Seriously Syria: Palmyra

"The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines."

~Charles Kuralt

Monday, July 30, 2001.

 Today we left Damascus and headed for Palmyra. One thing that is cool about travelling in Syria is that the buses go all the time. It seems strange to me that these countries with relatively small populations can sustain this type of traveling! The downside to this in particular in Syria, is that when we arrive at the bus station, we are met by 100 touts who scream names of cities at us or run alongside us asking, "Excuse me where you go?" This is because there are different bus companies competing for travelers. As soon as they're bus is filled up it can go. You would think we be sitting there all day, but actually, we never had to wait more than 40 minutes at a stretch.  

So off to Palmyra we went, though we both felt more time could have been spent in Damascus. Though we were not too keen on more Roman ruins, apparently Palmyra is a serious top place to visit, as well as being UNESCO site-a designation Jerash in Jordan doesn't have. However, I think that this is because Palmyra has a far racier past than cousin Jerash.

 Pompeii conquered the rest of Syria in 63 BC. Instead of wasting his troops energy by talking them through the desert to Palmyra, the town became a buffer zone between the Roman and Persian Empire. 

In A.D. 130, Hadrian declared Palmyra a free town so the people of Palmyra were free to govern themselves. In A.D. 217, Rome gave Palmyra the status of Roman colony, so the Palmyrenes did not have to pay taxes and had rights which were on par with those of Rome. At this time, the citizens changed the name of Palmyra to Palmyra-Hadriana to show their gratitude. 

 Palmyra became an important city on the trade routes between Rome and the empires of the East. Petra's demise was Palmyra's fortune and more and more trade routes felt under Palmyrene control. However the peak of Palmyrene was when Rome granted Palmyrene King Odenathus full control over all of the Roman forces in the area. This was because he rescued the Roman Emperor Valerian from Persian kidnappers. But Odenathus was murdered in 268-2266 A.D. and his queen, Queen Zenobia assumed the throne for her infant son. But Zenobia was no idle queen and set about expanding the Palmyrene kingdom. Within five years her armies controlled Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor up to and including Ankara. Mints in Alexandria were making coins with her image and Zenobia had taken to calling herself Augusta, the Roman Imperial title. 

Obviously Rome was a little pissed off and Emperor Aurelian retaliated. By A.D. 272, Zenobia's trips were defeated and Palmyra was captured as Zenobia tried to flee. She had to ride in shackles in Aurelian's victory parade. She lived out the last of her days as a prisoner in Italy. Palmyra never regained its previous splendor. And in 1089, an earthquake toppled most of the city and the place was pretty much abandoned after that.

The first day we arrived we really wondered what the big attraction was. This place was no more than a village with cement houses, sometimes painted, kids on bikes, a few chickens. Having arrived in the midday, all sane people had retreated indoors to escape the heat. And what heat it was! Was finding this oasis in the desert all that great? After we checked into our hotel- Al Afqa Hotel, run by a larger than life manager named Mehren,  we wanted around the little tumbleweed town, ate dinner and returned just before sundown where we took a taxi up to the Mamluk castle to watch the sunset.

 I met a Canadian archaeologist who knew my Roman art history professor from UVic. The discussions I had with her further confirmed that leaving the political profession of art history to go to linguistics was a good one. We watched the sunset, went back to the hotel and joked with Mehren, and retired to the room for the night 

Tuesday, July 31, 2001.

Today we got up and headed to the museum and organized a ride of the tombs of Elahbel and the three brothers. Since we had time to kill, we headed out to the ruins which were surprisingly close to where we were staying. I think over all we didn't really see anything that we didn't see at Jerash, though Palmyra seemed more of a city where Jerash seemed like scattered ruins. Of course we had our usual host of totes and camel drivers to bargain for. I told one guy I really hated camels and he kept chasing me down show me his camel wouldn't bite! I have had enough of the furry flatulent beasts! 

After a quick jaunt down to the colonnaded street, checking out the nondescript ruins we headed back in the heat the museum where we met our driver and another Canadian named Tim. Tim was a budding archaeologists you had been on a dig in Turkey. He was way more energetic than us in the heat, running to the top of nearby ruins donning his Indiana Jones hat and peering into the corners with a heavy duty torch. So the first tomb we went to see was the Temple of Elabel. Because these tombs are the best, they are locked and shown only four times a day. 

