ISTANBUL BLOOMS IN PORTLAND

In a letter to a friend written, oh, around 1557, a doctor named William Quakelbeen described the trees blooming in Istanbul, and said their nuts were fed to horses to help with coughing (worms, too). I could use a few pounds of those horse chestnuts for this upper respiratory thing I've got.

What I have instead is my own street and city full of that same blooming tree,Aesculus hippocastanum, stirring a specific memory from four days ago: standing on the balcony of the perfectly-located Hotel Turkoman, looking over the tops of flowering horsechestnuts and out towards the Bosporus Sea.