Crossing Water, Keeping Faith: What Istanbul Taught Me About Betting on Myself

Between continents, between calls to prayer, between who I was and who I’m still becoming.

Between continents, but right where I’m supposed to be.

Arrival

I landed in Istanbul for a conference I’d been prepping for for months, the kind where your slides are ready, your outfits are steamed, and you still whisper a prayer before you board.

Istanbul greeted me like a contradiction I already understood: minarets and mosaics, the hymn and the adhan sharing the same sky. In Hagia Sophia, Christianity and Islam live inside one body. Layered, unapologetic. Maybe that’s why it felt familiar. I, too, have learned to hold more than one truth at once.

What I loved most was how the city held me. The mosques lit up at night like they were breathing. People were kind and generous in the small ways that matter. Directions, tea, the extra napkin you didn’t ask for. And the ferry from the European side to the Asian side? Whew. Wind in my face, skyline behind me, water doing what water always does, reminding me I can cross and still be myself when I arrive.

Pause: When was the last time you arrived somewhere expecting to teach and realized you were there to be taught?

Landed with a plan. Left with a few lessons I didn’t see coming.

The Taste of Openness

The food tour was my favorite day. I came hungry and left changed.

We started with simit, warm from the cart, dipped in cheese and washed down with tea that never stopped coming. Then came kokoreç which is grilled lamb intestines, seasoned heavy, wrapped around rotisserie lamb, roasted over open flame. I said yes before I could talk myself out of it and listen… 🔥🔥🔥. Had me thinking maybe somebody back home needs to wrap some chitlins around rotisserie pork and throw it on the grill. I’ve never eaten chitlins a day in my life, but if they hit like this? Sign me up.

And I can’t forget to mention the kaymak. Clotted cream with honey so rich it felt like a perfect love story. I could eat that all day, every day. Salep, thick and sweet, the kind of drink that hugs back, both the hot version and the cold one. And baklava so good it nearly made me reconsider every clean-eating habit I’ve ever preached.

And then there was that brown butter moment, poured slow over tender meat, sizzling at the table. The whole room fell quiet. That’s what freedom tastes like sometimes: unexpected, slow, and worth the wait.

On the tour, we took the ferry from Europe to Asia.  The air was cool. I leaned on the railing, scarf tied, heart calm. I thought about all the crossings that shaped me. Marriage to divorce, grind to peace, America to Portugal, doubt to trust. Each one asking the same question: Do you believe in yourself enough to keep going? 

Faith.
Not faith that everything would be easy.
Faith that I’d know what to do when it wasn’t.

Freedom. It’s trusting you’ll find your rhythm even when the waves don’t cooperate.

Pause: What crossing are you standing in right now, and what would happen if you trusted yourself midstream?

Didn’t plan on falling for grilled intestines and hot milk — but here we are.

The Room

Day two. Conference day.
The conference brought me back to a familiar kind of space, one where I scan the room and realize, it’s me again. One of the few Black women. The only Black presenter.

That comes with its own choreography. You show up ready and oftentimes overprepared, not because you need to prove anything, but because wiggle room isn’t always offered to us.You bring brilliance wrapped in calm because excellence isn’t optional; it’s expected. You smile and hold your head high like your ancestors are watching (because they are). You answer questions from people whose work isn’t race-conscious and whose interactions prove it. You deliver because that’s what we do. 

And, I did.

During a break, someone asked if my talk would include “the cultural part.”
I smiled and said, “Every part is the cultural part. Some folks just mistake theirs for universal.”
They blinked, laughed a little too loud, and scribbled something in their notebook. Maybe they got it. Maybe they didn’t. Either way, the seed was planted.

Still, Istanbul had a way of softening the edges those spaces can sharpen. In my short experience, Turkish men, for instance, see Black women. I mean really see. Compliments found me in markets, hallways, crosswalks, near a pastry I did not share — respectful, observant, and sometimes bold enough to make me laugh out loud.  One said, “You have powerful , beautiful eyes the kind that looks like you already know what I’m thiking.”  I grinned and said, “That’s the goal and right now the answer is no.”

I’m back in November. I might open an app. We’ll see.

Freedom includes flirtation and the joy of being fully seen without having to explain yourself first.

Pause: Where are you still trying to prove what you’ve already lived?

Ready for the room. The work, the grace, the armor. All packed. And I can see why these Turkish men were taking notes. 😂

The Couple

But Istanbul didn’t just offer attention. It handed me a mirror.

On the food tour, there was a couple, newly engaged. He kept taking little digs at her. The kind that arrive dressed like humor but land like humiliation. I recognized that tone. 

My marriage started with a similar energy: The meanness meant for other people before we got married.  I told myself I was the exception. That somehow, love made me immune.  I wasn’t. Eventually, that edge turned toward me. 

Later came another relationship, way softer, way funnier  but still laced with the same quiet cuts. My sister caught it before I did. She said, “He always takes shots at you, even when he calls it a joke.”

Once I finally saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. I ended that relationship.

She was right.

She’s always been right.  And she’s probably glowing right now that I’ve finally admitted it.  These days, I listen to her.

To my younger sisters- listen to yours.  Listen to your aunties, your mamas, your elders.  Their wisdom is unmatched because it's lived.  We’ve got to stop teaching each other that pain is a prerequisite for clarity.  You don’t have to earn wisdom through suffering.  You can learn through love, through listening, through letting the lesson land early.

Watching this woman, her ring notable, her smile performing, my first feeling wasn’t judgement. It was recognition. Then heartbreak. I could almost hear the script we are socialized to recite: it’s fine, it’s not that deep, he’s just playing, I can handle it, the deadline is marriage, the milestone is children, the proof is the ring. I wanted to tap her shoulder and say, “You don’t have to make yourself small to fit the life you’re told to want.”

