I’d been traveling through the Middle East all summer: two months in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, where my dad grew up and grandfather still lives, then three weeks in Turkey.
On this particular day, I was touring Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey where the population has lived in caves for centuries, tunneling into the earth, 10 stories deep. The four of us had exhausted ourselves exploring underground cities and hiking through valleys.
I hadn’t expected to see anyone from Northwestern all summer long. But traveling with three other Northwestern students to obscure cities in a faraway country had revived something in me. The four of us had never met on campus, but when we met in Turkey, we were something of a force. We were Mexican, American, Pakistani, and Kurdish. We spoke twice as many languages, and everywhere we went, the Turks were fascinated with our diversity. As the four of us had fallen asleep the night before in a small hotel room built into a cave, I thought about where I was and who I was with and it felt like it might have been a dream.
I’d bought a bus ticket to Istanbul in a last-minute decision, and was accordingly unprepared for the 12 hour ride ahead. I didn’t have an iPod or a book. I hadn’t had a cell phone in weeks, and the only things in my bag were a sour Turkish yogurt drink and my almost-full Moleskine.
It wasn’t until I actually stepped on the bus that I questioned my decision to take a 12-hour overnight trip to Istanbul by myself. The motor coach was packed with Turkish families that spilled into the aisles, and I lingered on the stairs, wondering where I’d sit, anxiously waving goodbye to the Northwestern students I’d been traveling with. Though I had met the three of them only a few days earlier, parting ways made me suddenly aware of being alone.
On the bus, when a wrinkled woman made room for me in the seat beside her, relocating a small boy to another relative’s already crowded lap, I realized how tired I was. I protested but not too strongly, already feeling the soreness starting to spread in my legs from the day’s efforts.
Later, I woke up to a woman beside me shaking my wrist, feeling a disquieting blankness before remembering — Turkey, traveling, alone. Twelve-hour bus-ride. I sat up. The women said something I didn’t understand and gestured towards the window.
Outside, the landscape had been drenched in red. The sandstone towers were achingly pink and seemed to be melting back into the earth in the permeating redness. In the darkening sky above, the sun was a heavy piece of fruit, blurring my eyes in brightness as I watched it dip below the horizon.
The woman and her family and all the families were silent and transfixed, and I took out my Moleskine. The reddest thing I’ve ever seen, I scrawled.
I was silenced, too, and I sat still and let the light bleed into memory. In the penetrating light our faces were translucent, revealing the blood beating beneath, and I felt for the first time the wayward pull towards home.
Back at Northwestern, life is lovely and full of the familiar comforts I’d missed. I can strike up a conversation with anyone – in English. I haven’t run into a squat toilet yet, and I have a working cell phone at my convenience. I’ve also yet to see a sunset so red, or a moment so immersive. But I know all that is not as foreign as it seems. One of the best days of all my faraway months was spent with Northwestern students. So though I know I’ll be back, for the miscommunication and strange experiences and sunsets, I am happier than ever to be here.