<< it doesn't haunt me like it did before >>

towards the end of act two, something happens to change the fortunes of the protagonist.

for me, if this has happened, it happened more quietly than i expected.

saying to me to sleep off the gin she touched my face, and then i said do you want to sleep in my bed with me, there being two of us in a room for five, and so she climbed into my gritty bed and we slept.

in the morning when she said, where did you come from, i said: some nowhere town.

in the evening she walked me to the goreme bus station.

as the bus pulled away under april rain, i wished i'd told the truth: i wished i'd said i'd fallen from heaven. i wished i'd said i was made of stardust. because i can speak so down about myself, little things that creep in and that i don't notice until it is too late, like that i am from some nowhere town. and i speak about my heart prosaically.

but my story is my own to tell, and i am what i make of me. and when i tell this story now, i say that i did not miss a beat to answer: where did i come from? i am just like that bird.

i feel lighter and more fearless.

act two, scene four: back in burhaniye. from here, downward motion til the start of act three. back home, my burning man ticket has arrived and i am making the plans i need to be able to ride my bike down to black rock city. i have found someone to transport my gear for me and all i had to do was ask. i am going to get there alone, under my own power, and what's more, strong and free. has omething in my fortune changed?

Act Two, Scene Three : into goreme

in goreme the single mosque's prayer call echoes, then echoes again in the eroded valley. you can see how water has dripped and flowed for a thousand years.

arrived this morning after an easy midnight bus ride, though nothing guaranteed it to be easy.

from sundance they saw me off with brown bread, not white, and a mouth-watering spreadpaste made from walnuts, red pepper, hot pepper, black pepper, like, twelve cloves of garlic, and juice of a half lemon, blended til smooth, _so delicious. i been to the river, i been baptized -- you can take me to my hangin' ground.

left sundance later than i intended. luckily antalya was closer than i thought. found a ticket in the bus station where tour companies with their banner signs clamour for attention like flowers in the bee-keeper's field: departed from platform three. chided for putting my feet on the seat, meant i had to stay sitting straight forward and upright with no way to curl up and rest; still, slept most of the way. used halvah as a sleeping drug: so creamy and rich and heavy in the blood; ate it from the blade of my camping knife. woke to the crunchy plastic-on-plastic sound of the bus hitting something on the road and gasps from the people in the front seats. the driver and another man going down and out in front while the four-way flashers clicked; soon back on our way.

then into nevsehir, chilly and scrubby, as the sun rose. onto a smaller bus, stewarded there by travel agents with plenty to sell. hot air balloons over the valley.

arrived in goreme around 8:00 am. from there walked down the main street to Hard Rock Travel, next to Café Turca, to meet with jade, who will see me square; friend of a friend from burning man. potential today to leave many things behind. flocks of birds: I'll Fly Away.

goreme is alien landscape, turkish badlands. many of the hostels here make the promise of hot water, guaranteed. the signs done in capital lettering have capital i's with a dot overtop, a quirk of turkish alphabet (there are two variants of i, with and without the dot). there is a square where twice a week is a farmer's market. there is a music shop with guitars.

got set up in a hostel, the second in a room for five. my bags in one corner next to a red hard plastic suitcase tagged from air france. when i arrived: on a chair an open cosmetic bag with eyeliner pencils and a bottle of perfume; on the radiator an open make-up compact with severe colours, reds and blues and purples; a tube of "dentifrice blancheur" in the bathroom.

the room itself: stone brick walls; a wooden door with an iron latch; thin scuffed carpet, feels like stone underneath; translucent curtains; someone's watercolour riverscape hanging in an alcove cut into the wall. an infrared heater on a stand pointed down onto bed number four where la francaise's clothes lay folded. the walls, carpet grey; the wood of the door and windowframe crimson and peeling.

went for a wander to get food, first meal i will have to make for myself in i don't remember how long: bread, cheese, tomatoes, chocolate, apricots, squishy candy. the shopkeeper gave me a sweet carrot bar with nuts for desert. back at the hostel, coffee made in my travel mug with boiled water.

the sound of children outside my window, looks onto a road, a ditch, a stoneblock wall, a driveway with soccer, houses with solar water heaters. as i leave, the door frame low: i bonk my head.

tea and toast

final breakfast in sundance. a day for them like any other: wiping, humming, the cats sleeping.

they have brought me a cup of tea made with herbs that grow on the hillside. i offer a toast :

to a hard life
and a glorious death.

tonight a midnight bus. onward to scene three: göreme.

