Space Writing

My wardrobe means much to me. During my childhood, it was my hiding place where I feel secure and  comfortable. Also, I used to enjoy sitting on my clothes.

            The way I dress is an expression of my personality and feelings therefore, my clothes occupy a big part in the picture of what I am. My wardrobe is the container of them, so it is the place in front of which I like to spend my time.

            It looks like it is full of clothes, but for me it has always enough space for me to fit in. Every combination I make is another "me" and when I pick up some pieces to put on, I feel like "today me" leaves the wardrobe with an emptiness in the shape of my body. When I close its doors, nobody can open it at least in the way that I open, because it has been and is me who has that special relationship with it, and my experience of it will never be the same as somebody else's. It feels like the world of Narnia shows itself only when I open the doors.

                                                                                                                        Ayda Nur Bas 

Space.
"(..) every retreat on the part of the soul possesses (..) figures of havens. That most sordid of all havens, the corner(...)" Gaston Bachelard, 137.

I read this sitting on the beach of kelebekler vadisi, a small abandoned, nearly triangle shaped valley opening to the sea to the front, closed by massive, steep red mountains from both sides in the back.

My haven from Istanbul, my haven from to everything that was to much in the last months, my place to withdraw from the world to fall quiet, to sit and see, hear, smell. Then start to think again.
I live in a small cotton tent, a haven from haven. It is not very stable, very old and dirty. A "sordid" haven. A corner. My tent is my corner.

A mobile corner, I can take it with me wherever I go, and put it there, create a corner immediately when it's needed. Create a corner, a space for my thoughts , for reflection about whatever I do, immediately withdraw from the world when I feel like. When I feel like hiding.
Isn't this a tempting idea? Or does carrying a mental tent reveal a shy, anxious attitude of mind?

A temporary, transitory corner. I can put it where I want to, sure, but by this at the same time I don't choose a stable place. I cannot find a real rest, if I know: there could be other, possibilities where to set it up. Softer ground, better view, nicer people. Having to many possibilities is exhausting and great in the same time.
A corner offers only one possibility to go ahead. Forward. A tent, especially a tent with several exits or small windows and little holes refuses the emotional security a corner might provide. A tent forces to make a choice where to go next, theres no stable wall to lean on like in a corner. Every wall only seems like a wall – it's only a new exit. This might be a good starting point for actions, but not if you look for a haven for your thoughts.

In the night a big thunderstorm came over the valley. I woke up because the tent bent from one side to the other, the metal bars groaned, the cotton was about to be torn apart by the wind. I ran outside, grabbed a plastic cover and tried to put it over the tent so the rain couldn't come in. It flew away. Flashlight, thunder. Everyone was awake, people discussing screaming about what to do, where to go. Some of the tents already broke. Ebru, one of the people living in the valley for a long time, took me by the hand, she led me deeper and deeper into the valley until there was a small illuminated stone house where I could stay the night, together with the workers, all of them sleeping like babies.
When I got back to my tent the next morning, it was laying on the ground, wet and ragged.

A tent is a weak, sensitive corner. Exept from the visual impact whatever happens outside is recognized inside. Sounds of animals, people, weather. Wind. Rain (if it's not a good one). Nature enters a this pseudo-corner easily, flows in and out. It is only a visual shell, it seems to be a corner but actually it is not.
Trying to find a clear thought even though you're alone now, but you can't because your memory keeps disturbing, your wounds ache and itch, one question repeats and repeats, you hear people talking through the thin walls, you listen, they're talking about you!- distraction, all the time. In those moments you whish some Ebru would come and would lead you to the corner of a stone house, where there's silence and light.
In terms of the transitory and mobile aspects of a tent – it is good enough for me now, but I hope to find the way to my own stonehouse at some point.
Friederike Dreier

Space: Attic

                Where Wicca Shall Release Its Power and Summon Us beneath Its Shadow               

When I had first thought on the subject space, some places like my mother’s wardrobe that I used to hide from my unwanted guests at night or the incomplete building in the back street of our house that I used to read book inside were my choices. Later on, I decided to change my space as my grandma’s attic. This attic was full of dust and rubbish. There was an intense smell of wood. I was scary after the dark, but I loved to stay there as much as possible. There, I could find my dreams and follow them. I would be my own self in that attic and I would put my fake identity aside. Whenever, we went to my grandma’s house where my grandpa passed away when I was 5, I jumped forward and try to climb the stairs. My parents would know that I was at the attic, and they would leave me alone till dinner time. The time was enough for me to build my castle within my mind on the grounds of attic. I was safe there. No one would hurt me and no one would dare to disturb the queen of the castle.

It is funny though, when you happen to remember what I was doing there. It was the peak of my imagination. No one would tell me that they could ruin a child’s imagination with the misapplication of the education system. It was a wild energy within me. From time to time, the idea that there would be someone who watched me recorded everything would give me creeps. A few years later than my discovery, I think when I was 9 or 10, I had already learned the meaning of ‘‘cadı’’ that my mom called me. (Believe me; I have had my first encounter with the books of Harry Potter when I was 12 or 13. So, I didn’t have any idea about the wizard world.) The period was around the same time that my brother told me about the pagan culture and Wicca. These new information changed my queen-acting to something else; my secret Wicca rituals as a 9 years old girl. As I said it was the higher peak of imagination…

Today, I can understand the importance of that attic. It was a safe shelter for me. There I had no worries about being judged and being misunderstood. I was all by myself and there were thousands of ramparts surrounding my body. I would live within my soul whatever I had dreamt in a day before arriving there. It was both dangerous, both my own self.

