Letter from Istanbul

Dome of the Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey

In May, I went to Istanbul for a writer's workshop.  One of our writing exercises was to use the form of a letter, written to a real or imaginary person, as a way to focus our thoughts and to personalize our writing.  I chose to write to the memory of my fourth grade teacher.

Dear Mrs. Guiney,

            I write to you from Istanbul, where I sit with a group of writers, mostly from the U.S., but some from Turkey too. We are here to see the city–the great domed Hagia Sofia; shops filled with spices, sweets, kebabs, carpets, jewelry; boats on the Bosphorus; the hotel where Agatha Christie wrote her book Murder on the Orient Express; a performance of the mysterious dance of the whirling dervishes, and more–and then try to put our impressions into words.  Each day is punctuated with the calls to prayer broadcast from skinny minarets aside crescent topped mosques. In the streets, trams clang along metal rails from one part of the city to another. Overhead, raucous gulls wheel in the sky and the smell of the sea makes the air slightly damp. Never did I think as I sat in your fourth grade class nearly sixty years ago in Northeast Minneapolis that one day I would be on a trip half-way around the world to the city that is the meeting point of East and West. (It is a ten hour difference between here and my home in Los Angeles. As we finish our dinner each night in Istanbul, my friends and family in California are just starting their day.)

            My dream of traveling and seeing the world began in your class when you handed out the books we would use to study world geography. I remember turning the shiny pages filled with pictures of people and places so different from our world in Minnesota. The first chapter featured the Belgian Congo and was illustrated with black and white photos of dark-skinned women pounding manioc with wooden poles in large containers. I loved the new words and ideas–what was manioc? What did it taste like? Did they eat it every day? Why was the country called the Belgian Congo? Belgium was a country in Europe!

            I also loved the maps in the geography book with their rivers and mountains and wide oceans. In Minnesota, where we lived, we had the Mississippi River, which you could cross to go to St. Paul, but at age ten I had never seen mountains or oceans. Here in Istanbul, we walk downhill from our hotel near the Galata Tower to the bridge across the Golden Horn, an arm of water separating our newer part of Istanbul from the old quarter, with its many mosques, museums, and markets. From the bridge, lined with fishermen, we can look out into the Sea of Marmara, filled with ferries, fishing boats, cargo ships, ocean liners, yachts, and party boats turned into restaurants. At night, the sea sparkles with the lights of all this water traffic in the process of moving goods and people to and from the Black Sea in the north to the Mediterranean in the south and beyond. We are staying on the European side of Istanbul, but just a short ferry ride away lies the Asian part of the city, where we went one day for lunch and to explore the market stalls.

            I think you would love Turkey as much as I do with all its sights and sounds and bustling commerce. It is a photographer’s paradise. I have taken hundreds of photos, which, when I get home, will help me remember the wealth of things we saw. I have always loved to take pictures and got my first camera for my tenth birthday. It was a Brownie box camera. I remember that I had to open it carefully to insert the roll of film, making sure to keep the film rolled tight to prevent it from being exposed to the light. You probably don’t remember, but I took it to school on the last day before summer vacation.  

           I have a picture of you, Mrs. Guiney, taken on the school playground. You are wearing a plaid dress and have your head slightly cocked, perhaps because you are looking into the sun. The picture is a little blurry, because I must have jiggled the camera, but I can see that you are smiling. You were always one of my favorite teachers and you encouraged me to read and dream. Thank you.

            Your former fourth grade student,

            Caroline Scheaffer Arnold

Note:  For information about the workshop that inspired this piece, go to my May 23rd post on my Art and Books blog.  Other posts about Turkey on this blog were posted on June 28 and July 2 and August 6.
Podcast from workshop:  On the final night of our workshop, our group read aloud our "postcards home" from Istanbul, a fitting end to diverse and full five days.  To listen to the podcast, click here.  
Writing Istanbul Online Book:  For a wonderful compilation of photos and writing from 14 members of the Writing Istanbul group, go to this online magazine Writing Istanbul at Issuu.com.