It’s not a clever joke; it’s literally true. Fifteen days ago, I shaved my head as part of a fundraising effort for a breast cancer support group in Antalya. It’s been a fascinating experience so far; here are a few things I’ve noted over the past couple of weeks.

• I was only bald for about a day. This one should have been obvious, but for some reason I pictured myself looking bald for at least a week, maybe longer. By the afternoon of the second day, though, the stubble was clearly visible. By the following morning, I felt like I was someone with really short hair rather than a bald person. Perhaps others would look at me even now and still describe me as bald, but maybe that’s just because people don’t expect a woman to have hair this short. If I saw a man with hair the length mine is today, I certainly wouldn’t think of him as bald. It’s given me a newfound respect for people who are perpetually bald by choice— you really have to keep up with it.

• The stubble phase is basically velcro. For the first week or so after the stubble appeared, everything stuck to my head. Lint, clothing, bedsheets… everything. If I wanted to wear a knit hat, I had to get it positioned exactly right on the first try, because once it was on, there was no adjusting it, it was stuck there. If I wanted to turn over in bed in the middle of the night, I had to lift my head all the way off the pillow first.

• The first couple of days, people I encountered in my daily life were ridiculously nice to me. People constantly tried to do things for me, carry my bag, and offer me a seat. I’m guessing this was because they put two and two together and got fifty-seven.

• People I encountered on the internet, however… More accurately, I should say men on the internet. Rule 34? Yeah, apparently bald fetish is a thing. Guys wanted to know if I was down. Some were quite explicit about their fantasies. I even had a couple of creepy encounters in person, but most of it was online. That particular variety of attention seems to have died down as more recent photos have been uploaded— I guess I have too much hair now to be of any real interest to people who are turned on by bald women.

• I felt differently about personal space than I thought I would. Before I shaved my hair off, I imagined that everyone was going to want to touch my bald head, and that it was going to get old really quickly. Exactly the opposite has happened— people have been really respectful about keeping their hands to themselves, and it’s disappointing because my head feels so cool. The smooth skin thing was a trip in its own right, but the buzz-cut furry animal texture is pretty great, as well.

• I felt exactly the way I thought I would about the dumb jokes. I predicted ahead of time that despite Sinéad references being boring, unoriginal, and twenty-five years too late, people still weren’t going to be able to help themselves. I even mentioned on social media that I was bracing myself for the amount of sighing and eyerolling I was going to have to do. Now that I’ve seen just how intent people are on trying to demonstrate that they can make a Sinéad joke cute and clever, I’ve escalated to making my own dumb Sinéad joke first (see above) to take the wind out of their sails. It kind of makes me want to punch myself in the teeth, but something had to be done to save people from their own lack of comedic sensibility, and to protect my sanity.

• Earrings have become a thing. I have two holes in each earlobe, and normally I wear the same two pairs of earrings day in and day out. Now that I have no hair, though, I’ve broken out the stash of Really Cool Earrings and have been experimenting a lot with the bald-plus-cool-earrings combo.

• Facial expressions have become a thing. It’s remarkable how easily the perception of me can be swayed from ‘sweet auntie who might be a cancer patient’ to ‘menacing skinhead who may or may not have killed people’. It’s all in the eyebrows, and the piercing stare or lack thereof.

• Shaving my head was a good way to experiment with hairstyles. Since I was getting rid of all my hair anyway, I took full advantage and gave myself several different haircuts on the way out, just for fun. I surprised myself by really liking some haircuts I never considered before, like the buzzed-on-the-sides look. I’m going to play around with that some more as my hair grows back.

• I have a lot more hair than I thought. I tend to think of myself as someone who has a low-to-moderate amount of relatively fine hair, but I was astonished when I saw the size of the pile of hair on the floor, and it was surprising how long it took to cut it all off with the clippers. Before I shaved my head, I watched a YouTube video of a bald woman who said that she never appreciated how much hair she had until she cut it all off. At the time I thought that was a weird thing to say; now, though, I totally get it. It’s ridiculous how much hair is on a human head.

