Bogdan Bogdanovic writes about the holy essence of the city having lived to witness the almost complete destruction of cities he loves – I have struggled with his essays from the start – his pendantic archi-speak has made me nuts and then at the very end, after he has brought me all around in circles of his definition of the city, he drops the last paragraph like a bomb on me that makes me cry…
I lay on a flat rock, above a high cliff and if I look to my right I see an unencumbered blue sea, and to my immediate left I see hands that are childlike folded onto each other barely touching black coarse hair with a sprinkling of grey – the juxtaposition of the two makes me cry so hard, I have to catch myself before I wake my friends up.
We had a few Lasko in the square of Ston and came home to a homecooked meal then a big thunderclap signalled lights out – with the thunder and lightning coming from the window, we ate by candlelight – when the electricity was turned back on we danced to Duffy’s Mercy!
I have learned that cicadas don’t sing until it is 28 degrees celsius – that is why they are associated with summer – under a pine tree, inches from the sea, asleep on my towel and above me a bower of pine trees and cicadas compete with the birds for happy songs.
T always dreams of the seacoast when she’s happy and now I know why. Who wouldn’t enter such a dreamscape if they could? Croatians grow up with the seacoast – they all say the same thing, “I need at least two weeks every summer in the Adriatic, on the coast, to live the rest of the year” – the seacoast is dramatic – large rocky cliffs, pine forest that steps into the sea, blue water…
On the beaches – families swim naked together like happy dolphins – mother and father and children in harmony – no one is shouting or yelling or agitated – does removing your clothes change your personality or are nudists naturally more harmonious with nature and the habits of children don’t grate, they integrate? Hard to say but I love watching the nudist families with their babies and children – in harmony – enjoying the seacoast.
Wasn’t it Le Corbusier who suggested these towers to live and work in for the city – “yes, but they were posh and ideal while these are more human” – those socialist apartment buildings remind me of the Decalogue – sparse and brutal – “no, they are more human, they are about turning inside, you will find them all along the Mediterranean, people are more concerned with their interiors” – is this true, what about…
I had a sense at first as if I had been taken hostage, no clothes, no makeup, no shoes, nothing of me in the room while the personalities were large and stark in their spareness – no time for niceties, when I asked for panties in Budapest, the woman asked sternly, “string?” – there is no cushion between the ideal, the real, and the idyll – where am I? sitting in a small room with…
I remember Susan Sontag said during an interview that I went to see her at in San Francisco that if you are not aware of what is going on in Sarajevo then you are not aware of anything. Being immersed in eel doesn’t just mean learning how to love to be in a spa, eat delicious fresh food, or relaxing, it means understanding that Tito’s hometown became a place where people made a pilgramage to,…
My suitcase is somewhere – no one knows where – in it are my dresses and favorite clothes, my pajamas, my hula hoop that is pink and gold – I’m having an extreme makeover – two tee shirts (one bought in Budapest) and two shorts (one bought in Budapest) … my prescription sunglasses were stepped on, my fan broke the first day I took it out of my backpack … instead I’ve jumped both feet…