orphaned again

I just arrived home from the airport, after a 3.5 hour delay at JFK and Deniz crying and feverish with a cold he picked up while we were in NY, visiting my mom who was on hospice. After giving him a bath to wash away all the airplane germs, I massaged his chubby legs & arms & brushed his unruly baby hair that I have yet to trim, and then I checked my email & found one from my sister, and I knew before I even opened it what news she had.
My mom had passed away.
Ironically it was on Wed at 3:09pm, after my brother and I had left for the airport.
I truly believe she waited to see us one last time, summoning us with her sharp decline in health, so that we would fly in from our far corners of the globe, to see her one last time. My brother booked his flight from Taipei and I from Istanbul and we arrived half a day apart at my sister's house, where we would stay, 1/2 hr away from my mom's house in Westbury.
I'm really sad that I won't be there for the funeral - it seems amiss for my brother Adam & me not to be there. And I am being plagued by the 'if only's' as in, 'if I had only checked if my flight was on time before I left for the airport' or 'if I had only called sheila to kill time while I was waiting for my postponed flight' or 'if I had only called the house one more time to say goodbye to mom.'
I know I shouldn't feel bad, but I do. Because I really would have liked to have been at the funeral to see everyone & to talk about mom & hear all the stories & help to glorify her before we put her to rest. Mom's side of the family are a semi close-knit clan of Scottish descent & lots of fun to be around.
And I also feel guilty for spending more time trying to clean out the house of all our accumulated junk, rather than spend time at mom's bedside. But her state was not the way I want to remember her, with her one front tooth protruding out of her sunken face and her blank stare and swollen hands & feet, and the papery skin of her chest stretched over her collarbones. Even though she was not on life support, she had a catheter & was on an oxygen machine that made a creepy, mechanical breathing noise that scared Deniz when he was in the room with her. She seemed like she was in pain even though she wasn't, thanks to the liquid morphine they were giving her to slow her heart rate & her labored breathing was not quite a 'death rattle' but it made me feel that she would be better off at peace.
She was 89 and had lived a good long life, and she had not been well for many years. I had only felt good about moving from NY to Istanbul 2 yrs ago due to her advanced alzheimer's - if she had been herself, I wouldn't have wanted to move so far away, but since she no longer recognized me, I felt ok with the move.
So after contemplating all of this, I can't help feeling very alone, and thinking how this is the 2nd time I have lost my parents, now at age 43. I was adopted, and do not remember my birth parents, but have always had separating anxiety as a child. After initiating a search for them, I came up empty-handed; the orphanage had had a fire and the records had been burned. In 1980, I lost my adopted father to a stroke. and now, 30 years later, I have just lost my adopted mother.
But my son keeps me from dwelling too long on things that you cannot change. And as I mourn for my mother, and my other 3 parents, Deniz reminds me that life is for the living, with his boundless energy and new, intense interest in the world. I am reminded of the cycle of birth, life & death as he refocuses my mind & my energy slowly away from my mother to his needs, and I am at peace as well.

a new year

it's minutes past midnight, barely into the new year, and my two babies are sleeping. after tucking my slumbering husband in on the sofa, I silently step to the side of the crib where my almost 5 month old is peacefully (for now) sleeping. as I take in his angelic face, I find myself smiling & falling in love all over again with my precious baby, who is no longer the newborn who came home with me from the hospital. he laughs & smiles & makes sounds & sticks out his bottom lip in defiance or before he scrunches up his face & cries. he has chubby cheeks & arms & legs & hands & little fingers that grasp & pinch. he is like a miracle, this little soul, who is the center of my universe & makes me smile with joy every day since his arrival into my life.
and as I sit and contemplate how insanely lucky I am at this moment, I realize that 2010 will be sure to bring even more joy as we learn & grow together.

sleep grins

i had wanted to post a photo for this but i haven't been able to catch this fleeting moment with my camera yet-

so far motherhood has been an amazingly rewarding & magical experience. as everyone tells you, nothing can truly prepare you for it, and this is true not only because each child is unique and that you need to learn a lot of things by actually doing them, but also because some things are indescribably beautiful to experience. and even reading about them in a book before hand didn't prepare me for when these magical moments catch me off-guard, making the sheer exhaustion & endless sleepless nights well worth it.
so far, one of my favorite newborn things are 'sleep grins'. it makes me smile ear-to-ear every time i see it & i don't get to see it nearly as much as i wish i could. my son will be nursing & drifting off to sleep, and the corners of his little mouth will turn up in a smile that melts my heart. and like the quivering of his tiny chin when he cries or when his tight little fist unfurls & grasps my finger, i know that i need to relish these moments for as long as they last, because they won't last forever. but they will be replaced by new ones, and i will collect them as they come like little gifts from my son, who is the greatest gift i have ever received.

