Slow Living: Kaş
Slow Living: Kaş
I’ll never forget that place — where blushing bougainvilleas lay scattered at the foot of mountains that rivaled the sun, and guarded the Mediterranean's glean. That view repeatedly swallowed my heart. I’d stare for hours in the shade of a white minaret, from whose tranquility and stillness sprouted ripe figs — the simplest and sweetest I’ve ever had.
The townspeople were also like that, simple and sweet.
They had very little possessions, and even fewer material things to strive for. What more would you need though? What more than a small house with a plant-infested balcony near the Mediterranean, and a white moped?
The absent pressure of both competition and nervous anticipation made room for something else.
Kaș was in the Southernmost part of Turkey. Most Western tourists don't know about it. Yet. And so the town inhabited only locals and Turkish vacationers.
No one spoke English — which I found to be somewhat relieving.
I did more listening than talking — also relieving.
The outside of each of the many mosques was strung with grapevines, bearing green and purple jewels. Inside, children ran around in the air-conditioned prayer halls; laughing, tumbling, and exclaiming the many Names of God as they chased each other around the praying adults.
The food was fresh and seasonal.
Grocery stores were small and intimate.
Workers were casual and kind.
Cats were frequent visitors.
And the cobblestoned streets unevenly embraced the mountain’s carving paths — content with where it was led and who it would lead.
After sunset, my wife and I had dinner at a small restaurant. We sat in the outdoor seating area as the remaining townspeople headed home for the night. Our waitress was the first person we encountered who spoke perfect English, let alone any at all.
“I’m an English professor at the local University,”
she exclaimed.
“Then what are you doing here, waiting tables?” I asked confusingly. She was taken aback, and made a funny face, as if trying hard to show a child that he did something wrong. “My friend owns this restaurant. . .and she needed help tonight.” She reluctantly replied.
My question may have been her first exposure to a sad Western paradigm that she was certainly not curious about.
Culture shock, for the both of us.
But something continued to feel off.
I was still uneasy long after hearing her answer.
Back home, people would be embarrassed working two jobs, especially if one was a reputable position according to the upper echelons and the other a waitress. There should be more formalities with what a University professor chooses to do in their free time. Waiting tables? I found it strange. And she found it strange that I found it strange. And I found it strange that she found it strange that I found it strange.
But there were no formalities here.
Only realities.
A woman helping her friend, that was all. No trace of shame or embarrassment was seen upon her face. Instead, she seemed genuinely friendly and happy to help. This was normal. But somehow, our encounter with her recalibrated, my framework of what I thought reality, success, and the expectations of living were all about. Her environment was not one to be influenced by homogenizing Western social norms of obsessing over respect, power, and ‘what others think’. So she didn't feel the need to play in the rat race.
But my environment was.
For over two decades.
That was all I ever knew.
That was all I thought there ever was.
Maybe that’s why I never see bougainvilleas back home.
Because the soil, from which everything grows, is rotten.
Our Airbnb sat comfortably at the top of a hill that overlooked the Mediterranean and a now dimming downtown. On our way to the top, we passed by a small park. A teenage-looking couple sat on swings, each wearing a cheap pair of yellow and red flip-flops. They were too busy laughing to notice their melting popsicles in one hand as they grabbed onto the swing’s rusty chains with the other.
A grandmother appeared from a nearby balcony. A bandana covered her hair as she shouted in Turkish, perhaps complaining about the noise of their snickering. The teenage couple threw their popsicles in her direction, grabbed each other's hands, and scurried away.
“I just witnessed life.”
I thought to myself.
Eight months of working my ass off to afford this vacation, and here these people were, waiting tables, swinging with lovers, and retaliating with their melted popsicles?
I felt a harboring resentment begin to grow against them.
“Why aren’t you working?” my inner uncle Sam scolded.
“What about your future? What about preparing?”
What about your reputation and savings and retirement and your future children? What will they eat?”
The voices unified into a parenteral kind of rage. Like Karens at a parent-teacher organization vehemently opposing Middle schoolers having Juneteenth off as a holiday because that was never a thing for them 78 years ago.
But thanks to the gust of warm winds generously spreading the smell of flowers mixed with sea salt, I was spared from Karenization.
How could I hate this place and look down on its people when they are what gives my heart stillness? How could I pretend that they're not taking life seriously while I am? How could I ignore all of this and go back to the real world when this is what I have been working for?
I always hated that phrase. “Back to the real world”, “back to reality”, “welcome “back” and the like.
Back to what? And back from what?
What am I actually doing right now? Can’t I just be content with a day job teaching English and make enough to support a small home, fresh food and water, and an opportunity to help out a good friend?
Can’t I? Then why do I keep going back to “the real world”?
Why am I going “back to [a] reality” that forces me to make fourteen times more than the average person in Kaş just to visit and experience their life, their simplicity, and quite frankly, their poverty for a few weeks?
And why is it so fulfilling for me?
Even though it’s less? Much much less.
Is it because it's actually more, while I have what is less?