Act Two, Scene Two : from seemingly nowhere

yesterday's bus trip started at two in the morning, very tired but restless, an aisle seat. and it dragged: all in all a fifteen hour journey, some of it on a minibus where my head brushed the ceiling, and too hot.

but now i am here at sundance eco-preserve outside tikirova, overlooked by a mountain and on the stony shore of the mediterranean sea.

there are six people here my age, three couples. there are eleven cats. there are horses. there are cacti. there are little birds so small that if they land in the grass you lose them, and they fly in and out of the trees in big flocks.

i hear crickets. i hear frogs. i hear water.

feeling: that this is like the hostel on vancouver island with the little kitchen where i met sara, the girl i did not kiss. she took my hand as we wandered after dark past cafes with posters in the windows, blurred photos of a local songwriter singing her heart out in a tourist town. sara wore a black hoodie and a little black tanktop underneath and black corduroy pants that picked up the fine white sand when we went to sit by the water. and she took a purple flower from me that i'd picked up and carried it all the way down to the beach, and when we stopped she attached it to a tress of her hair with quick fingers and a black elastic she made appear from seemingly nowhere. and when she drew pictures of herself she darkened under the eyes.

she lives in jerusalem. i have not heard from her. it's after dark now. it's pretty here.

<< that's no moon... it's a space station. >>

overnight i am going on a bus to sundance campground outside a seaside village called tekirova.

it is far out in nature and there will not be many people around. i will be staying in a treelodge -- a wooden hut out in the forest and elevated.

this mini-trip is coming at just the right time.

it took a lot for me to start to say, i know the kind of person that i am, rather than, i know the kind of person i can be. the image i have is of walking a path and i can either walk straight or i can stumble and trip and generally veer to the left, which over the course of a hundred paces takes me into the bramble.

but i liked saying i know the kind of person i can be, because then i have an excuse for not being that person today.

recall that it is midway through the conflicts of act two that the protagonist faces the bleak moment -- the point from which it seems impossible to pull up. like in star wars when obiwan kenobi dies and luke says, i just don't know how i can go on.

anyways i am looking forward to some quiet time. there will be birds there. and maybe i will go horseback riding and get far far from people. i could get to like horses. very steady.

Act Two, Scene One

woke this morning to _vivid dreams of kissing this girl i know from yoga, and in my dream she kissed like she does yoga, and she does yoga very well, and in my dream we didn't spend much time doing yoga, and it was very vivid.

after two days of near-impassable mountain roads, we have made it back to mehmet's house in burhaniye.

your protagonist is now in act two. this we can tell both by the calendar -- one month gone now out of three -- and by the story's underlying dramatic structure. the recent trip to instanbul was the protagonist's first challenge. an unexpected event thrust the action in a new direction -- that was the shakedown -- and thus was the protagonist set up for new challenges, to be faced over the course of the second act. after a short period of downward dramatic movement -- that was the blizzard and the thank-g-d-we-can-laugh-about-it drive home -- we return to a point of rest so act two can begin in earnest.

act one is the exposition. act two is the development. over the course of act two the skillful author fleshes out symbols and themes and shows how the protagonist changes in response to the way the plot veered at the end of act one.

the essence of act two is conflict. today we woke with no water and had to struggle to try and thaw frozen pipes. the metal pipes had frozen where the water comes into the house, or so we thought. so we piled burning embers from the stove around and over them til the pipes themselves were hot to the touch. the smooth tile of the front porch was very cold and while using the new set of stove tools -- read on -- to manipulate the hot pieces of charcoal i nearly froze the bottoms of my feet. so i tried to warm them in front of the new infrared heater and i melted my nylon double wick-action socks. and still no water.

the stove tools: today ugur brought us a set of stove tools -- coal shovel, fire poker, cinder broom, and man-fetcher -- and reader, they could not have come at a more perfect time, for they propel us forward into The Stove, Act Two. the story's external conflicts will thus mirror the protagonist's inner conflict. we are going to invent an all-in-one fuel cell bucket for the stove, using layers of olive pits, parrafin-soaked oil pits, and coal gravel. it will consolidate everything we have learned about the stove. it will light with one match, for it will have a fuse. furthermore we now have an ionizing air filter to clean up after smokey misadventures such as we had this morning.

but don't lets get too lighthearted. act two is trial for the protagonist from start to finish. walking through burhaniye today it was mo that first heard the sound of running water from what might have been a burst water main (it was not). until he pointed it out i did not even notice. this is in spite of my line about wanting to learn to listen. furthermore if i were a wild animal, and i want to be much more wild of an animal, the sound of running water is one i could not afford to miss. and it was mo who noticed one single blooming rose on his rosebushes, pink like a ripe berry that the observant omnivore would get as a snack. what is it going to take to get me to play closer attention to the bejewelled world? over the course of act two the protagonist will grow and change in face of unpredictable challenges such as these. only one thing is for sure -- he will have to pass through a moment of utter bleakness before the conflict can be resolved. but what that dark moment will be, only the shadow knows.

the water is back now and coffee is on and mo has brought me a box of turkish delight ("lokum") to go with it -- with one cup of coffee you have one piece. and there are little bananas. mo and i have spent some time planning the sights i will see over the course of the next month, using the maps we got from tourism booths at the trade show. we have food and again we have hot water. and we have finally warmed up the house. act two beckons and the coffee and sweets are waiting downstairs. i have learned a new word, too: lokumgibe -- from lokum -- means delightful. stay tuned.