Mila\u2019s fingers untied the knot of a braided purple cord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She poured the contents of a black velvet pouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tiny yellow pebbles tumbled across the kitchen table in her Istanbul apartment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Light February snow fell beyond the window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It barely defeated the soot from the city\u2019s millions of coal-fired furnaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to sell my gold so I can travel with you,\u201d said Mila, my Turkish girlfriend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been saving these for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was leaving in two weeks after I quit my teaching job,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tour the Aegean and Mediterranean coastlines for two weeks,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
catch a ferry to Israel,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
somehow make it back to Oregon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
start over yet again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We never discussed her joining me<\/p>\n\n\n\n
although I did unfold a map and described my proposed journey<\/p>\n\n\n\n
after she read my future in the grounds of Turkish coffee,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
a ritual still unsurpassed in my life as an exotic moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d never seen gold nuggets before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were rougher, more malformed than I ever imagined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dark folds, stained ridges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They shined a dull sparkle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I looked at her and touched the nuggets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Palmed them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I told her it would be freezing cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stood up, came over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was still holding the gold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to go with you and show you Turkey\u201d she said. \u201cThe real Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three days later, I helped her select a backpack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four weeks later, a frigid morning on the dock,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
palm trees stood at frosty attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My ferry idled, ready to depart,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
diesel smoke clouded everything,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like fog at Casablanca’s airport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We said goodbye, kissed for a long time<\/p>\n\n\n\n
while Muslim men and women glared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I told her I loved her in Turkish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said she loved me in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I had proposed, I would have seen the question float in the cold air<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and her answer float back to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think I might have swallowed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mila\u2019s fingers untied the knot of a braided purple cord. She poured the contents of a black velvet pouch. Tiny yellow pebbles tumbled across the kitchen table in her Istanbul apartment. Light February snow fell beyond the window. It barely defeated the soot from the city\u2019s millions of coal-fired furnaces. \u201cI\u2019m going to sell my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","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\/9998","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=9998"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10000,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9998\/revisions\/10000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}