The temple of Bell was built in 103 A.D. for four brothers and their portraits are painted on the wall. But on each side of the temple seems to be a filing cabinet for the dead. Four floors, nine recesses, each could hold nine corpses, that's 324 bodies in this one alone! This was done for profit so you could be buried in a tomb even if you couldn't afford one. 

One interesting thing was that the spaces were so narrow it was obvious and later confirmed by our Indiana Jones companion that the Romans buried their dead sideways. The tomb of the three brothers was underground and had funerary statues. 

Tim  bartered for several minutes for a Kafiya. He got the guy down to 70 Syrian pounds-very cheap! But he didn't have the correct change. So he borrowed 50 pounds off René and promised he would find her and return the money. After he got out of the taxi he stuck his head back in and said he promised and he even did the scouts sign! We trusted him! 


He did pay René back by leaving an envelope of money with Mehren at the hotel. When Mehren saw the piddly amount of cash in the envelope, he seriously blew a fit:
"You'd think he left you ten million dollars, with the fuss he made about getting this envelope to you! I should go out there and find this guy and crack his head!" Luckily our Indiana Jones was already out of town. 

We were hungry at this point so we decided to go for a walk and check out the Pancake House, a restaurant that came highly recommended by the traveller's we had met. We were having a hard time finding it until a man on a bike drove by and called out, 


"Pancake house?" 

"Yes!" 

"Follow me!"

 This was the Iad, cook, owner,  manager and full blown-entertainment. After we ate, he invited us into the cool and quiet backroom to hang out with him and his son. René ended up talking to  Iad, who drilled her on all sots of topics in order to kill time and I played a strange little card game with his eight-year-old son Mohammed. Iad's wife Gina was currently in Romania with their youngest son and he was left alone with Mohammed for the summer holidays and it was driving him crazy! Mohammed had a fixation with everything mine and carefully checked out the contents of my bag: my camera, backpack, passport, and sunglasses. I took some photos of him wearing everything including my shoes! 

We left to catch the afternoon sunlight on the ruins but not before promising to return for a free dinner! And it was a good dinner-couscous with lamb and tomato- the most expensive thing on the menu! There were no other customers and we spent a few hours there. But I have to admit I got bored listening to Iad ask René when she was planning to come back to Palmiyra and offered to help her find a job in Damascus so they could see each other. Not that I want the attention René gets from these men, but it was getting ridiculous! So I bugged Mohammed and we built our own fun. 


Soon Mohammed and I were bored with each other and we waited and watched Iad fawn over René and Rene laugh it off for bit longer. He did tell us his grand plans for the pancake House which was basically to become as big as McDonalds is in other countries. (No McDonald's in Syria.) We were only allowed to leave after we had tea with Iad's parents Where he introduced René and told them her life story, ignoring me completely!  We also had to promise to come back for breakfast even though in my opinion it was a large pain in the ass and I had had enough of Iad.

Wednesday, August 1, 2001

This morning we packed, checked out of our hotel and carried our luggage over to the Pancake House. Iad had sent Mohammed to sleep at his grandfather's and he himself had pulled up a mat Arab style and was asleep on the floor of the restaurant when we arrived. He got up, not a morning person, and staggered around the kitchen making us a really nice send off breakfast. We had pancakes and coffee, and more of the same conversation as the night before. Rene asked and lots of questions about his wife. He answered but didn't talk too much. 


He then drove us to the bus station, bought our tickets to Homs, got on the bus and booted two poor boys out of their seats to wait for the next bus. He then reorganized the front seats so we didn't have to sit next to any swarthy men. He asked us if we had made arrangements with the hotel we wanted to stay at in Hama, and we told him no, but it would be okay. Lucky for us, Iad called ahead and booked us a room, as he knew it was often full and there was no where else decent to stay in Hama! 

Then we finally said good bye to Iad, the Pancake Man, me feeling a little guilty and sheepish for scoffing so much at him when he really was quite generous, thoughtful, kind, and did a lot for us.

-To be Continued!-

xxMelanie

Seriously Syria, Last Day in Damascus

"Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will- whatever we may think." 