my zen baby

There is nothing like a newborn to bring you right into the moment. my first days with Deniz James have been a natural adjustment after a quick, but intense labor, and the resulting exhaustion and recovery. my days & nights are filled with caring for him, from feeding and changing and just staring at him with wonder, watching his face change from a deep blissful slumber to a red faced angry grimace and all the subtleties in between. everything is new, so i address his needs as they arise - hunger or comfort in its many forms. i lose track of time and place and exist only in a heightened state of sleep deprived bliss, at one with my little baby, still in disbelief that i had created & carried & nurtured this little soul, and now he is in my arms, on the other side.
Day gives way to night as i sit in the stillness of twilight nursing him while the world sleeps, filled with a complete sense of peace & purpose and overcome with awe at the precious life i have created and am now responsible for. the days string together like pearls on a necklace, as i learn through repetition to master the skills to care for my little zen baby. like my zen master, he teaches me the joy of motherhood, not through words, but by being, as i move through my living meditation with him, feeling that much closer to nirvana as i gaze into his eyes. eyes that are filled with an eternal & indescribable wisdom, that slowly gives way to consciousness with each passing day.

in the homestretch

so, i am 35 weeks pregnant now, and in the home stretch. i've decided to write a little about my pregnancy today because as i was sitting at my computer, i had my feet up because i noticed when i had gotten home from grocery shopping, that they were covered with a scary network of bulging veins that i had never seen before. my feet and legs get tired when i walk too much, but it never bothered me enough to warrant a closer inspection, and i can't really see my feet when i am standing anyway. so with my feet up, i noticed a pulsing vein (or artery) in my foot!
now i can't really complain, because my pregnancy has up until this point been pretty normal with no complications. i had morning sickness and my sense of smell was more sensitive in the first trimester, but then i felt great & had my energy back all the way until my mid third trimester. it wasn't until the past couple of weeks that i have been feeling a bit nauseous after i eat, especially if i eat too much, which isn't much these days since the baby has taken over and pushed all my organs up. i have to eat small frequent meals, which was not really a problem, but now i get tired after i eat and have to take a nap! which makes me feel incredibly lazy and i wonder how all those women i know have worked until their water breaks. aside from a little backache now & then, i don't have much else to complain about.
i actually feel incredibly lucky to be able to rest & take it relatively easy throughout my pregnancy. although it is pretty normal for women not to work here, even if they are not pregnant.
but back to my veins. so i have noticed for the past few weeks that the veins in my hands have gotten enlarged and are popping out, which is really distressing. i guess due to my age and the increased blood volume, it makes sense, but it is totally unsightly and i am really worried that they will not go back to normal after the baby is born. most things don't stretch out & shrink back later (except your uterus i guess). i'm not an overly vain person (ha!) but i now have the hands and feet of a 70 yr old. since i can't spend 24 hours with my hands and feet elevated, i worry that it will get worse than it already is. and since it is about 30C, i can't really wear support hose, and i don't even think they make support gloves, so i'm not sure what i can do, aside from having some kind of surgery later, and although i need to research it more, i'm not really sure how they can remove the bulging veins (don't you need them?) by injecting them with some solution that makes them shrivel up.
well, i'm going to do a little research online - unfortunately, i haven't been able to find anyone else with the same problem on the pregnancy websites. these women complain about absolutely everything else + things i have never even imagined. i'm not sure which is worse, bulging veins or stretch marks - i think i would have to say, i'd opt for the stretch marks!

