulation up on the inside of hostel roof. pink styrofoam insulation now covers the inside of the dining area. the TV was on while we worked, turkish MTV : video after video of kids dancing in clubs and spinning and singing -- it's all dance music nowadays and sped up vocals, quick -- and often it was a disco floor that they were dancing on, blinking squares; and silver lights and booty shorts and spikey hair and big black eyes -- and what i loved in my old life / i have not forgotten.

sweet smokey nostalgia. but i have started to connect: that nothing to hide from, maybe that means nothing to run from. and now someone has put on All you need is love. this is exactly how it happened.

gentle creature, be careful with your heart

<< i know where i can find you :
in someone else's room >>

today i am sad.

<< you know sometimes you lie >>

today i went walking down along the beach until a big rock outcropping blocked my way; then i climbed up and around and stood leaning on a tree watching tourists on the beach below on the other side.


you say you love me that you're
thinking of me but you
know you could be wrong


then i went down and sat on the beach in the sun and collected seashells. i was lying on my stomach in the sun and i saw this tiny little seashell the size of a grain of rice. and i picked it up and rolled it in my palm. my sacred geometry book informs me that seashells are a form of logarithmic spiral, and that the universe is a machine, like one of those water-powered calculators. this little shell was perfect, and so tiny. goodbye, little shell, i said, i am going to send you back to the randomness from whence you came. for you have your place in things and i have mine. and i made to crush it between my strong index finger and thumb. but of course i could not crush it. the math behind those spirals makes them very strong.

so i spent the rest of the afternoon collecting the tiniest seashells i could find. cat tracks, all four paws on one line, in the wet sand along the water's edge. walking back past a creek i saw these turtles warming themselves on rocks and when i got too close they all jumped into the water and were gone.

back at camp, some cheese and a nap, for nothing says cheese like a nap, and nothing says a nap like cheese.

and that has been my day.

<< baby i'm still hurting -- i can't turn the other cheek >>

at the moment we are in a city called Bursa, first capital of the ottoman empire. now it is the carpart capital of asia minor, which is lucky because we have had trouble with the alfa romeo and have to get it fixed. last night the emergency brake froze or broke in place and we could not get going again after stopping for dinner. we spent the night in a thermal spa hotel where the water is very hot but the bathtubs are very small. played backgammon over dinner -- durem, which are like meatballs rolled in heavy pita bread, and spicy tomato paste and spicy peppers. my room is small and has a slanted roof. there is a double bed and a single bed. the bedclothes are rose. the patterened wall paper is mauve. there are sliver and glass light fixtures. furniture is again dark wood, and a tiny table and a mirror, and a wardrobe. the floors are new laminate. i see blue sky but also some cloud. it is cold, always cold here.

today we will try again to make it to burhaniye. this whole trip has been an adventure. adventures are about character and character is about change.

often i say i wish i was more sparkling, or more irresistable, or purer of heart, or more upstanding. or more aware, unable to be played, like Sam Spade when he said, "oh right, your story. that's ok, we didn't really believe your story, we believed your two hundred dollars."

the reason i like the experiment with the cards and the numbers and the pairing off is because that is almost what love is. the people who hold high cards are swarmed. the people who hold low cards are brushed off.

in love, if you discover you get attention, you either aim high because you realize you have your pick, or you aim low because you realize you hold a high card and good love is scary. if you get no attention, you learn to aim lower and lower til someone will take you.

i have buzzed with the rest of them around the pretty and the easy and the stretchy, but i am not sure anymore that those things are what the number represents.

i wish people couldn't get enough of me and my unique and beautiful pain. i wish i felt like i held the high card. or that my number was a nice-looking number like 96, or traced out something geometric like 95 which is almost the golden ratio. or something musical like 92, intervals adjacent to the octave. or a square number like 81, or something lucky like 77, or something mathematical like 60.

i like love songs that hold together when you substitute the woman in the song for the divine, like you can in this one: i look for you in everyone, and they called me on that too -- i lived alone, but i was only coming back to you. so play this number game with the divine. in this game only you know your number and no one else will ever see it. and you can make your number whatever you want. what is the most delightful, fragrant, lyrical, gentle, loving way you can imagine your divine self to be? lift up your eyes and love in the most pure way you can. where did i learn to aim my heart so low?

<< i know where i can find you >>

mehmet has business in istanbul. uğur is going with him. ruçhan has left to go back home. i am staying behind to look after the dog and the cat. i will go to istanbul in a week. while mo is gone i am going to book a hostel room and find a cheap bus ticket.

i am at the house, alone with my thoughts for the first time in a long time.

it is quiet in this house. i hear air moving through the stove, but beyond that there is no noise -- no furnace, no water heaters, no electrical buzz to speak of.

i have put on music. i notice when it gets too quiet.

burning man tickets are on sale. it is already february, august plus six months. the year has started to move out. in istanbul i will find costumes and finery for the desert, blue and copper and gold. and i will burn so bright.

i miss you.