A TRIBUTE TO AGE 27

“All children, except one, grow up.”

I am thinking of this writing as a birthday gift to myself. In a week, on December 27, I am out of this age 27. 27 was fine, 27 was glorious, and more than any age, it requires a tribute and praise. In any case, when it’s gone, it will be gone forever: It will reincarnate into another year, that I will go on “to live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life… On and on and on and on!”

Resorting back to the old photos were familiar from the previous birthday sessions, yet never had been so intense, harsh, demanding and even laborious. With each photo, trying to unclothe the emotions, experiences that could not conceal themselves in the unwrinkled skin. What is there to unclothe, then? Mon cœur mis à nu.

At age 21, I discovered the trails, on the trail of Socrates – I witnessed how hours and months and years could feel like a second, chasing Rainbows and rivers and waterfalls.

Friends were there, friends were lost. With some of them, we choose to have fun in turmoils; with some of them, we choose to mourn on the way the world goes, and to fight, even in good times. With all of them, we learned how to love, the art of loving in its perfect form. Friends were there, friends were lost. Some I lost to death itself, some to different trails – I lived long enough to lose my ability to differentiate the two anymore.

Photos above are taken by a dear friend that I lost – we were stuck in space and time so so long in a crazy party setting, following the 15 July 2016 coup d’état attempt – you said it was like a Bertolluci movie, I’d rather like it to be from Angelopoulos.

“They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this.”

This marks the Age 23, after then the mortal “Wendy” stick to my soul so much that I no longer count the years, each felt the same. No longer mocked the documentaries, started mocking my own life. Professional life (this phrase made me laugh, yet got used to using it in solemnity), jobs, “personal lives” (this phrase made me suffer, not get used to anything), people you always remain on the surface with, people you thought you go deeper but all was an illusion.

Photos taken by Can and İklim, just like the song says “on the last good day of the year” (eliminating the “of the year” part). Can asked me how could he name these photos, I said it should be something about “power” (I cannot empathize this answer for long) with a verse from Rilke (of course), the one where two hands were reaching out.

Until 27, it goes on like this. I started running at 27, while I was running through the end of 20s. What makes me write a tribute to this glorious age (I could have written that only for the sake of running though!) is that someday I found the Tinkerbell speaking deep inside me, she may be there for the whole time but I did not listen. That was a crash-course on what I have been missing then, which even revolved me as a Peter Pan – timeless, planless, genderless, nameless and determinationless. Then I resort back to my old, lately assimilated conviction that all life is and is lived a library, where I am writing right now.