My uncle have cleaned and designed the attic lately. It is no longer covered with dust and woodworms. Instead, you can find some furniture inside: an armchair, a little coffee table, old goods that my grandma doesn’t use anymore. It seems as if they have taken my sacred world from me. I go there, and watch my uncle having a barbeque at the balcony of the attic. It used to feel like a womb… It gave birth.

Nursel Turhan

The photograph I brought was an image of a window from the seabus I use between Bursa and İstanbul. The corner of the window seemed like a space where I could and did inhabit at certain times. For holidays, urgent situtations and sometimes to get certain things done. After defining the reasons of my use of the seabus, I realized that I tried avoiding these trips. On both ways. Either it’s from Bursa to İstanbul or the otherwise, I never feel like leaving the place I am in. Then I thought about the concept of “home.” Gradually, my conclusion have constructed itself and the answer was one word. Responsibility. In İstanbul I have certain responsibilities such as my school, my job, my friends etc. and just like İstanbul, I have certain responsibilities in Bursa which is to let my family know that I still care about them. The corner of the window in the seabus gradually proved itself to be the perfect place to transform into Uğur of Bursa from Uğur of İstanbul. The space you hide is normally described as a place you hide from things or evaluate them. But for me, a space is also a place where you, in a way, give in yourself to a state of metamorphoses.

Uğur Portakal

Another Bed

Cold and fresh air I am breathing in the warm room. The open window above me is the door to make me touch the outside world. I’m inside and also attached to the outside. Shadow of the tree is like a gorgeous spider net on the air. An imaginary spider surrounded by the net, in the middle but ignoring the whole net.

I’m inside, laying on my bed, watching the low roof. A roof that is allegedly mine. A delusion we all like to struggle in. To pay the rent of the low roof on you to believe that it was yours. I’ll leave the roof, the bed behind me one day as if I’d never come by. Leave it to someone else other than me. Just like I would leave the world turn by itself as if I’d never gone around in circles with it.

            This is not the place where I feel belonged, the most. I’ve never felt belonged to anywhere I’ve been in, but I feel like “almost” belonged. The people living in this room are passing by beside me. I can feel them there, I’m not totally ignorent to them. I’ve just let them live their life without touching me. Do whatever you want. I’m behind the invisible wall. But don’t worry, I can see you. And you can see my face, but can’t feel me. The wall is too thick. This is the border. I’ve chosen to draw it. I can’t let no one in. Once I used to want to cross over, now I know I’m almost safe in here.

            The voices of the outside world are blocked by the voices in my head. I let them scream. Scream as they can to make me deaf to the outside world that I have to live in. Hide behind the invisible wall, so no one can judge you out there. When I’m on this bed, under that roof, in my head, I am whoever I want to be. Soft and malleable as this bed under my body. Imagining whatever I can. The whole existence of mine is inside of me, in the head.

A whisper shushes all the screams. “Close your eyes. Thicken the wall. Forget the world. Let it turn. Without you.” I know the whisperer. From land of nod just like the Death. Life ends for today in this bed. Just like it’ll end someday forever in another bed.

Guzin Topcu

Inside the canoe I squirm on the ribbed floor. My shorts soak up the water in between the ribs like a sponge. Lying down with my head on the bottom of the boat I can hear the lake outside splashing to get in. It rocks the sides of the canoe up and down, up and down. The belly of the canoe isn’t huge but it’s big enough for me to sit cross-legged or lie down underneath the thwart careful not to twist too much and rock the boat all the way left or right. If I close my eyes I can hear two sets of paddles pushing the boat forward through the water. Flat side in, push back, out of the water, feather back forwards before repeating, repeating. I can hear the tiny whirlpools they make float away on the lake or rub against the canoe’s side. Inside my space I can see out or in. I can stay beneath the horizon of the gunwales and live in the waxed wood forest twisted into u’s smaller and smaller towards the bow or stern (if I face the opposite direction.) Underneath the deck plate is where the insects usually hide. Little tiny spider webs are strewn across the space hiding from the rain and wind but still catching mosquitoes. I don’t mind them living there, as long as they keep the mosquitoes from biting. This one time I hopped into the canoe and my boots, filled with water, released it all into the base of the canoe and in between the ribs was a big black leech trying to latch on to the wood but it didn’t want the wood’s blood. There’s nothing I hate more than leeches, ick, the thought of their fang-like teeth latching onto my skin and not letting go gives me the shivers. I took the bail bucket and bailed it out, back into the big black lake. I can see above the gunwales horizon too. Above is always changing. Sometimes it’s sunny and the water shines back at me as if there are two suns. Sometimes it’s cloudy and the water reflects back the scowls of the clouds. No matter the weather it’s the big lakes I like the most. The ones that go on for days and we get lost but it doesn’t matter because we always go forward and the water always laps the sides of the canoe and the next day will always arrive same as the next, one at a time. When it’s night time and there’s no more forward to go for the day the canoes sleep just as we do. Air, water and bread dough; three things that a canoe’s underside can touch, only those three things. The bread dough is from the voyageurs that paddled across Canada and the northern states earlier on, before my time, they would use the bottoms of the canoes to kneed and make their dough. The huge giant canvases worked as make-shift kitchens. We don’t make bread dough that way so air and water is all ours can touch. When we’re ready to sleep we lift the canoes out of the water and roll them three quarters onto the land so that their bottoms are up and their bellies create a shelter where we put our packs. Now that it’s night time the canoes can breathe and refill their lungs before the big swim tomorrow. I like it in that space both in and out, which ever I choose, but most of all I like being able to make that choice, in or out. 

Bonny Birkeland