Warm bath of identity

When you live abroad, there are two questions people will ask you again and again:

1. how long do you plan to stay here?
2. do you plan to go back?

The answer to the first has been a standard "one or two more years" until I realised that we've been here much longer than that. So nowadays I am more likely to say that I have no idea.

The second one is easier, because the answer is a resolute "no." There is something terrifying in that certainty but I suppose it is better than deluding yourself that you will go back in some distant future.

When I left in 1997 I didn't mean to leave for good, I had some vague idea about returning when Milosevic is gone and things get back to normal. Maybe these were half-hearted ideas all along--my best friend claims so, anyway, and he is probably right. But that door that was ajar, at least in my perception, slammed shut in 2003 when our then prime minister was assassinated and any improbable return was taken off the agenda.

So do I still have a homeland? I grew up in Yugoslavia and then, without any choice in the matter, in Serbia, spent some great years in Bulgaria, had an exciting time in London, have fallen in love with Budapest and enjoyed it for years.

Legally speaking, I am Serbian, I have no other citizenship. And Serbian is my one and only mother tongue, even though being away from where it is spoken has taken its toll on my vocabulary and (embarassingly) even grammar. But I feel neither a bond nor particular loyalty to Serbia as a country. I feel closer to people who have grown up watching the same cartoons as myself, even if their native language is Slovene or Albanian, than to my own cousin who was born in 1989 and has only been Serbian all of her life. As Tony Judt so aptly put it: "This warm bath of identity was always alien to me."*

But while I have given up on having a homeland, I still need to have a home--a place to start from on all the journeys, a place to belong. An anchor, if you will, and not necessarily geographical, although that helps. Budapest is, for many reasons, not home and, while I always knew that, I have felt it more strongly lately and the realisation that I live in a beautiful bubble has seriously put me off balance. I got tired of not belonging, not understanding and not participating.

It is a little bit like a relationship--after so much time, you either commit or you split, you don't just drag on forever. But which way for the boat?

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*"Crossings," published in New York Review of Books.

Spring cleaning

We spent the whole day yesterday dusting, scrubbing, cleaning cupboards, washing, tidying, mopping. And then some.

It was a day off in Hungary because of the March 15 holiday and what better way to spend a holiday than getting your hands dirty? That reminds me of Christmas day in 2002 when I had a day off work (I had hoped to work but my boss had other plans for me, so I got a night shift on December 31st instead). I was all alone in London which, without public transport, feels like a ghost city, so I just cleaned and cleaned all day. I remember that I even cooked a meal for myself, which was a real feat considering that those days I mostly subsisted on Nutella.

I do enjoy an occasional day of purely physical work. When I used to work for Habitat for Humanity we would spend a day on a build site at least once a year and that was so much fun. It's a little bit like skiing: you are totally knackered at the end of the day but it still gives you a kick. It's just so much better than typing all day.

I feel like now is a good time to do some mental spring cleaning, too. You know, shake off the hibernation, get out of that unproductive waiting that julochka wrote about so well, leave behind all the melancholic winter thoughts and negative energy.

Perhaps also clean the dust that has settled on this blog and inject it with some fresh energy? I hope that the blog fatigue stays behind with the previous season.

Indignation

(I am in denial)

Dear Weather,

don't you think that we've all had enough of you this season? In fact, let me rephrase this: don't you think we've had more than enough of you for this season and the previous half a dozen at least?

I thought we had an implicit agreement that spring was in the air. Sure enough, it was pretty cold these last few days and the wind was very chilly at times, but there was a definitely springy sunshine and the air smelt of renewal. Until this morning, when I awoke to a snow blizzard and white wet stuff everywhere.

I feel cheated.

I just wanted to let you know that my patience with your quirky behavior is running out. This should better be the last we are seeing of you for this year. Or else...

Glimpses

Today I was thinking of the English word 'glimpse', its French equivalent 'entrevoir' and the Bulgarian 'zyrvam'. For some reason I like this word very much as it seems to me that it is charged with mystery. It must be so because of the its fleeting nature.

What comes to my mind is a day on a beach in Bulgaria. I must have been 2-3 years old and while waiting for my mother to get out from the women changing room the door opens and I had a glimpse of a naked woman for the first time in my life. What was its impact on me if I still remember this...

Two days ago while walking in Brussels I had a glimpse of the Grande Place bathed in sun under falling sun, the gilded facade of the townhall shining. Some minutes later this moment had gone.

Maybe around a year ago I discovered a song by George Brassens which is called Les Passantes with lyrics by the poet Pol Antoine. It is a beautiful song charged with glimpses of happiness. A verse reads:

Mais si l'on a manqué sa vie
On songe avec un peu d'envie
A tous ces bonheurs entrevus

If we failed our lives
We dream with a bit of sadness
of all past glimpses of happiness.

One of the explanations of the great value of those moments is economic. They are in such short supply that the price goes up. The other explanation is that these glimpses are openings to other worlds which remain undiscovered, promises that remain unfulfilled. These glimpses may take numerous forms: the words of a friend, the morning light over the sea, a girl you've once met on the train (as in Pol Antoine's Les Passantes), a burst of laughter and lightness that can hopefully persist and resist the tediousness of days.