contemplating apricots

i've always had a tendency towards overextending myself, and so i've spent the last 6 months diligently searching for work plus tending to all my new Turkish housewife duties (cooking dinner every night, cleaning, washing & hanging & ironing laundry, etc.), preparing, researching & gathering stuff for the baby, and attending a professional women's group meetings. but now that i am 7.5 months pregnant and fatigue is setting in, i have realized that even though i sincerely want to work, it will have to be shelved until a year after the baby arrives. of course, if i have the time & energy, i will try to do some stuff on the side, but realistically, who knows if i will feel up to it, given the information i've gathered about newborns. my time will no longer be my own, and i will have to fully dedicate my attention to our soon-to-be new member of the family.
so as the days grow warmer, and i spend lazy days at home, trying to eat healthfully, exercising (although not as much as i should), reading all the baby books that i ordered on amazon, and keeping up with my housework, plus turning my existing summer pants into maternity pants, meeting up with friends, as well as organizing & cleaning out the apt & catching up on stuff i've been saying for years i would do, but never had time to address (i'm sure you all know what kind of stuff i am referring to) i came to realize that i am actually keeping myself busy (although i often have a hard time articulating this when friends & family ask me what i do all day). somehow my list of stuff seems to escape me and i end up lamely saying, "gee, i don't know."
but today as i sit reading some great food blogs and planning dinner, the intoxicating, sweet perfume of the perfectly ripe apricots i bought the other day wafts up from my fruit bowl and like a powerful dose of serotonin, it makes me feel fortunate that i don't have to work until my water breaks and that i can spend the afternoons feeling my baby kick inside my belly and rest up for the big event. i know these leisurely days are numbered, and i am reminded to relish them as i stop and smell the apricots.

ethnic eats in Istanbul

in my efforts to recreate some of my past life here in Istanbul and to stave off bouts of homesickness, i often find myself searching out ethnic food for solace. unfortunately, foreign food in Istanbul is expensive and not usually very authentic, probably due to less of a concentration of foreigners compared to other major cities, a lack of authentic ingredients and a lack of competition.
Curiously, foreign chain restaurants show up here as franchises whose steep prices are difficult to swallow, considering the prices back home are cheap compared to their Istanbul cousins.
I also admit i have a hard time paying high prices for certain ethnic cuisines, most of which are cheap, excellent & plentiful at home - namely, Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, etc. unless they are prepared by a celebrity chef like Jean Georges Vongrichten - no complaints with Spice Market at the W Hotel Istanbul.
so my latest culinary adventure was to find good Indian in Istanbul. my search came up with 3 restaurants: Dubb in Sultanahmet, Taj Mahal in Cihangir, & Musafir in Beyoglu. Based on the menus and reviews, i voted for Dubb, although it is expensive which goes against my rule of having to pay a lot for Indian, it has a beautiful terrace which is always a draw for me. plus i have resigned myself to the fact that here it is a necessary evil to pay a lot if you want to eat anything other than Turkish. After having paid exorbitant prices for Italian, Thai & Mexican, I have begrudgingly given in, as a trade off to fuel my ethnic food cravings. After having lived in NYC eating a different country's cuisine for each meal and with a never ending supply of new, fabulous restaurants to sample, I understandably get frustrated at mealtimes.
So June 7th was my 1 year anniversary here in Istanbul, more than reason enough to celebrate, and so, against my husband's aversion to everything Indian, despite his never having eaten Indian food, he gave in to my request. He did protest against my choice of Dubb, due to his opinion that all restaurants in Sultanahmet are tourist traps, do, against my reluctance to have Indian food prepared by a chef from Pakistan, we decided on Taj Mahal, which my husband chose because the Musafir's website was not working.
In my review on tripadvisor of the restaurant, i titled it, "not bad for Istanbul, but not very good." enough said. at least it was not expensive and the mango lassi was actually much better than the ones i had in India, but the naan was outright wrong -sort of a cross between a simit and naan - very disappointing and strangely very different from the photo on the website. maybe the food is better at their Tunel location? or the food photos are actually from a stock photo company? and sadly we were alone in the dining room at prime time dinner hour on a Sunday evening.
2 weeks ago, we made a trip to El Torito in Etlier, which does not warrant a repeat trip. The restaurant seemed like it could feed about 300 people but had about 6 customers total that evening. I also read that the dishes were adjusted to Turkish tastes, which explained the fried outer tortilla of my burrito (durum style). the chips were going a bit rancid and the sour cream tasted like the UHT cream they have here that was turning bad - a literal translation of "sour cream" and no cilantro in sight! when i complained to a friend, she suggested Chilis, just down the street, which she promised had real sour cream - so i'll try that next time i jones for Mexican.
I think i will make my own ethnic food the next time a craving strikes - even though it will be just as expensive if i am able to find the ingredients, and time consuming, at least it will be a bit closer to the real thing.