Backstage

It's the little sounds that create a sense of space. The distant hum of conversation like angels whispering secrets in each others ears, the clinking of cutlery in a hidden kitchen like laughing children. A door closes somewhere, another one opens, a cat's meow and a pigeon cooing. These tiny gifts carried by the wind and presented like homage to a lost innocence, like timeless vibrato. Somewhere in the shallow folds of life's simple rituals these sounds exist, as if to remind me of the tragedies and triumphs unfolding beyond the deafening resonance of war and peace. The Grand Game takes centre stage but what happens behind the scenes, in the privacy of an actors mind, in the backstage dramas that play out without an audience, these are acts of substance. Everything else is staging and effect.

I watched an old couple eating breakfast this morning in their solarium overlooking the back end of my apartment. Every movement of knife and fork, every sip of tea held within its subtle poetry an epic tale. Another woman leaning out her window, contemplating the trees, or the creepers or something more esoteric perhaps. Laundry listing in the breeze. These avatars of everyday life.

There are endless worlds out here, ageless histories, and samples of what is simply and severely sublime. On the backstage is where the inner life of Istanbul resides. It's where the city's stars hang out.

Backstage sounds