December 2021

How to begin a personal story of migration and un/be/longing? One must find a port of entry. Blessed are you if a story beckons you.

Recently, my nephew has asked me what it is like to move to Canada in midlife and without your family. I couldn’t help noticing his condescending tone. “Was it worth it?” was the question he repeated. I smiled and told him we would talk about it when he grew up. My nephew doesn’t speak English. If he did, I would share my diary with him and ask, “What do you reckon?”

How does it feel to be in a foreign country on your own? Any insights into making space for yourself in a new place that is alien in many ways? There is the ‘alien’ language you rely on in day-to-day interactions. Then there is the let-me-tell-you-who-I-am desire you keep suppressing inside yourself when someone asks you questions about where you come from but doesn’t really show genuine interest in what you have to say. Toss in silence. Lots of it. There is embarrassed silence in graduate seminars: the turn-taking strategies you learned in artificial classroom settings prove useless when you find yourself among native speakers. Incompetent silence at the cash register when you watch smooth banter between the cashier and the person in front of you but don’t have the courage to initiate such small talk. Oh yes, and puzzled silence when watching locals mark their calendars and approve minutes at board meetings at lightning pace, long before you get that they are going over the agenda and setting the dates for the rest of the year.

Surely, I cannot speak for others who have made a similar major life change in midlife. But, for me, one way to capture my feelings of being in a new country is through the songs I listened to repeatedly when I was `home.’ They say music is closely connected with identity, and familiar songs evoke personal emotions and re/kindle memories in unique ways.

So, here is my textual album where you, the reader, may encounter some of the music that sustained me in my first year in Canada. The tunes map a geography where the multi-origin paths converge in Kingston. They provide clues about who I am and how I experienced my new surroundings.

1 By Lake Ontario

October 2018

I am by the lake. Late afternoon. I am gazing at Shoal Tower in the harbour. “A little nippy,” said Poppy, my landlady, as I left the house. A Canadian expression added to my vocabulary. I take out my phone and capture a few shots of the lookout, abandoned long ago. I am listening to a piece from Björk`s 2011 Biophilia: the second disc of her Crystalline Series. “Mawal” has a distinctly Middle Eastern tune.

The Middle East is a peculiar term. It denotes the transcontinental area that falls to the south and east of the Mediterranean. A legacy of the British colonial enterprise. A label that ushers in other words: Muslim, Arab, belly dancing, fierce-looking bearded men. It is home to an estimated population of 371 million. Some stretch it to include Türkiye: a cartography and a gesture of inclusion I’ve always felt uncomfortable with. This expanded area’s largest cities include Istanbul, a city I call home.

“Mawal” is very slow in beat. The emotional instrumental interlude is longing for someone. Hayati. My life. The quirky and riotous Icelandic singer is collaborating with Omar Souleyman, a Syrian singer. I save the song on my “Kingston Blues” list. Later, I will find out that Souleyman comes from a village in northeastern Syria and has been in exile in Türkiye since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011.

I associate the song with weddings in my village in northern Türkiye even before I read somewhere that Souleyman started his career as a part-time wedding singer. This song reminds me of forlorn tunes local musicians play during the day as they are adjusting the sound equipment and announcing to the villagers that there is a wedding in the village. Everyone is welcome to attend later that night. After the cows are milked. After the hens are safely locked away in the shed. After everyone is washed and has put on their best outfits.

I press the repeat button again. And again. A wedding scene in my village. I am in my early thirties. I am sitting on a makeshift bench strategically placed around an imaginary stage for the dancers. A handful of girls are folk dancing. It is early yet. The bride, a distant cousin’s daughter, must be 18. I am looking past the dancers. A few drops swell in my eyes. I swallow. Then and now. I haven’t spoken to my parents since I last visited them in August. Ten weeks. My father won’t speak to me. A daughter must remain in the community. Am I homesick? No. But I feel rootless. I don’t belong in Kingston. Not yet. And I am longing for another place and another moment. “Mawal“carries me away from the Confederation Basin Marina. Even the images I captured early on will not anchor me to the nation’s former capital.

