It's a Wonderful Life

Isn’t life beautiful? The answer is yes: Life Is Beautiful. I remember thinking dad was a little crazy and senile as a kid because his favorite movie was always the Frank Capra classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. I also remember the first time I discovered myself bawling during the film for no apparent reason. That movie so aptly portrays the beauty of people and of life and of just living. My life is filled with breath-taking beauty. Here are some of the simple beauties that have been on set in my own personal “It’s a Wonderful Life” lately:
• My day with Oguzhan. Zeynep decided yesterday that she did not want to go to the beach, so she and Mary Jane went to her cousin’s house and Oguzhan, Sidika, and I headed off for Babylon. Yes, the name of the beach is Babylon…it was actually full, so we went next door to Sole Mare, which was perrrrrfect. Oguzhan and I spent the day swimming, playing, laughing, and climbing up on one of those inflatable water trampolines. There were some kids there who were saying unkind things to Oguzhan (which I didn’t know because I couldn’t understand them—otherwise they would have had a few words from me), and Oguzhan slid into the water and said, “Come on Heather, let’s go.” When he told me they’d been saying mean things about him, my heart just broke. I have come to love this plump little 10-year-old so much. I was grateful to have this day with him since he’s leaving tomorrow for the rest of the summer and I may never see him again. One funny little thing about Oguzhan that I love is that he uses the word “gangsta” as a synonym for bad or evil. Hilarious.
• Dancing with Zeynep. Zeynep has been teaching me the dance to Hannah Montana’s song “Ice Cream Freeze” and she never fails to correct me when I add any kind of life or spunk to the moves. So now I like to exaggerate the moves a lot, which leads to Zeynep saying, “No! It’s not like that!” (Said while jumping around waving her limbs wildly in imitation of me). It tickles me. She gets this look of complete concentration and sings along, slightly off-key, with unintelligible words while she demonstrates the right way to do it. Golden. Never fear though, I am bringing her up right and making sure that Hannah Montana does not completely commandeer her mind. I am teaching her the Thriller dance and she LOVES it. Thank you MJ. P.S. they lu-HUV Michael Jackson here. Which makes me love Turkey that much more.
• Baking an apple pie. Have you ever tried cooking without American measuring cups? It’s an adventure, to say the least. The only measuring device we had here was for a teaspoon. So I set out on a quest to figure out the calculations for a tablespoon, then half a cup, then a full cup, filling various drinking devices to find out which one was approximately a cup or whatever. Just so ya’ll know, 3 teaspoons is a tablespoon and 8 tablespoons is a half cup. Done and done. Anyway, despite the lack of normal measuring devices and ingredients, the pie turned out beautifully. I guess it’s hard to mess up fruit and sugar. Zeynep helped me pour and mix and stir, which was fun. However, when the pie was baking she came downstairs and exclaimed, “That smells disgusting!” Consequently, she didn’t try any. Oguzhan had some and said it was good, but hasn’t touched it since (they’re used to a sort of apple pastry Mary Jane makes with all sweet apples, whereas I used tart green ones). Sidika is on a diet and so hasn’t had any either. Cem is out of town. That leaves me and Mary Jane to get the job done. Two girls (one of whom is very thin and who hardly eats anything), one apple pie. Life is beautiful.
• Onion rings at Burger King. Not eating them, though. I picked up two of Zeynep’s onion rings last night and put them up to my eyes. After that, everyone wanted a turn taking a picture with onion ring glasses. We even convinced the very proper and manners-aware Sidika to do it. Classic. It was a fun night at the beautiful port where all the yachts were docked at sunset. Another favorite thing of mine is Mary Jane wanting me to take pictures of her ALL the time. And she wants me to take at least three shots in every place and pose…it’s hilarious. But she’s on to something there because between the three shots at every place, she always has one she’s satisfied with. I think I might start doing that.
Life is beautiful. It’s a WONDERFUL life. Maybe I’ll try to make it big as a screenplay writer by making a movie about a Jewish Holocaust survivor named George Bailey who has been stuck in a small little Turkish town his whole life, baking apple pies in an attempt to convince his son that he’s in a contest to win an army tank. Or maybe I won’t. But I will challenge anyone who reads this to find some small beautiful thing in their life, write a paragraph about it, and e-mail it to me (wunderpiggy@gmail.com). I’m going to post them on this blog, unless you expressly tell me not to. I’m totally serious right now. Please just take one minute to think about something beautiful in your life and shoot me a few lines about it. I think it will be uplifting for me and for others. Thanks, all you beautiful people.