UWCiMish toughts

Photo by Cecilia

Beginning of September. Incredible day when 5 Mostarians manage to meet over dinner in Edinburgh. Georg, Ruth, Yan Kei, Tessa and I. Hopefully we can repeat this down in Devon, in Ruth's place, this Easter.

Sounds good?

Sounds good!

Suissane

This is a story (originally in Catalan http://neusumostaru.blogspot.com/2008/02/una-flor.html) I wrote in Mostar two years ago.

A flower.

Or maybe it wasn't even a flower, but it was something beautiful.

Its name was Suissane.

Suissane dreamed among butterflies. She did not care whether it was cold or hot, because the only thing that mattered was the sparkling sun.

Even though it might not make sense, she liked clouds as well. Suissane was one of those who think positively, those who loved them because, even though they hided her beloved sun, they gave her water. And with water, my friends, Suissane was growing up.

Growing and growing up! Up there with the wind, filling the sky with smiles.

But Suissane, like all flowers, or like all those things as beautiful as flowers, was a bit coquettish. More than liked it, sometimes she even needed the passer-byes to tell her how beautiful she was. And when this would not happen, she would get really really sad and start crying. And she would also grow up, of course, with this salty water, but by being salty, it was sometimes slightly bitter.

Then Suissane would think nobody loved her, because nobody said to her the beautiful things she expected to hear. What Suissane did not know, is that people were afraid. People were afraid of saying their thoughts to her.

Of not saying enough, or of saying it in a way that would not be good enough for her. Sometimes what would happen is that walkers so assumed she was beautiful that they thought it was not necessary to say anything to her at all... how would they dare say anything to a flower! A flower so beautiful that for sure she was tired of hearing so many flattery words.

But what people sometimes forget is that, quite often, those who seem more solid and stable, are the ones who are in most need for something to cling to.

Image: internet

Identity denial?

Wondering through notes, the words from my room wall in Mostar payed me a visit:

I'm from a sin curve

Where both demand and supply side policies

Do not work

Cannot work

Supplying love and smiles

Demanding love and smiles

I'm from a market failure

Due to lack of protectionism

I'm from a place where big things do not exist

I'm from a place where identities cannot persist

I'm from a place with walls made out of glass

I'm from a place where dreams will always crash.

[Some time in spring 2009]

Photo: the flower in my window had suicidal tendencies

Sometimes you sort of forget...

And then you randomly travel through old photos, just because anything is better than trying to sort an essay that makes little sense...

and you find those moments, right there in your screen

your heart bits a bit faster

fuck

you had forgotten that

damn

You wish you were in that street

Wish you could look through that window again

Wish that coffee could meet your tongue once more...

shite

It was long since you remembered that 'Happy "bomb" day'. How funny.

And even though those nasty words (fuck, damn, shite and all that) come out of your mouth, you are no less than extremely nostalgic... and happy.

Yes,

because who would you be if it wasn't for every and each of those seconds that you spent there?

Sure, still Neus.

But a bit less Rodeta, you might say.

I would not say you learn how to appreciate things, people and places when you leave them;

it's rather that when you do

you can see, with the new outsider perspective, how incredibly huge that love actually was.

My love for Mostar, the school and its people would be overwhelming even for the whole Earth to handle

.

.

.

yet it fits in the slow motion tear that rejoices in the jorney through my skin.