I received my first email from Arlen Kelesyan on 26 August 1998. The internet was not yet an ordinary part of everyday life. Arlen had found us online. He wrote that he had been born in Istanbul, moved to the United States with his family as a teenager, and still spoke Turkish fluently. He wrote in English because his fiancée, Celeste, was Italian-American and he wanted her to be able to read the correspondence too.
He said he was impressed by our family’s effort to let people from other countries experience Turkish hospitality. They hoped to stay from 16 to 30 April 1999, asking about our larger apartment with a good view before travelling on to Antalya. He ended his message with Turkish greetings.
What began with a few lines of email became a real meeting about eight months later. Arlen and Celeste came to Karaburun in April 1999.
In those early years our relationship with guests was not limited to renting an apartment. Whenever time allowed, we travelled around together. One day I took Arlen and Celeste to İzmir and we visited the Agora. I took the photograph in my archive showing them among its ancient columns.
Before leaving, Arlen wrote a long note in our guestbook on 30 April 1999. While still in America he had written about Turkish hospitality. At the end of his stay he said that he had expected the “customary Turkish hospitality”, but that we had shown them much more.
One phrase is especially meaningful to me: “…in words & deeds what it means to be hospitable in your country.” Something he had first sensed through a website had become something he had experienced for himself.
Arlen described their stay as a wonderful opportunity to unwind and relax from everyday life. Then he wrote: “stop & smell the flowers which we did a plenty.”
He described Mimas Garden as a clean and secluded place and recommended it to anyone who wanted to “get away from it all & be back with nature.” He ended by thanking us again for making it possible for him and Celeste to enjoy such a wonderful time.
Today, twenty-seven years later, I place side by side Arlen’s first email from August 1998, the guestbook page from April 1999, and the photograph I took of him and Celeste at the Agora of İzmir.
In the first document we have not yet met. In the photograph we are already sharing time together. In the final document Arlen is writing by hand after the experience.
I do not want to separate these three pieces in my archive. The first email tells of the introduction, the Agora photograph records the time we spent together, and the guestbook preserves what remained afterwards. An email once sent simply to arrange a holiday, an ordinary photograph, and a few handwritten lines can, many years later, come together to tell a small human story.