Life, Death and in between.

So it comes to pass. Again.

A lot of water under so many bridges, but I didn't write about it as I was too busy being In Love. Becoming a wife, and then finding my own space in that role.

Bits happened. I wrote: "We're going to Florence by train, where we've been warned of pickpockets, gypsies, beggars, scavengers and wheeler dealers.

There we will meet Sharon and Oren, who were present at our wedding.  Who was the first person I told when Reno proposed that moonlit night on a rocky promontory at midnight in Sydney. When the fireworks went off across the water from so many speedboats when I said Yes, Yes, Yes, I will.  We will go to Varenna, on Lake Como, Italy,  to conclude our marriage on the terrace that I first saw when I was with Dawn, early in this story. The yellow case with the sunflowers has travelled everywhere with us: the dress and the suit will get their airing, once again.  Reno's sister, Carmen, has promised to come from Torino.  Francine and Pippo, also mentioned early in this story, are coming from Geneva. Dawn will be in Bellagio, and all she needs to do is cross to Varenna and we will have that wedding lunch of my dreams on the terrace of the Hotel du Lac.  Then we will drive to Venice, from where we will cruise the Adriatic and Mediterranean with Sharon and Oren, and make more adventures, from Dubrovnik, and Split, to Catania in Sicily where Reno's family come from,  to Naples and Rome and, after so much gallivanting, back to Australia.

To buy ourselves a house."

Suffice to say it all happened, and it still has more to run, but I ran out of words, and the space and time to do them, then. 

I could say What A Shame I didn't write as it happened.  The immediacy disappears in the retelling, and I find I'm an itinerary writer instead of a tale teller.  But my life expanded into that of my new husband, and he became the extra pair of ears and eyes.  I hear him telling of our adventures and I remember them.  Yes I am very sad I didn't write them then, and I can't remember the nuances now. Who else is witness to our heated discussions re maps or gps?  Or which way was the cemetery and did it really matter that we found a whirling dervish instead?  And all the patience Reno exhibited when I spend days in souks, getting my hands dirty.  And his learning of the ways of the road, of the vagaries of travel, of the demons and devils he'd have to fight on the way, as I have done since I was nineteen. 

Life is a daring adventure, or nothing at all, I keep reminding myself, remembering Reno quoting Anais Nin, when I asked him why I should marry him.  He proves it every day.  When I started this year long adventure I was a messy woman with a messy life and a messy head and a messy path ahead.  I had no idea what lay in front, and I certainly didn't want to look back, in anger or anything else, at what I'd fled from. The mother, the sickness, the idiot, the money laundering, the loss of self and soul, the giving up of home, and car, and identity, and known days.

That day that I stood in the window of the yellow hotel in Sultanhamet's busy street, and was washed with blossoms from below, the wheel of my life turned north. I still clutched to the reedy voice of an idiot I'd wasted years with, but when that phone line went dead, and the blossoms landed at my feet,  I threw my old life away.  I was alone, but less lonely than I had ever been. I had the world at my feet, and those feet were happy to dance to any tune. Especially the ones I made up myself.  

I had all the adventures with Luda.  Days and weeks and months of laughter and misadventures, of learning curves and steep hills and near death experiences, that began with a pledge on a piece of butcher's paper in a little beach side Thai restaurant, years before.

I had all the adventures in Italy and the cruise, with Dawn. With Sylvia and Giorgio, and Francine and Pippo,  in Venice.  With meeting Reno, with falling in love, with getting married, with becoming a grandmother.

I have come full circle.  I'm in our house in Australia with my husband, in a happy, secure, peaceful productive relationship.  My bead business has grown and thrived, and I'm still in contact with the delicious people who led me onto this path.

But Luda died unexpectedly, when finishing this story and giving it to her, eventually, eleven years later,  was just something I'd finally get around to doing. Every few months I promised her I'd get it down. And then she died.  I saw her a few days before, and again I promised I'd get down to finishing the story.   And then she was gone, forever.  I was gutted.  I am heartbroken.  She was the one who kicked me in my bum and told me to leave the idiot and take a walk on the wild side.  She ordered me to close my shop.  She promised to join me wherever I travelled, and she did.  She rescued me in Kathmandu.  She moored me in Morocco.  She instigated me in Istanbul.  She abandoned me in Turkey when she went back to Australia, and for a few dazed days I wondered around, adrift. But then the blossoms blew into my room, and landed at my feet.  I held my head out the window and shouted with delight. Then I carried on with the adventures.  There was always Luda to turn to. Luda to call. Luda to laugh with. Luda to cry to. Luda to lunch with, and wait for, and say hello and goodbye to.

And now she's never coming back. 

Her death prompted me to finally finish writing this story.  

