Half Eskişehirli

On one of our early work trips to Eskişehir, somebody handed us local bottled water and told us it was famous. We drank it, and they laughed.

“Now you are half Eskişehirli.”

There were four of us on that trip, and at the time the sentence was only hospitality. A small local joke, the kind people make when they are proud of something ordinary from their city.

Then we kept returning.

What had begun as a short business visit slowly became a familiar route. The city stopped being a collection of directions. Roads became recognizable, places to eat became habits, and going there began to feel less like travel.

The bottle itself had one irritating feature I remembered clearly. It seemed to be filled almost to the cap, so opening it without spilling water required more care than a bottle of water should reasonably demand.

That complaint may have been proof of familiarity.

A visitor says, “Interesting local water.”

A regular says, “Why do they fill this all the way to the top?”

Belonging rarely arrives through a formal moment. Sometimes it appears because you keep returning until small annoyances become part of the relationship.

I do not know whether drinking one bottle can make anyone half a citizen of a city.

Repeatedly spilling the same local water might get you closer.

Past Half Eskişehirli

The scene becomes clearer to me now because it stayed small. A minor detail can be more faithful than a grand summary. That small resistance to disappearance is enough.

Eskişehirli olmanın yarısı bile bazen yeter. Bir şehirle bağ kurmak için nüfus kaydından çok daha küçük şeyler gerekir: hangi sokakta yavaşlanacağını bilmek, hangi soğuğun akşamı sertleştireceğini tanımak, bir ismi duyunca zihinde doğru rengin belirmesi.

Belki de yarım aidiyet bu yüzden tam aidiyetten daha dürüst gelir. İçinde hem sahiplenme hem mesafe vardır. İnsan bir yere tamamen ait olmadığında, o yeri daha dikkatli seyreder.