Usually I know all the photos I have, but last night I went straight to an old hard drive after the kids’ bedtime and discovered a folder in which I found some that I’d thought were lost, and which made me smile for sure.
Who knows if it’s the virus or the changing of the season or the downward spiral of our democracy or the dismantling of the post office or the west coast burning or police brutality or what, but I haven’t felt well lately.
These photos served to remind me who I have been and how, in a roundabout way, I got to be who I am, a full-time mom in Juneau, Alaska, doing my best to support my husband and keep my kids happy and safe.
So these photos are from around the time Jacob and I first got together, when we’d just made our way to Istanbul after two months’ traveling in Africa (we first met in Marrakech, Morocco).
I rented a room near Cihangir, a district that would become one of the flash points for the now-famous Gezi Park protests of 2013. I had lived in Istanbul nine years prior, so I had a bit of knowledge of the city but was at this time still getting reacquainted.
There was a feeling of revolution in the air in Istanbul in those days; even though the trees being protected in the park eventually would be razed, there was a lot of love and camaraderie and feeling that the good guys could win.
AngelfromMontgomery et al. 
I hope this is a part of the autobiography that you will be writing…