When Given a Choice, Choose the Sweetest Grapes

I know you have heard of the expression sour grapes. But have you ever heard the story of the sweetest grapes? It goes something like this. . .  

An American woman was trying not to be disappointed. A cold beach day was better than a hot work day, she told herself as she walked back to the studio she had rented on the Adriatic coast. 

As she walked up to the door, the owner’s elderly mother stood out front in a black housecoat with flowers, “Dobrodam!” She exclaimed taking the younger woman’s hands in hers. She reached for her heart and motioned upwards toward the sky, talking in Croatian shaking her head. The American woman smiled. The only thing she had understood was catastrophe and assumed she was talking about the wind and colder temperatures.

“It’s ok,” she assured the woman, “It’s beautiful.” She motioned to the sea and the grapes that hung on the vines above their heads. The older woman grasped her hands tightly and reached up to pat her on the shoulder, still shaking her head. 

The American woman smiled and went into her house to prepare for her day. “Bitte?” the older woman’s voice came through the door. She continued talking again in Croatian and the younger woman came out to find out what she wanted. She was holding a pair of scissors and pointing at the grapes overhead. 

The younger woman looked at the rickety metal ladder and agreed to cut down the grapes for the elderly woman. The elderly woman proclaimed, “Super!” over and over again as she held the younger woman’s pants. The younger woman clipped the grapes and passed them down to the woman’s wrinkled hands. A strong wind blew, and the older woman exclaimed something the younger assumed was "Be careful young lady!" or "Wow look at this wind!" They smiled at one another, understanding, even as they did not understand.

The elderly woman motioned for her to get down and reset up the ladder two more times and they repeated the story. The younger woman cut and handed, the older woman received and proclaimed, “Super!” smiling ear to ear.

After filling the small plastic shopping bag, the older woman asked for something the younger woman could not understand. She thought maybe she heard wash and offered the elderly woman a bowl. “Momento, momento.” The older woman said as she hobbled away.

A moment later she was back, the grapes in the bowl freshly washed. The elderly woman smiled and told her something that the younger woman assumed was, “Please eat them - they are for you.” 

And so she did.

They were the sweetest grapes she had ever had.

The two women smiled at each other and the older woman clasped her hands in her own. She patted the younger woman on the shoulder and smiled from ear to ear, her wrinkles deepening around her mouth and eyes. The words and the smile floated in the air as she turned and disappeared into the house. The younger woman smiled, assuming she had said "Welcome to my home!" or something of that nature.

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

We arrived in Sarajevo via train from Mostar in the morning. Previously, most of my travel to date had been small towns or cities or sparsely populated islands. I had forgotten what it was like to be in a capital city of half a million people. 

We took a tram from the train station to the old section of town and as I got up to get off, I put my phone in the front part of my small backpack for a second to take the handrail and descend from the train. A man in front of me blocked my way. Kristia, a young women I had met on the way to Mostar was already out on the street waiting for me. A man behind me bumped me, and I looked over my shoulder for a split second to let him know that I was trying to exit the train. Finally, the man in front of me began to move, I exited the train onto the sidewalk and the tram departed. Kristia reached for her phone to check the directions to the hostel and it was then I realized what I had done. I had put my phone in exactly the place to have it pick pocketed by the two men on the train. Classic traveler’s faux pas! And the worst part – I had known it. I opened the compartment and sure enough – gone – all my photos, all my contacts, all my notes and yes all my passwords on my non password protected phone. Crap! 

In case you are curious – it takes approximately three hours to go about the frustrating process of resetting every password you have, reporting your phone lost/stolen, seeing if you have insurance, seeing what you remembered to put on the icloud, remotely adding a password and suspending your service. Certainly it was annoying. But in the grand scheme of things – really not something worth stressing about, but hard to avoid that feeling of “Damn it – I should have. . .”

I could feel the frustration in my body and tried to shake it. I knew it was material, and I needed to just let it go. Being in Sarajevo was just the thing to help me put my little inconvenience into perspective. 