• I expected to be more emotional about having no hair. The gravity of why I did this is not lost on me, and I’ve had some overwhelm about the issues surrounding the project, but honestly I’ve been having a lot of fun as a bald woman, and cutting all my hair off has been the least emotional aspect of the whole thing. I guess I like experimenting, no matter what the situation, and in the end… it’s true, I am not my hair. It feels good to have that confirmed.

The timing was, in retrospect, comically terrible. I had a head full of shampoo, I was soaped up head to toe, and suddenly the water went cold. Looking up, I saw that the orange power light on the shower had gone out, which meant either there’d been a neighbourhood power cut at a very inconvenient time, or the switch had tripped on the circuit breaker in my front hallway. Since I didn’t fancy having to rinse all that soap off with freezing water, I decided to tiptoe my naked self out into the hallway to investigate.

As soon as I opened the bathroom door, black smoke poured into the room, and within seconds I was coughing and struggling to see.

It was, by quite a margin, the most terrifying moment of my life.

Two hours later, as the chief fire officer surveyed the damage in the aftermath, I stood there stunned in my soot-covered dressing gown, my hair now caked with a mixture of dried shampoo and ash. I was completely silent and devoid of any facial expression; all the emotion had been drained out of me. I had a sprained wrist, several small but painful burns on my hands and feet, and a rasp in my breathing.

The officer finally delivered his verdict: I wouldn’t be able to return to my home until the repair work was finished and he gave safety clearance. His time estimate on this was ‘anywhere from several days to a few weeks’.

I burst into tears. In my completely rattled and confused state, I misunderstood the meaning of what he was saying, and pictured myself wandering the streets for the next month, barefoot in my blackened dressing gown, my hair glued together with dried shampoo.

‘I’m not going to be able to rinse my hair for several weeks?’ I asked between sobs.

The officer tried not to giggle. ‘No, of course you can,’ he replied. ‘You just have to do it at someone else’s house, or at a hotel’.

‘Oh yeah, of course’, I said, and then started to laugh at the silliness of my own mistake. In many ways the trauma had reduced me to the level of a young child who doesn’t really understand how the world works. I figured that a shower, some clean clothes, and a good night’s sleep would sort me out.

It didn’t.

It was five weeks before I could return to my flat. It was nearly a year before I could be in a bathroom—any bathroom—with the door closed. When staying at friends’ houses, I would warn them that I was going to shower with the door slightly open, and that if they didn’t want to see anything, they shouldn’t walk past. My top priority was to never, ever again be surprised by a fire on the other side of a bathroom door. Even now, irrational lumps can creep up in my throat if I’m at someone’s house and discover that their bathroom is at the back of the house, rather than near the front door where I could get out quickly if I needed to.

Post-trauma is an odd thing. The fire itself, objectively speaking, was considered minor, but it sent me into a downward spiral of paranoia and unwise decisions. My sense of self-worth sank so low that I stopped doing many of the things I loved, and completely abandoned projects that had, up to that point, been going well. Nurturing toxic personal situations at the expense of healthy ones became my new normal, to the point where I soon had no one in my life that I could truly rely on or confide in. My apparent inability to stop this downward spiral was both a symptom of and a trigger for depression of a magnitude I hadn’t experienced in over a decade, a black hole that very nearly consumed me one cold winter’s night while I was travelling in Bulgaria.

Sometime around the end of April this year, after eighteen months of psychological upheaval, emotional chaos, and the help of a good therapist, my serotonin and dopamine levels finally started to stabilise again. Within a couple of weeks there was an immense shift in my depression, and the mental fog lifted. I was alarmed at the clarity with which I could suddenly see my personal circumstances, almost as if I had snapped awake from sleepwalking to find myself wandering through a lion’s den. I finally cared enough and felt able enough to do something about it, and set about making some dramatic positive changes.

