So these are my two beloved kittens, for whom my blog URL is named. The fat dark one is Gölge (it means shadow) and the skinny pretty one is Güneş (meaning sunshine). Between you and me, the pudgy kitty is my favorite — and he’s more well-behaved, too! Why two, you ask? Because I used to just have Gölge and he got really lonely when I was at work all day, which also made him hyperactive when I got home. Now that his sister (they’re from the same litter, both strays) is around he’s much calmer; she simply offers no excuse for her insanity. Two cats is easier to deal with in terms of behavior, though it means twice the cat food — and twice the cat poop.

Also, having one cat makes you a pet owner, and having more than one makes you a cat lady, right?

Silly me — as if two Turkish men and their big manly egos are going to consult with one another before writing me back! I got an email from my boss almost immediately, and about 20 minutes later got an email from the econ head — and of course the two emails gave me two completely different priority lists for the stories. It got worked out eventually, but the situation still tickled me. I should have known better!

As an American expat living abroad for nearly 2.5 years now, there are few questions that annoy me as much as, “But where are you from originally?” I’m asked this question all the darned time. “Where are you from, your Turkish is so good!” “Oh I’m American.” Then it comes — the questioner raises an eyebrow in consideration for a minute, then shakes their head ever-so-slightly as they reject the validity of my statement. “But where are you from originally?”

“America.”

“Where’s your father from?”

“America.”

“Well how about his father?”

“America.”

“What about your grandfather’s father?”

“America … my family’s been in the US for centuries.” Whoever I’m speaking with usually gives up at this point, although they also usually don’t believe me. I don’t know why I get asked this question so often, or if this happens to other African American expats as well. It’s not really a shocker that the average Turkish citizen might not know that much about American history (even though everyone seems to have seen “Roots,” a movie I have yet to watch), but I get this question from well educated folks all the time. University graduates, doctors, journalists, etc. …

I don’t know quite how it’s possible that in a city like this one that has been so saturated with American culture, from films and music videos to clothing and television, that everyone still has this idea that “real” Americans are white. Nobody ever asks a white American, “But where are you from originally?” Since I wear a headscarf, a lot of people assume my family must be immigrants and that I’m really Arab or from Sudan or Egypt or something and am just ashamed or don’t want to say so. I just wonder where all these Turks got this racist idea from?

Of course ever since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, it’s been even harder to explain to people that yes, I’m an American and where I’m from if your family has been there for a few centuries, yerli olarak sayılıyorsun artık. After all of the media surrounding Barack Obama’s election, it’s really difficult to explain to people that Obama is actually not African-American in the same way that I am and that most black people in the United States are; he’s still a Blackamerican, but he’s half Kenyan and half American, the son of an American mother and a Kenyan father, which is not at all the same thing that the term “African American” (problematic as it is) describes for so many people.

I haven’t yet really figured out a way to explain to people in a way that they’ll believe that I’m an American. Oh well, at least I have the passport

It’s a huge, expansive place, with rolling green hills, lakes and fountains, trees, you name it. It was probably around 40 minutes until maghrib time when I set out by myself, and I walked for about 15 minutes when I ran into a perfect little clearing with a bench on a little mound. There was nobody around and it was as if the bench was waiting for me. So I had a seat, and from where I was sitting I could see a foresty bunch of trees across the lake that was in front of me, with a fountain in the lake and no sound but the running water and birds chirping. SubhanAllah. I started thinking about all of the ayaat that Allah swt mentions in the Qur’an, like the creation of the heavens and the earth, and how for people who think they are ayaat (signs). And I was looking at this cluster of trees across the water and it was like I had never seen any trees before, and I just thought to myself, all of these tall buildings, all of this great architecture — but really, is there anything as beautiful as a tree? No. It’s just incomparable. Regal mosques and ancient hans and huge skyscrapers don’t have that ability to make you happy just looking at them, they don’t infuse euphoria into you and produce oxygen and house birds and provide shade and give you that “out in nature” feeling. Subhanallah.

And then, I leaned back and looked at the sky. When was the last time you looked at the sky? Like just took in as much of it with your eyes as you could and remembered how huge the planet is? I remember when I was a little girl, I would try to imagine the definition of the universe. What is the universe, how big is it, where are its boundaries? I would think to myself. I’d imagine the earth, looking up at the sky and its massive size. Then I’d think that there are many planets in a solar system, many solar systems in a galaxy, and so forth … and the universe was infinite. When I tried to imagine what was beyond the universe, it just made my head hurt and all I could think of was a white blank. What’s beyond the end of the universe, the most major concept they taught us in school? It was my earliest, and remains one of my most fundamental, impressions of the greatness of God’s power, the infinity of His nature. Far beyond the universe, which I can’t even conceptualize with the power of all the intellect and thought I can muster. SubhanAllah.

I have no idea when the last time I had looked at the sky before today had been. Living in such a big city and shuffling from home to the bus stop to the bus to the office and back every single day, rarely pausing to notice anything that’s not a shop window or some building or some event going on in the street — like it hit me all of a sudden how disconnected I am from nature living in this city. And being disconnected from nature means being disconnect, in a sense, from one way of knowing Allah swt. I remember in college the Muslim students’ association used to organize sisters’ stargazing nights where we’d go up to a hill and look at the night sky and have a sohbet up there. There’s no MSA anymore, but the night sky is still around, and the day sky as well. I’ll have to remember to look at it more often insha’Allah…

My friends tell me I’m often patient to a fault — not the virtuous sort of patience that involves peacefully forbearing out of a sense of contentment or resignation to fate, but a patience with roots in hesitation, apprehension, a fear of making waves or standing out. More often than not this less-than-desirable sort of patience just ends up with my being shortchanged. But her işte bir hayır vardır, right? Today, on a morning when I was already more annoyed than usual, I was thankful for my ingrained urge to avoid conflict, because it probably saved me from a great deal more embarrassment and awkwardness than the situation itself already presented.

Already late to work because of a post-fajr nap that lasted too long, I noticed as I boarded a bus that a woman was staring at me. Nothing unusual, as I’m an obvious foreigner; I didn’t think too much about it. As soon as I sat, though, she began speaking about me (I thought it likely she didn’t think I spoke her language):

– Bu Arap’ın ne işi var Edirnekapı’da. Simsiyah, simsiyah bir yüzü var.

I thought it was annoying, but decided, as is my habit when faced with such nonsense, not to say anything. But the woman didn’t stop, she kept going on making similar comments. Just as I was about to turn and ask her if she had lost her mind, she said:

– Simsiyah, simsiyah. Kimse s*kmez bunu.

My jaw dropped. But it turns out she really was crazy, and when we got to the next stop she started picking on another passenger. I’m glad that I kept my mouth shut; who knows what kind of a rant she would have started then! Alhamdulillah.