Over the course of the next 7 hours, we walked the streets of Sarajevo taking in the Turkish influence on the eastern side of town from centuries under the Ottoman empire, the Austrian and Hungarian influence on the western side of town. Mosques and minarets, a catholic church Notre Dame style, a Franciscan church and both a Sephardic and Ashkenazi synagogue gave the city an international feel that I had not experienced in the past. On the Turkish side of the city, small alleyways were lined with coffee sets, rugs for sale and copper offerings. Men in Kufi praying skull caps sat together on low benches drinking Bosnian coffee solving the world’s problems. Women in hijabs walked holding their children’s hands. Further down the street past the cathedral, the streets widened, bars lined either side of the street and patrons sat drinking beer solving the world’s problems as well. Everyone – on both sides - was smoking. 

And everywhere you looked, there were ruins, shells of buildings that had once stood before the war, in other places buildings still intact, riddled with bullet holes. The war had ended 20 years earlier, but all around us was the evidence of the devastation. I looked at the people walking around –men and women my age, younger and older. What had they been doing while the war raged on for almost four years?

The two-hour walking tour we took gave us insight into the different parts of the city and our tour guide, in typical Bosnian fanfare told each story sarcastically and with a punch line at the end. This was the third Bosnian man we had spent time listening and talking to, and I was starting to get the impression that Bosnians were not only proud of their culture, they had a bit of a dark, sardonic sense of humor. 

About every 30 minutes, I would look at Kristia and unrelated to what we were learning and observing I would say something to the effect of, “Do you know what’s most annoying about having my phone stolen. . .?”

Actually nothing. I mean of course it’s annoying and frustrating. 

But again I go back to what I said before – in the grand scheme of anything – losing a replaceable material object that I am far to apt to look at instead of looking around at my surroundings – is nothing. 

I was about to have that shown to me in the Srebenica Genocide Museum off the square in front of the cathedral. 

The thing about not knowing what you don’t know is that you don’t know that you don’t know it. I don’t know if that makes sense to you, but sitting here right now, rain falling on a metal roof outside the window of my hostel, an old building with a broken window in my sight, I know I am forever changed by what I saw over the last two days. I am struck by what I didn’t know.

In April of 1992, I was busy studying for my final exams in high school, deciding with whom to go to prom and picking out a beach house to spend senior week with my friends. At the time, my biggest conundrums were if I should take my boyfriend who had already graduated and might be bored or go with a friend. I know what your thinking, “OH MY GOD! However did you decide that – what a major catastrophe!” And I get it that high school kids – and maybe college ones too- are narcissistic and self absorbed and feel that the world revolves around them. I didn’t realize that at the time that I was like that, but if I hadn’t been, then this visit to Sarajevo’s tunnel of hope and the Srebenica Genocide Museum wouldn’t have thrown me so much for a loop. 

Sarajevo was besieged by the Army of Republika Srpska on April 5 of 1992 with the intention of creating a new Bosnian Serb state after Bosnia – Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Most people will remember seeing this on the news in the spring of that year. The thing is that the Serbian army figured it would take about four days for them to take the city. . . but the Sarajevans dug in the their heels and refused to quit in a siege that lasted 1,425 days. That’s over 4 years. That is the longest siege in the history of modern warfare. During the siege, access to water, food, and electricity was cut off completely. Buildings were destroyed and the entire city was a target. I tried to put myself at 18 in the shoes of a Bosnian 18 year old. 

From 1992-1995, all regular functioning activities in Sarajevo ceased to exist. And while I went to class and frat parties and lay in the quad, 18 year olds in Bosnia cowered in basements praying their apartment building would be spared. More than 11,000 of them, many of them civilian men, women and children were killed. The only access to any kind of supplies, food or water was through the tunel spasa or tunnel of hope, located under a home near the Sarajevo airport. In just 4 months in the spring of 1993, a Bosnian engineer created the plans for the tunnel’s construction and was dug by hand for 24 hours a day. That 800 meter tunnel was the only access point to humanitarian aid during the war. 

Now maybe you knew all of that – again, you don’t know what you don’t know. I remember seeing the images of the war on the television, reading it in the news, but until I landed in Bosnia earlier this week, I have to say, I just think I really didn’t know.

