Messages in the Night

It's been two weeks now, I think.  Today I'm sitting at the Eastern Iowa Airport, situated in the middle of a veritable corn field, heading on the next leg of my late summer journey.  Farther left, farther west.  Farther removed from the city I've long called home, that's no longer feeling like home, and yet within the same proximity to those I chatted away that night with . . . a coup, a message, a saving stream of wifi.

Sitting at my computer, working on a fellowship app I was about two minutes from pushing back for a break of coffee and idle work around my apartment, but like any red blooded western soul I opted to divert my eyes and head with a couple seconds of Facebook scrolling.  That’s when the messages from friends in Turkey popped up about low flying jets, and then someone saw a tank . . . 3pm turned into a protracted timeline of messages, chats, and a game of holding our collective breaths.  Ironically, or perhaps poetically, the app is to spend five months in the Balkan region writing and developing plans and options for tourism growth and posterity. I’ve long written about what I now call my beloved Turkey, and as the night turned to morning memories flooded, fears mounted, and threads of humanity, love, and faith are all we really had to guide us. 

There’s something to be said about social media in moments like these.  One friend was due to fly home for the month—to New York—another . . . well, he got a series of messages culminating in “Gordi, turn on your news!” His response: “fuck.”  Both of them are in Ankara, with Gordi having a wife and daughter in Istanbul residing on the Asian side.  Chatter among us, later with his wife too, perhaps brought a sense of calm.  Links on updates, notes for what to do if this situation turned into a protracted nightmare and the embassy opened its doors to begin evacuating . . . as of now, evacuations have been avoided, but the emotional and physical carnage remains. 

As messages came my way about buildings shaking, bombs overhead, explosions, and smoke in the air I read them in a state of shock.  To be cliché, it is moments like these that the scholar in me has read about and certainly never expecting to see them come to life.  My closest friend sent a pissed off message about inappropriate comments from people. My super, from Ankara, got a text from me asking about his family and then to break the tension I told him about that.  I told Gordi.  We all collectively agree Tanfer was polite to not respond.  I would have lost my cookies in a vitriol response of compressed anger and disdain.  All of that aside, as Gordi said, times like these teach us who our friends are. Sadly, they do. 

As our evenings turned to midnight hours and daybreak, the historian in me saw her predications that daylight would bring some solace, levity, and calm.  The sun’s first rays certainly did, as collective sighs of relief could be heard via social media messaging as friends in Turkey awoke from a couple hours of turbulent slumber and those of us not there attempted to drift off for a few of our own fitful hours.  As political pundits around the globe critique the coup, the geo political positioning of it, and the Turkish President’s use of Facetime to address the nation several social points stand clear.  In a world of increasing violence, attacks, and mongering fear our senses are going to be seeing more moments like last night. 

When 9-11 happened there was no social media concept in full swing.  Phone calls sufficed.  No news was good news. . . then we merely waited for the phone call or email.  Now, a decade and a half later an international text message can tell your friends and family the world has gone mad before the ensuing news outlets barrage us with images, fears, and conjecture.  At the same time, those text messages turn into conversations rocking us through the night as we look around and count our blessings for being relatively safe, forgetting about being stood up, spending birthdays alone, career tortures, and failed relationships.  Yes, the pains of adulating—as the millennials say—become displaced as humanity shakes our core and we wonder what tomorrow will bring.

In the following day’s light, as we sit around the globe, an Italian friend awoke to Tanfer and me having included her on a bizarre conversation that bombarded her phone with hilarity and psychological avoidance.  Friends throughout Turkey, having lost filters hours before, emerged in the digital wake with messages of calls for the dead from the minarets and notes that just because the violence was quelled does not mean we know what the following days will bring.  Airlines started flying again, citizens ventured from their homes to view the carnage, purchase supplies, or even just converse face to face with humanity. 

On that note, there really is nothing we know for certain.  Tomorrow may be the day the proverbial bus hits us.  Or, tomorrow might bring a unicorn to the mix and arise peace and posterity for regions, states, and peoples who have long lived devoid of its comforts.  Yet, the only thing we can do is take stock of those around us, fight the good fight, and make sure that last message was not one of hate.  Instead, remember the good. 

Right now, I’m sipping some Turkish Tea on this hot summer day.  It’s been iced, served in an American Mason Jar, sitting atop a coaster from Antalya.   That along with messages and jokes among friends amounts to the little things collectively buoying us along in a growingly uncertain world.