Of Strings and Other Things

It's 6:08 pm. I'm sitting on the sofa, under my pink fleece blanket with the hearts on it, looking out the window. I just spent the last 4 hours preparing one of my classes, I made baked potato wedges and hummus for breakfast, I soaked the dishrack and cutting board in bleach to clean them, and I did 3 loads of laundry, but I feel like I did nothing today. I'm thankful tomorrow is a day off. I don't think I would have the energy to face the world yet. I'm trying to get up my courage to go grocery shopping; there are lines for bread again and I don't know if gas stations have started selling gas or are still closed. 

Some days I switch my brain off and pretend all this chaos doesn't exist. I go to the grocery store and put down a third of my monthly salary, in cash, for a few bags of fruits and veggies, some bread and cheese, and a tray of eggs. Grocery stores started requiring 50% cash if you wanted to pay your bill with a bank debit card, so there's another nail in the coffin of hell. 

Other days, I barely make it through the day without crying; the tears leak out when nobody is around. I sit in the toilet stall in the public restroom, door closed, praying nobody comes in so they won't notice my abnormally long time in the stall as I simply sit there and cry. I calculate and recalculate how much it will take to fill the gas tank; go around the house turning off lights; wash dishes in cold water so we don't use the water heater; and count the days until the next paycheck for wont of something to do. 

My husband and I try to hunt down bargains—going to the bulk store in the poorer part of town—and the cashier doesn't even make eye contact with us as he barks out that he doesn't have sacks of rice to sell. My husband tries to tell him we saw the sacks in the back, but the man refuses to listen. My husband leans in, forcing the man to look at him, as he asks, "How much would it be if you had the sack of rice?" and the man looks away again, in a rude tone of voice reiterating his previous statement and throwing in a, "Go across the street to the Indian store and see if they have any." We leave, vowing never to return. 

As we walk back to the car, we dodge 5 people begging for money in a span of a few meters. An old woman, her head wrapped in bandages, clutching a thin plastic bag with a couple of boxes of medications, holds out her hand. A young mother with a grubby sleeping baby on her lap (is the baby drugged?) pleads with us to give something, anything. A young thin teenager goes from store to store and accosts us as we pass, a single pack of gum in his hand as he tries to sell it for a couple of thousand lira. Not enough to buy a small bag of bread. There are more. Everywhere we turn they are there, desperation in their voice, hardened faces, pleas in a language we don't understand, though one woman, when my husband tells her we do not understand, immediately switches to "money, money" so apparently she knows at least one word in English. 

I berate myself for wearing a long dress as I step over piles of garbage discarded on the sidewalk. No, I am not walking through a dumpster area; I am walking on the public sidewalk but I must dodge discarded used tissues, diapers, rotting food, and animal fecal matter all over the place as I try to reach my destination. I cannot look up; I must keep my gaze fixed on where I place my feet next as I hold my dress high enough to avoid skimming over the refuse. 

People will tell me I have much to be grateful for, which I do, and that I am one of the lucky privileged ones, which I am, and therefore I should not be feeling this way or experiencing these emotions. We do our part to help those in worse situations than ourselves. We keep food bags in our car to hand out to anyone who asks; chocolate bars to give to little beggar children; and cash to tip the baggers at the grocery store even if we only buy enough to fill one bag or two. The difference is, I didn't ask for this and I didn't grow up in this. Perhaps they have lived in crisis mode for so long that they function this way, but I haven't. Right now, in this stage of my life, it is the hardest I have ever lived. Even harder than those first years in California when my parents separated and my mom was figuring out how to provide for her 3 kids as a single-parent. At least then if we went to the grocery store we could buy bread, when we went to the gas station there was gas, and ATMs never ran out of cash.  

My husband comes home and eagerly shows me what he learned at his kermanche lesson. He can play the first line of Amazing Grace and his face lights up with excitement as his fingers move up and down, the horsehair bow teasing out the melody from hesitant strings. "Live in the moment," he always tells me and maybe today, in this moment, he is right. Maybe, in the midst of all we cannot control, this we can. We can decide to have a little joy, share a little laughter, eat some seeds, and shut the world out for a little while longer until we must brave it once again.