A Room with a View

09/01/14: Lojman 79, Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

Gazing out the generous, great-room window of our ninth floor apartment, in one of the two tallest buildings atop this university hill site, I see a land of layers and contrasts. Military helicopters and the occasional fighter jet shatter the vast expanse of blue otherwise populated by a parade of lazy, well-fed clouds, troublesome pigeons, and brief invasions of acrobatic swallows. 

In the middle ground, abstracted and romanticized by distance and soft focus, sprawls the modern city with its bands of right angles stacked and overlapping in cubist contrast to the bare brown hills that rise above them and rim the scene with hints of the ancient hinterlands beyond.

In the foreground and directly below our window crouch an unfortunate regiment of single-story factories, fronted and commanded by a furniture company. Two mass graves of cut logs lie disrespectfully displayed to the abutting crowds of pine trees mourning their fallen brethren from beyond a barb wire fence. As if to drive home the allusion, several times an hour, a smokestack beside these log piles belches a five-minute measure of black smoke that rises like a ominous signal fire into the sky. I am thankful for how quickly this stain on the horizon dissipates, thankful for the nearly constant breeze that banishes it westward, so very thankful for this wind that rushes into any open window or balcony door to cool my overheated core. I spent an inordinate percentage of my first days here trying to devise methods and systems to prop and secure these windows and doors in such a manner that they will allow entry to this welcome air without getting slammed shut on its equally imprudent exit. My kingdom for a simple, Western window, screened and sashed for my convenience. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous use of concrete and plaster in the building and framing here make traditional wood windows unlikely if not impossible and screens a lavish afterthought.

But at least there's the view. I've never been as cognizant of the air over my head, as awed by cloud formations. The vast majority of the photos I've taken so far are of the view through our apartment window, hence the title of this blog. If nothing else, I'll leave this place a sky gazer.