Art Project - An Ocean Apart

My dear friend Lisa and I have started a photography project, inspired by A Year of Mornings. Every morning for a month we are each going to take a photo of an aspect of our lives - hers in Toronto, mine in Turkey. At the end of one month we're going to make a book out of all the photos, each day's moments displayed side by side.

Here are our first photos, taken yesterday, 11 June.

Interestingly, we both took pictures of 'bits' of our families: Lisa photographed one of her daughters; in my photo I've captured my son's hand, my feet and the back of my husband's head. I can't wait to see whether our respective pictures will highlight the differences or the similarities between our lives!

Snow Days

I'm trying to hire a nanny for September, when we move to Istanbul. Today one asked whether she'd get snow days off. Snow days? Snow days!

Here on the Mediterranean our weather is pretty much the same all year round. It took me a while to get used to not checking the weather forecast first thing each morning -- will I need an umbrella? A sweater? An early start on my way to work? But I'm not complaining; who would, if they woke up each day to a cloudless turquoise sky and knew that every day was t-shirt weather?

With time I've learned to see the subtle differences between this region's four seasons, and I appreciate them. Spring and fall are long, not rushed like they are in Toronto; and although most bahar days are as hot as a summer day back home, they still have that distinctive smell that neither summer or fall have. Sure, July and August here are unbearably hot, but there are ways around that -- air conditioning and the beach!

But I miss snow. There is no snow brush in my trunk; no skates in my closet. And I miss the feeling a snowfall excites. The other day, we took a walk after a rainfall and I started to warn my husband of a slick black spot up ahead on the pavement. (The sleep-deprived brain is a tricky fellow!) But I stopped myself mid-sentence -- it was twenty degrees out; the nearest black ice was six months and 2000 kilometres away. But the incident made me realize the extent to which winter is in my bones.

Which is why one of the reasons I'm excited about our upcoming move to Istanbul is its climate. There will be snow in winter! (And snow days!)