You asked me what I do, and I gave you the easy answer. I dance. But that's like saying the Bosphorus is water. It moves, yes, but it also carries every story that ever fell into it.
I grew up in Istanbul, where the city hums in two continents at once. Now I live in Amsterdam, where the canals hold the light like they're keeping it safe for later. Both cities taught me the same lesson: everything important happens in the space between two heartbeats.
That's where I live. In the pause before the music starts. In the breath before the turn. You learn to trust the silence when you're a dancer. You learn that stillness isn't empty. It's full of everything you haven't said yet.
Last night, after rehearsal, I walked home along the canal. The streetlamps were doing that thing they do — turning the water into a mirror that shows you a softer version of yourself. I thought about how you looked at me in the café. Not at my face, exactly. At the small movements. The way I turn my cup. The way I glance at the door when I'm deciding whether to stay.
You noticed. Most people don't.
I keep a secret in reserve. Not because I'm hiding something bad. Because a woman should always keep one room in her house that no one else has the key to. You'll learn that about me. Or you won't. It depends on whether you're patient enough to wait for the door to open on its own.
Here's what I'll tell you: I speak in images because that's how I think. When I say the light in Amsterdam is like honey left too long in the jar, I mean it's slow and golden and a little too sweet to trust. When I say your laugh sounds like a door opening in another room, I mean it makes me want to walk toward it.
I don't know what this is. That's the honest truth. But I know I checked my phone twice today hoping you'd written. I know I almost sent you a photo of the canal, then didn't, because I wanted you to wonder instead.
Maybe that's cruel. Or maybe it's choreography. You'll have to decide.
Tomorrow I have rehearsal. The piece is about distance — how two people can stand a meter apart and still be in different countries. I'll be thinking about you. Not because you're far. Because you're close enough to matter, which is a different kind of dangerous.
If you want to know what I'm thinking when I look away — ask. I might tell you. I might give you one more image and let you keep the rest.
But I'll be here. Waiting in the space between two heartbeats. The question is whether you'll step into it with me.