Samija was our tour guide in the Srebenica Memorial museum. She was just five when the war began. Her descriptions of the genocide and Srebenica as a “safe space” in addition to her later stories of her own experience changed me forever. Samija stood in front of us in the foyer of the museum, dressed in all black and fidgeting with her ring and black shirt and pants before she began, “You may want to take a seat,” she gestured to one small wooden bench in front of her, “I am going to give you a brief – not so brief introduction – before we proceed to the rest of the museum.” Samija was a slight woman and she began by apologizing for her raspy voice – likely from having given the tour multiple times a day every day that month. 

The 20^th anniversary of Srebenica’s mass killings had just passed in July, but you could feel that for Samija, the pain she felt was raw, as if it had happened recently.

She gave us a brief history of how the war began and the events leading up to the UN naming Srebenica a “safe” area for refugees from other Bosnian cities under attack by the Republic of Srpska. The two documentaries we watched and her account of the events leading up to the massacre sent chills into every part of my body. One of the photos on the wall in museum were the words graffitied, United Nothing which described the betrayal that the people felt after having traveled all the way to Srebenica only to be turned away to meet their death. 

She talked to us for more than an hour in a gallery the size of a studio in San Francisco and still I wanted more – how had this happened? How had the UN peacekeepers just stood by and watched it? How had military leaders around the world just closed their eyes and allowed more than 8000 Muslim boys and men to be killed execution style and thrown into mass graves. The Srebenica massacre was labeled the biggest genocide since the Holocaust in the 20^th century. 

After the Holocaust, we said, “Never again.” We blamed the German civilians for turning a blind eye, for saying that they didn’t know about the concentration camps. And this before the Internet, before the world could watch what was happening. 

 In July of 1995, I began packing for my year abroad in Spain. I was leaving the country for the first time. Again when I think back to what was happening my head – I was worried about leaving my boyfriend and if we’d stay together. I was nervous I’d “miss out” on my senior year. And while I was “busy” worrying about myself, men and boys between the ages of 12 and 77 were being separated from the women and shot execution style in school playgrounds outside of Srebenica. Ethnic cleansing was happening. Still to this day, over 1000 of the men and boys killed in the massacre remain unidentified and missing. Sometimes over three generations of a family were knocked out, and there is simply no one to provide a blood sample now to match the DNA. And still today, mothers and wives wait. They wait for their sons and husbands to be identified so that they can finally put them to rest.

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. Samija’s passion oozed out of every pore of her being. She was outraged and overwhelmed with emotion, as she led us through the gallery and showed us the heinous acts of violence and racism that had occurred. “It happened here. It can happen in any society.” She said over and over again.

When the tour concluded, my head was spinning, my heart was full and tears welled, waiting to spring. Kristia and I walked into the lobby and I asked Samija how old she had been. “I was 5 when the war began and 11 when it ended.” Her voice wavered as she spoke and her eyes were red around the edges. “We had to eat this –“ she interrupted herself switched into Bosnian and spoke to her colleague on staff, and laughed as she continued, “horse meat in a can.” The girls both began to laugh as they recalled the taste of the meat. 

Sarajevo Rose - Red paint around former explosions

 

She described the tenacity of the people of Sarajevo and showed us a woman that every day, got dressed as if there were no war and put on make up – “people had to keep living.” She looked at her feet, “But our childhood – it was stolen. I remember in November of 1995 after my baby brother was born at 7 months, I was washing his diapers outside in minus 5, 200 times, I was doing this.” 


She laughed, a bitter sad laugh. A generation of young people, robbed of their childhood. 

I wonder about as this group of young people as they come of age and have children of their own. . . the casualties of the genocide and the war in Bosnia from 1992-1995 are great. But what of the survivors? What happens to them as they try to make sense of the international travesty that happened to them in their own home.

I think about what I didn’t know. And I wonder now what I still don’t know.

In 1999, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote: 

“Through error, misjudgment and an inability to recognize the scope of the evil confronting us, we failed to do our part to help save the people of Srebrenica from the Serb campaign of mass murder.”

Our not knowing, our silence, our inability to act when action is needed allow these types of despicable actions to occur.

What will we know in 5 years about the refugee crisis that we don’t know right now? 

What will we know about the death of young black men in the United States at the hands of law enforcement? 

What will we know that is different than what we know right now about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in this century. 

We don’t know what we don’t know, but it is our obligation as human beings to find out.

