It’s 5 a.m. in Istanbul. It’s really quiet, in fact one of the few times of the day or night or in fact anytime that the city comes close to quiet.

The summer is coming to an end, but the nights still have that stealthy humidity that makes for restless nights. You can’t sleep.

5:24 a.m. You scan Facebook to see who is online. Some friends back home in America are online. Your editor is online. “Ready for war?” he asks. You apologize for not having sent anything recently. The situation here, especially regarding Syria, is so complicated and fluid, ever changing, that you can’t get your arms around it. As an ex-journalist, you feel guilty. You are betraying your former colleagues back home, making them look bad.

Well, it wasn’t your fault, remember. Ask Al-Assad. But maybe he doesn’t feel it was his fault either. It’s never anyone’s fault.

5:26 a.m. Recalling the famous scene in “Casablanca,” where Rick and Sam are alone in the bar. Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart, is drowning his sorrows over his lost love Elsa (Ingrid Bergman) in a bottle of bourbon, while Sam plays the piano.

Rick: Sam, it’s December, 1941 in Casablanca. What time is it in New York?

Sam continues to play the piano, looks over his shoulder, says: Wha—My watch stopped.

Rick: (brooding, anxious) I’ll bet they’re asleep in New York. I’ll bet they’re asleep all over America.” He slams his fist into the bar.

5:30 a.m. The imam’s prayer sounds, intoning the darkness and hovering over the sound of a lone truck passing along the road. Everything seems very far away at this hour, even war, even love. Everything seems very far away.

5:42 a.m. You decide to file something. You’ve gotta file, right? I mean, we’re not talking about swimming on a beach? Anyone can do that, even in Humboldt. We’re talking about Turkey, we’re talking about Syria. We’re talking about “a remote corner of the world that nobody even cares about, right?”

5:45 a.m. Ruminations … Why doesn’t Angelina Jolie just swoop down and solve all this, right? She could adopt the whole region (sorry, Angelina, don’t mean to be snide, it’s late). I mean, 1.7 million refugees (100,000 or more of them here along the Turkish-Syria border alone) and tens of thousands killed in the conflict. Thinking for some reason about the story in the press about the Turkish farmer, whose cherry trees were picked dry by the refugees. “It is true that they are Muslims and we must help them,” the farmer is reported as saying. “But surely there are other Muslims in the world.”

5:50 a.m. What do I think of the Obama Administration considering using military force in Syria? God knows. Only thing I know is that Syria, like much of this part of the world, is in the midst of a civil war, a struggle with itself. Who should win that conflict? God knows.

5:52 a.m. Are you ready for war? Are we ever?

5:53 a.m. Thinking about this afternoon. Had a nice swim at Caddebostan. Over the summer, I’ve become something of a regular there. Today, Recep, a Turkish hippie in his late forties, was there when I arrived. He reminds me of some of the surfers I used to see off Moonstone Beach waiting for the waves. The Sea of Marmara is so calm and salty you couldn’t sink in it if you tried. Recep likes to put on his frog fins and go out really far.

Today the clouds gathered over the beach after a fine summer, and as I left, Recep and I shook hands. “Are you going?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. As I left, I saw Recep way out, further than I have ever seen him, a tiny dot in the distance. The clouds were really near, and the sea had changed to a darker colour, and yet Recep went further out. I waved, and I think he saw me even from that distance, and waved back.

5:58 a.m. What does anybody know? All I know is that I have seen a true Mediterranean summer. I remember the day when a covered woman, with her children playing in the surf, went into the sea fully clothed, and then, seeing her children were safe and having fun, and the afternoon so fine, took off her head scarf and she had nice dark hair … nearby two other women, also dressed, sat on rocks and just put their feet in the water. Meanwhile, a father went to teach his 4-year-old how to swim, the old-fashioned way, and we all felt it when the poor boy cried and cried. He hadn’t learned yet that the water will not hurt you if you trust it. That is why mothers are the best teachers.

Thinking of an episode, two summers ago. Went to this same beach. Hadn’t swum in more than 20 years at least. Found myself out a bit too far, way over my head. Panic. Sea panic, the realization that the sea is something that can kill you quick, in a thousand different ways. Suddenly remembering Jan, my step-mother, teaching me how to swim as a child.

“Just turn over on your back,” she said. “Let go. See? Just let go.”

So I did, and the current took me back to shore.

6:03 a.m. Are you ready for war? Are we ever?

James Tressler was a reporter for the Eureka Times-Standard. He now lives in Istanbul.