Ankara and Loneliness
Published:
There are cities that make loneliness easier to forget.
Ankara is not one of them.
Years ago, when someone asked what I liked most about Ankara, I wrote:
It lets you experience loneliness to the fullest.
It was meant as a short answer.
Maybe even a slightly sarcastic one.
But the older I get, the more accurate it feels.
Ankara has a particular kind of silence.
Not the peaceful silence of a seaside town.
Not the romantic silence of an old street after midnight.
A harder silence.
A colder one.
A silence that seems to become more visible in winter.
The streets are wide.
The sky is gray.
People are always going somewhere.
Work.
Home.
A bus stop.
A government office.
A university.
A meeting.
A hospital.
Everybody appears to have a destination.
And if you do not, the city makes you notice.
That is one thing Ankara does very well.
It leaves you alone with yourself.
I have lived through many different versions of the city.
Student Ankara.
Working Ankara.
Winter Ankara.
Late-night Ankara.
The Ankara seen from the window of a bus.
The Ankara walked alone.
The Ankara experienced with friends who later moved somewhere else.
Cities change because people change.
A street does not need to disappear in order to become a different place.
Sometimes all that needs to disappear is the person you used to walk there with.
Then the same pavement becomes something else.
A café closes.
A friend moves away.
A familiar building is demolished.
A bus route changes.
One day you realize that the city has slowly replaced your memories with new buildings.
But some feelings remain.
Ankara and loneliness have always fit together in my mind.
Maybe because the city does not try very hard to entertain you.
Istanbul has the sea.
Crowds.
Noise.
Movement.
The feeling that something is always happening somewhere.
Ankara can make a Friday night feel like a Tuesday afternoon.
That sounds like criticism.
Sometimes it is.
But there is also something valuable about a city that does not constantly distract you.
You read.
You think.
You work.
You listen to music.
You learn to spend time by yourself.
Eventually you become good at it.
Perhaps too good.
Loneliness changes when it becomes familiar.
At first, being alone feels like the absence of something.
No one to call.
No one waiting.
No plan for the evening.
After enough time, it can become a routine.
You stop asking what you are missing.
You make tea.
Turn on the computer.
Put on some music.
Smoke a cigarette.
Look outside.
Another Ankara evening.
There is a strange comfort in that.
Nothing dramatic happens.
Nothing is expected from you.
The city does not ask whether you are having fun.
It simply continues.
Cars pass.
Buses stop.
Apartment windows turn on one by one.
Someone somewhere is having dinner.
Someone is studying.
Someone is arguing.
Someone is falling in love.
Someone is deciding to leave.
And you are in your room, part of the same city but separate from all of it.
Maybe that is what loneliness really is.
Not being physically alone.
Being surrounded by thousands of lives you are not part of.
Ankara can make that feeling very clear.
Especially at night.
Especially in winter.
Especially when you are walking somewhere without needing to hurry.
There were times when I disliked this.
There were times when I wanted the city to give me more.
More excitement.
More spontaneity.
More reasons to leave the house.
More people.
More stories.
But cities are not responsible for creating our lives.
That is an uncomfortable truth.
We blame places for what we fail to build inside them.
“This city is boring.”
“There is nothing to do.”
“People are cold.”
Maybe.
But sometimes the city is only reflecting something back to us.
A quiet city can make a quiet life impossible to ignore.
Years later, I still understand why I wrote that sentence.
What do I like most about Ankara?
It lets you experience loneliness to the fullest.
I would probably add something now.
That is not always a bad thing.
Loneliness can be painful.
It can also be educational.
If you spend enough time alone, you begin to discover which parts of yourself exist only because other people are watching.
You learn what music you actually like.
What you do when nobody is waiting for you.
How you fill an empty evening.
What you think about when there is no conversation to interrupt you.
You also learn the limits of independence.
Being comfortable alone is useful.
Becoming unreachable is not.
There is a point where solitude stops being freedom and becomes habit.
And habits can quietly turn into walls.
Maybe Ankara taught me both sides.
How to be alone.
And how easy it is to remain that way.
I have complained about the city many times.
Its traffic.
Its weather.
Its endless construction.
Its grayness.
Its seriousness.
But some cities become part of the way you think.
You cannot separate them completely from yourself.
Ankara is like that for me.
It is not a city I remember only through landmarks.
I remember it through moods.
Cold mornings.
Long bus rides.
Tea.
Computer screens.
Empty evenings.
Friends.
Departures.
Silence.
And sometimes, loneliness.
Especially loneliness.
Maybe that is why the city never feels completely empty.
Too much of my life is already inside it.