Remanents of War

When I stepped off the bus in Bosnia, I knew something felt different than the previous week in Croatia.  All drama with the bus aside, which in the end was the fault of a stupid tourist trying to transport weed across a border and an ill timed flat with not enough equipment to change the tire; Bosnia could not be blamed for the delay in our arrival. 

But this morning as I headed out on my morning run, I stepped out into the courtyard of the hostel where I had rented a room with my new friend I made on the bus, and took in my surroundings. Sure it’s true that the Adriatic sea was not in sight, since I was inland and hadn’t chosen a hostel on the river (if those even existed). Nevertheless, it wasn’t the lack of the water view I noticed. 

The patio reminded me of a large cinder block. A small plastic table was up against the terrace of a house adjoining the main hostel building. A few piles of wood lay to the left of the door. A plastic chair lay lounging on its side. A huge yellow metal door rose up in front of me. I could hear the sounds of children behind the door singing, and sure enough when I pushed it open, the industrial looking building to my right with the brightly painted metal slats in the gate was labeled “Kindergarten.” 

I set off on my run down a pedestrian only walkway, which quickly turned into a rock or cobblestone like pavement that wove its way through the old town. Shops lined either side of the street offering Turkish hats, small ceramic bowls, lamps made of shiny colored glass, copper jewelry etched with small scenes of the towns and tea sets galore. Tourists were everywhere. 

Up ahead in the distance a thin tower jutted up against the blue sky – the minaret of the mosque, quite possibly the one that had called me to prayer at 5 am that morning (Don’t worry - I ignored the call being as it was almost Yom Kippur and all), jutted out against the blue sky. The river snaked through the valley, a blue-ish green water cutting into steep cliffs that ran under the famous old bridge of Mostar. The one that had been destroyed in the war and then rebuilt again from the same stones fished from river bottom by the Hungarian and Spanish armies in 2004. 

Two men stood on what appeared to be the wrong side of the railing in bathing suits. In Mostar it is tradition for a few local men to jump the 28 meters down into the cold waters below after accumulating 50 euros from the tourist milling about. I snapped a quick picture and turned around, realizing this was not the place to get in a good jog. I sidestepped two groups of Japanese, one group of French and made my way back to the paved main street we had come in on the night before too late to really take in the scenery.

A few small cafes sat on either side of the street, men sitting together drinking their morning tea and coffee. Cars lined the sidewalk, and I alternately jumped to the right to squeeze between them and the building or to the left down on the street as I ran by them. I passed by a cemetery that seemed endless, crosses and hearts and other shapes of head stones marking those that had moved on. Had they been victims of the war? I wondered.

As I began to exit the old town, I noticed a series of what can only be described as ruins. Large structures jutting up – previously windows and doors of large buildings, now a shell of a house that had once been. Large gaping holes in the sides of old buildings, juxtaposed next to new constructions, cranes in the sky and signs that read “Wifi here.” 

As I ran down the street, the houses and cafes became more sparsely placed. Teenaged kids walked across the street toward an industrial building,  “skuola” written on the road to alert the cars driving in both directions down a road made for a one way only. The sidewalk turned to dirt. Now I could see more ruined buildings on both sides of the road, a car dealership, men in hardhats digging a ditch by hand to repair the sidewalk. 

As had been in Croatia, older houses with red roofs or at times gray tiles placed in an upside down v on either side of the house dotted the hillside. Oddly shaped windows opened with heavy brown shutters that looked to dense to bother to push open. Nestled among these old houses, some still intact, others shells of their former selves were these large rectangle boxes, gray on every side, was clearly new construction. Square windows placed on the sides. The roofs, though still in an upside down v, were now made of something synthetic. 

I came back from my run and found Almir, the owner of the hostel with his brother. He looked about 35 years old and I tried to put myself in his shoes. He must have been about 12 when the ward started in 1992 and about 15  when it ended. I wondered what his experience had been. 

Almir asked me if I had ever tried Bosnian coffee and when he found out I hadn’t, he said, “I will prepare it to you. You must to try. It is not about the coffee. Bosnian coffee is similar Turkish coffee, but different. But it’s not about coffee. It’s social. You must to try.” He went into the kitchen to prepare the coffee. My mind was full of questions I hoped he would be open to talking about with me. 