If you’re looking for a clean ending to this story, there isn’t one. In general I’ve been moving from strength to strength, and I feel better now than I have in over two years, but it hasn’t been entirely linear. Even though I finally got my flat reassembled and cleaned up, I still find hidden spots of soot from time to time. That’s also a pretty decent metaphor for my psyche— my drive and spark have found their way to the surface again, but every once in a while I do something that pre-trauma me would shake her head at. For example, one particular incident a couple of months ago showed me that I’m still not being careful enough about honouring my intuition and steering clear of troubled individuals. Sometimes I tell myself that I’m just having a post-traumatic overreaction, when in fact someone is genuinely Bad News and the red flags couldn’t be more obvious. This is something I’m still working on, but I’ve learned to be patient with my mistakes and my recovery.

Most of my personal news these days is happy. I’m travelling more, spending more time with friends and family, and have resumed activities and hobbies that bring me joy. I’ve also rediscovered my empathy and capacity to help others; recently I decided to shave my head in solidarity and support of local breast cancer patients (a project which is now so close to reaching its fundraising goal that I’m starting to feel excited butterflies at the idea of actually running a razor over my scalp). I’ve been collaborating with artists all over the world on their creations, and have a few of my own in the pipeline.

And, apparently, I’ve started blogging again. My previous post on this blog was published a week before the fire, and I wasn’t sure when, if ever, I would get back to it, but here I am.

So there’s that.

I’ve always called this fifth season ‘late summer’, but I think it may need a better name, its own descriptive word. I’m taking suggestions.

So I thought why not, let’s give it a shot. One evening last July, I set an alarm and woke up at 4.30 the following morning. The goal was to do this six days a week for a year (with Saturdays set aside as a ‘lazy day’) and see what happened.

Well, a year has now passed, and here’s what I’ve learned.

• Waking up earlier does indeed boost productivity. It’s counterintuitive, because a day has 24 hours regardless, so what does it matter which hours you’re awake for, right? Well in my experience (and I’m certainly not the first to discover this, it’s well-documented), there’s a significant advantage to getting a chunk of your daily to-do list done before the rest of the world wakes up.

  Part of it is psychological, for sure, because there’s nothing like the smug feeling of heading into breakfast knowing that you’re almost done with your obligations for the day while everyone else is still groggy and grasping for consciousness. But there are also practical reasons. Being up early means you can concentrate in peace while the rest of the world is still asleep. Sure, you could have that quiet time very late at night instead, but doing it early means you’re starting fresh off a good night’s sleep, rather than trying to force yourself to be productive after the events of the day have taken their toll and you’re tired and ready to relax.

• My bedtime did not have to change by very much. Initially I thought I was going to have to go to bed ridiculously early to make up for the sleep I was ‘losing’ in the morning, but that turned out not to be the case. Instead, I noticed that getting things done and out of the way early in the morning freed me up both mentally and physically to relax a little more the rest of the day, which meant I wasn’t as wrecked in the evenings as I had been previously. So when I went to bed, there was no longer that exhausted desperation to hit the pillow. My quality of sleep skyrocketed, which seemed to make a lot more difference than getting a greater quantity of sleep.

• It makes the day feel more open and less cluttered. When I started getting up earlier, all of a sudden there was ample time for everything I wanted to do, especially when it came to fitness. I no longer struggled to cram a workout or a run into my day; there was plenty of time to do those things before breakfast. Meditation sessions had a nice margin around them instead of being tightly sandwiched between practical obligations. It was nice to feel like I was controlling my schedule, instead of it controlling me.

• When you wake up early, people take it personally. This was one of the more interesting side effects of the experiment. I was surprised at how many people reacted to my early wake-up time as if it were something I had done to them, as if it were hurting them. Some were very intense and repetitive with their pointed questioning of why followed by but WHY followed by but I still don’t understand WHY, regardless of how many times I had already explained it. A couple of people were downright angry, as if my waking up early was a negative judgement of their own, less-strict morning habits. One person even said they didn’t know if they could continue to spend time with, me and threatened to cut me off because of my ‘strange schedule’, even though my wake-up time had zero effect on our regular meeting times, which were almost always in the afternoon.

