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Published: August 21st 2010
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As the night fell in Istanbul and my time with my new sisterly friends came to an end (for now), a dark cloud filled the sky over my head and it started to rain. Not just any rain, the torrential sideways kind of rain that pelts at your heart and leaves you wind-burned, chilly and soaked from your inside out. The weather man may have called for a few showers, but his prediction was way off... Lightning and thunder filled my ears and sight. Hurricane winds mixed with the coldest rain imaginable consumed me. It was a nasty storm, producing rogue waves the size of an oil tanker crashing over my stable deck as I got swept away in the current. With each passing wave, I was drowning and slipping further and further from reality, or what I thought was reality anyway. I was alone and lost at sea. This is the kind of storm that turns the sky black, swallows up ships in a split second and sends your heart and soul into a panic like no other. It was difficult to see the life ring at this point, so I did what most people might do in this situation...
try to accept that I was in it with no way out, take it in strides, be forgiving of myself and of others, be forgiving of the storm and whatever I did, I had to keep my head above water.
The beginning of the worst of the storm stayed with me for the next 9 days and honestly, part of this storm will probably be with me for the rest of my life. I'm sure you can tell by now that this was not a literal storm, but an emotional one. The worst kind really. Literally, I was still in sunny Turkey, so lets talk about that for a bit, shall we?
After Night One of the storm in Istanbul, I took a flight west to the Cesme Peninsula, home of Alacati and some of the best kiting in Turkey. My new friend, Robbie, who I met in Greece, is living there for the summer. He works for the International Kiteboarding Organization (IKO) as an Examiner. He gets to travel around, be a kite instructor to the kite instructors and provide private lessons to some pretty spectacular people on the side. Not a bad gig at all! He was so
kind as to let me stay with him for 9 days (supposed to be 6, but I did what I do best and extended my stay). Luckily, most of those stormy days were spent kiting. The Wind Gods were kind to us, blowing over 20 knots almost every day. The storm was looming even while I kited, but I did my best to ignore it and enjoy the opportunity in front of me. I’m in Turkey with perfect wind, perfectly flat water and more and more progression than I could have asked for in one week’s time.
Robbie was such an amazing host and I know I couldn’t have made it through those gloomy days without him. Still no life ring in sight at this point, but his support and distractions held me up a bit so I didn’t completely perish into those dark waters. When we weren’t kiting, we were eating! Yep, that’s pretty much it. I didn’t have much of a natural appetite, but Turkish food is delicious, so happily eat it I did... it’s a tough call whether Greek food or Turkish is better, but from my experience in Cesme, I’m leaning on Turkish. We went to
a lot of local spots where Robbie would order for me in Turkish (he speaks like 6 or 7 languages!) and every time the food came out, my taste buds were thankful. I wish I could remember the names of what I was eating, but I plan to look online and give Turkish cooking a shot soon.
Robbie also introduced me to many of his great friends and clients, most from Istanbul. We wined and dined with them in some lovely spots in the Cesme harbor and Alacati town. Cesme is not a place that many travelers from other places in the world go to... in fact, its not in any of my travel books and its pretty expensive to go there. Rather, its where the Turkish Elite go for vacation and its evident by the beautifully constructed harbors filled with elegant shops, fancy restaurants, large sail boats and shiny Megayachts. It’s a truly stunning place full of very friendly people and with world-class kiteboarding to boot, you really can’t beat it.
About 1/2 way through my stay in Cesme, I decided to buy myself a life ring and head home a few days later. It was both a tough
and easy decision and once I made it, I knew it was the right one. I didn’t want to give up what I’d worked so hard to get... traveling the world has been my dream for as long as I can remember and traveling Europe, an even bigger dream. But, traveling in a storm is nobody’s dream... so the realization that what I needed was to postpone the dream for just a little while, face the storm head on and shake this thing as much as possible before departing again comfortably presented itself and I accepted it with relief and gratitude.
Saying good bye to Robbie didn’t feel much like a good bye. I know we will meet again somewhere in the world. I am so grateful he took in the silly American girl with the red puffy eyes he barely knew and always said, “Oh, your eyes aren’t red, they are fine.” Um, ok? 😊 Words cannot express how thankful I am that he was there in such a difficult time. I hope to see you again soon, Robbie!
The next two long days were spent en route home. Turkey to Greece to Italy to America. Ah, America aka
“home”... I knew at this point a life ring was waiting for me there and I had been treading in deep waters for so long, nothing sounded more good than that. As I walked out of the baggage claim area in Seattle I looked both ways, searching the cars, and there she was.... my mom... the first of many life rings that were thrown to me in the coming weeks. She wrapped her arms around me, giving me my first real hug in weeks and while the storm was still going strong, I was no longer drowning. Eventually, everything was going to be alright.
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