She did, however, keep that little green frog, the Travelling Bead, which began this whole madcap thing.

After all, adventures can't stay alive unless someone is there to tell the tales.

Istanbul again.

WHERE DID THE WEEKS GO?

I spent more quality time with my new husband, than with my story telling.  Nights that were filled with laughter, food, love,  and making memories and friends.  Days of discoveries, and discovering how another human being reacts under pressure.  Hours of packing and unpacking, breaking and buying suitcases.  Feeding beggars.  Getting dirty and tired and cranky and generally being happy.

At least I have photographs.

I didn't even realise I wasn't keeping up.  So I'm ridiculously far behind in this story. What with silver to buy, cases to pack, hotels to check in and out of, a husband to look after, sights to see, cameras to upload and recharge, planes and trains and boats and buses and taxis to catch, I can't even catch my breath never mind keep pace with the travels. Never mind all the eating, the eating, the eating, the discovering of different restaurants, the little rooftop enclosures, the dark booths in back streets.

So instead of heaps of words, I'm delivering some choice events with photos to tell most of the story.

We were over the moon to be out of Morocco, even though we spent more than an hour in the passport queue. Our driver was patiently waiting, and the dealers in the Grand Bazaar were about to herald our arrival with hearty hugs, mint tea and the promises of long lunches of breads and lamb kebabs. We checked into a large room in Hotel Nena, headed out to the streets for a sheesh, chips, pomegranate juice and vegetables, and despite a typical Istanbul icy wind, were glad to be there. I walked Reno down to the blue mosque so he could get up close and personal with the muezzin, blossoms were flying everywhere, Syrian immigrants and gypsies were begging on every corner, and silver was waiting for my itchy fingers.

Behind the Galata fish markets was a world of fascinating graffiti and street art, closed up shops and stalls, steps that led underneath tangles of vines, and many inquisitive cats.  Reno continued his lipstick fetish, getting me to pose whenever I could, reapplying my lipstick. Urban art has always been a fascination, and the material here was impressive.  Back streets and potholed lanes were filled with urban debris, from disused speedboats, rolls of barbed wire, and even a kitchen sink.  The Grand Bazaar was our first stop every day, fortified with Turkish coffee and greasy lunches and enticing booths and arms laden with silver treasures. 

We found a beautiful tour guide who quickly became our best friend and restaurant and carpet shop leader; hard to believe she had so many connections. We passed a shoe shop where the owner was standing outside. When he saw my leather shoes that I'd bought from him 8 years previously, he recognised them with a yelp and begged me to come in so that he could clean them for me and make them look like new.  I did! He did!  Reno also left his shop very happy, cradling his new green leather shoes like a baby. I bought a red leather jacket I'd been coveting for years; I found some red canvas sneakers;  I was determined to match the pomegranate juice I was drinking every morning.

We walked down from Sultanahmet across the Galata bridge, to a stretch of sand where ferries fought for spaces, churned up the waves, tossed their passengers on shore and sped out again.  People sat on plastic chairs and oilskin covered tables, ordered fish sandwiches with coffee, or pomegranate and orange juice for a few lire.  We found many wonderful places to eat, from warm and friendly places up dark cobbled lanes, to two chairs tottering on a rock on the edge of the Marmara sea, but always had tasty, fresh and cheap food. I found the Arasta bazaar again, where we went several times for sheesh and a beer, and a dervish who whirled in his heavenly trance while waiters bumped past.  

Juice doesn't get fresher than this.  We had just eaten a fish sandwich while trying not to fall off our chairs between the rocks and into the sea.  Then we walked back up through Sultanahmet looking at old Ottoman houses, between the tourists and the palaces.

Finally, a day of moderate warmth and sunshine. We took a cruise down the Bosphorus on a public ferry, to the Black sea, where we climbed to a castle along a track that wound around a mountain.  The others on the little boat stayed below and scrummaged in souvenir shops and dripped ice cream on their shirts.  We returned red faced and puffed, grabbed our ice creams for the ride home, and chugged back in brilliant sunshine, looking at the  magnificent hunting lodges of the rich sultans, and the multi million dollar houses that line the Bosphorus. 

We flew to Cappadocia, hoping for two early morning balloon rides.  We stayed in a thousands year old hotel dug out of the rock, and sat on the verandah watching the balloons rising in the distance. But in my haste to book the tickets before the lines dropped out, I'd miscalculated and had booked the balloons for the day after we left.  The hotel manager, in typical Turkish hospitality, sorted us out and all was right with the world again. We had our magnificent flight, we celebrated with champagne.  We walked and hiked around the ancient limestone dwellings, inhabited by ancient people who still managed to have hospitals, schools and libraries carved out of the stone.