~Lawrence Durell

Sunday, July 29

Today was our day to do the rest of the old city. Aside from wandering aimlessly through the streets, we went to see the Azzam Palace next to the great Mosque. It was a nice large space with displays of Arabic life portrayed by a  bunch of identical manikins, male or female, punched out of the same mould. It was like seeing an Arab version of the Dionne Quintuplets! They did have a nice Koranic display, with six Koranic lines written on a seed and a whole chapter written on an egg. You could see through a magnifying glass that the script was perfect- Not that I would ever want to do that but it must take skills! 


 After we had gone through the palace, we try to take a rest and drink some water on the sidewalk in the old city. Should I say "try" because a small battle ensued with the vendors located in a fifteen foot radius. "Come to my shop lady!" "Wait,  okay,  we just want to relax and drink some water."  "Come drinking my shop!"  Wait! We just want to relax and drink some water!"  "Drink in my shop! Wullah, it's more comfortable. You no buy. Just looking! No charge for looking! I give you good price!"


 One man sent his friends to tell us to that if we were smart, we'd come to his store because he would give us some free watermelon. "Nothing is free!" we told him. We did end up having tea with one family of a man who ran three shops on that street. They told us that Watermelon Man was a very bad man. "Why?" I asked. "Do you have neighbours in Canada?"  "Yes," I replied.  "Are they all good?" 

Next, they brought out a little wire puzzle and Nae and I had to get a little ring off the wire structure. I had seen it before in Taiwan even though the men insisted that it had been invented by Bedouin man in the desert. As we try to get the ring off, we attracted an Arab crowd of such a mass that the men who ran the shops tried to take the game away to disperse the crowd. 


"No!" We told them,  determined to solve the puzzle. "Go make some sales!" We laughed.  We eventually did solve the puzzle, with a little help from the father of the store. Each time we made motions to leave, the teapot would be refilled and we would be invited to look at one of their other shops. 


Eventually we did  succumb and followed one man into his own private warehouse. The warehouse was a four story building with a courtyard and fountain. There were more authentic Turkish wall paintings painted by the people who built the edifice. René and I saw guesthouse potential!


 Even though we repeatedly told them that we had no money, they continued to show us room and rooms full of old stuff, swords, teapots, rugs etc. and offer us tea. The boy showing us around decided to be our self-appointed guide for the rest of our stay in Damascus. We had to work carefully to extricate ourselves from the situation without being rude.


 On the way out I happened to glance under a chair. "Is that cat dead?" I asked.
 "No no! Not dead! Sleping. Just watch!"  One of the boys moved the chair and poked the cat, but it didn't move. 


"Oh, what a pity! This cat was playing just two days ago! Never mind,  pull up a chair and drink some tea!"


 We practically ran out of the shop after that, and so ended our days in Damascus.


-To be continued-


xxMelanie

Seriously Syria: The Great Mosque of Damascus

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit." 

~Kalil Gibran

Saturday, July 28, 2001


Today we slept in. Perhaps we need it, we didn't sleep well in Amman. We had a hot room on the roof so we kept the door open since we seemed to retain a lot of heat from the day. All of the people who paid to sleep on the roof slept in sleeping bags on mats on concrete right outside our door, which meant we had to step over bodies to get to and from the shared bathroom. We were tired enough we slept right through the call to prayer which is happening later and later as fall approaches. 

I did get to chat with some young Canadian girls who just came back from Beirut. Apparently Lebanon was too expensive for a shopping spree, so they came to Damascus. Bags and bags of spices, pestles and mortars (stone), three gallabeyahs each, miscellaneous water pipes and four or five pairs of shoes each, they were the souk merchants wet dream! None of them knew the Canadian exchange rate, and didn't seem to care . All the money was spent and they were heading home to Montreal. I can imagine the theme party these four would have! 

And so after a lazy morning start  We finally made it to the Ummayad Mosque, known to me in Art History as the Great Mosque of Damascus. This is Islam's most holy building outside Mecca and Medina, making it the most important Islamic building that a non-Muslim can enter in the world. First, a bit of history. This site has seen many temples. The first being dedicated to the Aramaic God Haddad. The Romans identified him with their God Jupiter; Some Roman ruins remain between the mosque and the souk.

 Next, the Byzantines converted the temple into a church dedicated to John the Baptist. When the Ummayads came to power, they destroyed the Church and found John the Baptist's body in the process. They kept his head for good luck and made a little green dome enclosure inside to house it. (But I am assuming he was found with his whole body- but what did they do with it? Did they really need to save the space it would take to house a whole body?)


