belly dancing and raki

I was quite focused on anger and irritation on my last post. (see on your own) and so here tonight, I am sitting with Turkish music, a glass of raki, and the sunset. Flowers are throughout the house, some from my old yard, picked when I picked up my dog kids. Some are from friend, some I bought myself, and two dozen yellow ones are from a young woman student. I am blessed.

It is dusk and I am completely enjoying the Turkish music, It is current Euro pop and I find myself moving in tune to the music, hearing snippets of Turkish I understand, and longing for another trip to Turkey. I was there three years ago, and came home to incipient disintegration of my marriage. The last week I was in Istanbul was not good, I was isolated in Sulthanamet on my own, the EU congress was going on and the city was blockaded. I was not able to visit the bazaar, closed by NATO so Bush and all the EU leaders could shop. So I visited the pudding person each day, bought figs and tomatoes to eat in my room at night and found an English used bookstore to buy whatever I could; reading a book a night.

Fast forward three years, my daughter is graduated, I am on my own, and longing to revisit Turkey and have a much better time. I have learned more about traveling on my own, and not worrying in a pr- cognizant way what is happening back home. It all happened while I was gone...and this time I wouldn't have to have that sense in the middle of the night, the gut dropping paranoia that something was ending.

Nope, this time it is belly dancing, lots of raki, shores of the Med, and enjoying looking at the waiters with my dear friend. When I get there; for first my daughter will graduate, and I want to take her someplace exotic and a trip with her. Istanbul is not on her radar, perhaps Paris...assuming I am a little more solvent.

But right now, I know all these songs and am enjoying them. They sing of love, of eyes soulful, hips gyrating, shoulders shaking and a sway unique to belly dancing.

When we were in Pamukale, at a spa, I was wandering around exploring. Out the window we could see the endless pool, and on the postcard racks were the pictures of the tiered white cotton castle, (the name Pamuk is cotton, kale is castle) encropments of natural limestone and azure pools. Two little girls werre playing to the music, and where American little kids might do the twist, these sloe eyed children, were shymmying, arms raised like little gypsies. Fingers snapping, heads dipping, they were kicking in the belly dancing instinct at age five.

My dear Turkish male friend can do the top shake as he dances, very sexy. Moving only from the waist, bottom feet almost still, the men dance in the villages with arm and shoulder shakes. Only the men dance at the weddings, women dance separately in these still almost medieval towns.

At the resorts though, the city kids practically strip down. There is no Islamic modesty here, skin tight jeans and tight tops, mimicking the Russian tourists and British shop girls catching the early rates. Black black hair, the men are gorgeous, the women Turkish sirens, gold jewelry against tan skin and hennaed hair. The discoes blare and hyps gyrate, women neck outside with a date; the prostitutes lurked, speaking in sybalant East European accents. I was stunned at the difference and felt matronly, threatened, and dying to go dance.

So now, here I am, typing in my own hip dance, moving from the waist up, sipping raki as I recal and project my last, and next, trip.

Belly dancing pictures are in my past; a favorite was in LIFE magazine. My parents were featured in an article about troops overseas. The dancer is sliding up to my dad, he is natty in two tone bucks, and a great fifties modern bowling shirt. Mom, with pursed lips, ( I have them too, darn it) is looking askance, body language leaning back as this hefty woman sidles up to my dad. My lips do not match my spirit.

My favorite Turkish doll was a belly dancer, with a large round tummy. A pencil line emphasized the circular mound. And they are, none of those too-thin women, they are zaftig, they have weight, movement, and bellies. Good for them, and I am thinking about taking a class just to move to this music. Not the fake gypsy stuff that all the shiksas take, not the cartoon borrow-a-culture class, I really feel drawn to the music.

And the eyebrows. The women on this CD have eyebrows to die for, in a culture that used to be veiled the eye was all. A flick of the eyebrow, an arch of the look, a drop of the eyelid conveyed for Islamic men what a glimpse of a wrist did for the Victorians. I will take the eyebrow, the Orientalist sheik and the nuanced eye.

So, as my school year winds down, I am drawn to a re-do of a trip. I felt incomplete when I left last time, I have lost touch with my Turkish family. I have friends arriving soon from Turkey and I want one big huge party with them. I want raki, lamb, Turkish music, soul shimmying hip grinding music, and fun. I want to go back, I want to evoke Istanbul here, and it is time to have a dance. You do not get do overs in life, but I would like to try.