plants help me breathe in this heavy place

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i’m sensing into how part of learning to live in istanbul is figuring out how to exist underwater - how to grow gills, or swim, or just lay into the infinite black well, and surrender by floating.

the effects of my trip to new york city wore off on me after just five days, and it was like istanbul flooded my system, not by osmosis, but deluge.

everything: the noise, the traffic, the people, the heat, the cats, the sounds of the azan, of honking, the buses like giant whales.

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i’m certain that this is why tending to the plants in my house make me feel like i’m breathing. these plants give oxygen - not into air, but into water. (and at times i forget that there is still oxygen in water. but it needs plants to replenish it).

some years ago, I created a forest in my room into order to absorb my emotions. they gave me such comfort.

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somehow, the function of these plants feels almost like the opposite. they give me oxygen in a place which is so heavy with emotion and history and tension that people can barely breath, let alone survive.

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these green things give life, make beauty - create its own art without effort. i am only there to see it. to press a button. to capture it.