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Essay
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I
find traces of a city while leaving one
at night and arriving to another at early
hours of another morning; or leaving in
the morning and arriving at the end of
long days and at the time of another night
but certainly from the sea; forgetting about
the time spent, at an excitement that could
be pressed between going to sleep and wak-
ing up, leaves far distant images to my per-
ception which is already traced up by some
words of Italo Calvino’s book of “Invisible
Cities”: “some cities are reachable from the
sea and some from the land; the way you
sense the face of the city depends on the
way you use to reach there”.
R
eached from the sea, one could
be met by different faces depend-
ing on which hour of the day it
was. The red color of the sunrise;
the solitude of the sunset-sunset means the
solitude at most-, endless darkness of nights
competing with the oceans-this darkness
is the reflection of a dream which, you
found, lost, or you pursuit- or the lights of
a city arrived by slipping from the burden
that shared with the stars- is the arrival to a
dream and a glimpse to it after a farewell
ceremony while heading for an inevitable
new one... It is reached after one or more
nights and mostly after long time periods,
leaving different persons with different feel-
ings. Ranging from a few days or a few
tens of days when changing your perception
of the times, on the other hand, sometimes
repeatedly throughout a day before or after,
and sometimes unlike any of the days, ship
makes way between two blue or between
two deep darkness. At some point when you
think it will never end, from an illusionist
distance a light catches your eyes, if not
another boat, a ship, or the navigational
lights of a search that is identical to yours,
these lights are first twinkles of arrival city.
The countless lights that are illuminating
the city are at a distance now reachable by
charts and at charts just behind the red and
green lights guarding the harbor.
D
reams are the first way to reach a
city. Setting up the to do list feeds
your dreams. Without knowing
what to expect and what to find,
you simply submit your dreams to the city.
You expect for the city to play its part or you
became the dream of a part that is a com-
ponent of the city. What it gives you colors
your life as much as you can own them; but
still yours with whatever it took from you.
The globe shrinks as you grow; or it will
continue to grow in dreams as you shrink as
much as the place you cover in the globe;
whenewer you catch, it will get away from
you; the seas of your dreams will be guided
by trailing images, cities of these seas, will
be swaying in your dreams like a ship with
her anchors broken.
T
hen the city is arrived at charts. The
cities that arrived at charts before
you step in, are prizes for the seas
passed through, days and nights
spent, and solitudes.. Before arrival, you
start to mark the waypoints on chart. Your
route drawn, arrival city taken into a circle,
all lived, seen, saw, thought and felt are
scratched to the geography of your mind as
well as scratched on your chart. You see two
oceans of distance of what you left behind
and ways you have taken ahead, some-
times. In the deja-vu details between the
realities of perception with realities of the
chart; it seems like you passed through all
these roads and someone else will take the
ones ahead. During your journeys, the day
ends, the night is over, summer is up, the
winter is gone, through the seasons, storms,
numerous details, throughout the waters
you passed through and arrived to, you look
at the chart, you pretend as already arrived
there and warm your dreams that you kept
on hold somewehere around, up…
T
hen, the city can be reached in real-
ity. The city offers himself to you,
whatever to be lived up there, and
you, too; entirely offer yourself to
the city. You live it while he is having you.
You leave traces to each other; to your
dreams, to your facts, and sometimes to
each other’s bodies. Pure reality, out of the
map, and out of the dream; all yours, one
to one, whatever you give and you take;
will turn to memories after a while; and
at a distance, where you will arrive with
most recent memories; it will again be at
the unavoidability of another city. Where
you are, what you do, how you really are in
the world; now all image-like; fades out or
strengthens the traces of memories. Now it
is a place that belongs to you, at a distance
as close as yourself, always reachable, have
been reached; truly independent ; without
falling beyond a reality either.
S
o that months, years, loves, pains,
storms step over it; and everything
lived, drops an anchor in the mind;
and eventually, these places can
be recalled from the memories… These
seas… These cities… Sometimes, the traces
attached to the details of life while living
the moment on shore or at sea with differ-
ent parameters, when the time catches new
details to call them up;; at an unspoilt bay,
when feeling the reassuring weight of iron
while watching an aquarium you dived in;
you can not prevent yourself to return and
look, and see same old things like new.
Because the mind that propped up to anchor
with the weight of confidence, recalls
the cities arrived from sea, the memories
scratched on time and things, and the depth
of a wound opened in the mind. Heave up!
You say, willing to heave the anchor up
from that depth.
T
he anchor comes up so slow; as
you heave it up you see seas, cities,
memories and wounds, and anchor,
leaves a trace wherever weherever
it falls.While searching for answers about
the time and about the details of being with-
in the memories and within the shadows
of traces arrived through memories; what
you find now is at the irresistible relation
between you and the sea:
Love, fell into the sea ...
n
Love, fell into the sea...