letter for a future time

I'm at a point in my life where I can't see myself with anyone. I miss waking up next to someone. But I can't imagine that person.

Some time ago a friend did that for me and I was grateful. I had only a couch at that time. No sex was there. Just intimacy. 

I remember the feeling in the morning.

True happiness because I woke up hugged. Desolation and desperation. A hole in my soul because I didn't want it to end. And simultaneous realization that my friend can't stay. Even if she wants to. I just can't let it happen. 

And one day someone might stay over again. I have a bed now.

But on one of the walls stands a picture of your mother and I kissing. It was our first and least bad road trip. In Timisoara. 

I decided to keep it because you said you loved it. And because I was the happiest in my life. That's a hard thing to explain to a new person. 

But I made my priorities clear to myself.

You see, I never felt home anywhere. Not even in my own apartment now.

I see this place as my temporary apartment because I want to leave it for you. I'm going to lose my time with you because that's how the things go. It's a constant uphill battle for your affection. But a man that comes in your mother's life will spend more time with you than I will.

Unfortunately that means I have to become a threat. There can not be a person setting boundaries against me when it comes to you. Boundaries can be only set by me.

And that means I have to focus on our relationship. I can't afford to spread my attention on other people. That means that I can't imagine having a family outside of you.

Questions will come in about fifteen years.

And I will be there for them.

As I will be there for your first heartbreak, punch, equations that I forgot exist.

You just don't understand yet how important your smile is and how deeply I regret hurting you. 

You are entitled to your feelings. Now and in future. If you choose to explain them I will listen. If you don't I will respect that.

But I will not repeat the mistakes made against me.

As I hope you will not repeat mine.

I love you.

Tata

Solo noi

When I was a kid I practiced violin. I loved the sound of it. Not the one I produced but I loved anything that had it.

My family is a mix of Serbian and Hungarian influence on my maternal grandmother's side. I still have a complicated relationship with Hungary because of the stories my grandma told me from the concentration camp she was interned at during the WWII. She was about 11 when she got taken together with her family. I know some Hungarian to this day. And I deeply hate knowing it because I know why she learned it. 

My maternal grandfather is a Serb from the beautiful city of Mostar. He wrote down his recollection of the events of establishing the independent state of Croatia. To cut the story short, people were gathered at one of the meeting points and told that new state was proclaimed and if I remember correctly,one of the ladies,a catholic Croat told him to run. He ended up in Nedić controlled, German occupation zone of Serbia where he was shielded by a family of strangers. He was about 12 years old. He lived for years thinking he was the only survivor.

My paternal grandfather is from Split. We can trace our branch of the surname for I think around 200 years. But as of today I don't know the origin. I actually know the least about it. What I know is that my close relative organized the resistance in the city and together with Mokranjac was the greatest south Slav composer in history. Famous people were connected to us but that is irrelevant for now.

My paternal grandmother is from a very rooted family of Šibenik. We go centuries back. We are catholic Croats. And obviously we had a difficult relationship with the Italians. Cultural, political and physical domination is visible until today. That side of my family did what entirety of Šibenik did. We joined the only right side of the WWII. And we payed for it. Buildings in Šibenik and surrounding areas are full of my family's surnames commemorating our sacrifice for the liberation and unification of the fatherland.

My parents met in an elementary school in a border city with Italy. The area is effectively trilingual. Rapid industrialization made Serbo-Croatian an unofficial language. Slovenian was the majority language and Italy was still projecting it's domination via various channels.

And there my story actually begins.

All the blockbusters I saw for the first time were Italian dubbed. Terminator. Back to the future. Lion King. Disney's Robin Hood. You name it. It took me years to rewire my brain to start singing along the songs from cartoons in the original language.

But my parents gave me a gift. Or the upside of the horror, madness,evil and insanity of the destruction of my homeland.

They gave me music.

Today Toto Cotugno died. I loved his music. 

I am ashamed to say it but despite my reservation towards the Italian nationalism I sang along to L'Italiano. And then my favorite one.

Solo noi.

The reason why it's special to me is because when Teo's mom came for the first time to stay with me she was very nervous in the car. So I played music from my phone. That was the song that came. And it was perfect in my mind.

