So, What Has Changed? -- Peki Ne Değişti?

Mountains near Niğde, Turkey

 As I've gotten back to gardening in Seattle, I've realized that  just like we can have "culture shock" in a new country, the way we see plants and gardens can also be affected. Our decisions in the gardens we make are informed by many different things; not only the climatic realities of where we live, but also what I like to call our "inner garden."

The garden in Istanbul...

I've often thought of this scenario: Imagine three different people looking at a beautifully planted and maintained garden. One might find it pretty and appreciate the colors of the flowers, and be reminded of something their grandmother grew. Another might feel "at home" because something in it echoed the place where they grew up. Yet another might see something almost alien - perhaps fascinating but still inscrutable. That was me when I first moved from Iowa to the Pacific Northwest with all its coniferous forests and endless variety of broadleaf evergreens, not to mention plants I never even knew existed. I may as well have moved to the Mediterranean, it was that unfamiliar.

Four O'Clocks by old Istanbul house

And then I did, or at least the semi-Mediterranean. Istanbul is a city of microclimates; the northernmost parts affected by the cool moist climate of the Black Sea, the middle Bosphorus climate is something like Northern California, and the area along the Marmara coast is much more Mediterranean. I remember sitting in the hot sun on a patio in Kocamustafapaşa, looking at my parched garden, as storm clouds shot out lightning bolts and flooded Taksim just two miles away. The landscape around you affects the landscape in your mind. You plant what you want, learn what works and what doesn't, and find out about new things it has to offer. But within each of us is our own private mental landscape (or several) against which the things we see either resonate or don't. How that gets expressed in our gardens is a fascinating question for me. I don't pretend to have figured it out, either.

Trillium in Thornton Creek Park, Seattle

Now I'm back in Seattle, with a couple trips back to Turkey behind me as well as several visits to Denver as well as Arkansas, where my mother now lives. Both of those places, and the very different gardens I see there, have served to shake things up a bit. Not only have I seen unfamiliar things that tempt me to stretch my tastes in new directions, but I've also gained a new appreciation for some of the "weeds" of my youth; plants I never had any antipathy toward but never really thought about planting in a garden. My "inner garden" is still in flux. And so is my outer one; a bit of a jumble, which will certainly have another shakeup after the next move.

Sarracenia 'Adrian Slack',
Jerry Addington

The other thing that has happened since my return is reconnecting certain old threads. Since the age of 12 or so, I've been fascinated with insect-eating plants, starting with the first mail-order Venus Flytraps that I killed in almost no time, through the Pitcher Plants that grew famously until I couldn't figure out how to get them through winter, to the seed-grown Nepenthes in high-school. (I did get better at not killing them by the way!) They were an extreme challenge to grow in Istanbul because the water there has so much lime in it  that your tea kettle will turn into a rock quarry in a few months if you don't take measures. But here conditions are much more favorable, and there are so many people to buy from and trade with. So I'll be writing a lot about those too.

Starting Again - Yeniden Başlamak

We have to start somewhere!

Well, let me start by being honest: Liminality can be a waste of time. We don't always get to choose what comes to us. We can choose how we deal with it, but even that can take a while. I did actually plan to continue blogging here, and even started a post, but this adjustment thing has not been a picnic. (That post will be shared, and I've been back a second time since then and have things to write about that trip as well!)

When I came  "home" to Seattle, I knew it would be rough at times, and that did help me at times when I was tempted to get bogged down in negativity. Still, some things just need time, and I'm grateful to have had it.

Back in the 1980s, I left Greece after almost three years there, and returned to my home town of Iowa City, Iowa. Talk about a change of environment. I dealt with underemployment and more, but perhaps because it was such a radical break at a time where nobody had heard of this thing called the "Internet," it was something like jumping into a pool and learning to swim.

This has been different. Now we all carry these little boxes around in our pockets that let us talk with our friends real-time and keep up with developments "back home" almost as easily as those where we live, and the result can be something like standing at the pool's edge, making tentative forays into the water but never really letting go of the handrails.

So you move on, but as who? The person you were during your 14 years in a completely different culture? Or do you pick up where you left off when you went there? Or do you make a fresh start?

I can't "un-live" my time in Istanbul, and I'd never want to. There's no "picking up where I left off" when the place I left off no longer exists in many respects. And unless we develop amnesia, there's really no such thing as a completely "fresh start." So of course it ends up being a combination as you move ahead. Some things you think would always be yours might drop off rather quickly. You meet new people, find new environments. And you also rediscover parts of yourself that had languished during that time of separation.

