Incredible changes are happening in the world. The old, good phrase would click: tectonic. The most progress is being made in technical and technological matters. Computerization and digitalization are changing everyday life. And the world order is not the same. Communism is long gone, everything is brutal capitalism. Even those who once decided everything are not asking themselves that much. Nothing is the same anymore.
Specifically, when it comes to a personal microcosm: my family travels incomparably more than ever. As soon as we turn around, there is a new journey, an arrival or a farewell. We have no time to rejoice or grieve. By plane, we quickly arrive where we intended.
And I used to travel by train to Belgrade for ten or more hours. And, upon arrival, I would miss home the entire next day. Opening a suitcase would especially make me dizzy. Depending on the season, it would contain oranges, tangerines, apricots, pears, a crowned pomegranate... and, at all times, a lazy pie. I always breathed heavily looking at the carefully arranged slices of lazy pie, usually in a shoebox. As did the goods, arranged "by thread", clean, ironed, fragrant. And my father's envelope between two shirts, "for the west, to the Marakana" (today it is the "Rajko Mitić" stadium) and my mother's note as a reminder, with a few tender words at the end.
Ćopić would say: Hey, years, immeasurable, expensive...
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No one has time for nostalgia anymore, but I've felt something of that ancient sadness, as if through a fog, these days...
"There, there to travel, there, there to grieve," sang Tin, set to music by Arsen, remixed by Crvena Jabuka...
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On a plane from Podgorica to London (happy) and vice versa (sad), I settle in and observe who could be a potential companion in the seat next to me. I wish for a skinny girl or a young man who won't fidget and squeal. It's also desirable that they don't cough and sniffle and let me hold their elbows on both handrails. I notice such people at the entrance to the plane and when they head towards me, my innate optimism tells me: here comes your ideal companion. But, he always goes further. That's when a large man appears in sight. "He won't..." He will, he will, but he will. When he collapses on the seat and my thigh, he always mumbles "sorry". The British are really soulful: they can step on you like a pike but they don't miss that "sorry". And when they say "sorry" then everything is fine, their satisfied smile spreads everywhere. Even a good book doesn't help, all my attention is focused on my fellow passenger. When he moves, the whole row shakes. True, sometimes my new friend starts to get tired quickly. Well, that's a slightly better option, despite the anxiety, because I only fly with a low-cost company on whose planes you can't stretch your legs without hitting someone or something. Sometimes my fellow passenger (who probably thinks: how come I always run into some silly, grumpy old man) is "on the edge of my seat" and the situation becomes even more complicated, as politicians would say.
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Whenever I board a low-cost airline plane and sit by the window, I am reminded of the story "Just in Case," by one of the most translated contemporary Bulgarian writers, Georgi Gospodinov. I think I have already paraphrased it in an abridged version once, so I am reciting it in full now:
"I remember my brother and I running after planes as kids, waving. We were sure they would see us. My brother swore he once saw a pilot waving at him. We hoped that one day the two of us would board a plane and reach the country of Inostrancevto, although my brother doubted that it even existed."
Now, after so many flights, the whole miracle has shattered into pieces, the plane is just a slightly more luxurious taxi, after all it is not even luxurious, but some kind of overcrowded marshrutka (a regular taxi that ran through Sofia until the construction of the metro). Abroad has turned out to be a non-existent country (my brother was right), but I still sit by the window and look out in the hope that one day I will see two boys running and waving. If the neighbor in the seat is asleep, I wave timidly too. Just in case.
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It seems likely that the fifth attempt (initiated by the President of the State) for the Parliament of Montenegro to rehabilitate the Golo Otok martyrs will also fail. Why? Because on Golo Otok, in inhumane conditions, where "man within man" was brutally murdered, most of the people who were incarcerated were incomparably better people than those who sent them there. Those who believed in justice, equality, internationalism, who held their honor and word, and, if you like, even their delusions, perished. I do not believe that it is in the interest of the descendants of their informers and torturers to find out the full truth.
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On social networks, you can clearly see who is who. People open up more than in a face-to-face conversation. And a person feels free like rarely anywhere or when. For example, they can block someone whose writing annoys them, for example, for 30 days at first. Then after that time, if it seems to them that nothing has changed in the person's mind, they can block them again, for a certain period of time or permanently.
Nice feeling.
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I'm almost 66 years old, my body, I'd say, a few years older, but I console myself with the fact that my mind is young. When I grow up, I'll be a student.
Bonus video:
