My late grandmother had a vineyard in Afyon, far away from the city. You used to go there on a path over the Hıdırlık hill, there was no road built, nor could you pass it with a car.

In the middle of the huge vineyard, there was an old hut, the kind we used to draw in drawing classes. The tiny hut with one room, two round windows, a chimney and a wooden door was old and dilapidated. There were no fences surrounding the vineyard, no fences in anyone's vineyard, everyone could roam everywhere, but people respected each other's privacy. As Thomas More said in "Utopia", I wish that the first person who built the first fence, the first person who divided the garden and owned it would have said, "Hey! All the gardens and the land belong to all of us. You are not allowed to divide it, you are not allowed to own it!", the world would be different and more livable today.

Anyway... Since the hut was now abandoned, there was nothing left in it but two bald sun loungers and a few coffee tables. By the way, I have to say that these coffee tables are the most precious pieces of my current home.

In the summertime, we would take our pots and pans and tubes and go there early on Sunday mornings. It would take us at least an hour to walk there from home. But with the vast mountains, the breathtaking views, the now unfamiliar rural landscape, and the lure of the now unfamiliar fresh air, you didn't care about the length or the hills. Earth, fire, water and air would sway in their own dignity and splendor and your eyes would get lost in the rolling green hills. Magnificent landscapes, greenery, flowers, dark blue skies, flocks of sheep, shepherds in love...You felt your helplessness in front of nature then. Nature was more majestic, more wild and fascinating. And sometimes my sister and I would even be afraid of the herd of wild horses that would gallop down from the mountain in the cool of the evening, and we would try not to go too far from the vineyard. The planet in its sanctity, in every geography, in every season was different, maybe it was just us, who knows...

After reaching the vineyard, the first thing we did was to fill and carry water from the shepherd's fountain about half a kilometer up. Then we would gather wood for the fire from the grove and, of course, plates of blackberries. Blackberries were a fruit we could find anywhere and anytime. There were hawthorn trees, ahlat trees and wild pears and almonds everywhere.

When I was done, I would be alone with my freedom and my soul... And of course with my solitude... Even then, I found these sacred moments when I found myself and belonged to myself, when no one could steal my mind and me, quite blessed and special. I would seek my solitude, but being of a lively nature, far from a weary and sad sentimentality, I would strain my imagination, concentrating on everything that surrounded me. For minutes I would watch the dung beetles with green shiny shells landing and taking off in the droppings of the horses of the neighboring farm. One would land and one would get up. Sometimes I would even go closer and examine the droppings. I would see whole grains of barley and wheat in it. I can even say that it smelled good, there were no additives in feed back then, no GMO barley and wheat. Even for the animals, they used the rinds of real watermelons with big black seeds, not the ones that are now sold for big bucks as organic, or the rinds of real watermelons with big black seeds, not the ones that were made from squash. Moreover, back then, we, like the aborigines, did not throw the rinds, seeds, waste, dry bread of the watermelons, fruits and vegetables we ate into the garbage dumps for the animal owners to take, but put them in a separate container, in a box, on the garden walls. The leftover food was already for the street dogs and cats. Because people were not angry, frustrated, sorry for themselves or fearful, they were not selfish and callous. In the pure and disinterested course of the nature of the soul, only the laws of nature governed people. They were not yet dissolved in the system of beings, but rejoiced in the ecstatic joy of identification with nature. All were brothers and sisters, all were one piece, they made plans for earthly happiness, and since these plans encompassed the entire universe, everyone could be happy with everyone else's happiness. There were no wild lonelinesses, no betrayals and intrigues, no jealousies fueled by hatred, no rivalry, either absent or not exceeding the limits of politeness and chivalry, we were unaware of murderous rivalry.

We used to wander around in the neighboring vineyards and the neighborhood, collecting different stones and pebbles. First, we would gather with the children of the neighboring farms and play five stones with them. Nowadays this is a game that children know nothing about. What a great loss...

Some of them would play checkers on the shapes they drew on the soil with their fingers. This game, which resembled a kind of simple chess, opened our minds and entertained us a lot... Later, when I returned home, I would wash the stones I had brought and decorate my room. Sometimes we would look for the four-leaf clover that no one had ever found, sometimes in the fields around the vineyard. If I found it, it would bring me luck and I would be the luckiest person in the world, traveling the world.

Fortunately, the logo of a bank back then was a four-leaf clover, so I got a metal four-leaf clover, and I am traveling the world... There would be beehives in the empty fields around. I used to watch dogs chasing butterflies, snails sliding gently over the soil, cats digging up worms, rabbits chasing each other. In the winter months, gazelles, foxes and pigs would come down, the children from neighboring farms would brag about it, but we didn't go in winter.

Bright flowers, fresh shade, streams, groves, small waterfalls cascading from melting snow. That's why our souls weren't as dead as they are now, we were like waterfalls. We were drawn to the pleasant things that surrounded us, watching them, observing them, always looking for new reasons to love nature, existence and everything.

We would intertwine the needles of pine trees, weave chains, make necklaces and bracelets, and crowns of wild daisies. We used to ride horses with the children of the neighboring farm, play hide-and-seek, tag, dodgeball. None of our games or toys were electronic, digital or technological. We created the games and toys ourselves, we found them ourselves. The games of those times were beautiful, the seasons and the summers were beautiful too...

At the end of the day, we would return to the city with great pleasure and happiness, and we would live and cherish it in our dreams until the next time we went.

Now...Maybe we have left behind the days when the grass was proud and the flowers were majestic and beautiful....

No mourning...

Now we are strong with our memories... Now we are about to take off in our own soil... Our own trees are about to grow green and bear fruit again...

We are waiting for the end of summer...

Mukaddes Pekin Başdil

Researcher-Author

Source: Denizli Haber