  Personally, I think it was just a case of people bristling at the thought of someone trying to do anything different from what most people perceive as the norm. As the Japanese say, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. People like you just the way they are. Luckily I did not let this affect my resolve, and continued enjoying my early mornings, since it wasn’t actually hurting anyone and was benefitting me greatly.

• When you tell people you wake up at 4.30, they often don’t believe you. I spent a week staying with a friend in Germany who warned me that she had to be up at 4.45 for work, and promised me that she’d try to get ready quietly, so as not to disturb my sleep. ‘It doesn’t matter’, I replied, ‘I wake up at 4.30 anyway, so I’ll already be up’. ‘Oh, okay, that works out perfectly, then’, she said.

  When she woke up the following morning and came out of her bedroom to find me sitting in the lounge, my presence startled her. ‘Sorry, I thought I mentioned that I wake up at 4.30’, I said. ‘You did mention it’, she replied, ‘but I didn’t think you meant actual 4.30′. I’m not sure what else ‘I wake up at 4.30’ could mean, but I did have several experiences in which people were shocked to see me up early in the morning, even though I’d already told them about my schedule.

• Anything can become the new normal. Waking up at 4.30 on a regular basis is not as difficult as people imagine it to be. All you have to do is set an alarm, make it non-negotiable in your thought patterns, and get up when the alarm goes off. Everything else sorts itself out accordingly— your sleep schedule, your productivity, your social life, all of it. After the first couple of weeks, what initially seemed like it was going to be a big chore turns out to be a comfortable routine. And if the new routine proves to be beneficial in other ways, then it can even become a joy.

So now that the year-long experiment is over, the question is, will I continue to wake up at 4.30 every morning? The answer to that is… mostly yes, but in a slightly more relaxed framework. For the experiment, I was brutal in my insistence that 4.30 meant 4.30, no matter what. I set the alarm and kept to it even when I was up until past midnight, and even when I had the flu and getting out of bed was not advisable.

From now on, I’m going to be a little less militant and a little more reasonable, since the whole point of this schedule is to make my life better. If I’m ill and need rest, I’ll rest. If I get invited out for the evening and don’t get to bed until the middle of the night, I won’t hobble through the next day on one hour of sleep just to prove a point.

Would I recommend waking up earlier to others? Absolutely! Give it a try, even if just for a few weeks, and see if it doesn’t transform your life in many unexpected and positive ways. If you do try it, let me know how it goes.

Antalya has exploded into summer. Everything is so vibrant right now.

Okay, so it’s not really gone gone— sure, our linear perception of time makes it seem like it is perpetually escaping, but those six months have added countless events and experiences and people and things to the sum total of our lives. Those things don’t really go away, and even the ones that seem negative at the time have the potential to teach, to add new shapes and textures to our personal landscapes.

For me, the past six months has mostly been about staging comebacks— coming back from illness and medical scares, coming back from athletic complications, coming back from a range of personal difficulties and big questions that don’t have clean answers. Progress has been slow; recovery is ongoing. In many ways, that forced lack of pace has been as much a learning experience as the original events themselves.

But my summer travel season starts tomorrow, and that means my trusty groove won’t be far behind. I feel it lurking impatiently. I still have a couple of internal issues I need to work through, and a bus seat meandering through the mountains and across the Turkish coastline has always been the best place to do that thinking and writing and creating, so the timing is fortunate.

As usual, travel breeds photos, and since I’m heading places I’ve never been to see things I’ve never seen, I know I’ll soon be excited to capture new things in a way I can’t yet imagine, even if my soul hasn’t latched onto that excitement just yet. It’s inevitable.

There will be exploration of all kinds, there will be boundaries crossed, there will be the old comforting chk-chk of the shutter, and of course there will be food. Lots and lots of food.

Time to get the summer started, ready or not. The seasons are relentless like that, thankfully.

Disruption seems to be all around me, as well. A couple of friends have lost their jobs this week. A couple of other friends had babies. As always, change is the only constant, and I love it, especially at this time of year. 2015 is heading toward us at a ridiculous speed, and the possibilities are very exciting indeed.

Electricity is literally in the air.

