A feeling that was about to disappear in the chaos of life suddenly hit me so hard that I had to sit down and stare off into the distance to come back to myself. There was no need to drag it out or dress it up any further: I was moving back from İstanbul, where I had studied at university, to my family home in Yalova, this time for good.
Five long years had gone by before I could even realize what was happening, and time was slipping away without giving me a chance to digest everything I had lived through in İstanbul. Just a few months before graduating, I suddenly noticed that I had never really thought about those five years, and almost at the same moment, I thought, “I should write something.” That’s always how I’ve managed to express myself, and writing, this strange grace, gives me the feeling that I’m assigning meaning to things.
İstanbul was never the city of my dreams. I was someone who had always run the other way from crowds since childhood, and nothing really “settled” after I arrived in this metropolis. The more chaotic life already was, the more İstanbul seemed to add its own interest on top. And yet, I wanted to crown this “chapter” I was about to leave behind with some kind of closing statement, that’s how this piece of writing came to be.
I had come to İstanbul from a small town where public transport still meant tiny little minibusses – from Yalova. When I had to describe my hometown to people who didn’t know it, I used to say, “It’s like a quieter, more secluded version of İstanbul.” Because to someone like me, a lover of solitude, this megacity felt more like a nightmare. In the five years I spent there, I never really got used to the noise or the crowds. But just like people aren’t made up of only one moment, this giant chaotic Bosphorus wasn’t just noise and bustle either.
Taksim’s mix of people, like some kind of United Nations meeting, would suddenly give way to Yıldız Parkı, where silence reigned, parrots fluttered from tree to tree, and squirrels came down from their nests to forage for snacks. The same way I would lose myself among the people desperately lighting cigarettes outside Ayazağa metro station, I would find myself again on the balcony of Nişantaşı Üniversitesi, looking out between massive skyscrapers at crookedly built neighborhoods and makeshift homes.
For all its noise, this city’s silence had just as much peace to offer. It convinced me that for everything ordinary, there was something mysterious in return. When I stood still and looked around, like a cat watching the rails in Şişhane, I witnessed such surreal scenes that, even if I never returned again, I knew I wouldn’t be missing out on good memories or stories.
Back where I’m from, people say, “The big city makes you grow.” Anyone who’s ever left a village or a small town to go live in İstanbul, Ankara, or İzmir has probably said that upon returning. And oddly enough, that cliché feels pretty accurate. As a kid who grew up in a city of around a hundred thousand people, who could recognize almost everyone by face in the neighborhoods where he lived and went to school, imagine how “grown-up” I felt standing in Yenikapı metro, watching people trying to cram into the Marmaray line. That scene alone made me feel older because it made me realize just how small both my hometown and I really were.
At Yerebatan Sarnıcı (Basilica Cistern), I took photos of a newlywed couple from Japan; on the same day, I accidentally sent another couple from Kazakhstan, who had wanted to walk from Yenikapı to Aksaray, in the completely wrong direction toward Samatya. Another day, two Russians asked me for the time on İstiklal Caddesi, two Koreans did the same on the Kadıköy ferry later, and on the ferry back to Yalova in the evening, I drank tea with a group from Kenya and talked about the similarities of our cultures.
For someone who had lived on the same street, with basically the same people, since birth, this was a lot. It was joyful, chaotic, and growth-inducing, but it was also exhausting. So when I look back at those five years from a distance, what I feel most resembles what we call a “yorgunluk kahvesi” (tiredness coffee) back home – the kind of Turkish coffee you brew at the end of a long day to pull yourself together. That’s the taste those five years in İstanbul left on my tongue.
But besides all this, the vastness also showed me how small a point I am as an individual in this cosmos. Like everyone who has been stuck in a small town or house for a long time, I thought the world was limited to my cute neighborhood. Until I saw hundreds of people waiting to climb the Galata Kulesi (Galata Tower). Seems like big cities do make you grow.
I don’t want to overly romanticize this historic city, nor do I want to make it out to be something it’s not. İstanbul is a revel, a carnival. I’d recommend that everyone spend a little time here and enjoy every moment – just like, when the time is right, I’d recommend that they leave, perhaps just like I did.