(Side note here: when we arrived in Istanbul and went to the Topkapi palace, we were lucky enough to see the OTHER head of John the Baptist. Who knew JB had two heads?!!? I feel doubly blessed. ) 

 And of course there are the Byzantine mosaics of lush trees and improved fantastical versions of Damascus. Apparently at the time of building there were no skilled mosaicists so they just hired Byzantine ones- kind of ironic since the Ummayads had just cleared away all the Byzantine rubble. It was the Ummayads who made Damascus the center of the Islamic world and the Abbasids who took it away to Baghdad. I'll get into Damascus history later on right now I just talk about her experience at the mosque. 

We ran to gauntlet of the souk which now, being Saturday,  was in full throw and we couldn't walk a minute without hearing, "Welcome to my shop!" "Where you from?" Finally we arrived at the mosque and headed for the ticket office. There René and I paid our 50 pound entrance fees, and because we are female, we got fitted with  dingy, unattractive  sackish brown monk-like robes. (René described them as grayish-brown hospital gowns with hoods) Once fitted in the somewhat hot annoying ugly outfits, we headed to the mosque. Maybe it's just the tourist area, but I didn't find the people we met to be very friendly. Upon entering and wandering around the mosque, I felt a little intimidated. Some of the looks I got especially from other women had me checking that I was properly done up and my head was covered. Perhaps it's because I am a foreign woman with no attached husband. At least that's the most logical reason I can think of. 

The mosque's courtyard was very beautiful, and when I saw the Byzantine mosaics everything I learned in Art History flooded back to me. It's funny. When I studied in Art History, I always had the idea that I would like to visit these places one day, but somehow it seems impossible. It was a very satisfying feeling to be standing in front of those mosaics and know again I had come full circle. 

Unfortunately my freaking robe  kept getting in the way of taking photos. It was a particularly windy day and either my sleeve blew in front of my camera lens or the wind tried to blow the hood of my head and my ankle would be exposed under the ankle length robe if I were facing the wrong way. As well I had a really annoying young guy (dressed in head to toe denim), 'psssting' me if I were to fall out of line in this regard. Of course Denim Man did it to all the foreign women running around and like he did with me, he smiled and try to pick them up after he had finished chastising them for not having their necks covered. (But this feature wasn't built into the robes, so I felt he just have to live with it.)

So even though I took the photo with great difficulty as my feet were burning on the sunbaked marble tiles as well, I got my Byzantine Mosaics in the end. 


And I got a slight feel of what it must be like for Muslim women on a day to day basis, especially in Damascus. The women here were few and the ones we saw were in full purdah; not even their eyes visible. A lot were in head to toe black and had their eyes and nose covered. Many women who were covered but didn't wear black wore tan trench coats over their dresses. How anyone could wear that in this heat was beyond me. Omar told me it was the woman's choice what she wanted to wear and that they chose to cover. Standing there in the Great Mosque of Damascus I decided there must be serious social pressure for the women to cover- probably most enforced by other women. I know now why there aren't many Muslim women photographers! Damn sleeves keep getting in the way. 

René and I went into the mosque  and to my surprise the inside was austere compared to the outside. there were cushy rugs all over the floor and people were either lounging or sleeping. I eyed René suspiciously as lounging is her new favorite hobby- after Dahab she can practically sleep anywhere at anytime! But this makes for a boring travel partner so she didn't sleep in the mosque. In the middle of the interior there was the large green domed enclosure holding poor John the Baptist's head. Rene and I sat down next to a group of women and apparently a little wrinkled lady kept getting giving me hell behind my back, but when I turned around she just stared. Apparently whatever I was doing wrong was not dire enough to let me in on it. I was really beginning not to like Syrian women, based on the little contact I had with them. René had also been complaining a lot about being elbowed pushed and shoved in the markets as well. 

 And so hot and a little bothered, but still happy to have been able to see the Great Mosque of Damascus, Rene and I continued on. We went to the mausoleum of Saladdin but this was largely uninteresting. I mention it only because it was there I realize that Denim Man was following us. He had there been the one chastising us in the mosque. With some fancy footwork near the entrance of the souk we were rid of him! The rest of our day was fairly boring. We had our shoes fixed as all this traveling has really put some miles on my Birkenstocks, my only pair of shoes at the moment- My other leather sandals didn't react well to the day at the Dead Sea and are now unwearable. (But it was so cheap we got everything fixed- even things that weren't quite broken yet! I got new soles on my Birks for twenty five cents Canadian!)  The most memorable part of this night was our discovery of tasty lemon ice-like a soft slurpee-only for 10 pounds. The lemon ice vendors sure make killing continuously scooping frozen ice into cups- usually they're sold before they melt in the 40+ degree heat. I would always watch for him to scoop a fresh one and I would scoop it for myself, yum!