At time it's been a little hellish, but as things drop away, you also see what is permanent, and my love of plants, of seeing things grow and develop, has never gone anywhere. And like meeting an adult who was 12 the last time you saw them, it's fun seeing what has changed.

So then, what about plants, what about gardens?

In the Seattle of 2016 with its skyrocketing rents and increasing sprawl, I was very fortunate to find a place where I could have a garden. It wasn't as comfortable a situation as where I lived up until 2000; I don't have that unlimited freedom, and the house will likely go on the market by next fall. Still, I've had two summers here and may have three, and it's helped me learn to just do the thing I love to do instead of worry about the "what-ifs." As Seattle garden writer Ann Lovejoy wrote way back in the year that I first moved here, "A garden is not something you 'have,' it's something you do." So what do do, but do it?

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İlk önce dürüst olayım: Arada kalmak, zaman kaybı olabilir. Başımıza geleni her zaman seçemiyoruz tabii. Nasıl başedebileceğimizi seçebiliriz fakat o bile zaman alabilir. Aslında blog yazmaya devam etmeye planlıyordum, hatta başladım bile fakat bu alışma fazlı hiç kolay olmadı. (O gönderi paylaşılacak, Türkiye’ye ikinci kez bile döndüm, o yolculuk hakkında da yazacaklarım var!)

Seattle’a, “sılaya” geldiğimde, bazen zor olacağını da biliyordum, ve karamsarlığa kapılmaya eğildiğim zamanlarda onu bilmek yardımcı oluyordu. Yine de bazı şeyler sadece zamanla geçer, ve zamanım olduğu için memnunun.

1980 yıldında Yunanistan’da 3 yıl yaşadıktan sonra ABD’deki memleketim olan Iowa City, Iowa’ya döndüm. Ortam değişlikleri var ya... Yetersiz iş vardı, dahası da vardı fakat “İnternet” adlı şeyin daha duyulmadığı o dönemde öyle kesin bir kopma idi ki, denize dalıp yüzmeyi öğrenmek gibi birşey idi.

Devam ediyorsun işte, fakat kim olarak? Tamamen farklı bir kültürde yaşarken olduğun kişi olarak mı? Yoksa giderken bıraktığın yerden devem mı edeceksin? Yoksa taze bir başlangıç mı yapacaksın?

İstanbul’daki zamanımı unutamıyorum, istemiyorum ki zaten. “Bıraktığım yerden yeniden başlamak” da yok çünkü bıraktığım yer, birçok açıdan artık yok olmuş. Bir de hafızamı tamamen kaybetmezsen tamamen “taze başlangıç” diye birşey de yok. Dolayısıyla ilerlerken sonuçta hepsinin bir rolü oluyor. Sonsuza kadar senin olacağını düşündüğin bazı şeyler bayğı hızlı olarak yok oluyor. Yeni insanlarla tanışıyorsun, yeni ortamlar buluyorsun. Aynı zamanda ayrılık döneminde kısmen çürümüş olan bazı kısımlarını yeniden de başlıyorsun.

Ne kaldı? Bitki sevdası, büyüyen, gelişen şeyleri izlemek zevki hiç yok olmadı, olmaz da. Hatta son görüştüğünüzde 12 yaşında biriyle erişkin halinde yeniden tanışması gibi, nelerin değiştiğini görmek çok da zevkli olabilir!

Peki ya bitkiler? Bahçeler?

Fırlayan ev kiraları ve gittikçe hızlanan büyümesi ile 2016 Seattle’ında, bahçem olabileceği bir yer bulduğum için kendimi çok şanslı hissediyorum. Önceki durumum kadar rahat değil tabii, o sınırsız özgürlük yok, hem de yaşadığım ev büyük ihtimalle gelecek sonbahara kadar pazara sunulacak. Yine de burada iki yaz geçirebildim, üç de olabilir, ve “ya falan olursa” korkularına kapılmak yerine bana sevdiğim şeyle uğraşma şansını verdi. Seattle’lı bahçe yazarı Ann Lovejoy, bu şehre ilk taşındığım yılda yayınladığı kitapta, “Bahçe, sahibi olacağın değil, yapacağın birşeydir.” Sonuçta yapmaktan başka ne yapalım?