Cave of Dreams

How carelessly we arrive at life's appointments...

If you go back far enough, we all come from the same cave....

It was the night of the full moon in October when I first arrived in this strange land. It was a virtual moonscape lit by it's own bright moon.
This eerily familiar landscape…

I was in Cappadocia...that region of Turkey that is unlike any other place on earth.

The night sky was filled with stars and not a little magic.

The tourist van held just 3 of us that night. And that was probably for the best.

Our driver was taking us on a madcap race through the rugged terrain. We three were as storm-tossed as voyagers on a north Atlantic fishing dory, as Ahmet sped up and down the dusty rocky roads of this ancient place. We were hurtled from one end of the bus to the other as we made endless loops through the mountains.

Speeding up, braking abruptly, threatening to go airborne at every rise, jolting us around with what I suspect was a wicked glee.

I've had run-ins with his type before…

A New York cabbie who bounced me off the roof of his cab several times with a look of pure innocence when I asked him to hurry it up a little.

Or the fatherly old railroad worker who caught a friend and I stealing onto his train when we were hoboing.

Rather than holding us till the cops arrived to arrest us for trespassing, he offered to pick the locks of a brand new 1969 Chevy high up on the third tier of a rail car bound for California. He opened the doors, even lowered the seats into sleeping position for us and invited us to climb in.

‘Not only would we be safe and out of sight, but the view would be just great’, he said.

A diabolical little ruse in the end. We spent the entire bone-racking night banging off the ceilings of those cars and by very early morning, vowed never to hop a freight train again…no doubt his intended lesson. I guess one has to invent ways to keep things
interesting on the job...

Big bump! Damned camel jockey!

Still in all, if details like these didn't leak to the friends I'd left behind, I was having quite the adventure (these things are always much more romantic when left to the imagination).

Two, maybe three days to recover from this body slamming leg of the trip, I was guessing.

The poor fellow at the rear of our coach was having an even more harrowing trip after spending his evening at the pub while waiting to embark on this wretched ride.

He was still learning the Rules of Travel....

Never trust yourself to the tender mercies of strangers in strange lands while inebriated.

Though most Rules could be trifled with a bit, his choice of time and circumstance was unfortunate. Add to that the taciturn edicts against alcohol in a Muslim country and you could be assured at the very least, of little mercy and more likely a helping hand in delivering a dose of Allah's retribution.

Underneath the obvious experience of being monotonously and relentlessly tumbled around the cab, if you were still paying attention, you could feel a more subtle disorientation occurring. A sense of your own personal moorings loosening. Almost a hint of the surreal.

As we careened toward our destination, the landscape became even more exotic and alien.

It was strange that a land so bleak and uninhabitable as this felt so alive with the unseen. I was literally rocked with the sense of phantasms streaking by, crashing aimlessly around and even through me.

Animal, human, subhuman... too fast, too full, too many impressions crowding the space. I found myself unable to resist the impressions as I normally might. Nor could I sort them out. It stirred a sense of alertness in me and I turned my attention from the demands of the road to the instincts deep within.
Radar on, searching inside for any recollection that might help me grasp what was happening.

I felt that I was being watched. I did a quick check of the passengers and driver, but each was intent on their business. There seemed to be eyes all around me. I felt as though my arrival was anticipated... expected in some way. Well, and so it might be.

I'd thought of little else in the months preceding the trip. I had just turned 50 that year... and that was the year I chose to finally make good on a promise made to myself long ago. I was going to travel around the world. And I was going to do it in my own peculiar style.

As I pondered my options, certain desires became clear…

I separated myself from what was culturally expected, the norm, the overdone and the underdone. It was, after all, my trip.

What did I really hope to accomplish? Why was I making the trip at 50?

Who did I hope to meet? What would I do with the experience?

What would Life say to me?

As I dreamed about the direction from within, an image rose in my mind…

Craggy spires, strange tufts of rock, bleak, weather-hewn, sand-colored. Unlikely,
bizarre, incredible rock formations.

The name emerged with it...Cappadocia.

The place had beckoned to me once before...many years ago. I had seen just a single photo of the place in a geography book when I was 8 or 9 years old. That single image had burrowed its way in to my very being.

I remembered being spellbound by the fairy tale quality of the land, sitting rapt before the old photo for hours and hours. It stirred my child's heart deeply. I had promised myself then that I would see it for myself one day.
If I went nowhere else, I must go there.

Ahhh... It was settled...quietly, easily.

Every place else simply slipped into position around it. Wales, Amsterdam, Prague, India, Thailand, Bali.
Turkey was the diamond in the crown encircled by all the other beautiful jewels.

Meanwhile, Ahmet shifted the gears of the van as we approached the first inhabited
place for many miles. Lights, civilization, food. Thank God!

We pulled up to a rather nice hotel and our now sober fellow and his female companion disembarked, glad to feel solid ground beneath them after their rugged voyage.

As they were whisked into the sanctuary of the modern foyer, I felt a moment of wistful longing. Why hadn't I chosen something like that? Why was I forever going off the beaten track?

I had opted for spontaneity...none of the commonplace for me! A reliable, familiar hotel was for the unimaginative. I would press on through the night to reach a
cave hostel with Ahmet's help.

Perhaps I should try conforming some time....

Ahmet finally delivered me to the sleepy village of Goreme where I had chosen to stay. We found the cave pension off the main road and climbed the steps to the unimposing entrance. After a few moments, there appeared a boy of about 13. We were invited in.

While Ahmet sat on a cushion and took tea with the inn's owner, Ozan, I was led up winding stone stairs by the young boy holding an oil lamp to light the way.