As it turns out, Almir was more than happy to share his version of the events of the Bosnian war, “We like to tell our side of the story,” he assured as he scooped out the foam off the top of the coffee into two small tea cups on china tray. “You must first dip the sugar cube’s corner into the coffee like so,” he showed me with his, “then you eat it and then slurp the coffee while the sugar is still in your mouth. If you don’t slurp, you are doing it wrong.”

I dipped, I bit, I slurped. He nodded and began the story. 

“Imagine having no food, no water, no electricity for one day.”

I nodded trying to imagine, but knowing I couldn’t come close to actually imagining what that must have been like.

“Now imagine it for 3 years. School ended. Life ended. We hid in the basements. The shelters. We went to sleep every night. And we thought tomorrow we will probably be killed. There was no food. We saw a pigeon and we caught and ate the pigeon. In 1993, United nations dropped food for us – flavored rice, but it was never enough.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I remembered my life in 1992. My freshman year at Penn State. There was nothing I could say and so I nodded for him to continue.

He continued as if telling a story that had happened to someone else, “At the beginning it was the Croats and us against the Serbs. They were on the left of the river. We was on the right. But then the Croats. They stuck a knife in our back and made a deal to divide up Bosnia into two parts with Mostar being the capital for Croats. And then we were being bombarded and bombarded from both sides. All the bridges were collapsed. Except the old bridge. We knew they were trying to crash that one too. But it was 500 years old. We cover it with wood and tires.” He takes out a small book to show me some photos. 

“You know there is a tradition for boys in Mostar. When they become men – at 16 or 17 or 18 – they must to jump the 28 meters to the water from the old bridge. But when the war start in 1992, I was only 12. I still had many years to go. But I thought to myself, well if I die before I jump I will never be man. So in June 1993, when I am 13, I jump. That November they crash down the bridge. It is the saddest day in the history of Mostar. I remember it. I had finished studying in the shelter. I had come out and people were laying in the street, crying. I asked them, ‘what happened?’ When they told me, I didn’t believe it, I had to see it with my own eyes. When I did, I cried too.” 

I felt the lump in my throat growing. Here in front of me was my contemporary. A man only 5 years younger than I, having experienced a different sort of entry into adulthood. The more he talked, the less I could imagine and yet with each passing moment, the vivid picture he painted, would never be erased from my mind’s eye again. 

“Now we try not to think of those days. You should have seen when the bridge ceremony happened!” He sits back and smiles – every president in Europe was here – even Prince Charles! It was something else.” 

I am sure it was. Later Ahmir shows me on the roof deck where he will finish building the bar for future patrons, the bathroom so they won’t have to do downstairs and the shared grill space. He is excited by the prospects. “There is much to do! Especially since hostelbooking rated us number one last year in Eastern Europe.”

I asked him how he coped post the end of the war with all that he experience and all that he saw. 




He looked at me confused and said, “The war is over. We moved on. We try not to think of those days and what was lost. People are human. They are not Bosnian or Serbian or Croatian. That is not what makes a human. People are good no matter where they are from. You must judge them on who they are not where they are from.” 

Truer words have not been spoken and yet, war rages on all over the world.

Mind the Mines as you Mine your Mind

Up until now, while I had read about mines, I hadn’t really thought much of them. They were this idea that existed. From what I had read, the unexploded mines were largely in fields or dirt roads that were infrequently visited and that your best bet was to avoid those types of roads without a local guide and also to heed any types of signs or structures that indicated not to enter or go near a place. Easy enough. Or so I thought. 

I laced up my shoes for a run. It was already 83 degrees outside and if I didn’t get going soon, I would be running in the 90 degree September sun. So much for the end of summer I keep hearing about. 

I knew I wasn’t going right out of Villa Anita since I had already done that twice with the mountain bike and in the van on the way to the National Park the two previous days – both decidedly up, up, up. So left it was. I took off up a slight hill on the paved road hugging the coastline. Past red roofed houses, sobre (room) advertisements, small dinghies moored to lopsided docks and kids floating lazily in the water. After a half a mile, the paved road ended and my choice was to veer sharply left up an 8% grade hill (no thanks) or continue forward onto a dirt road lined with houses on either side. No brainer. I continued on, up the smaller hill along the dirt road. The houses gave way to more trees and I could see the town of Sobra disappearing into the background. “Beautiful” was all I could think . .oh yeah, and “holy hot man and oh my god is this hill ever going to end?” 

