Cinar Beach, Gekova Bay

The weekend before I flew to Turkey, I attended, with Anne, a Bowel Cancer Patients' event at the Royal College of Surgeons - the College was a noble building - ionic columns framed its entrance - oil paintings of distinguished surgeons were hung upon the walls of the wide, silent, corridors - I stared for a long time at the sculpture of John Hunter - I remembered how the knife man had purloined the skeleton of James Byrne - Hunter sat there, chin resting upon his right hand, his icy intelligence frozen in the marble -

There were talks, workshops and one to ones - patients, like me, had blue name badges - carers, like Anne, had white name badges -

In the afternoon, there was a relaxation workshop - we all sat in a circle, patients and carers, in a panelled room - dark portraits of surgeons in frock coats looked down upon us - some of the surgeons had extraordinary beards -

The facilitator was a gorgeous bouncy girl - she told us how to cope with scan anxiety - we were taught how to breath, how to clench and unclench groups of muscles - the idea was that such exercises would induce tranquility -

I want you to think of your favourite place she said - I thought of Cinar Beach - I was sitting by the shore of Gekova Bay - tall oleander bushes shaded the rough and ready cafe tables - wavelets splashed upon the pebbly beach, just a few yards away -

A fresh water pool emptied into a clear stream, which ran across the beach in an icy necklace of foam and pebbles - you would gasp when you swam through its water -

I had been to this place many times, often in a scorching August or September - lithe creatures had splashed in the sea - I had swam amongst them, my pale body turning brown in the sun -

You can wake up now, come back - I responded reluctantly to the words of our facilitator - I had wanted to stay there, on Cinar Beach -

A week or so later, I was there - we ate, Jane, Ken and myself, a huge breakfast - we were the only patrons at the cafe - I did not swim this time, although now I wished I had -

It rained - huge warm drops of rainwater fell from the skies - I saw the rain move towards us, across the bay, like a glistening curtain -

I wondered what I would see, if that curtain parted, and showed what lay beyond it -

Market day, Karabortlen

One Friday, I decided to buy two kilos of onions from the market - it was Friday - the village street was crowded - no one took any notice of the market traffic - I dodged spidery mopeds, crumpled Renaults, ancient tractors - vehicles were suddenly reversing, parking slantwise, nudging sleepy village dogs - beat up  Fiat Doblos spouted diesel fumes from rusty exhausts - gaffers on push bikes of archaic design darted by, or slowly, blindly, wove their way through the shoals of dolmuses - 

Half smoked Larks were thrown out of the windows of Toyota pick up trucks - the young men smoked their cigarettes like 1940's film stars -

I saw tiny grannies, perched upon the back of mighty tractors, their bags crammed with cheeses, bread, olives and vegetables - lorries, with the legend Mashallah on their bonnets, were grossly overloaded with bales of straw -

I bought two loaves from the bakery - I tried out my Turkish - the woman with glossy hair smiled - within the bakery, I could see the small square opening of the oven - one of the gang of bakers, with his moustache and bravo's grin, pushed lozenges of dough inside with a wooden paddle -

The market was a place of marvels - I smelt sweet smelling pyramids of peaches - I feasted my eyes upon great vivid heaps of parsley, rocket and coriander - I heard innumerable voices, shouting or murmuring, all of the voices in a language that was strange and exotic to me -

There were glittering tawny and black drifts of olives - I sampled some, my mouth filling with their salty juices - there were mounds of onions, piled up like small skulls - ingots of pale, fragrant, cheeses -

I bought the onions - the market produce was sold from stalls, or from scraps of cloth laid out upon the ground - wrinkled old women would squat on their heels, next to their sparse merchandise - small hand scales with brass weights were used, as well as scales with digital displays -

At the far end of the market, hardware, shoes, clothes and kitchenware were for sale - all around me were families - mothers with their children - granddads with their flat caps and dark jackets - fistfuls of kurushes were exchanged - there were sacks of peanuts and pistachios -

I felt I could stay here for hours - there was so much to see and to smell, so many voices still to hear - but I had to return - there was dinner to make -

Waking up the first morning in Karabortlen

When I opened my eyes, I suddenly remembered where I was - I jumped out of my bed in delight - I'd slept like a dazed apparatchik, stumbling through unsettling dreams - I woke up in a blue bedroom flooded with sunlight - I could feel the warmth of a different sun upon every part of my body -

I raced over to the balcony - my feet hardly touched the marble floor - I thought - I shall make each day before me into a procession of marvels - 

I looked out upon the garden - I could see newly mown lawns, sweeping down from the terrace - two glorious spiky palm trees rose up from beds of roses and flowering shrubs - I could just see the margins of the swimming pool, a hint of its shining water - 

Terracotta roof tiles sloped down below me - swallows made their nests under the eaves of the roofs - beyond the varied trees of the garden, and the floor of the valley, rose hills and mountains, thickly forested with dark pines - I could see the dark torches of a grove of cypress trees  -

Next door was the muhtar's house - Pasha, the muhtar's dog, kept guard in his kennel - wood smoke drifted over small strangely shaped fields of winter wheat - 

The sky was the mildest and kindest of blues - I felt as I'd felt when as a guileless boy I'd woken up on the first day of my summer holidays - 

Whatever happened to me, I would always have this early morning wakening -

I could hear Jane and Ken moving around downstairs - I suddenly thought of marmalade - Jane's grapefruit marmalade was the best I'd ever tasted - each spoonful was a spoonful of happiness -

The Heathrow Song

I wrote this poem in 2005 - I knew then, before I entered the dark times, that in travel I might find grace -

In my dreams, or in bright rooms, I ask myself - what must I do to be saved?

