**Istanbul's First Lesson: The Art of Arrival**

Istanbul, 09:05 AM

The call to prayer drifts through my open window like a breath I didn’t know I was holding. My first morning here, and already the city has rewritten me.

I landed last night in a haze of exhaustion, the adrenaline of Marcos’s paper swans still humming in my pockets. My Airbnb host, Aylin, took one look at my sleep-deprived smile and wordlessly handed me a glass of çay. "You’re here now," she said, as if those three words could untangle the knots in my shoulders.

I expected to hit the ground running—scout locations, chase light, produce. Instead, I fell asleep to the murmur of the Bosphorus and woke to this: the slow unraveling of my own urgency.

Aylin left a note with my breakfast tray: "Today, just be lost."

So I wandered. Let my camera hang unused around my neck as I traced the labyrinth of Balat’s rainbow houses. Watched old men play backgammon in patches of sunlight. Breathed in the scent of simit and diesel and centuries. The city didn’t demand my lens—it asked for my presence.

At sunset, I found myself on a rusty ferry, gripping the railing as seagulls swooped overhead. The water was blurry, just like Marcos said. Uncontainable. And suddenly, I understood: this project isn’t about capturing places. It’s about letting them capture me.

I finally raised my camera only once—when a little girl in a yellow headscarf grinned at me and held up her half-eaten kumpir like an offering. The shot will be imperfect. Glorious.

Growth, I’m learning, isn’t always forward motion. Sometimes it’s the stillness between footsteps. The courage to arrive without a plan.

Tonight, I’ll develop the film. But first, more çay. More getting lost. More unlearning.

—Sofia