The Toast’s Western Art History series – The Toast has a series of hilarious posts featuring famous historical artworks with modern captions, grouped by theme. Most of the recent posts are about the plight of women in art; it’s hard to explain why they’re so funny, so you just have to check them out for yourself. Some of my favourites are Women Rejecting Marriage Proposals, Women Listening to Men, Unhappy Mothers, Women Having a Terrible Time at Parties, and Women Wearing Spectacular Hats.

Headspace – If you are interested in meditation but can’t quite work out how to start, or you know how to start but can’t seem to convince yourself to make the time, try out Headspace. The app is free, and comes with a ten-day starter package to get the ball rolling. It’s a practical, hands-on programme that gets right down to the core meditation techniques, perfect for those who are less interested in new-age-spiritual talk and more interested in concrete health and lifestyle benefits. I recently got a premium membership even though I’m an experienced meditator, just because there are so many fun meditation packets to try.

FutureSelf – This is pretty freaky. You upload a photo of yourself, the engine analyses it, and shows you an animated, talking version of what it thinks you will look like twenty years from now. You can then have a conversation with Future You, though you’ll probably find Future You a bit limited in conversation topics. Still, it’s interesting to play with for a while.

MTSR – The Multi Track Song Recorder free iOS app is not really suitable for heavy-duty recording contexts, but it does enable you to do some pretty fun stuff, like sing harmony with yourself at a moment’s notice, or lay down a beat that you can then sing live over. I don’t think I’d ever use it for actual recording (I just delete whatever I’ve recorded at the end of every session), but it’s a lot of fun to play around with if you just want to do some quick multi-part stuff, and the interface is so simple, you can master it within a few minutes.

Grandmas getting stoned – Now that marijuana is becoming legal for recreational use in some places in the United States, we can probably expect more videos along these lines. Three grandmothers try smoking weed for the first time while one of the filmmakers throws Cards Against Humanity into the mix; hilarity ensues.

This autumn, if you can call it that, has been tremendously accommodating of my personal anomalies. For the first time in about a decade, I was not really looking forward to the end of summer this year. Most of that was due to some construction work in my building that kept me trapped in my flat for several weeks, perpetually waiting for workmen either to arrive or leave again, never with any notice. There was also a lot of travel, including some abroad, and when at last I got back here in the middle of September, finally ready to take full advantage of the summer, the season officially ended five days later.

That didn’t seem to stop either of us, though, as summer and I joined hands and jumped off a cliff into the sea. We refused to acknowledge autumn at all, and autumn obliged by staying away for another couple of months. Now that the real end of summer is nigh, though, I’m looking back over The Season that Got Away and discovering that it was actually one of the most activity-filled summers I’ve ever had, if not the most.

It all started with a couple of trips down to Kemer, my first Turkish home, to visit friends and celebrate ten years of being in Turkey. [view the full kemer photo set]

Once I was back in Antalya, summer really got rolling with the Pride March. I photographed the whole thing from start to finish. [view the full pride march photo set]

The nights quickly started getting warm, and the city was teeming with colour in the evenings.

Ramazan celebrations took place in July.

The hot trend this summer was Italian-style gelato. New ice cream shops popped up on almost every corner. No complaints here.

I had tremendous fun photographing the aquabike and flyboard championships in Konyaaltı. [view the full aquabike photo set]

Friends old and new visited from abroad; we went cave swimming and spent a lot of time in the sea.

In the middle of August I took off for the shores of Lake Beyşehir, where I saw sunsets that floored me and had a domestic travel experience like none other. As soon as the weather gets warm next year, I’m heading straight back there. [view the full beyşehir photo set]

When I finally managed to prise myself away from Beyşehir, it was time for my first-ever visit to Denmark, where I saw a lot of gorgeous countryside, ran an unplanned 10k race around a castle, and spent time with one of my dearest friends and her family. [view the full denmark photo set]

After Denmark was Germany. Even though I visit frequently for family reasons, each trip is always delightful in its own way. September brings the biennial Venetian Festival and the annual Pumpkin Exhibition, so of course I attended both of those. I also got to meet a new cousin, and a lot of great people whom I am now lucky enough to call friends. I’ve already made plans to visit them again soon. [view the full germany photo set]

As this weird and wonderful summer winds down, it’s still swimming weather at the beach, and snow begins to collect on the mountaintops while summer flowers continue to bloom in the city. The cold weather is coming, rest assured, but not just yet. Shopping centres are already decked out with holiday lights, and as I walk around in shorts and a t-shirt looking at the decorations, it feels like summer might catapult us straight into Christmas this year.