-To be continued-


xxMelanie

Seriously Syria: A Telling 2001 Adventure

"You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt 

and you can't make peace without Syria." 

~Henry Kissinger

I've been following the news of the tragedies happening in Syria and it's been breaking my heart to say the least. Since I have my journals back from the WanderLust! Exhibition I cracked open my Syrian Journal and had a good read today. I haven't actually read my books in ages and since Nick Bantock and his wife Joyce had spent some quality time with them before the exhibition went up, I also wondered what they had read! I never wrote these journals for other people to read, though I don't think there is anything too personal in them. But reading them is like having a visit with a younger version of myself. It makes me a bit sad I haven't kept journals of all the places I've been to, but at least I have these ones. 

Rene and I went to Syria pre-9/11 in 2001. I seemed to remember it being a wonderful place with beautiful architecture and friendly people, my journals tell me things long since forgotten. It still is a beautiful place and I'm praying for a quick end to this nonsense over there. I don't want this blog to be political though, But I've decided in light of my frustrations I would publish the Syrian part of my 

journal here. I don't have my pictures though. They are in a box at my parents house in slide form, waiting for a day I find a good way to switch them to digital. But I will include the pages of my book to show you instead. 

This journal was part of a three month trip from Egypt to Turkey. My first time in the Middle East. I hope you enjoy it! I'll publish a day at a time for brevity. 

Saturday, July 28th, 2001

This afternoon we arrived in Syria. We changed money by going in the back of a news stand on the street and up several flights of stairs to a little office on the fifth floor. It seemed a little weird to be going upstairs to the store room to a little office in the back; I got the idea that the other business was just a front for the real moneymaker: changing travelers cheques. What we really didn't know then but know now, is that Syria has a serious black money market, and as we strolled through the souk a few hours later, we couldn't walk 10 feet without someone offering to cash travelers cheques, change money or even  give us cash advances on Visa!

 We had taken a taxi there, and though we really had no choice but to go with this taxi driver, (we were spoken for, no one else would take us) he turned out to be a bit of a shyster, especially when we figured out he set the meter at triple of the going rate! And while we were changing money, of course he left the meter running. This was just as I suspected, especially since he kept insisting we sit and drink tea with the moneychangers. Idle, idle, idle. 

Once we arrived at the hotel, we had a big problem as he wouldn't accept a 500 pound bill for 322 pounds. He had seen us change money and knew we had nothing smaller, and no one in miles willing to change it. A small scene ensued, and in a giant huff he took our 300 pounds and forgave our outstanding 22 pounds. And so he should have! The ride should have cost us about 100. We generally are careful not to get shafted but it was our first 2 min in Syrian public, and I guess no travel story would be complete without a scam or two. 

We checked into the Al Haramain Hotel, and thank God they had a room for us because according to our guidebooks everything else was the flea pit or a brothel in Damascus, and not a lot in between or better. After we dropped off our stuff we headed out to finally eat! We went to a little hole in the wall restaurant and ate like vegetarian queens, as both of us were afraid of the meat we saw hanging rock in the window. People (all men- I guess women stay home to eat in Syria) chomped away at chicken carcasses and rice all around us. I went for the hummus and pita once again after we finished, we went for a stroll in the souk. 

The Souk is like a large covered neighborhood huge market selling anything from spices to car parts. This day was Friday, and though most of the shops were closed, there was still a lively trade of all sorts of clothing and Max Factor makeup. Nae I walked through to the old city, checked out what we were going to do the next day and then went for ice cream back in the souk.

 Apparently this place was famous and all of Damascus for quality ice cream. Nae and I ended up in the wrong line; we wanted to order, instead we got to pound the doughy looking ice cream with the really heavy wooden paddle. Of course we weren't as strong as the guy working there and our feeble attempts brought smirks from him and giggles from us and the other customers in the restaurant.

