{"id":5442,"date":"2019-09-27T18:51:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-28T01:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=5442"},"modified":"2019-09-27T18:51:13","modified_gmt":"2019-09-28T01:51:13","slug":"her-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/her-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Her Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

(A chapter from a memoir I started\nyears ago about my time teaching in Turkey in 1992. I often think\nabout that experience and the incredible people I met in that strange\njob. Maybe one day I will finish the book. Recently, the subject of\nthis piece contacted me and it has been wonderful to reconnect with\nher. Oh, what a time we had together.<\/em>) \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her Gold<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mila\u2019s brown fingers untie the knot\nof the braided purple cord. She pours out the contents of a black\nvelvet pouch and tiny yellow pebbles tumble across the kitchen table\nof her Istanbul apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A light snow falls beyond the window.\nIt barely defeats the soot from the city\u2019s millions of coal-fired\nfurnaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s happening here?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to sell my gold so I can\ntravel with you,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve been saving these for a long\ntime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Turkish girlfriend just told me she\nwants to sell her life savings, gold nuggets, her only hedge against\ninsidious triple-digit inflation, so she can afford to accompany me\non my trip. I\u2019ll leave in two weeks after I quit my teaching job,\ntour her country\u2019s Aegean and Mediterranean coastlines for two\nweeks, then catch a ferry to Israel. And from there, somehow make it\nback to Oregon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never discussed her going with me\nalthough I did roll out a map and describe my proposed journey after\nwe had sex in her bathtub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of a museum and jewelry I would\nnever wear or buy, I\u2019ve never seen gold before. It looks rougher\nthan I ever imagined. These nuggets have dark folds and stained\nridges. But they shine too, though a different kind of sparkle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look at her and touch the nuggets.\nThen I palm them. For a moment, I don\u2019t know what to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMila, are you sure? It\u2019s going to\nbe incredibly cold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stands up from the table and comes\nover to kiss me. I\u2019ve still got the gold in my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to go with you and show you\nTurkey. The real Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three days later, I helped her pick out a backpack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four weeks later, that frigid morning\non the dock, the palm trees stood at attention. My ferry idled, ready\nto depart. Mila and I said goodbye and I kissed her deeply while\nMuslim men and women glared. I told her I loved her and I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t ask Mila to marry me. If I\nhad, I would have seen my question float toward her in the cold air\nand her response float back to me. I think I might have swallowed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(A chapter from a memoir I started years ago about my time teaching in Turkey in 1992. I often think about that experience and the incredible people I met in that strange job. Maybe one day I will finish the book. Recently, the subject of this piece contacted me and it has been wonderful to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5442"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5449,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions\/5449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}