And you know what? I’m okay with that. If there’s one thing I love about Antalya over all else, it’s that life here is never boring, never the same thing twice. So let’s see what this winter has to bring. Whatever it is, it’s sure to be interesting, and that’s my number one requirement.

Please Like Me – Josh Thomas is painfully funny, and although I really liked the first series of Please Like Me, I decided to save my recommendation until I saw whether the second series would live up to expectations… and it did. It does. It wasn’t a fluke. Check it out.

The Erin Motz Yoga Challenge – The original Bad Yogi is back with her latest autumn yoga challenge. This time around it’s four weeks of brief, daily sessions, perfect for beginners or those who have had a break from yoga and want to get back into the swing of it. Erin is fun, relaxed, and relatable, and the videos are short enough to fit into any schedule.

myNoise – Create your own soundscapes by choosing themes and messing around with sliders. Surprisingly addictive, and there’s a free iOS app, too (Android app on the way).

Snapwire – If you’ve ever wondered whether you could make some extra money from your photography, Snapwire is a good way to find out. It’s a free service; you upload your work into a portfolio, and you can also respond to client requests for specific types of photos. If your work proves popular, you accumulate points, which in turn earn you more privileges on the site (featured portfolios, promotions, and so forth). Greater exposure on the site means that more paying clients see your work, increasing your chances of sales. Snapwire is open to everyone, and since it costs nothing, you have nothing to lose by trying it out.

Serial – The creators of This American Life have created a new podcast, where host Sarah Koenig takes the listener through multiple episodes that all follow the same true story. Riveting, to say the least.

Too Many Cooks – In case you’re one of the five people on the planet who hasn’t seen this yet, it’s my duty to share it again here. I’ve seen some people saying things like, ‘I got the point after about thirty seconds and then skimmed through the rest’. Yeeeeah, no. It doesn’t work that way. This is one of those cohesive works of genius that you won’t fully understand unless you watch the whole thing… and then let it simmer for a while and watch it again. And again. And then engage in a game of ‘where’s Bill‘. And then have the song stuck in your head for three weeks.

So consider this an official announcement: I’m participating in the Antalya marathon next March. I’ve signed up, and even stayed up half the night yesterday so I could get the bib number I wanted.

The decision came on Sunday during my long run; about halfway through I got stroppy and thought, why am I working so hard at this when I don’t even know if I’m doing this stupid race? That’s when I realised, okay then, if that variable is messing with my head so much, then it needs to be taken out. Step one of running a race is deciding to do it. That should have been obvious from the beginning but I’m slow on the uptake sometimes.

I’m no stranger to competitive running, I participate in races regularly, but this will be my first attempt at a 42k. 117 days to go, and nothing to think about but getting it done.

I’m feeling really good, really strong. Last week went well and that helps. Being consistent with yoga and meditation has probably been the biggest factor, so that needs to remain a priority. I had intermittent tantrum issues last week, but that should improve now that I’m no longer waffling about will-I-won’t-I.

So yeah, this is happening. Next step: choosing a charity. Watch this space.

And if the singer’s voice sounds familiar… that’s because it’s Ryan Gosling. Yes, really.

5.01k in 38.53
126 days remaining

Everything feels different now. The clocks went back this morning and the autumn rains have arrived. I spent three hours of a candlelit evening yesterday creating a comprehensive training plan for a race I’m not even sure I’m running yet.

The 10th annual Antalya marathon is on 1 March. That’s eighteen weeks from today. For someone who is allegedly only sort-of considering the race, I’ve been spending a lot of time and energy thinking about it, planning for it, and, as of this morning, training.

