47 - translating the uçurum

Google gathers the data for me: "depending on the context, here are the most common English equivalents" for the word uçurum: "Abyss / Chasm: A deep, immeasurable gulf or crack in the earth. Cliff / Precipice: A steep, high face of rock. Metaphorical Gap: A wide divide or disparity between two things."

uçurum returns regularly in conversations with a dear friend who, like me, not only thinks and studies decolonisation but embodies it. The first uçurum we name together is the one between bodies: those who experience and remember, and those who only read about the experience and the remembrance.

The Nişanyan dictionary tells me that uçurum comes from a Middle Turkish word meaning "a deep slope, a place to fall into." One search leads to another, and in this linguistic quest I find myself inside the thing I am trying to name: looking into the many definitions of uçurum, watching it deepen.