No thanks to you, I decided what present to give my sister.
This present, which you most probably shall hear more about as it nears completion, includes collecting memories and pictures from family members and friends. One of the things I noticed while we did a similar thing for my mother was that you can easily see a pattern in people’s words. If five or more people say that you’re gentle and kind, odds are they’re probably right.
As I go through the emails, I enjoy seeing other people’s opinions of my sister. I like the similarities cause they define my sister’s core traits. I also like to see the ones who are distinctly different. It makes me wonder why she has such a unique relationship with this person when compared to the others.
Since a large portion of the present is a long story by me, I figured I should dig into my bank of memories and pull out a few entertaining moments. To my dismay, I realized that I can’t remember anything from before kindergarten.
I can recall how much I cried when my mother took me to my first day in kindergarten. I have strong memories of my first day of elementary school. But nothing before the age of five. With one exception. I remember when my sister taught me to read. She was lying on my parent’s bed, reading a newspaper, and I asked her to show me how she read. Starting with the large headlines, she taught me each letter. I can’t remember how old I was but I know it was before kindergarten.
I’ve seen many photographs of my childhood, a whole lot of them with my sister, so I know I’m not adopted. But, for the life of me, I can’t remember anything from the first five years of my life. The symbolism of such a lack of memory must be strong but I have absolutely no idea what it means.
It’s not that I had a sad childhood, we have home videos and photos proving otherwise, but I somehow erased that part of my brain. Maybe I overwrote it with information on how to create hash tables or linked lists.
What’s the earliest childhood memory you can remember?
Previously? First Time
Heather‘s mention of Tarot card reading made me remember my childhood struggles with fortune telling. When I was fifteen or so, my sister and her friend went out dancing on a Saturday night.
At the early hours of the next morning, I woke up cause of a commotion in the living room. The girl that my sister went out with was in the hospital. The story goes that somewhere around two hours into the night, she went over to my sister and asked if my sister wanted to come along to another bar a few miles away. My sister shook her head, so this girl and a guy left the bar, saying they’d be back in a few hours. In OJ fashion, a third guy joined them in the car, but he was totally drunk. The driving guy wasn’t so sober himself and there are several versions of this story, one being that he was really drunk and another that a car was chasing them and cornering them. Either way, the guy ended up smashing right into the wall of a tunnel with a sharp turn and the girl flew out of the window (at the time, you weren’t required to put on a seatbelt in Turkey) and was plastered all over the wall.
The driver was only slightly hurt and the guy in the back walked away without injuries but also slept through the entire event. The driver then picks up the remains of the girl and hails a cab (says a lot about Turkey that a cab was willing to stop for a guy carrying a really bloody girl) and takes the girl to the nearest hospital. She lays in a coma for several weeks and then comes out of it long enough for the doctors to consider doing reconstructive surgery on the originally breathtaking girl’s now non-existent face. But the next day, she lapses back into the coma and dies.
After she died, there were a lot of rumors circulating that this girl used to consistently go to a fortuneteller. Supposedly, this fortuneteller told her that very week that she was going to die during that week. While the likeliness of this story being true is slim to none, it still gave me the creeps.
To add to my disdain of palm readers and such, my neighbor went to see one with a bunch of her friends and they were all in the room together when this woman tells my neighbor that her father is cheating on her mother. Even if the fortuneteller was totally wrong, is this something you want to hear in front of your friends?
Putting my skepticism or lack thereof aside, I don’t think I could possibly stand hearing potentially damaging news, from someone who is supposed to tell the future, and not dwell on it.
It’s not that I’m not curious, I’m just really scared, I guess. Cause you know what? I have more than enough worries already.
Previously? Totality of Life.
“You don’t like anyone,” she says. I can’t tell whether it’s a disapproving tone or a matter-of-fact one.
“That’s not true!” I protest a little too strongly considering the lack of accusation in her voice. I start naming my friends. People I love, people I like and people I can stand. It’s not a short list, I do like many people. “It’s just your friends’ children whom I don’t like.”
She’s not hurt. She already knows. I’m not trying to blame her. It’s not her fault that her kid doesn’t fit in. I’m the weird one.
“She’s just not nice,” I continue, desperate for approval. “She looks down on people and talks behind their back.”
“It’s been ten years since you last talked to her. Is it possible that she changed?”
