If I am driving, I am the one in charge of the playlist. No negotiation! In my car you will either listen to R&B or old classics, occasionally jazz. Sting is one of my favorite choices and if you are an adult who didn’t live under a rock for the past 37 years, there is a great chance that you heard “Englishman In New York” at least once, even if it was on TikTok or some other brain torture platform. In case you haven’t, here is homework: listen to it before we proceed.
The first line is “I don’t drink coffee, I drink tea my dear” and yes, Sting is an Englishman in New York but by his description alone we could perfectly say he is a Turkish uncle rolling a tesbih in his hand while having çay with his friends.
“And you can hear it in my accent when I talk… I am an Englishman in New York”
If you are an expat in Türkiye and your accent is still lacking improvement, believe me, even Sting knows the feeling. He already knew it back in 1987. So, are we all the legal aliens in Turkey? Well my dear… that depends. Unfortunately for me, I am currently a native alien in Brazil more than a legal alien in Turkey.
I moved to Cappadocia when I was twenty and my prior life experiences were all school or college related. I had few lovers, even fewer friends and had worked simple jobs. Suddenly I was an expat in a different country, eating different food, dressing differently, following a whole new lifestyle and getting used to adulthood in Turkey.
When people normally ask me how is the feeling of living away from home, I honestly can’t answer. For some of us who’ve been here for too long and got merged into the local culture, home is where we are, not the place we left and that can be tricky.
I never thought of myself as a Turk, until I had recent contact with Brazilians who live in Istanbul and are part of an active expat community. Me? I guess I am Turkish now and no, it wasn’t a nice thing to learn even though I am legally Turkish, on paper, thanks to devlet and huge prayer sessions while my TC kimlik request went on through months and months of bureaucracy.
As a foreigner in Cappadocia, my “Brazilian community” consists of a dozen people and three of them are my own family. My friends? Turkish. My past relationships? All Turkish. My employees? Also Turkish. Neighbors, suppliers for my business, favorite restaurants, bars, stores? All owned by Turks. Other foreigners? Mostly customers. The problem is: for a decade in Türkiye I had so little contact with other expats that my entire adult life became a Turkish story and please, don’t get me wrong, that’s not negative at all but it kind of robs you from the experience of having an identity that matches your passport.
Yes, being born in Brazil, growing up there, studying and then moving abroad was a significant part of who I am however, in ten more years I’ll be as Turkish as I am Brazilian in terms of time. As soon as I turn forty, I’ll be officially half Turkish — according to chronological logic of course. Listening to Sting on my way to work this morning, the only thing I could think was: “When did I lose my Brazilianity? When was the last time I went to Brazil? Five years ago maybe? How was it? Well, in a pre-pandemic world I was in Brazil for thirty days.”
During the first week I visited every single relative, distributed souvenirs to friends and family, joined dinners, introduced my people to rakı and pul biber, had barbecue in the backyard, pool parties, ate all the food I was missing and then, by the 10th day I was already disturbed to the point of grumpiness.
The weather, the noise, the social media photos of my friends back in Cappadocia enjoying winter and snowboarding at mount Erciyes, the lack of kuru fasulye and the constant search for any middle eastern restaurant that had yaprak sarması on the menu. It all made me mad. I went out with college friends one night just to realize we were no longer similar in anything. Their interests changed, mine changed and the conversation died quickly. I was married at the time, looking forward to a second degree maybe, thinking about ways to grow my business, travel to a few more countries, invest, join a pilates class and read more.
My friends were looking forward to next weekend when they planned to go to the same bar, flirt with the same people and go back home… their parents’ home. Somehow all those doctors, engineers, lawyers, PR executives and public servants were all living with their parents. Some were dating the same people for eight years, engaged for two and still not planning to marry their partners. Their life was in stand by. No movement, just like a lake.
Not to be judgmental but there was a clear difference between us. I understood perfectly why I moved abroad. I wasn’t into lakes, I liked storms. Back in the day I was the broke friend who worked and studied at the same time, was already living alone and tried to do my absolute best to upgrade whatever I could about myself in order to get a better job, a better life, a better chance and maybe afford a car.
When the opportunity to move to another country appeared, I got rid of all my furniture, packed two suitcases and allowed my intuition to guide me. Maybe it was a terrible idea, maybe it was the best idea of my life. I didn’t know yet but I wanted to and that was the tiny detail which ended up creating an abysm between the life I had and the life I created.
I wasn’t afraid of losing anything because I had nothing to lose. Even if things went wrong, I would still have a story to tell and the cultural baggage that only a unique experience can provide. Back to my country for the first time, sitting at the table with my childhood and college friends; I’ve never felt more disconnected and… lonely. I couldn’t believe the feeling. Was I so used to Türkiye that my body and soul now rejected my own country?
At 25 years old I didn’t think about this in such a deep level. I just knew I wanted to go home so I found a great excuse and anticipated my return ticket:
“Sorry guys, some business plans came up, I gotta go. See you next year”.
I was running away from the things and people I always bragged about to my Turkish friends. It was January 2020 and I never returned to Brazil after that. This was my first experience with “delusional memories”, but not the last.
If you don’t know what a “delusional memory” is, let me explain: I created the term a few years ago while trying to explain to my therapist how I felt about my hometown. It is the kind of memory that actually does not exist the way you think it does. Confusing? A bit.
Here is an example: I talked about a specific sandwich for months before going to Brazil. This sandwich was quite famous in my city, also very traditional. It was created by the owner of a small bakery in the 70s, he never changed the recipe, my mother used to eat it during her high school years, my grandparents always bought it, my uncles took my now aunts to this place during first dates and they all had the sandwich. I grew up eating it and according to my delusional memory, this was the most delicious sandwich ever.
As soon as I arrived, that same afternoon, I went downtown looking for it. The smell of the bakery, the same old chairs, the decoration… perfect nostalgia. Just as I remembered. My sandwich came, I took a bite and… frowned. Did something change? Did they forget to add an essential ingredient? I asked the waiter to check and he came back from the kitchen with the chef. Everything was exactly how it was supposed to be. Not their mistake. Awkward moment.
I tried the sandwich three times more on different occasions before the official verdict: I changed. Not the sandwich. My memory from the things, places and people I loved was molded according to who I was back then. My younger self had so little knowledge from the world outside, that her love for familiarity was too big.
The trip to Brazil was over, I came back to Türkiye, we all had Covid-19 and I forgot about it… until this morning. While Sting repeatedly affirmed that he felt like a legal alien in New York, I finally got to the conclusion that maybe I am a native alien in my own country while also a legal alien in Cappadocia. Yes, my birth certificate, physical features and native language are a big Brazilian stamp right in the middle of my forehead but still, I don’t belong there.
Türkiye is hard on me sometimes. I am not always able to understand people (oh God, the Karadeniz accent makes me wanna cry), I feel inadequate when I look at my past and present choices, I am not always so sure about my future here and there are things I am unable to solve by myself like the Vodafone call center and my car’s insurance.
For a hyper independent and ultra argumentative woman, not being able to argue on the phone is a sad lost battle from which I hardly recover every time it happens. An ego killer. With all of this said, I guess every “long time yabancı” feels the same. An alien… but a domesticated one. Like a cat who used to live on the streets but got adopted and once in a while loves to escape, enjoys the freedom but also can’t wait to come back to his cozy, warm house and his bowl of treats.
We don’t belong here. We don’t belong there. We are everywhere and still nowhere but that’s, I guess, the happiest way to be lost in search for something we shall never find but will remain searching… forever.