2 Walking to the Isabel Bader Centre

18 January 2019

Today’s blues tune is “Zolf” by Mohsen Namjoo. I’ve recently discovered a version recorded live with The Netherlands Wind Ensemble. I am listening to it for the zillionth time now. The xylophone opener is timid. So are my first steps out the door this morning. Voices in my head are in a heated debate. I am leaving home for my theory class. I’ve got to be at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts before 8:30 a.m. The instructor does not appreciate folks streaming in after the session has started. Another crispy day. “Don’t worry about the wind chill,” says my landlady. The dispute in my head? Should I walk? “Take 501 Express,” says the other. Should I take the bus from the downtown transfer point? I’ll have covered a quarter of the total distance by the time I get to the downtown transfer point. A few false steps down Princess Street. Maybe I should skip today’s class. A change of heart. Reverse. Steps up Princess. “It is only a 35 minutes walk to the Isabel Bader,” the dominant one convinces the weaker ones. Got to be careful. Black ice. Another expression added to my personal Canadian English dictionary.

Zolf is zülüf in my mother tongue. Is it a face? I’ll look it up later. The beloved’s hair. Hair undulating over the beloved’s temples. Using his voice as an instrument, Namjoo holds my hand as I take faster yet cautious steps. Thus, my thoughts begin to wander. I am drawn to a rainy evening in Ankara. Was it January 28, 2015? Maybe. The melody is closing my heart and ears to Kingston’s frosty morning. Willem van Merwijk’s saxophone pierces the morning chill as I pass Chalmers United Church at the intersection of Clergy, Barrie, and Earl. How very odd that I am listening to this fourteenth-century love poem in a loveless Kingston? I restart the song at the traffic lights. Got to hear it again. Namjoo’s whistle sequence and van Merwijk’s saxophone take turns. The trumpet joins in. Namjoo’s fluctuating feminine and masculine vocals are trickling in. Each syllable is taking its time to spill out. Hafez’s reproachful lyrics ripple in Namjoo’s voice. Together, they flow through the riverbed of Merwijk’s saxophone. The Persian poet’s pleading with his sweetheart is etched onto the surface of Kingston while I am walking along Union. Namjoo’s voice peaks and valleys as I stride down a side street towards the lakeside building.

Later in class, I think about my new discovery. Fifth month in Canada. I am itching to share the song with someone. Anyone. I haven’t made real friends yet. I turn to the ghazal in my head while my classmates are busy self-authoring themselves, with statements squeezed in the main discussion, as smart graduate researchers. Embodiment. Trajectory. Intersectionality. I feel swallowed by these big words, which push me away. Out the window. Southeast over Lake Ontario. Past the winter land. Across the rolling ocean waves.

3 Quality Time with Parents

Part I.

11 August 2018

My last visit with my parents before I leave for Canada. My father does not know yet that I’ll be leaving Türkiye in about two weeks. He also does not know that I want to leave for good. The two of us are picking plums. Some are tart; most sweet. Firm and juicy. They have purple skin and amber flesh. “It sells well,” says Babam. He is content. We listen to folk songs on my phone. “Ozlem, play Gışlalar,” he demands. We listen to “Kışlalar doldu bugün” as performed by Neriman Altındağ Tüfekçi. It’s our song. He won’t tell me why he likes it so much. I love it because I associate it with my father.

Part II.

Summer 2021

I am on a video call with my parents. Out of habit, I place my left hand under my chin. Babam: “You’ve put your hands over your ear as if you are going to sing. Sing Gışlalar.” I have a better idea. I turn to YouTube for help. We become silent when the performer croons about a visit and a farewell. Muffled sobs on each side of the camera. Babam and I are hiding our faces from each other. Separated for a few years and not knowing when (and if) we will embrace each other again, we remain silent. I don’t tell him that I’ve missed him. I don’t want to encourage more tears. He has dropped the tough father mask he’s worn for years. Ageing has softened his edges. But he will still not say he misses me. His “When are you coming home?” is to be interpreted as such.

Ozlem is longing. Yearning. Coming to Canada, I thought I would also leave behind the nagging feeling. Now I am yearning for what I left behind.

4 Month of Qualms

February 2019

“February just drags,” complains my landlady. For me, it is the month of “Gretchen am Spinnrade“(Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) by Franz Schubert. I’ve encountered this Lied in the German culture course I am assisting. It is from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, the tragic play written in rhymed verse. They say Goethe penned this part at 17. He must have been a wildly romantic soul.

