45. Ours is not to reason why ...

It is odd to be writing about Istanbul when I'm now in a quaint English village with Sarah and her family.  Having narrowly escaped a terrorist attack in Marrakech.

But let me fill in the details.

Two weeks ago I woke in a riad in the medina of Marrakech, on the last morning of this fantastical adventure.  We ate a long, nostalgic lunch in our favourite restaurant, the Argana, above the bustling Djmaa el Fnaa: couscous, chops, fritter, tajine, a wine for Luda, a fruit juice for myself.  She sat resplendent, a dazzling blonde with wide white teeth, under centuries old mosaics and frescoes, as waiters genuflected and overfilled her wineglass without asking.  As usual the Argana was packed: with rich locals, dazzled tourists and the reluctant departs.  

Sated, outspent, and heavy with bounty, we wove our way out into a chilly day, grey with a soft, dusty drizzle.  We trundled our luggage out the souks, where our hired Mercedes taxi waited to drive us through orange country to coastal Casablanca and the airport. 

Remembering the Marrakech Express, we'd reminded ourselves that we'd rather have eaten sheep intestines than take that train ever again. We lay back on the smooth leather, gazed out the windows, were silent, were awestruck, were chatty, were happy, were sad.  Casablanca /Marrakech was a few hours of smooth, safe, cool riding, and before we could say Topkapi, we were flinging open the door of our lush hotel in Sultanahmet. Luda flicked on the television.

She blanched. She paled. She turned white. She turned to me.   

The Argana is gone, she whispered, reading the breaking news on Al Jazeera.  A terrorist attack.   Boom.  Poof, just like that everyone's lives once again upturned in this top turvy year. I dared to look at the screen, standing on my Turkish rug, with a view to cherry blossoms. The cameraman panned around the smoking ruins, showing warped and twisted metal, torn awnings,  coloured segments of tiles, a smashed sign, shattered glass.  The corner where I took our last photograph is a blood spattered hole in the air.  Stunned bloodied people stood around, covered in dust and dismay.

The most iconic restaurant of the Djma el Fnaa, our favourite place and full of memories has gone. What happened to the tourists at the adjacent tables; or those I may have passed, or smiled at, or spoken to, or stood behind in the ATM line: are they too dead?  There's too much confusion for accuracy.  I wonder about the waiter there, too, whom we teased because he was slow.   With a heavy heart I flip through my camera, searching for the photos of the mosaics I took that are now ruined in the rubble. Bari, with whom I traded the last bead, has his shop stone throwing distance from the restaurant.  He fetched me my pamplemousse juice every time we fossicked in his buckets.  I hope he's okay.

Luda didn't feel like visiting Topkapi.  We loped around Sultanahmet for a few days, did some credit card damage in the Grand Bazaar, ate, flirted, narrowly missed accruing some carpets, and then she went back to Australia.  I felt awful, and sad, and quite lonely without her.

I moved hotels to a creepy, tiny room overlooking the Bosphorus where tankers and ferries sped to Greece and Venice,  to the calls of the muezzin, goosebumpy in their devotion and melodic beauty.  In between watching the Royal Wedding, punctuated by the Calls, and all the outside world craziness, I wanted some quiet family time.  I found flights to England to visit Sarah and also my brother.  

I'd been wearing the same clothes for days and days as I didn't have anything warm to wear (and all on sale besides jewellery were Turkish slippers, pashminas and Russian fur coats) so when I finally found some thermals in a supermarket, I had my stinky clothes laundered but I hated the sight of them so much when they were returned that I threw them in the bin.  When I left Istanbul for London via Frankfurt, I'd left behind my main suitcase in the hotel I'll stay in when I return;  so I strode through airports wearing a soft suede coat, a new pair of jeans, some platform boots, my thermals, and my hair two inches longer than when in Nepal.

Yesterday I woke in Norwich, England, in a marvellous rambling house with low ceilings of black aged beams, of staircases that lead to hidden fairy rooms, with a view to a 17th century church from my large iron bed with triple doonas and my own bathroom and Sarah's constant offers of tea.  At border control at Heathrow, I was asked who I was staying with and how I met her:  I should have said On Line.

Yesterday I woke to a changed world hysterical with joy that Osama has been killed in a terrorist attack on his compound, his body tossed into the ocean before you could say Bin laden.  Yesterday I peeled off the chilly Istanbul coat and under the tutelage of Sarah's 11 year old daughter Charis went shopping for end of season jumpers, socks and a new toiletry bag.  I came back from Sainsbury's with a bag of English cheese and Italian bread and Chinese knock off fashion labels and some Badedas and exfoliating gloves to try and remove the remains of those bloody Ait Ouzzine fly bite scabs. We celebrated the evening with a friend's birthday and a cake and candles and whisky and storytelling and Mauritian breyani and samoosas.  And I woke in my leggings and thermal top, feeling rested and family orientated, which I need.

And wondering about the sensibility of returning to Turkey, and the Capila Carsi and it's 400,000 visitors a day, and the security guard asleep on his feet when he should be scanning those who enter the grand bazaar.

In spite of everything I have written and said and felt, in spite of the months of misery and sadness about What Happened, I am feeling better, and there is a lift in my heart and in my eyes again.  It doesn't matter the questions of what the future holds or where or when or how and what of?  I'm doing what I have to now.  I'm tired of questioning myself and my attachment and my motives and issues ... I'm water (! ;-)) flowing where my spirit takes me.  In spite of dysentry, bombs, murders, terrorism, tsunamis and floods, in spite of making a fool to myself over Holi, and texting when I should have shut up and shot,  I'm not stopping this journey. Nike, nada, niente.  There is more to do ... so much more,  underfoot.  Keep breathing.

What a topsy turvy world I'm inhabiting.