The waiter brought the espresso without asking. Small cup, no saucer, set on the copper tray that's been here longer than either of us. I didn't correct him. I like when a place decides for you.
From up here, Istanbul stacks. Ottoman domes curve behind apartment blocks. Satellite dishes lean against chimney pots that haven't worked in decades. The Galata Tower sits a few streets over, not centered, not postcard-perfect, just there, solid and pale against a sky that can't decide between grey and gold. Below it the Bosphorus catches the nine o'clock light and sends it back in silver. A ferry sounds its horn. Then another. The water is always narrating something here.
I loaded the last roll of Portra this morning. The camera's been patient with me in this city, which moves in a way that doesn't cooperate with film. Too fast in the bazaars, too many faces, too much layered color. But from this rooftop everything slows. The tower holds still. The gulls circle in repeating arcs. I can actually compose a frame without chasing it. I took three shots. Maybe one will hold what I'm seeing, probably not. Film does that. It keeps its own version of the morning.
The espresso went cold somewhere between the second and third frame. I drank it anyway. In Istanbul, even cold coffee tastes like something that matters. The call to prayer started from a minaret I can't see, then another picked it up, then another, layering the sound across the hills the way the city layers everything. Stone over wood over concrete over history. I set the cup down on the tray. Basta così. Some mornings you just sit inside the texture of a place and let it do the remembering for you.