He opened the rough wooden door to my rooms and shyly held out the key to me. Down he went with a furtive glance over his shoulder.

I smiled to myself and dropped my shoulder bag on the bed, happy to be here. The rooms were simple...whitewashed walls of hand-hewn stone. Wooden doors made by
local craftsmen. Woven wool blankets reminiscent of Navajo rugs on the bed.
My feet sank into old wool carpets on wide wood plank floors. Simple sparse
furnishings. The rest would wait for tomorrow....

For now I stood on the balcony and gazed at the brilliant moon in the wide sky and the
incredible mountainous terrain it illuminated. Craggy spires studded with stars…

The intensity and nearness of the elements stirred my soul. Time dissolves here, I thought.

How carelessly we arrive at life's appointments...

I slept, if sleep was the word for it, slipping into a state between slumber and trance.

In one moment I hoped that the decision to come here was not a complete flight of fancy.

It seemed to me, rather, that some instinct brought me here. Instinct shared with the birds and animals....a homing instinct that leads us to the next experience in life. And with all our fumbling, it seems unerring in it's direction.

I had to admit to a feeling of anticipation that carried a sense of familiarity, tinged around the edges with a sense of challenge, danger even.

Though I had arrived only an hour before, the momentum of my journey seemed to have vanished.
I had arrived...this was it.
A faint memory of a similar sensation was aroused. I had felt this way once before, but where....when...?

The first pink rays of dawn stole into my room. I opened my eyes for the first time… taking in my surroundings in the light of day. I could hardly believe that I was finally here!

I was surprisingly comfortable in this place...as though I could belong.

I stretched, drinking in the sensation of peace and tranquility.

Moments later, the peace was interrupted by the squawking of loudspeakers. It sounded at first like an old radio sputtering to life...volume set too loud, station crackling, not quite clear. I didn't remember seeing a radio, much less a TV in my room.

As the volume rose, filling the air with its insistent cry, I realized that the sound was coming from outside…in the village. When the terse reading of Arabic was followed by the haunting wail of a male voice, I understood that it was the morning call to prayer. I lay back and listened, relishing the foreignness of the place...

I drew satisfaction from the fact that no one knew I was here. I had suspended all ties prior to embarking on this trip, sensing the need for absolute freedom. It had been time to re-invent my life once more...time to disengage; gently, where possible; more bluntly where necessary. Disentangling from the earlier fabric of my life- friends,
family, routine, profession, and possessions. All laid aside.

It was somehow necessary to arrive unencumbered.

For what reason had I risked the loss of friends, lifestyle, comforts and familiarity?

It wasn't that I was unhappy with any of it. In fact, that was hardly the case. My venturing had been born out of a growing dissatisfaction that was, at first, hard to define.

Somehow it had been necessary to relinquish virtually everything and go off in search of the Ineffable.
Even my sense of self lay in the balance.

What more are these appurtenances of life like house, lover and job than an
attempt to define and realize ourselves...

I had been willing. What I sensed on my arrival here was more intense than what I had anticipated. I was beginning to experience a complete disintegration, a rapid collapse of the self I would have once described.
Dismantled in the night.

I felt for my old bearings, but they seemed mere illusions now in this place.

Like arriving in the next life, taking nothing forward of possessions, reputation… history weighed quickly in the balance and found wanting.

Where to go from here?

I resisted the quiet flashes of knowing and hurriedly made the first plans for the day. Organize...organize...I told myself…that I was merely a tourist and that I would be gone soon. Things to do...schedules to keep.

Stepping out into the warm morning air, an unexpected feeling of joy rising from deep within mingled with nervous anticipation. Again, the feeling was somehow familiar, but beyond my reach for the moment.

The air here was so clean, dry…like the high desert. It felt right to me. The sun was rising clear and bright, dispersing morning shadows.

The balcony held earthenware pots of bougainvilleas and coral colored geraniums. Looking up, I had my first real look at this amazing landscape...the famed fairy chimneys of Cappadocia. Soft conical mountain spires, buff-colored, tinged in pink in the early light. Many of them appeared to be inhabited. Incredible!

Enchanting, magical. Strange as a moonscape.

Following the walkway to the rooftop terrace, to one of the most spectacular vistas I'd ever seen, I settled into a chair, wondering what had brought me here. A sense of fate I felt in the pit of my stomach.

The young boy from the evening before suddenly appeared smiling, bearing
breakfast. An array of olives, apricots, homemade cheese, soft-boiled eggs
and a warm crusty loaf of bread with butter. A perfectly satisfying meal-open air- my own private terrace.

After my morning reverie it was time to venture out and survey this new world. I could see from the landing that the village was just right for walking.

Off to explore for the day, it hardly mattered which direction I took…

As my eyes adjusted to the scene before me, I felt a tugging inside my mind. Indistinct and lost in the panoply of images before me. I was drawn in the direction of the carpet shop....that was strange...carpet shops on every corner with shopkeepers eager to lure you inside were the bane of travel in Turkey and I avoided them.

In my anticipation, I failed to notice the quickening that was overtaking me. A slight disconnect, feet not quite touching the ground, a subtle struggle for control....

excerpts from “The Travelled Heart”

If you're fortunate a place will begin to yield it's secrets to you.
Otherwise you are another blind wanderer.

The smell of fresh baked bread spread through the village…

Come, Come again !
Whatever you are...
Whether you are infidel,
idolater or fireworshipper.
Whether you have broken your vows
of repentance a hundred times
This is not the gate of despair,
This is the gate of hope.
Come, come again...

*************

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