My reservations about committing aren’t connected to the race itself— a 42k isn’t easy, but it’s pretty straightforward. What’s tricky is the scheduling. I have a lot of other things I want to get done between now and March, some of which are non-negotiable. I also have some international travel in the weeks leading up to the race. It’s complicated. Part of yesterday’s brainstorming session involved working out a detailed schedule that would theoretically allow for everything else I want to do, while still having time to train for a race of that calibre.

The next two or three weeks are key. By then I’ll have had a long enough trial period with the new schedule to see whether things are going to work out for the marathon this year. At the moment, I wouldn’t advise you to put money on either outcome.

But let’s be honest, it’s probably going to happen.

Eighteen weeks. 126 days.

Traversing the mountain roads between the Riviera and the Lake District.

There was an aquabike and flyboard competition in Antalya last week. While an aquabike appears to be a jetski, a flyboard is something entirely different, kind of like a jetpack that uses water to propel itself.

It was a great event and a wonderful way to spend a summer day.

Rain in July in Antalya, a sure sign of the apocalypse.

Colours morning and night.

Super moon, power nap, and mighty waffle.

July is shaping up to be crazy… in a good way.

A Saturday spent up the road, where I used to live.

Temperatures in the low 40s and the sea beckons.

Everyone is out and about until late in the evening. It’s a celebratory atmosphere.

Signs of summer approaching.

Another gorgeous spring sunset.

Life in Turkuaz opened last weekend at Konyaaltı BeachPark for the 2014 summer season.

The gala was wonderful and a fun time was had by all. It was a good way to say hello to the impending summer.

A great time was had by all at the Wings for Life World Run. If you’ve been thinking about doing this race next year, I can highly recommend it, wherever you happen to be in the world. I’ll definitely do it every year, if possible. It was a lot of fun, there was a big afterparty at the Alanya marina, and the regional winners were even on hand for interviews and photos after the awards ceremony. All in all, it was an overwhelmingly positive experience.

April is such a beautiful month in Antalya— not cold anymore, but not too hot yet. Water more than warm enough for swimming. A few showers here and there, mostly perfect weather for walking everywhere, sometimes with an ice cream cone.

I’m always sorry to see it go.

A couple of weeks ago I saw an ad on a bus shelter for the Wings for Life World Run, which I had never heard of before. I went home and did a bit of research, and then signed up on the same day. Turns out it’s a new thing, and it’s quite an unusual concept for a race.

Basically the idea is that the event takes place all over the world at the same time, i.e. some people will be running it during the day and some at night (it starts at 10.00 UTC, which is 13.00 here). At each location there’s a start line, but no fixed finish line, so you’re not running for time, you’re running for distance.

The way that works is there’s a catcher car at each race location— It gives the runners a half-hour head start, and then it slowly inches forward and starts to overtake them, one by one. There’s a sensor on the catcher car that triggers your timing chip when the car passes you, and then you’re done. You can then find out your official distance (as opposed to most races, where you would get an official time), and you’ll be ranked against every other participant in the world.

Eventually what happens is that the respective cars catch everyone, and the person who runs the farthest wins. There are also other prizes— like being the best in your age group, for example.

The only goal is to stay ahead of the catcher car as long as you can. I’m hardly the fastest runner in the world, but I’m sure having a car chasing me will add some fuel to my proverbial fire.

So it looks like I’m finally going to get to see Alanya, and what an exciting way to do it! I’ve decided to make a weekend of it and stay a couple of nights, taking in the sights and all that. It’s shaping up to be an interesting excursion, to say the least.

I know a lot of you are doing the 100 Happy Days challenge, and I’m in the middle of mine, as well. Although it involves submitting a photo every day, the challenge is less about photography and more of an exercise in mindfulness and gratitude. It’s also a great way to see the patterns in what makes you happy— it’s no surprise that a lot of my happiness seems to involve food, fitness, and exploring the city.

I’m really enjoying seeing everyone’s #100happydays photo sets; feel free to link to yours below if you’d like to share.