“People never change.” The words come out but I don’t know if I mean them. I do believe that people change. But I also believe that it requires extreme effort for that person. I know that these people are too uncaring or too stupid to change. I don’t tell her all this because I don’t know how to put it nicely. I don’t know how to say it without sounding judgmental.
The truth is I am judgmental. Especially when those people are the subject matter. I’m not willing to give them another chance. I don’t want to have anything to do with them anymore. Not ever again. I’m sure a psychologist would disapprove of such blockage of emotion, but I don’t care. I need time to heal and fifteen years hasn’t been enough.
She’s quiet as I remember the unpleasant moments of my childhood. “I don’t know why you feel so uncomfortable. You’re so much more successful than they.”
I shake my head. She doesn’t understand. I’m not even sure I understand. “It’s not about that. I don’t care if they’re successful. I want them to be successful. I’m the problem. I’m the one who has to get over it.” I’m the one who needs to stop shaking each time I see one of them. I’m the one who needs to stop turning into the ugly, weird girl they made fun of each time they greet me.
She’s quiet again. She’s not a quiet person. Neither of us is. I know she wants to say the right words. The ones that will pop me out of this self-deprecation. Be happy, she wants to order. Instead she says, “You have so much to be happy for.”
“I know. I’m happy,” I reply.
I am. Mostly.
Previously? The Unthinkable
Here’s the deal. In my family we tend to give special gifts for big birthdays. For my father’s fiftieth, my sister and I videotaped each of his friends talking about my dad and how they met and they told small anecdotes. Since my father has always been into making home movies, telling anecdotes and doens’t like being the center of attention, it was the perfect gift for him.
My uncle has lived in several countries in Europe and has friends literally all over the world. For his fiftieth, we emailed and called his friends and got them to send us short letters written for his birthday. We then bound those letters into a book and gave it to my uncle.
When my grandmother turned eighty, my sister dug through old photos and got generations of pictures from our family and made a large, amazing collage.
Finally, for my mother’s fiftieth, my sister called each of my mom’s friends and asked them to write up a small note, telling us their feelings about our mom. We made a web page with fifty hearts, my mom loves hearts, and underneath each heart, we put either a note from a friend or a photo from a special date. (Like my sister and my birthdays, my parent’s engagement, their wedding, etc.)
My sister is turning thirty on Valentine’s day. I had scheduled to be there, but my doctor says it’s best if I don’t fly; the trip takes eleven hours. Especially since I can’t physically be there, I want to do something special for my sister’s birthday. The thing is, even though I helped with the coding of the webpages, my sister came up with all of the above neat ideas. Now that I can’t pick her brain, I am drawing a complete blank.
So I decided I would ask for help. If you have any ideas at all, please tell me.
There are only a few small details. Valentine’s day is about three weeks away, so it can’t take longer than that. Between now and then, I will not be able to go to Turkey so I can’t take any new photos. I might be able to find a way to get my parents on my brother in law to send some already existing photos, but that’s about it. The present can involve my sister’s husband and/or her one-and-a-half year old twin sons, but I really want it to be focused on my sister. I’d prefer for it to be a present from the family, but if it’s just from me, that’s fine, too. (So it can be about sisterhood if you can think of a neat idea with that.) I have no other siblings, it’s just my sister and me. It can be photos, it can be a book, notebook, craft, music, anything. As long as it’s unique and personal. However, I prefer not to do something we’ve already done to a family member.
Feel free to ask me anything I might have left out. Feel free to spread the word. Ask anyone.
I really want to do something special for her.
Help me.
Previously? Know Thyself.
As the holidays approach, I get more and more homesick. One of the downsides of being so far away from home is not being able to visit my family on a whim. Usually, I’m fine with this major choice that I’ve made. But at times, especially during the holiday season, I just can’t bear being so far away.
Two days ago a close friend of the family came to New York. My mother, as is often the case, sent me a package with her. She sent me the marrons glaces I mentioned earlier this week. She also sent me the following photograph of my sister, brother-in-law and my twin nephews.
When I look at that picture, my heart melts and I suddenly feel that all my selfish reasons for living a million miles away from my family are terrible. I want to be there. I want to see my nephews walk and talk. I want them to see my face and smile just the way their faces light up when my mother enters the room. I want to hug them every single day.