 The ice cream was a bit too slimy for my liking, but it was worth stop and the time to soak in some Syrian ambiance. The place was filled with families, all eating the same vanilla ice cream under two huge portraits of the late President Hafez Al- Assad, a gray-haired evil looking man with a comb over and his son, Bashar Al-Assad, who is the current president -an unattractive man who seems to be frowning behind sunglasses in every portrait we saw of him.

 A happier portrait next to them showed our jovial Jordanian King Abdullah receiving his luscious portion of slimy vanilla ice cream. We missed our happy King! At least in Jordan Abdullah and his babe-a-licious wife smiled, welcoming you to Jordan. The late King Hussein was good looking enough to hang on the wall without his kingly status. But these two in Syria! Sheesh! Scary!!!

-To Be Continued!-

xxMelanie

Okanagan Originals: The Slide Show Experiment!

There is a reason I surround myself with smart, creatively thinking people.

Obviously this page is an experiment in progress! (Apparently I'll need to change the width of my blog to make this work properly, But I'm going to save that for another day.)

I learned how to embed videos tonight. Hence the reformatting of my blog to fit the video format.

Eww, blogger, you need to work on your uploading of videos. This looks terrible!

As you know, my paintings have been pirated and can now be found for sale all through the tourist areas of Istanbul, and by more than one Turkish company. Obviously protecting my images is important. But setting up a new website is time consuming and expensive, and frankly I don't have the time right now.

On another note, people have been asking which original paintings are still available after the exhibition at the Penticton Art Gallery and Cafe NeverMatters this past summer. I'd post them, but I am reluctant because I don't like the look of the watermarks all over my paintings. My friend Peter in the U.K agreed. So he suggested an idea worth exploring. Why not make a slideshow?

So here is my slideshow of original paintings which are still up for grabs. I admit, I did this through imovie and it's not as clear as I'd like it to be on blogger, so I uploaded it on to Youtube as well. (Seems to be an issue with blogger.) In the meantime, I'll keep looking for good slideshow software if it seems this is working out. Ultimately, I'd like my own website but this is something worth exploring in the meantime.

I would love it if you would drop your feedback/ advice/ brilliant ideas about the slideshow. Do you feel you get a good sense of the paintings? Is it annoying? Would you rather look at the watermarked images for the time being? Is it brilliant, creative and innovative and you wish you'd thought of it yourself? (Truthfully, I'm still not sure what I think.)

Thanks!

xxMelanie

The Last of the Turkish Prints!

The Hamam Ladies

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

Only Five prints left for Sale

at Java Cafe, Sultanahmet, Istanbul!

(And that is it for the 2009 Turkish Series!)

My sister and I and a few of our terrific friends at our first show in Istanbul!

I had a really good summer.

After I collected my paintings and prints from the Wanderlust! Exhibition The Penticton Art Gallery, I took inventory of which paintings I had left. Strangely enough, I sold the rest of the Turkish series between the two shows I had this summer, but I still have a few of the Okanagan pieces. An employee of the gallery remarked, "Maybe we are too close to the Okanagan stuff. The Turkish series is far off and exotic, and beautiful. I'm not surprised you've been cleaned out."

So it's great that the Turkish paintings are all gone, though I admit sometimes I feel a little sad when I think I won't see a painting again. I know it's the business and I'm happy to part with work for two reasons: It makes someone else happy to have it and I am inspired to paint more.

But the Istanbul series was painted at a really spectacular time of my life where I was surrounded by wonderful friends in a wonderful, inspiring city- a bit of a golden age for me, where I got back into art full time and did some hard thinking about what was really important to me and where I wanted to be headed in the future. Ironic that I'm hoping my future will lead me back to this fabulous city that has lost a few of the golden friends over this hiatus, but still contains some people I miss greatly. I'm really hoping that the stars align and I am able to return- there is still so much left for me to paint!

Anyway, on that note, I have just received word that there are still a few Turkish prints in Istanbul for sale through Java Cafe at 55 TL each. If you are in the area or are going to the area, or knows anyone in the area, there are three prints left: Click the blog link under each picture to take you to the links where you will find more info about each piece.

Contact Virginia Lowe @

Java Cafe in Sultanahmet

Peykane Caddesi, Su Terazisi Sok 9A.

Sultanahmet, Istanbul

Turkey

(Again, sorry for the over watermarking, but if you'd read my piracy blog you'll know why!

