Dark and Luminous

English is not my native language. This makes the choice to write in it a bit ambitious and in fact, sort of meaningless, given that it means being limited to a confined place whose borders will be drawn by a vocabulary and grammer knowledge incomparable to one’s native language. Nevertheless, after 27 years (minus 1.5 years of living in London) of breathing and speaking and writing in Turkish, I had this strange urge to pick up this other language to write in, about the dark and luminous sides of being human; as one does. I believe this provides me with something that Turkish cannot: being free of anything and everything that I am (or I’m expected to be). Pure anonymity, up to the point where you are no longer you-technically. You no longer carry the first and most important part of you-the primary language in which you communicate with the world. You now have a different voice.

So, after 27 years of breathing and speaking and writing in Turkish, in this peculiar and horrowing and lovely country that I want to be buried in and run away from as fast as possible, I picked up this other language, as one does. I don’t fully know who I am in English, maybe I’m far more smart, talented and funny. Above all, I hope to be braver and more honest than I was, about the dark and luminous sides of being human-and about me,who I’ve came to know in my native language.

The second choice that I made recently, to accompany my meaningless attempt to write this piece, was to use my married name to publish it. It represents something that I’ve built - my own family. Not the awesome and gloriously problematic family that I was born in to. The family that doesn’t include workaholics or alcoholics. My chosen family, the me I chose. Our 2 human 1 cat team. This name is not something I think about or in fact use in real life; but apperantly it matters to the person I am when writing. When writing, I want to be the person that I’m the maker of- the person I put effort into. The person I kinda like being, after 27 years. Being married to this human is one of the reasons why I constantly have a reason to like myself. That’s why, I picked up both another language and my married name. Plus, I believe it’s quite funny to write in a different language when you have the word ‘Turk’ in your last name. I like contradictions. I’m used to contradictions, my country and my family being the first two- bundles of great and awful things.

So, this is me, in a meaningless attempt to write about dark and luminous sides of being human- a bundle of great and awful things.

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