Gretchen, the main female character, is captivated by Faust, the disillusioned scientist and all the promises he has made. She sings of her heartache. The object of her desire is after illicit worldly pleasures only. Unaware of her tragic end, Gretchen is ready to be drawn into Faust’s arms. “My peace is gone/ My heart is heavy” confesses the young woman. The song escalates in intensity and peaks at Gretchen’s remembrance of Faust’s kiss. My thoughts pace with Gretchen’s feet at the wheel.

I added the word “earworm” to my glossary the first night I heard the song. The ballad runs in a loop. I am obsessed with the opening bar. I’ve listened to recitals by Waltraud Meier, Jessye Norman, and Wallis Giunta. No one could dramatise Gretchen’s emotional turbulence better than the American Soprano Renée Lynn Fleming.

Gretchen, Renée, and I meet through a desperate poem about a ruinous love story. Gretchen is sharing her heartache. Renée, on stage, is singing of the girl’s anguish. I am tucked in my bed listening to this classic song in a language I barely understand: my German is rusty. My headphones are building a no man’s land between the song and the cold tiny rental room. The song spins my head like the wheel under the girl’s feet. My feet replace Gretchen’s on the pedal. I spin and spin. Gretchen sounds as if she has lost her sense of reality. I, too, have drifted away from the immediate world around me listening to her sing of her heartache.

Why this song? No. I am not a hapless Gretchen. I haven’t fallen in love with a man. Or a woman. In fact, I connect to the discontent of the beloved in the text. His dissatisfaction with his life is very resonant. My initial excitement at being in a new country wore off. I stopped taking photographs of the city. I am questioning my decision to leave a secure job and a warm apartment in Ankara behind. Life in Kingston is cold, and I am almost always by myself.

5 Divine Encounters

March 2019

Loreena McKennitt, the queen of Celtic music says “in one way or another, we are all an extension of each other’s history” on her webpage. My connection to McKennitt goes back to the 1990s, when I first listened to her “Tango to Evora’‘with Turkish lyrics. I have been listening to this fiery- haired woman for more than twenty years now. Who could tell that, one day, I would live just miles away from Perth County, where the composer resides? I had never associated McKennitt with Canada, either. Maybe she sat on the same couch where I often read in Stauffer. After all, she holds an honorary degree from Queen’s!

There is something about McKennitt’s music. It takes you along the Silk Road. For me, “Tango to Evora” is a walk along Istiklal Street on a spring day. The moment I close my eyes, I tango in Istanbul. Such is the charm of its melody.

January 2021

But “Tango to Evora” is now accompanied by other McKennitt songs. Some of her tunes taste divine. “Caravanserai” is another favourite. The Persian word refers to the roadside inns dotting the trade routes weaving the Middle East, Central Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe. McKennitt places more stones along the way to help the Silk Road extend beyond the ancient roads. Those ancient guest houses were not only safe respite for travellers and their caravans from near and far but also centres for the exchange of goods and culture. McKennitt’s piece, too, doubles as a hub for the exchange. It calls to mind memories from other places and maps them onto Kingston as Rueben and I take our afternoon walk. An ebb away from Kingston, a flow towards the road that pulls me elsewhere every time I hear McKennitt sing:

What is this life that pulls me far away/What is that home where we cannot reside/What is that quest that pulls me onward/My heart is full when you are by my side/Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you…

6 From Elsewhere: “So Where Is Home?” and Other Questions

“Masar” is an instrumental piece by Le Trio Joubran. The rumour goes that the three Joubran brothers composed this piece during a rehearsal break. I tend to listen to it when I am taking a pause from “So where is home?”

Home is a geography of the heart, wrote bell hooks. I need to close my eyes to be able to touch that geography these days. This tune from elsewhere puts me on a winding path towards home.

