Library
Essays
A personal reading space, from small moments and dreams to family memories, time and transformation.
Reading selection
Posts
Newest first by original publication date. Undated posts appear last.
Resilience and change · 4 min · First published:
Wimbledon Season
Sometimes we remember our lives not by calendars, but by tournaments. I had a CV season of my own. A new application every day… A little hope in every email… An unseen disappointment in every silence…
Family and the self · 2 min · First published:
How Was Your Day, Dear Serap?
When a child says ‘Mum’, you gradually settle inside that word. Your name, your voice, even your own self step back a little… You become ‘Mum’. But sometimes… life has small surprises for you.
Tradition and hope · 5 min · First published:
Every May, Anew
Every year, Hıdırellez becomes a small tradition in our home. It is not really the ritual that changes; as our cities, the direction life takes us and the wishes growing within us change…
Time and the self · 1 min · First published:
You Can Tell by My Smile
A little spring, a little lightness, a little freshness… Time has left its marks, and I have smiled. The lines do not frighten me… As long as the spring within me stays fresh and I find a reason to smile…
Starting again · 5 min · First published:
A Little Messy, a Little Whole
Every time I think I am on the wrong planet, I am actually moving a little closer to myself. Sometimes the universe leaves you in the wrong place… but the story always begins in the right one. Take a Sunday morning…
The moment and slowing down · 2 min · First published:
Infinity Within a Moment
Morning was a door opening gently. Not hurry, but slowness entered. The day was not somewhere to rush towards, but a stretch of time to settle into. Breakfast was not a beginning… but the day's first gentle…
Courage and your own path · 4 min · First published:
Believing and Walking
Girlboss… As you watch, you see not a character but a state of being. Sophia Amoruso takes the lead. Messy. Unconventional. Not quite sure what she is doing… but never stopping.
Everyday life and joy · 4 min · First published:
My Red Line: Aşure
A friend asked, ‘What is your favourite dessert?’ I thought for a moment. My first answer was quince dessert. The others took turns answering. Then, in the video she shared, my star sign’s dessert turned out to be güllaç…
Dreams and safety · 3 min · First published:
White Nightmare
There was a house. I knew it was mine. There was a swing on the veranda, and I was swinging fast. The faster I went, the higher I rose. At the very top, to the right…
Dreams and journeys · 5 min · First published:
Sri Lanka
I do not remember how I arrived in Sri Lanka. There was no plane, no airport, no passport control. I do not remember travelling, either. I simply found myself there all at once.…
Dreams and journeys · 8 min · First published:
The Orange Train
From the moment I boarded the train, I began quietly observing my surroundings. From outside, it looked like an ordinary train. But once inside, I realised it was unlike any train I knew…
Values and the traces we leave · 1 min · First published:
All That Matters to Me
That the people I love are well, that I can remain a good person, find my own rhythm within time and leave something beautiful of myself behind: a smile, a sentence, a memory…
Slowing down and everyday life · 4 min · First published:
The Sweetness of Doing Nothing
I had come home with a few small stitches in my back. For a few days, I needed to avoid lifting anything heavy, move less and take things a little more slowly. Then the stitches would heal, and I would carry on…
Time and life · 4 min · First published:
Time Is Loading
The counter runs across the screen… Time is loading. Every second feels like a lifetime. Watching In Time, what gets under your skin is not simply time running out on a counter. What is truly striking…
Imagination and awareness · 9 min · First published:
The Dreaming Game
One day, during a conversation, I heard the word ‘mindfulness’ for the first time. Awareness: being conscious of what is happening within life… Back then it was simply a new word to me.…
Feelings and dreams · 1 min · First published:
The Place Without a Name
In a dream, I was in a house… not my own. I moved towards the door, and someone stood before me. A look seemed to say, ‘Do not go—stay.’ No words, yet something in that presence…
Transformation and the inner world · 4 min · First published:
Transformation
Sometimes you feel as if your back is resting against a mountain. Behind you is an unseen strength holding you up. In front stands another mountain, one you have spent years trying to cross, understand or fight…
Uncertainty and humanity · 2 min · First published:
Everything Is Too Much, Everything Is Missing
The world did not used to press in on us quite so much. News felt far away. An election in another country, an unsettled economy, a crisis elsewhere… These things did not sit at the centre of our daily lives.
Travel and freedom · 1 min · First published:
The Free Traveller
Travellers have a reason… Some take to the road to write, some to collect memories, some to leave the past behind. But the free traveller? Their heart speaks not in reasons, but in roads…
Meaning and the inner world · 3 min · First published:
The Silent Camps Within Us
The cough that had lasted for days would not go away; I still had not recovered. After a week, I asked to leave work early. The medicine was making me sleepy. Perhaps the best thing to do…
Family and memories · 7 min · First published:
Happy Days
When children grow up, they remember not their toys, but how we made them feel. I cannot recall many memories from my own childhood. Perhaps that is why, ever since becoming a mother…
Essay · 5 min
What Was the Last One?
Sometimes changing your life takes not a major decision, but the right question. While ‘Why?’ can keep us caught in what we have left behind, ‘What was the last one?’ invites us to look at life again. What was the last film you watched, book you read or city you explored? Small questions, small curiosities and small steps… Perhaps the simplest way to expand our lives is to ask not what we have failed to do, but what we last experienced.
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