A Phone
08.5.2007 Greetings,
His first two weeks in Asia Minor involved settling in; the flat, city and teaching orientation.
“A” helped him buy a DNA cell phone. “G” said it was essential. He’d never had one. It was a red Nokia E65 gadget with all kinds of buttons and functions; like calendars, tools, SMS, IM, Teams, Bluetooth, internet access, GPS and To Do, Did, and Does. Connections.
This “Instant, Everywhere You Are, Or Imagine You Are or Need To Be,” dimensional proportion suited his status acquiring mobility extreme.
One morning he and "A" took a taxi to an nursery area below a castle. They found white, red and purple roses, cactus, ten small plants, containers, and potting soil.
For teaching he bought three pairs of lightweight linen pants in brown, beige and black; five long sleeved button-downed cotton shirts in various motifs, two ties - one turquoise and one dark blue - and three pairs of very, very thin black socks. He bought an iron and ironing board for the linen and cotton fabric because he loves ironing words.
Then he knotted a tie to his red phone and dragged it through Ankara yelling, “Look! See! I’m connected to the Universe! I am now a VIP! I have Infinite Diversity Through Infinite Combinations.”
Everyone looked up from the ground with serious expressions after studying pavement (cracked and broken in places like China which gave him a sense of remembering) or their minute delicate phones cradled like infants in sleep mode and congratulated him with lilies, orchids, assorted floral arrangements and so forth.
New friends took him to a seafood restaurant. Seafood is plentiful and delicious in Ankara. Waiters in clean shirts with black ties guided them to an outdoor table covered with a white tablecloth, multiple sets of silver cutlery, water glasses and folded napkins.
A waiter brought them mineral water in a glass goblet with a thin stem. A slice of lemon floated on bubbles. He also deposited a bowl filled with green, red, and black olives lightly dusted with a mixture of chilli powder, oil and vinegar.
Everyone enjoyed a fresh green salad with tomatoes, carrots, beets, parsley, mint leaves, corn, and red lettuce in a pistachio sauce along with hot fresh brown bread with butter. The main course was braised salmon, a lightly flame seared potato and tomato, and green pepper. Thick Turkish coffee finished the meal. Grounds coated his throat.
Friendly strangers, including beautiful women with very deep dark seductive eyes flashing love's lost and found, escorted him to a crowded local cafe where they taught him the traditional game of backgammon while sharing fruit-flavored hubbly-bubbly tobacco pipes well past his bedtime, regaling him with fantastic stories about their lives and environmental survival strategies.
They had an Encounter.
Peace.