I shut my eyes tight when Wissam, the older Joubran brother, picks up his oud. The first notes amble away, taking me to a warm Istanbul afternoon. I am roaming the crowded streets in downtown Kadıköy. His brothers Samir and Adnan join us. Wissam, Samir, and Adnan on their ouds; me in a trance. We are strolling through the busy town centre. I am setting my eyes on fresh produce in Kadıköy Çarşı. The brothers are playing the same melody again and again. We are trotting slowly at first. I remind myself to buy pastry from Beyaz Fırın. The Joubrans` percussionist friend is pointing at the coffee houses on each side of the street. I am choosing to have tea at Piraye Café. I am fond of the cats sunbathing in the sunny patches of the garden. In my mind is a poem by Mahmoud Darwish written in a language I cannot read. We are taking a sharp turn onto the left. We are picking pace. We are running. We are following the afternoon crowd up the street. We are climbing. We are stumbling. We are lurching. It feels as if we are running downhill when we are going ‘home’ at the top of the hill. We all know we’ve reached a state of ecstasy when the piece suddenly ends. And again.

“Masar” places me on a meandering route to home. It is one of those tunes that make me reflect on how I have become a Middle Eastern in Canada.

How did I become a Middle Eastern? Is it possible to wear with pride what was given to you with a touch of scorn? How do you digest an identity shovelled down your throat along with a few other not-so-savoury labels?

I remember the sting of that first rejection well. I was still in Türkiye then, far removed from associating with the Middle East. The elaborate enquiry emails I sent to many Kingstonian homeowners who were advertising their spare rooms were mostly unanswered. I later discovered that seeking rental housing from afar with the label Middle Eastern on my back negated my laborious descriptions of myself as a mature, clean, and reliable woman. I didn’t know that my ‘spicy’ food would trigger potential landlords` food allergies. Polite racism, I would learn later, is the term to capture the essence of an email I received from a homeowner: “I am sorry, but … allergies to spicy food.” Never mind that they hadn’t asked me what I really ate.

Then, there was that moment when I stared at a world map in a public park in Vancouver. Each continent was painted a different colour to help children, the target audience, locate the countries of their choice easily. Türkiye was placed in Asia although the country sits uncomfortably on the edges of two continents. I was furious. Obviously, the creators of this map had not done their homework. How could they miss that my country is in Asia and Europe? Why would they push it further east? I remember looking for some contact information. I would write to the cartographers and get them to correct the error. … I have given much thought to the politics of representation since then.

Besides, there were random questions and comments at informal gatherings. One: Did I speak Arabic like my Saudi companion whom I met in Canada, and with whom I happen to be in the same graduate program? After all, we are both from the Middle East! No, not everyone from the region you call the Middle East speaks Arabic. Two: Did I wear sleeveless tops in Türkiye? Yes and no. Certainly yes in Istanbul, where I lived eighteen years. And yes in Ankara, the city I found difficult to call home though I made certain neighbourhoods mine over the period of six years I was there. No, not when I was visiting my parents in my rural birthplace once or twice a year. I covered my shoulders and legs in the village because my parents would not appreciate it if their neighbours gossiped about their eldest daughter, and I wanted to make them proud by looking modest. My transformation from a peasant girl who left home at ten to an educated woman evolved to accommodate their wishes; in time, I softened my usual I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-my-body attitude. Three: Was I not acknowledging that I was queer because I come from an ‘oppressive’ country, as one of my classmates insisted in my first year in Canada? No. I am not queer. Just because l sport very short hair and an androgynous dress sense doesn’t mean I prefer to date women. Let’s talk about the adjective ‘oppressive’ at another time.

“So where is home?” A taxi driver asked me one day, after I told him I was relatively new to Kingston. “Take a guess!” I responded, feeling less nervous about interacting with locals. Nova Scotia? No. Latin America? No. Spain? No. Let me clue you in. A country in the Middle East. Silence. … Then, I thought to myself: the Middle East is not wedded to a definite physical territory. It is a place of the heart where songs like “Masar” take me.

“Leaving to Come Back”

January 2021

Music is thought to help alleviate pain and boost performance during physical exercise and study. It is praised for its potential to reduce anxiety, too. I would add that it may deepen or ease feelings of loneliness and displacement. Also, the music someone likes speaks volumes about them. It reveals where they belong. 

Going through the “Kingston Blues”‘list I listened to during my first ‘Canadian’ year, I see a woman who has stronger ties to places that look and feel different from Kingston. The tunes seem to de-territorialise the actual places I have passed through in this limestone city. That’s what happens when a place is being claimed by a migrant. You leave a place and it comes back through songs.