The shadow self

Last night, after everyone had gone to bed, I sat on the terrace for a moment of reflection and across from me, a woman sat on her terrace, a dark silhouette staring down at me. The image unnerved me because she seemed to almost be a reflection – sitting quietly, alone, waiting for a benign breeze to help her make it through the night.

We’re in Zagreb, there is a heat wave. In front of Tatjana’s mother’s apartment, the one Tatjana was born in, her grandmother died in, used to be a small cottage on the road surrounded by lush gardens. It has been replaced in the last few years with a monstrosity of a building that does nothing except maybe now block the traffic sounds from the road – otherwise it is imposing, out of context, and lacks anything redeeming by way of architecture.

Yesterday morning, on our country walk, we had spoken about our future (near) and our options. We are back to the same questions – unburden ourselves from the LaLa (we have applied to live on campus for two years so that we can rent out our house), begin again the life we know, start over, wait, rethink or don’t think, find ourselves, lose ourselves?

To amuse ourselves, we ate purple plums from the trees that grow on the side of the road, they were warmed by the sun, we had that moment. That was all.

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