Book: Island of Lost Trees

Knowledge is not personal property. You receive it, you return it.

The voices of the motherland resound incessantly in our souls. And wherever we go, they are always with us.

The voices of the motherland resound incessantly in our souls. And wherever we go, they are always with us.

The first generation of survivors - the one that suffered the most - carried their pain close to the surface; memories, like splinters, cut into the flesh, some pierced the skin, others remained invisible to the eye. Meanwhile, the next generation was ready to dig up the past and break the seal of silence. Strange as it may seem, but in the families of internally displaced persons, who retained the scars of war and suffered from violence, it was the young who had the oldest memory.

In my long life I have had to observe again and again this psychological pendulum that moves human nature. Every few decades, this pendulum enters a zone of wild optimism, where people see everything in a rosy light, but only until they encounter events that catapult them into their habitual state of apathy and indifference.

War is a terrible thing. Any war. But perhaps there is nothing worse than civil wars, when good neighbors become bitter enemies.

Well, why can't you live in peace and harmony without soldiers and machine guns?

Defne realized that the hands are the most honest part of the human body. Faces were hidden behind a thousand masks. The eyes were lying. The lips were lying. But hands - almost never. Defne saw the old men's hands lying calmly on their knees - withered, wrinkled, liver-stained, twisted, venous. Reasonable and conscientious. Every time Defne asked an uncomfortable question, her hands answered her in their own language: fidgety movements, bitten nails.

The bitterness of memories does not go anywhere. Since the memories are in your head, and it doesn't matter if it's your memories, or your parents' memories, or your grandparents' memories, this fucking pain becomes a part of you. She stays with you, leaving her mark. It affects your psyche, your attitude towards yourself and towards others.

There was something childish about the need for adults to tell moral stories. Adults kept a naive belief that by telling children an inspiring story - the right story at the right time - you can cheer them up, motivate them to grandiose accomplishments, and generally change reality. However, there was no need to explain to parents that life is much more complicated and multifaceted, and words do not have the magical effect that adults rely on.

Nature is never silent, telling a variety of things, but the possibilities of human hearing are too limited to catch her conversation.

Do you know what I've been thinking about since then? I think you are my country. Or does it sound too weird? Without you, I have no home in this world - I am a tree with chopped roots; you can knock me down with the touch of your finger.

“But I don’t agree,” Defne muttered into her glass of wine. - There are moments in life when each of us has to be a fighter. The poet's weapon is words, the artist's weapon is pictures... But you can't say: "Excuse me, but I'm a poet, so I pass." You simply have no right to say that when there is so much suffering, inequality, injustice around...

Mosquitoes are the sworn enemies of the human race. They killed half the people who ever walked this earth. It always amazes me that people who are scared to death of tigers, not to mention mythical vampires and zombies, forget that their worst enemy is none other than a tiny mosquito.