2012 Team photo time
As with many other “artistic types” my job comes with emotional consequences. I’m prone to occasional sadness and depression - and they can show up quite unexpectedly. Sometimes they show up in the middle of the night and keep me tossing and turning. John and I both affectionately call these “our demons,” like unwanted guests we must tolerate, accept, and pacify.
My way of keeping my demons away has always been work. If I’m involved with a project I’m usually safe. Thinking, planning, being inspired, researching, and executing the thing - all of these keep me afloat. Of course sanity is the hoped-for standard, but for me it’s sanity with work. On a recent radio program several writers were asked what writing did for them. Not one of them said: it keeps me sane. I was appalled.
Musing aside, the demons arrived just last night in the from of profound sadness for having to leave Çatalhöyük. The season is coming to an end, some archeologists are already heading out, and I must get home to my home to my work, and, of course, I can’t wait to get back to this:
My way of keeping my demons away has always been work. If I’m involved with a project I’m usually safe. Thinking, planning, being inspired, researching, and executing the thing - all of these keep me afloat. Of course sanity is the hoped-for standard, but for me it’s sanity with work. On a recent radio program several writers were asked what writing did for them. Not one of them said: it keeps me sane. I was appalled.
Musing aside, the demons arrived just last night in the from of profound sadness for having to leave Çatalhöyük. The season is coming to an end, some archeologists are already heading out, and I must get home to my home to my work, and, of course, I can’t wait to get back to this:
John and Lucy in Provincetown
The photo up top is the whole team gathering for a class photo. Archeologists from all countries, ages and backgrounds, the Turkish men and women hired as workers from the near bye village. The men work hard, excavating while keeping a fast. The women clean and cook and are generally silly and rowdy. Here is me with the excellent cook, Ismail Usta.
The cook, Ismail Usta
| He fixes breakfast, lunch and dinner to the entire 160 count group. He complains a lot but also says he loves his job. His food is very good - and I give him lots of compliments. He says you should take me to America. One of the women chimes in: they have no real food culture there, do they? Ismail Usta has worked here for 15 years. |
The women do a lot of mopping around. Mavili, (who is the sister of site gueards, Mustafa and Hasan) is mopping in front of me and I tell her “Kolay gelsin,” an expression meaning, may it be easy.
You say this to anyone who’s working in Turkey. I ask her how she is and says I’d be better if people were more considerate. I mop the bathroom and I tell them FIVE minutes but they still (and she does a little arrogant strut here) walk right through.
You say this to anyone who’s working in Turkey. I ask her how she is and says I’d be better if people were more considerate. I mop the bathroom and I tell them FIVE minutes but they still (and she does a little arrogant strut here) walk right through.
| I ask her if these are the foreign archaeologists, and she says yes but the Turks too! “They’re all the same,” says Nefire hanım. (left) They all act the same. She’s the naughty one who also made the comment about the lack of American food culture. | 
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Only one more day left at Chatal.
End of the work day: walking down from the mound to the dig house. Dinner soon.
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