Bosphorus

The Water Is Wide

When roses bloom in winter's gloom
Then will my love return to me.

No one has two signs. Zodiac signs, that is.

But if you were born within a few days of the sun's move from one zodiac sign to the next, this means you were born on the cusp.

So why do I bring up this topic of 'cusp' in a blog that is all about the water? Does this pique your interest?

That's great.

Hop aboard a private ferry in Istanbul with me. Sit down and have a listen. Are you ready for a short geography lesson?

This strait we're traversing is a geographical sort-of-cusp. The Bosphorus is the world's narrowest, twenty-mile long strait that joins the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea. It separates the continents of Europe and Asia and separates Asian Turkey from European Turkey.

Useful info, isn't it? Try mentioning it casually at the water cooler in your office or in the dairy/cheese aisle at Fresh Thyme. I'm sure it will start a conversation. Or not.

Anyway, let's see the sights - there's the Topkapi and several Ottoman palaces, a mosque, the Selimiya Barracks where Florence Nightingale worked, and the Bosphorus Bridge.

And just look at the beautiful, green water - clear as glass, with pools of indigo blue in them that float like broken clouds of ink.

You can just watch.

We don't have to talk.

There's just being.

The river doing its river thing - moving slowly to wherever it goes, stretching to infinity it seems, and then coming back again. Don't you just now sense a new restless awareness in your heart?

Perhaps, it's the endless waves lapping and rocking against the boat.

Perhaps this is what creatures feel in those first days when dying winter starts to give way to spring.

Are you discerning it? It's like there's a string tied to your heart, as if it were a kite being tugged by a kite flier whose face you cannot see...

Yet.