Those days of the month

These are those days of the month, symptoms are clear: I'm irritable, upset, very emotional, quiet and depressed and excited the minute after, bursting into tears for no particular reason... the only difference with a woman period is that she knows more or less when is it going to happen and how long is it going to last.

Another difference is that if you ask her why is she crying she might get upset and yell at you because you just don't understand anything at all (you insensitive and numb prick), while me I just notice the tears coming out and I wait or if it is raining I get out to the streets with no umbrella.


Istanbul is not helping, it is not such an "inspiring" city (whatever that means). The area where most cheap hotels are is just an area with hotels and foreigners and restaurants which flavours are a mix of fancy and traditional turkish. The area where locals hang out is crazy, is a big street in which everything (for a 12 million people city) is supposed to be happening. As for the sightseeing, even in my monumental laziness I've seen most of the "mandatory" stuff already.

Monumental laziness, which makes it so difficult to wake up in the morning. Why would I get out of bed when I hear the alarm, if all I do during the day is writing and if I was awake one more hour I'll be one hour longer in front of the blank paper!

However I know the period will go (maybe not the monumental laziness) and I'll see the city with different eyes and for sure won't be happy to leave, next week when I leave and I advice my fellow travellers to spend a few extra days here, if they have the time.

Writing from an ugly place

Here I am, still at the same place, Ayvalik the port to Lesvos. I practice a bit in the morning and then I write a lot a huge lot, and I'm feeling very very well and I have no intention whatsoever to go anywhere else anytime soon.

I take no real decisions during the day. Well, maybe sometimes I decide to skip the practice, once every few days. I have breakfast in my room and then I start writing. The only decision is where to go to for dinner; at middays I usually go to the same restaurant, very decent food and a nice waitress (I guess it sounds stupid, anyway I find it is a fair enough reason). And I feel great and it does not seem there's anything I need, even if it should be boring. If I think about it, I hardly talk to anybody, except the few words I know in Turkish (which refer basically to food), and occasionally to travellers, just a little bit. And I don't do anything else, don't watch TV (where would I go?), nothing, just at night after dinner I read a wonderful and luckily very long novel (by J Heller).

Where's the magic, I wonder. Would be the same if I was in an ugly place? Probably yes, if it happened to be, (I say "it happened" because it does not seem to be entirely under my control).


Sometimes I do get bored, of course. This morning when I woke up I thought maybe I should leave to Istanbul (Lesvos is too far away now). I thought of leaving exactly that minute, but it was to late for the bus already. I decided to skip the practice, had breakfast and took it easy very easy, and eventually, since I had not much to do (and actually not later than any other day), I started writing. (I could have gone to the places around I havent visited yet even though I've been here for a week, but I didn't.)

And I wrote so much and so quickly, it was brutal and awesome. I did not want to leave it, not even for a break to eat. Now in the evening I'm exhausted. Definitively is not quite under my control.


However I know this is not going to last (not in Ayvalyk), and I keep wondering, wouldnt it be better in an ugly place, with people who speak a language I speak, with cinemas and etc? Does it make any sense? Why would not I write from an ugly place?

At the port to Lesvos

Ayvalik is a small turkish town at the northern Aegean connected to Lesvos by ferry. The island itself is somewhere at the horizon, amongst some other smaller ones closing the bay in which the port is. But I've got sick (just a cold and a fever) and I'm waiting.


I was in contact with some former job colleagues for some hellish tax declarations I had to prepare, and I told them about my plans to visit Lesvos. They said they envied me and wished me good luck and nice experiences in the lesbian paradise (was I looking for new adventures?, they asked). I had to clarify that I only wanted to go to whichever charming greek town and find a nice room with a desk and a view (preferably to the sea; even better, a terrace with a table and a shadow and the view to the sea). Over there I would spend my time writing, that's the reason I came here for.

When I got to this town of Ayvalik, to the port to Lesvos, and I was feeling a bit weak already, and I went to a guesthouse, it looked somewhat nice but I didnt pay much attention since I only wanted to take the room quickly so that I could leave the baggage and rest a bit; my plan was to stay for a couple of days anyway. I fell asleep for a short while, I woke up and I went to the shared toilet, and then I saw it, there it was: the terrace, there were tables on it, a shadow half wood half grapevine, and a view of the rest of the town, the red tile roofs, on the left side an old church and a minaret, on the right side the bay and the sea and the islands in front...


I'm not going to come to any easy conclusion about my targets or my dreams or the way everything ended up being so that I am here today. Maybe I still feel like going to Lesvos, maybe there's something in my imagination I'd like to find out there (to experience in there?) regardless of how probable it is I get it the way I've supposedly imagined it. Anyway I'll stay in here a few days for sure, thinking about the ferry, half sick and keeping myself warm, writing... not in a hurry at all.