I don’t explain away those moments anymore. I don’t shrink to keep peace. I don’t audition for the role of “easy to love.” I am that woman. I am her! Clear, whole, unavailable for disrespect disguised as wit. That’s not arrogance; that’s recovery.

Some lessons hurt the first time. The second time, they free you.

Pause: What wisdom from the women before you kept you out of mess or should’ve if you’d listened?

Some truths hit like strong black Turkish coffee, bitter at first, but they wake you up just right.

The City That Holds Contradiction

One evening, after the conference wrapped, the organizers took all the presenters out, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome, and  the Hagia Sophia before dinner at a Michelin-star restaurant.

I was still coming down from the day, the adrenaline of presenting, the mental notes of every conversation but walking through those spaces slowed me down.

The Hagia Sophia stopped me. Christian mosaics glimmered beneath Muslim calligraphy, gold and stone sharing the same ceiling like they’d figured out how to coexist centuries ago.

It hit me then: I know what it’s like to hold contradictions that don’t cancel each other out. Strength and softness. Ambition and rest. A past that taught me to hustle and a present whispering, you can slow down now.

But the contradiction I’m tired of carrying isn’t the one inside me. It’s the one the world hands me.Black women are fluent in adjustment. We blend languages, wear grace and grit in the same sentence, code-switch mid-breath, and still make it sound like music. We’ve been bilingual in survival so long that ease can feel like a foreign tongue. 

And that’s not something to master; it’s something to lay down.

Standing there, in that moment, surrounded by centuries of layered faith, I realized I’m not here to untangle who I am.  I’m here to let it all live in the same light.

It’s not either/or. It’s both/and. The permission to be multilayered and complex, without the performance, without the translation, without the weight.

Pause: What parts of you have been waiting for permission to coexist?

The interior of the Hagia Sophia. Arabic script carved with gold on one wall. Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist on the other.. Centuries of “both/and” shining in the same light.

The Quiet Build

Before and after conference sessions, I slipped back into my other role, founder mode.

What most people don’t know is that while I was polishing slides and packing, I was also building our MVP for the Web Summit Alpha program. Well, birthing is a better word. 

That program is a big deal! It’s the door that opens other doors. Access to investors, visibility on a global stage, momentum we can’t afford to miss.

We’re a small startup. Bootstrapped, Black-led, and carving out space in an industry that doesn’t often make room for us. That combination means every decision carries weight. There’s no cushion. No safety net. Just belief, pressure, and the prayer that the Wi-Fi stays strong.

I did most of the architecture and logic myself. My team helped with content, but getting this thing across the finish line was on me. That’s what I was building when I disappeared for two weeks and y’all were about ready to call the Portuguese authorities to do a welfare check on ya girl.

Toward the end, I handed off the chat feature to someone who said it would be easy for them to troubleshoot my one hang-up. The content was popping up fine; it just wouldn’t stay on the damn page. To his credit, he fixed that and made the whole thing prettier, sleeker, cleaner. And I’m genuinely grateful.  

But it almost cost us the deadline and with it, the opportunity.  The prompting for the AI part was trash. Literally copied and pasted not written or revised or uploaded with intention.  Ain't no way we could have turned it in like that.

So there I was, running on four hours of sleep, still tweaking prompts, trying to make this thing make sense with a conference presentation the next morning and a submission deadline later that day.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated. I kept thinking, If I had just trusted myself, kept my head down for a few more days, we would have been done already.

Somewhere between the irritation and the exhaustion, I heard my father’s voice same as always: Bet on yourself, baby.

Not as pride but as protection. Because nobody will ever carry your vision with the urgency you do.

After my last conference presentation, fifteen minutes before leaving for a speaker tour and dinner, I hit submit. 

No champagne. No scream. Just a deep exhale and a quiet thank-you.

When that “Accepted” email came through, I didn’t even celebrate. I just smiled, thinking about what it means to build something from scratch, by hand, as a Black founder to be our own blueprint in spaces that still don’t expect us. I had been reminded of what I already knew.

Sometimes betting on yourself is trusting your own timeline more than someone else’s promise.

Sometimes freedom is the audacity to say, “I’ll build it my way,” and then doing exactly that.

Pause: What’s the quiet reminder you keep relearning the hard way?

Proof that the quiet work pays off . One click, one breath, one belief at a time.

Staying Found

I came to Istanbul to teach, but I left remembering how to listen.
To the parts of me that hold contradictions and refuse to shrink.
To the humor that keeps me human in rooms that still don’t see me fully.
To the discipline of delight.

The city reminded me that freedom isn’t loud. It’s layered.
That you can be soft and unshakeable.
That faith sometimes looks like butter melting on hot metal.
That contradiction isn’t confusion. It’s capacity.
That joy and discernment can share a table.
That every crossing, no matter how uncertain, is proof you’re still growing.

A reminder: we’re not meant to arrive finished.

You might have friends, coworkers, even family around you.
And still sometimes you’re the only one who sees the picture in your head, the only one carrying the dream that hasn’t found language yet.

That counts.

“Only” doesn’t always mean alone. Sometimes it just means early.

So I’m practicing —
in mosques where history holds more than one truth, on streets scented with spice and sound,
on a food tour where laughter and courage tasted the same,
in late nights where an idea turned into something real because I refused to set it down,
in rooms where I am both mirror and mic. Reflecting and declaring.

And that lesson from my father? Still true.
Always bet on yourself! Lovingly, audaciously, again and again.

To every woman still learning her rhythm,
take the trip, taste the thing, hold your head high in the room,
and when in doubt?

Bet on the version of you that refuses to quit.

With love,
JW

What stayed with you?

If something in this spoke to you, drop a comment and share it with someone building their own way across.

Let’s keep finding freedom — together