Still working on a solution for that one!)

The Bosporus Ferry

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

The Sultanahmet Bird Feeders

Blog: Birds Birds Birds!

The Umbrella Ladies

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

The Fish Mongers of Kadikoy

Blog: New Paintings in Istanbul!

xx Melanie

Commitment-phobe: How not to be one in 2012!

Unless commitment is made,

there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.

Peter Drucker

Damn! New Year's is happening in China right now and I'm missing it!

Commitment. It’s so final. You make a decision that feels like you are taking yourself out of the good life and putting yourself in commitment purgatory. The future looks dismal and bleak, like a tattered sepia photograph from the Depression era. The thought of the commitment being so forever, so final, and you get the sweats. Your stomach churns. Panic. Then comes the negotiating- your mind with yourself. One more little fling won’t hurt. Just one, then I’ll commit to my commitment forever. And then the next thing you know, the whole pack of cigarettes has been smoked, that bag of Oreos that was full twenty minutes ago is now empty and no, you didn’t go to the gym everyday like you’d promised your 2010 self.

Yes, it’s the time where New Year’s resolutions are upon us. I, like everyone else, probably didn’t stick to my commitments I made to myself last year. I think I wrote them down but somewhere in the three full house moves I made this year (yes three!) they were thrown out with the trash, which is where they belonged, because I didn’t commit to them anyway, it seems.

But in July, I decided I wanted to be a little more proactive about my health. One thing I could do is cut out sugar. Sneaking a Starbucks cookie in with my afternoon coffee had become a bad habit. But cutting out sugar forever? It seemed so final. So not fun. Because sugar is in everything. Sauces, soy milk, breakfast muffins. Everything.

At the time, three things things happened.

One, I watched a Ted talk: "Try something new for 30 days" by Matt Cutt: (It’s only three minutes, worth the watch!)

Two, My friend Keveen Gabet of Korakor launched his own 30-Day Challenge. (I guess Keveen watched the same TedTalk!) And here I decided to join Keveen’s 30-Day Challenge and I cut out sugar for 30 days. I put a calendar on my fridge and marked off the days one by one. Truthfully, I stuck to it and the month flew by. And I felt great. I even kept it up for quite a while, though Christmas has certainly killed that! (Time to cut out sugar again.)

Three: I was working in a language school in Gastown and I was teaching a lesson on future tense in a grammar class. I like to tie my lessons into something that involves the Vancouver community so students can learn as much as they can about their social environment and since Lululemon originated in Vancouver, and yoga pants are everywhere, I printed off Lululemon’s goal setting worksheet for homework in preparation for the next lesson. I told the students I would do it too, so we could all see what each other’s goals were.

Boy, was it hard! The students furrowed their brows over the sheet, not because the English was difficult, but because none of us had sat down and tried to figure out our 1, 5 and 10 year goals. We couldn’t finish in class time, but we all agreed it was a good idea to take it home and finish it as a general exercise in whatever language worked best.

But Lulu’s goal setting sheet wasn’t a 30-Day Challenge, nor was it a New Year’s resolution. Instead, It was a way to check in at different times of the year to make sure you were on top of your goals. After all, the person you are today is a direct result of the person you wanted to be in the past. So wouldn’t it be a good idea to get a very strong and positive picture of the person you’d like to be five and ten years from now?

So here is my 2012 New Year’s Resolution:

I’m not making any New Year’s Resolutions.

New Year’s resolutions are too big, too broad, too final and simply, too restrictive and boring. Instead, I challenge myself to fill out Lulu’s goal setting sheet in my sketchbook- something I have with me all the time and won’t lose. And I will do this four times a year when the seasons change. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, because these are times of renewal, just like New Years.

And second of all, I am going to start with monthly challenges- Which means my challenges will be 28, 30 and 31 days long. Otherwise, I may fall off my track and not start a new 30-day challenge for a few weeks. Just being honest here! I’m not perfect! This way, if I do fall off my track, I have a definite date to start again.

So here is to 2012! And to goal setting all year round.

(Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to cram all the chocolate in I can before January 1^st. Juuuust kidding!)

Link to Ted Talk

Link to Korakor

Link to Lululemon goal setting (PDF goal setting sheet found here. I challenge you to fill it out, even just once!)

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Happy New Year!

xxMelanie