The Endless Loop in My Mind by Seçil Koman

Prose and paintings by Seçil Koman

I begin walking up the spiraling stone steps, one by one. The deep crack that splits the fifth step in half winks at me. This time, I am careful not to trip on it, and continue on…

In her artist’s book The Endless Loop in My Mind, NYC-based Turkish artist Seçil Koman uses prose and paintings to channel the remembered palette and contours of her grandmother’s apartment in Izmir during childhood summer holidays: Heart Apartments, Unit Four.

I take another step. Right in front of me is the brown apartment door with its burgundy doorknob. No. 4. From the sound of her orthopedic house slippers, I can tell my grandmother is walking toward the door. With a little thrill, I ring the bell. Its jingle intermingles with the chirping of the birds in the center of my chest. The door opens in time to the twittering of the birds.

As she describes her grandmother’s apartment—with its grape-flavored balcony, ballad-playing radio, and cocooned wardrobe—Koman’s prose (translated, from the Turkish, by Anna Wood) combines the tingling expectancy of E. Nesbit and Perecquian attention to detail to probe formative childhood memories of spaces once synonymous with security.

In a single motion, I am hugging my grandmother. My eyes are shut tight, and I inhale the scent of her floral shirt. I am welcome.