I got complaints from a couple of friends that they have no clue of what I'm telling here from time to time. That's why here comes an exception, today I'm writing in English and I hope I'll catch my usual tone.
Last Saturday my friend Jeff from work invited us to dinner. They live in Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs of NYC (Brooklyn is also the eponym of Lynbrook as I had mentioned in one of the previous posts). On our way to Brooklyn as we saw the beautifully lightened Verrazano Narrows Bridge, I felt like we are driving in Bebek and approaching Ortakoy with a view of Bosporus Bridge ahead us. Such illusions started to grab me often, I mean the feeling that I'm in Istanbul. I guess my homesickness is taking control as time goes by. It's already 7 months that I'm away from my hometown, and the word "missing" is not enough to describe how I feel...
As we passed by the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Jeff told us that there's a beautiful running trail by the bridge where many people go for jogging in the mornings. That's something I miss here. I used to live 5 minutes to the seaside in Istanbul and had the chance to run watching the sunset or night lights reflecting on the sea. Here in Lynbrook I am running on the streets. The streets are beautiful though, silent and peaceful. Not so many cars or even people, but still running by the sea is something else...
Although Brooklyn is located in Long Island, it does not have the suburban feeling of the other parts of the island. Once you enter Brooklyn you immediately know you are a part of the city. Narrower and more crowded roads, no parking space available on the streets on a Saturday night, smaller houses side by side with no big gardens at all.
I love city life, you feel you are alive when you are in the city. The city breathes with you, moves with you and inspires you to be active. To me the suburbs associate with retirement, kids, maybe grand kids, a safe life with no surprises expected, eating healthy, drinking responsibly and so on. We try to fulfill some of these criteria nowadays such as eating healthy, reducing alcohol and doing exercise regularly but we do not have -and won't have in the near future- the other prerequisites to enjoy the life in the suburbs.
But still I must admit it is a different experience. I would never get the chance to live in such a neighborhood in Turkey even if I were old enough to enjoy the suburbs. It is not easy to afford such a life in Turkey unless you are literally rich. But here suburbs are the standard life style of the American middle class. So I'd rather think of this part of my life as experimenting the life in the suburbs with its pros and cons. This way I can tolerate not being a part of the city for a while...
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