Friday, March 29, 2013

Leylek

Here's one reason why living in Istanbul is fucking great.

The storks migrate through here twice a year. They're always significant because they mean that spring is starting for real, and that fall is starting for real.

They're also significant for a lot of other stuff I don't remember, but all of it is good.

They're also just fucking cool.

I remember the first time I saw them. Everyone got all excited and looked up and kept saying, "Leylek." So I went home and looked it up (it was in the olden days, before I had a smartphone). It means stork.

I didn't see the leylek for a long time after that. But now I've seen them lots of times.

Today it wasn't super cold outside and the sky was threatening to turn blue and I was thinking there must be leylek soon. I couldn't be bothered to rush out of the house this morning, so I coughed up the 13 lira for a taxi. I haven't taken a taxi to work for a long time. It was worth it.

When you take a taxi up the hill to work, you take the high road. The minibus takes the low road. On pazar days, everyone takes the low road. There is no metaphorical significance to this. It's just that there are two roads.

I hardly ever take the high road because I'm hardly ever in a car. In fact, I've only taken it twice since I got lost in the snowstorm because I always look for the road I should have taken and I wonder why I didn't take it. I'm not sure if it was because I was being stupid, or because the road was snowed over.

I like to imagine it was the latter, but it probably wasn't.

When we went by the valley where the leylek sometimes rest when they're passing through, I took a good long look for them. The driver slowed down and looked extra hard at the valley, too. I figured he'd spotted some leylek there earlier in the morning. There's really no other reason he'd also have been scouring the valley. Or maybe there was, but I don't know what it might be.

No leylek. I was kind of bummed.

A little later, I was looking at the sky from the taxi and there was a flock of birds flying in an unfamiliar way. Leylek get a little crazy when they're flying around together. Also they're huge and have big wing fingers.

Almost nothing.
Hooray! I saw the leylek! And I kind felt like everything was going to turn out fine today.

And everything mostly did.

1 comment:

BacktoBodrum said...

I feel the same about the flamingos near us. 30 mins watching them wipes out a day full of shit.