I smell petrol in the chill air above my car -
Vivid blue flowers are spilt upon the forecourt -
The beautiful jets fly through the torn up sky -

The gag set upon my mouth begins to fall away -
Urgent guitars play upon my radio -
They sting my heart with their furious calling

I drive through the flickering dark of the airport underpass -
I see windows, like yellow beads, set in the cabins of the stilled jets

The airport screens flicker their lists of the names of cities -
Prague - Moscow - Venice - Cape Town - Istanbul -
I hear the music - I smell the stone - I touch the ice or sand that each name brings

The watch is broken by my blood -
The flying moments are wrapped round my face like torn up flags

I want to be in a taxi in a late night city -
Driving past the stone torrent of a huge cathedral -
Hearing all the secret songs of the world

I want to trail my fingers in a dark basin -
Look up at stars in a hidden court -
See figures dance upon the air -

I sip my scalding latte -
I step out into the airport concourse -
My life begins anew

I feel, when leaving for the airport, that I am in a film made by Wim Wenders - 

Just over two weeks ago, I drove to Gatwick Airport - as I drove along the motorway, overtaking petrol tankers, I turned up the volume of my car CD player - I listened, intently, to David Bowie singing Love Is Lost - I heard, as though it was meant for me, the lyric - The voice of youth, the hour of dread -

I became full, that moment, with wild excitement and sadness - I could see myself, in a movie, one made by Wim Wenders -

There I was, driving fast, listening to music - the beautiful white jets waited for me upon the runways - if I looked up, I could see my pale face reflected in the rear view mirror -

There was no sign in that face of the secrets my mind contained, nor of the fears that haunted it -

For the moment, I was a figure in a film, moving quickly across a landscape of flyovers and shopping malls -

In the next scene, I would be looking out of the cabin window in a jet - my heart would be soothed by the pure lines of a tail fin - my fears would be lost in the bright smile of the woman who talked to me throughout the flight -

At Dalaman, she said - I would have given you a lift - you would have thought - who is this crazy woman ?

On Monday 29 April 2013, Deo volente, I fly to Turkey -

I scrawled those words into my moleskine two weeks ago - On Monday 29 April 2013, Deo volente, I fly to Turkey - 

Ever since my bowel cancer was diagnosed, three years ago, I've stopped making use of Letts Diaries - I'd bought my first Letts Diary when I was aged eighteen - now I blush when I read my pretentious entries -

Yet the diaries reveal, like dim lights, the vague outline of the person I once was - I am sure that my eyes would fill with tears if I saw myself, as I was then -

I decided to switch to the moleskines because they looked like explorer's notebooks - they were the sort of notebooks which might be found in a tent, buried deep in snow - their pages would be like icy razors -

I had to write short entries, living for each day, in the journey I was now to make -

I'm still on this journey - so, when the date came near to my flight, I wrote those words - like a mariner might write, in his log, as his ship sailed closer to the edge of the world -

Beachcombing in Worbarrow Bay

One of my secret dreams is to become a beachcomber - I see myself, idling on some warm shore - my bare feet sink into fine yellow sand - the delicate fronds of tamarisk trees are stirred by gentle air - I can smell the scent of lemons -

I would think such tempting thoughts whilst I dodged icy raindrops, sidling into a conference room - colleagues with white rugs might ask me about the school's numbers - women with neat bobs would hand me a shiny agenda - but my mind would be far away -

Now, though, I think beachcombing is possible anywhere - I can search for wonders in louche streets in Bournemouth, on my way to the dentists - there will be exotic characters emerging from internet cafes, or from out of tattoo parlours - there is no need to board a jet -

Last June, I walked with Anne upon the beach at Worbarrow Bay - choppy waves broke upon the coarse, gravelly, sand - chalk cliffs gleamed when bathed by intermittent sunlight - banks of bluish grey cloud moved across the sky - I looked up, wondering what shapes I would see, forming in the clouds -

We heard the waves, splintering upon the sand - bright foam marked the semi circle of the bay - windswept grass half covered the broken stone walls of fishermen's cottages - beyond the bay, at the head of the Gwyle, was the beautiful shattered village -

Upon the shore, we found a plastic fishing crate from Brixham - we wondered what cuttlefish pool meant - we kicked at tangled coils of tarred rope, wrapped round with blackened seaweed - we found a flag, saying Apnea St Malo - Anne picked up a curious blue container -

Further along the bay, a fisherman stood like a slender statue - his line reached out into the turbulent sea -

We sat, out of the wind, upon a patch of white sand - behind us were worn stones - our thoughts were confined to the movement of the sea, the taste of the salty air, the sand blown upon our skin -