I'm sure that Toto touched hundreds of millions of people. If he touched just mine it would have been enough. 

But he did so much more.

Buon viaggio. Grazie per tutto.

Resti in pace. 

Adesso siete solo voi.

expat

Before I came to Scandinavia I worked on a cruise ship as a night auditor. It's an interesting position because it's a mixture of administration, safety, quite literally keeping the captain awake, doing bartender's job without serving drinks, show and low-key leavemealone vibe. The plan was to learn the trait and become a manager of several ships. Live in Botswana and work on the Nile.But I found out I was going to be a father.

That changed everything. Every thing I had planned got scrapped. 

I remember talking to my friends Danijela and Mile about them studying in Upsala and I said to myself I could visit but live,never.

But there I was. Pregnant partner and myself. No job. No idea what is going on. Reinventing myself for the second time in a year. 

Her family is some of the best people I know.

I'll cut it short and tell you it didn't work out.

But we did it together in the beginning.

I got a job after exactly two months and ten days. Actually she found it. In Brondby. East part. The industrial part. IKEA warehouse. Salary was enough for the bills, mortgage for her apartment, cigarettes, cheapest coffee on the way to work, absolutely clueless to how the system works.

Coronavirus time was hell. I'd wake up at 10am, do what I needed to wake up, and leave at 11 to be sure I am at work at 2pm. Trains were going every hour, with 500 people being in person checked by the Danish border control. I will not comment on the way it was conducted.

On the way home I would get home between half past midnight and 2am, depending on the train. Worst case scenario was when the train that comes from Brondby would be one minute before the train that goes to Malmö. That meant I have to sprint about 300m to catch it after 8h work in a warehouse. And I can't explain the mental breakdowns I had if I didn't make it. Because it meant I will have to walk from the central station in Malmö to our home. And Sweden decided to cancel public transportation after certain time.

But my son was born.

And he didn't like to sleep. It would take him to fall asleep couple of hours. So sometimes when I came home after all of this I would take him out to walk him into sleep. My ex was exhausted. Any mom can relate to that. She needed some rest. But that was the only thing I could do at the time. I probably could have done more but I was exhausted.

That's all for this time.

I have to sleep.

observationer

I've been living in the north of Europe for four years now. Can confirm that I expanded my horizons and learned a lot about myself and people here. But also people back home.

Let's start with some of the cultural shock I experienced. 

First thing I can point out is something I can call empathy leveling. Most of people are superficially distant and from a southern European perspective cold. Later you probably knew from the stereotypes like "it's cold but, standard,hey!". But, what I learned is if someone embraces you after some time,they are genuine in that. It's different situation from back home where you meet a person and it takes about 7 minutes to have a lifelong friendship feeling. You won't be invited to anyone's house for a year,but once you are,you can expect to have help with dismembering a body,no questions asked. 

On the other side, people are not cruel. In situations where facts are presented in a rational manner,even with alcohol present, people tend to keep their cool, accept new information and admit potential misjudgement. There's also a lack of action in potentially dangerous situations,something I can atribute to the trust in the institutions. I've heard more than one time that I shouldn't act and let the police/firefighters/ambulance deal with it.

Second huge shock was that noone covers their mouth when yawning. I remember vividly my 6th grade biology class teacher yelling at me that she's disgusted with the sight of my kidneys when I yawned and promptly kicked me out of the classroom.

Here people yawn in the middle of the sentence on a date powering through the yawn so the sentence wouldn't suffer. Imagine my surprise when I saw that for the first time on a gorgeous girl. 

Biological functions are also very much not taboo. Shitting is normally discussed among friends and lovers. I'm not going to go into details but I had a cute situation where I was driving a truly beautiful woman and she said that she has to fart. I was a bit taken by surprise but for some reason that spells closeness to me. Something that family does.

Seconds after that,she said through laughter that she shat herself. No embarrassment. Just a fact. But hilarious situation.

Next one is nudity.