Sometimes my decisions are too hard to live with.
Previously?
My mother does house finishing. She goes to people’s houses after they’re furnished and gives them a ‘feel’ (yep, she actually gets paid to do that). A few weeks ago, she was asked to do a restaurant and we were very excited. She started really small, doing the houses of friends and grew bigger with the word of mouth and this restaurant was a great deal to me. She was really excited and spent a lot of time perfecting her vision for this place. The night before the arrangement, she brought all the paintings and pieces to the restaurant and went back home. That night, the place burned. Yep, burned. Well, mostly the attic, which was full of offices, burned but since the building is really old (a historical sight actually) they had to shut down the restaurant and they’re not sure if it will ever reopen. Amazing, how your life can completely turn around in a split second.
I was going to write a long diatribe about this but I decided not to. I am not on any list and I don’t personally know any of the people who are mentioned and I’m not sure I want to start some major thing, so I will keep my thoughts on the matter for now. But I might come back to it. If you have an opinion you want to share, you can post on the MetaFilter thread or mail me and I’ll be happy to share my thoughts privately.
I have an oral exam in my sign language class on Monday. (Yes, I do see the humor in that sentence.) It’s my final class for this level and my little story will decide whether I pass or fail. I am to come up with a 3-minute talk using the vocabulary learned in this class. The subjects we learned are; years (telling a life story thru years), different countries, describing shapes of objects, cooking related signs, and food related signs. If you can come up with a story using those, please please mail me. I will be eternally grateful.
Before?
Goody Links
Checkout PlanetProject. It sounds like a neat idea but I am not sure how it will turn out.
Thoughts
After a fourteen-hour sleep, I feel much better. The most interesting part about visiting a country like Turkey is that it looks totally different each time you come. Even for me, especially for me. The perpetual construction causes the skyline to change dramatically and constantly. People adhere to the strict rules of fashion. A new American-sounding restaurant or cafe opens weekly. When I grew up, we never had most foreign foods. No such thing as cereal or bagels or M&Ms. Now, everything is here. When I first moved to the United States, eight years ago, one dollar was six thousand Turkish Lira and now it’s over six hundred thousand Lira. These are just a few of the changes. For me it’s fascinating each time. It’s also sort of sad cause some of my favorite childhood places have disappeared.
My sister and her husband just bought a house. Besides the fact that there is no such thing as a mortgage here, it’s also weird that they bought the house while it’s being constructed. I mean so much so that it doesn’t even have the toilets installed yet. It leaves most of the work to imagination.
It’s wonderful to be near family. Even though I miss Jake a lot, I love getting to see my parents and my sister and the smiles on the tiny, sweet faces of my nephews. Kids are truly amazing. They are the definition of the word ‘joy’.
Happy Yom Kippur to you. My fast has officially started. May it end quickly and well. Lots of sleeping, reading, and movie watching to do tomorrow.
Before?
Thoughts
Well I made it! I am all safe and sound in my parent’s living room. As the plane landed in Turkey, I kept trying to figure out which one was more ‘home’ to me: Istanbul or New York. I really don’t know the answer at this point. They both are in different ways.
Other than being quite seriously jetlagged, and being thoroughly thrilled that I got to see my twin nephews, I can’t think of anything to say. I promise to make pithy comments tomorrow.
Before?
Have I mentioned I’m going home? I did? Really? Cause it’s TODAY! A few hours from now, I will be on a plane taking me to my land. I can’t wait to see the smiles on my nephew’s faces and I can’t wait to hug my parents and my sister and brother in law and all my friends.
I also can’t wait to settle in the plane and have several hours to catch up on my reading and my homework and think about my novel. I hope they show decent movies. As much as I hate being cramped up in that small seat for so long, I love the sensation of being in the air. One of my dreams is to get to fly a plane. One day.
I thought last night’s debate was a lot more civil and mature and I’m amazed that the candidates even answered most of the questions. I’m not sure why I got so involved at this year’s elections since I can’t vote and I used to hate politics. I still hate it, I think, but I find it fascinating lately. Especially with how close this year’s race will end up.
The fall season is about to start and I still haven’t received my TiVo. As someone who can’t function without the TV set on, I am hoping and praying that it will arrive soon.
Well, my next post will be from Istanbul, hopefully. I will try to update daily there, too.
Before?
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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