Awkwardness begets awkwardness.

When I was 17, right in that brutal stage of life where increasing awkwardness only wants to hold hands and skip with heightened sensitivity, I walked into my high school calculus class.  I was running a few minutes late and my seat was in the front of the room, so there was no way to escape the spotlight that seemed to follow me. I speed-walked toward my rickety fold up desk that was clearly an administrative solution to squeezing more students than legally permitted into each classroom.  Of course, in my attempts at a rapid and stealth-like landing I ran straight into my desk--"into" is not a stealth-like prepositional phrase.  With the attention of the entire class and my disgruntled teacher I very quickly looked up from my dismay, which hovered near to or around my foot area, and said in a child's voice, "My mommy says I can be a ballerina...cause I'm so graceful."  The class, including the teacher, erupted in laughter and miraculously I had turned a moment of potentially horrifying embarrassment into "cool."  But here's the thing, in order to make that magic happen, in order to transform awful into endearing, I needed to wave my wit-ical wand.  I needed language.  

Without language, here in Turkey, my life is incredibly awkward.  In the morning I wait for a shuttle bus to come pick me up and bring me to work.  The bus is provided by my school and despite the fact that it is the same number three bus that picks me up every day, transporting the same group of my colleagues and driven by the same bus driver, I never seem to have any idea which bus it is.  The first day I missed it.  It came, stopped, picked up my colleagues, and drove off.  I stood at the corner, watching all the buses, and then kept standing at the corner, watching all the buses.  On the second day the bus was late but I was convinced that I had missed it, so I left.  And on the third day, I got on the wrong one--because yes, there is more than one number three bus that stops within five minutes of each other at the same bus stop.

Finally my colleagues, who get picked up at the same stop, picked up on the fact that I had, and continue to have, no idea what the hell I am doing, every day.   So, on the fourth day when the number three bus arrived these two helpful gentlemen tried to alert my attention to it.  I naturally (and awkwardly) assumed they were hitting on me and made many gestures for them to leave me alone.  While I was walking away from them, to send the clear message that I wasn't interested in what they were offering, I realized that they were offering, and boarding, the number three bus.  Of course the only seats left on the bus were right next to them.  Unable to acknowledge either my gratitude or confusion, I nodded towards them, smiled and sat down to look out the window and welcome my awkward day.  

I am a foreigner here and I get that that means I won't know my way around, or what's happening on a fairly regular basis.  But what I did not understand until recently is that awkwardness begets awkwardness.  It is one of the unspoken laws of physics.  You  know, like if you're waiting for the bus to come you should light a cigarette, or if you want the plumber to show up you should leave your house.  Maybe its more one of Murphy's laws than Newton's but its just as accurate.  Because once your cool is lost, its almost impossible to regain.   

I frequently get confused on the metro here, and convinced that I am about to miss my stop I push everyone out of the way and jump through the already closing doors.  While applauding myself for arriving at my destination I spend about ten minutes wandering around the neighborhood trying to figure out which exit I've exited. And of course, I eventually realize that I have left the train one stop too early, rather than just in the nick of time.  And then the tone is set, the magnetic attraction designed for the day.  In English I could redeem myself with some various witticisms or amusing one-liners.  But in Turkish I sound like a rude and drunk gypsy, at best, which seems to get me into more pickles than out of them.  In Turkey, for me, cool lost once is cool lost.  So, I start walking into chairs, getting locked out of buildings, leaving the bathroom with my dress tucked into my underwear, saying "hello" to people when they say "have a good night,"  and "goodbye" when they say "thank you." It hits me hard because its hard-hitting, but also because I have never been an awkward person.   

My fiance is Turkish and frequently can not express himself accurately, or at least by his definition of accuracy.  And as our relationship is negotiated in English I've spent a lot of this past year attempting to empathize with the disconnect between language ability and perceived identity.  Tarkan may have one idea about who he is and what he wants to communicate, but it may be a vastly different idea than the one he verbalizes in his non-native tongue.  And beyond that, different than the idea I receive through my own filters, ripe with my own personal agendas.  I wonder how much of who he thinks he is, is who I think he is.  I wonder how much of who we are is determined by the vocabulary which we hold.  I wonder who it is that I am becoming and will become in my new Turkish identity.

I know this woman who grew up in China speaking Chinese, got her BA and MA in America speaking in English, and was additionally learning French--but just for funzies.   From what I understood, at least in academia, she was an incredibly fluent person.  But also, to me, because I am a jerk, she was a hilariously awkward person.  As to be expected her English was primarily academic, making casual conversations seem obtusely formal and bizarre.  And I loved to imagine her multiple identities unfolding in all her multiple tongues.  In Chinese she was a teenager, using the equivalent diction of "like" and "OMG," in English she became a serious and formal academic, in French she was silly and lighthearted and fun.  A different identity for each vocabulary she had in each language.

As its early I won't make any lasting declarations about my Turkish identity.  But I do believe that I can safely say this: the person I am here now, the person I am becoming, because of how I am perceived, because of my limited abilities to present myself, because I am me, is a rude, awkward gypsy girl... and because awkwardness begets awkwardness I don't think my persona is going to change any time soon.   So I've got that going for me... which is nice.