I used to take my son to a local pool every weekend because he loves water. And the first time I went to leave my stuff in the locker room I was greeted with a sight of about 10 people of all ages having a friendly discussion among themselves. Butt naked. Scratching their balls, touching each other when someone makes a joke I suppose. And a woman, equally naked coming in to call her kid to come. Noone payed attention.

A few years ago I was with my friends from previous work place and we went to sit on one of millions of Copenhagen piers. All immigrants except for the two. In Denmark you can drink in public. In Sweden you can't. Mostly.

It was a warm day for the middle of May. 

So there were we, playing bunch of music from 4 continents and a young lady approaches us,sits next to us for a few minutes and promptly takes off her clothes and proceed to jump in the sea. All of us stopped talking. Except for the 2 Danes. It is so uncomfortable thinking about it because I am sure that we looked like bunch of creeps. Which we are,have to admit. But after she swam a bit she came out, stayed some time next to us and after she dried up she put on the clothes and left.

And the culture around bodies is so much healthier than I grew up with. Perhaps that's a personal thing. I'm not sure.

People just seem to enjoy their bodies more.

Sex is another one but I won't get into that now.

There's a lot of things that I find interesting here. I'll probably write more in the future. For now this is it.

north

For a long time I have an urge to go far north. There's something deep inside of me that calls me. Not sure what but I want to test myself. As if one should accept their own insignificance.

I'd like to murder my ego. Test my body. Get close to my death. See if I can get out. Learn about myself. Or just become one of so many untold stories of demise.

Because you will never feel more alive than a moment you die.

But.

There is always a 'but'.

And 'but' negates everything previously stated.

Harry Belafonte

You were about eight months old when you heard Harry Belafonte for the first time. You loved his music. That's something you inherited from your grandfather. Dida Toni. I grew up with Harry's music, I liked it, but not like you. I would listen to your grandpa's select tunes on a cassette over and over again during different road trips. I still have a reflex when a "Island in the sun" song is about to end to start singing the famous "day'o". I'll explain cassettes to you one day. When I get a cassette player.

You would think that "Day'o" was about you. You would flinch every single time. Genuinely curious and cute to die for. 

You should know that I tried to push you to classical violin. Your excitement lasted from when you were 6 months until half an hour after I played Ma vlast by Smetana.

But Harry you chose. 

And you would sometimes sing his songs.

On the day I am writing this he passed away. 

He wasn't a big part of my life until you made him that. And I feel sad. Perhaps so you wouldn't.

Remember people through their deeds.

You made Harry live beyond his lifetime every time you sang "Te'o".

Love

Tata

Volvo. A love story

When I was a young boy I loved my car. Because it reminded me of my dad. It was a Volvo 340. It was a reddish purple color,four door small saloon that had it's first night layover traveling from Rotterdam to Koper in Dachau. By mistake of my father and his friend. In 1986. Two newly made captains. That didn't know how to read a map. 

It was loaded with everything possible for me to be born in. It was packed by the Rotterdam's Port warehouse workers as a gift to my dad for my soon coming birth. 

Little did they know that the car they packed would make an impact on a person they only heard of.

It had a 4 speed manual gearshift. Rear wheel drive. No air-conditioning. 2 seatbelts. 1.4l petrol engine with cca 75 bhp. The engine was japanese. I think Isuzu made it. I didn't know until recently but I apparently had my first car accident in it. It lasted until 1996. At least with us. I cried the day my dad told me he's selling it. I was unconsolable for it leaving us. 

It is the reason why I am writing this story. Because I never gave it a name.

My dad took me to a car show in Belgrade in the late nineties and I saw xc70. All of my friends were fascinated by Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis. I was fascinated by the first generation of xc70.

3 years ago my son was born. And Volvo is a part of my family. My son calls him Jagoš. We go together to feed Jagoš. We take care of him because he plays my son's favorite song whenever he wants. It's Made of by Viola Martinsson if anyone wants to listen to it. My son knows every button in it. He loves the power of it and how warm it is in the winter. And when we lie down to have a sleep he says good night to Jagoš. 

One day when I am gone I hope I will be remembered as by my son as I remember my dad. 

If for nothing else, for choosing a car that took care of my family above his image.