Afiyet olsun: Flaky Pastry, Messy Gulps, and Fear Swallowed Whole

Just the bare bones of the call to prayer trickle through our Istanbul window, a fragmented melody rising from the minarets below and drifting into the quiet of the modern Bauhaus-style apartment. The namaz always offers me a bit of an anchor throughout the day, providing a rhythmic, grounding heartbeat to an unfamiliar cityscape, although I am not religious myself. Today, the city outside feels vast and looming. Murat is away visiting a friend, leaving me entirely to my own devices. On the counter sits the plastic card key to the apartment; its weight represents a choice. I am glad to feel a little bit independent, knowing I hold the literal key to my own movement. Of course, I can leave if I want to.

Yet, looking out at the sprawling horizon, the desire to leave conflicts with a paralyzing inertia. The outside taxi cacophony rises from the streets, chilling my skin with its chaotic whirs and whizzes, a mechanical symphony of a metropolis that moves entirely without me. I stand frozen, contemplating my self-imposed confinement, desperate to ensure that my anxiety does not win. I don’t want my fear to get the best of me. Pressing forward, my fingers and toes touch the cold, leaded window looking over the neighborhood. From this height, the city is a distant tapestry. I can see the coursing warmth of the community just at the bottom of the hill, pulsing with life, food, and human connection, yet it feels entirely out of reach.

The internal tension builds until it becomes unbearable. My fear’s zenith propels my turn away from the window, forcing my body toward the door. The transition from hesitation to action is sharp. The formal clank of the apartment’s leaden door echoing through the hallway amputates some fear, severing the tether of my isolation. But the physical toll remains; blood pounds hypertensive in my ears, a rhythmic reminder of my vulnerability. Stepping into the stairwell, sudden shafts of afternoon sunshine soften my goosebumps, offering a brief, golden reprieve. I pick a tangible destination to anchor my focus: I target the mall below, across the bustling boulevard.

As I descend, stinging doubts swarm me like a cloud of wasps. It isn't just my own anxiety I am carrying; it is a heavy, generational inheritance. Murat’s fear, my brother-in-law’s fear, and my Father’s fear have all merged and collapsed onto my shoulders—a collective warning about the dangers of a woman walking alone in Istanbul. Their protective anxieties translate into a phantom weight, making me question my own competence. “I’m an experienced traveler, why is this happening?” I ask myself again and again, frustrated by the gap between my adventurous identity and my trembling reality. Circumnavigating the curling stairs, the air grows thick. My throat constricts in the exhaust-fume filled, chilled concrete garage. I stop for a second, swallowing the thickening mucus of fear, determined to set a course for independence.

Once outside, the reality of the city hits me fast. I squint in the brilliant, golden warmth, instantly locating my New York street-crossing skills while dodging aggressive cars and weaving through the kinetic flow of pedestrians. The muscle memory of navigating Manhattan kicks in, giving me a temporary shield of confidence against the overwhelming foreignness of the Şiśli boulevard.

Entering the mall, the chaotic energy shifts into the familiar, sterile drill of modern commercial security. I step into the queue, place my bag on the magnetometer conveyor belt, and prepare my mind for human interaction. I rehearse a simple phrase. I say “İyi Günler” to the security attendant just like I would greet a friendly barista in the morning back at home. I try to walk on, hoping to blend in seamlessly. Instead, my heart rusts just a little as the smiling attendant greets me back with more than the usual pleasantries, asking a follow-up question that I simply do not understand. The illusion of blending in shatters. Blushing deeply, my nascent, clumsy Turkish musters a clumsy defense: “sorry, don’t understand!”

I brace for judgment or irritation, but the world doesn't crack open. Instead, the attendant’s eyes crinkle with genuine warmth. She touches my shoulder knowingly and waives me on with a quiet kindness. The acute fear in my mind’s eye lessens at her gesture, but the psychological echo lingers; I notice that my skin is still on high alert, buzzing with adrenaline, even though I know her touch was meant kindly. The body takes longer to calm down than the mind.

Moving deeper into the mall's concourse, I focus on my next objective. Cupping my lira coins in my pocket, feeling their metallic edges against my palm, I search for the treat I want to get. I head toward the börekçi, a small, specialized store selling just one kind of traditional savory pastry. My anxiety re-centers itself on performance. I am so intensely focused on practicing my order in mental loops, trying to perfect the pronunciation, that I overshoot the entrance entirely. Not wanting to look foolish or lost, I walk all the way around the block again for a second try, letting the cool air steady my breathing.

On my second approach, I try on an “I-belong-here” swagger at the entry, squaring my shoulders and masking my nerves. Grinning nervously, I deliver my rehearsed line. My hard-won Turkish is quickly and efficiently answered in fluent English by the shopkeeper, which is a little bit of a let down, but the transaction is successful; the vital point got across.

As the shopkeeper hands me a warm plate of buttery, layered su böreği pastry, she smiles brightly, saying “afiyet olsun,”the beautiful Turkish equivalent of “bon appetit.” I sit down at a small table, the steam rising from the plate. I spoon slow, deliberate portions of the creamy yet incredibly flaky pastry into my mouth, letting the textures wash away the remaining adrenaline. Sitting there, a few unadulterated moments of pure normalcy finally emerge, accompanied by an unexpected flare of genuine joy. I am here. I am doing it.

Eventually, as my plate cools and the pastry disappears, it is time to face the inevitable journey home. Predictably, my worries begin to simmer again in the back of my mind, generating up new, worst-case scenarios. “What if the building guard doesn’t recognize me when I try to go back home? What if the plastic card to the apartment doesn’t work and I am locked out in the cold?”

But something fundamental has shifted within me over the last hour. The fears are still there, but they no longer possess the power to paralyze my limbs. Oddly, a newfound, hard-won calm consumes these lingering worries in one messy, defiant gulp. I pocket my key card, step back out into the golden Istanbul sun, and realize that the city is no longer an obstacle to fear—it is simply a place I am learning to live in.