The road veered left and then right, the water sparkled a blue green below and I stopped to catch my breath and snap a photo. “Unbelievably breathtaking,” I thought shaking my head and walking for a second before continuing to run another mile. I loved running in new places. As always, an amazing way to discover something I might not otherwise have seen. Now the houses had disappeared and road seemed to veer left toward a cliff. I wondered what was around the bend. And then I saw it. A gaping hole in the ground surrounded on all sides by the types of barriers used to keep crowds in control during parades or marathons. 

I stopped. 

Breathing hard – from the fear or the uphill to be honest I am not sure – “was it? Could it be? Had the path been well worn? Well there had been houses. When had I seen the last house? Think Jen. Think. Would there have been mines on the islands too?”

 Now I was wishing I had done more research. Now I was hearing my dad in my head, “Really Jennifah? Croatia? What do you wanna give me – a heart attack?”

From what I had read, the unexploded mines were largely in fields or dirt roads that were infrequently visited and that your best bet was to avoid those types of roads without a local guide and also to heed any types of signs or structures that indicated not to enter or go near a place. Easy enough. Or so I thought. 

Was this isolated? Was this infrequently visited. I had been standing in that same spot staring at the hole for what seemed like an eternity. Well what was there to do except turn back. So I did. Back around the curve, down the hill and around the other side, each footfall precarious, my heart in my mouth. Would it be better to walk. I pictured myself being tossed into the air, landing with no limbs on the rocky dirt road. My dad’s voice ricocheted into every corner of my mind. My heard raced at a 180 beats per second, now I knew it was fear and not the running increasing my pulse. 

I ran, fear all around me. Wondering how people lived with this uncertainty. Feeling once again my privilege all around me. . .this had been my choice, but this was there life. 

And then just like that, boom, I was back on the paved road, running free of mines. Free of fear. Free as I had always been. I stopped in front of the only market in the town and went in to buy a juice. “Dobro jutro,” The familiar girl behind the counter greeted me. I smiled and returned her good morning greeting. 

“Hvala,” I said as she gave me my change. 

She smiled, “You’re welcome.” 

“Hey, I have a question,” I stood wondering if the question would offend, “Are there still mines on the island?” 

She shook her head, “Here no.” She smiled again. 

“I went running up the dirt road this morning and thought that maybe. .  .”

“Oh no many local people use the roads every day,” she assured. 

And just like that it all fell away. No mines had exploded me into a million smithereens. No one would be waiting for weeks for word from me without a peep. My dad would not tell me he told me so. At least not about that. 

Later that day installed in my new place in Sapulnara, my host, Paula told me, “There are 4 sandy beaches here. One down those steps,” she gestured in front of the house, “one about 20 meters, one 500 meters near the beach bar and one if you keep going down the dirt road about 1 kilometer to a place called Luna. It is very beautiful. You must see it.” I pictured the dirt road she was describing, similar to the one I had run on that morning. I knew when I went my mind would not be racing to exploding mines and isolated dirt trails though when I went later that day, it is how it appeared. 

Paula, 25 years old, studying economic tourism at the University in Dubrovnik, was happy to help her parents rent out the extra apartment next to their own with a view of the Adriatic sea and grape vines covering the patio. She told me that tourism is a way of life now in Croatia and that if you don’t work in it, there wasn’t much to do. I asked her how she felt about it and she responded, “Oh yes, I like it very much. After the war ended, there was a time of no tourism. But now it is even expensive. Much people will want to visit on their holiday.” Paula’s parents nodded behind her smiling and offering me an apple pastry and orange juice. “Sit. Relax. Enjoy.” Paula extended her arm to a small table over looking the sea. “We are here for you.” 

Later as I walked down the dirt road to the beach called Luna, I thought about Paula and my fear earlier that day. A car with two young men passed me slowly and I smiled at my own ignorance. I reached the end of the road. A sign read “Beach” in English with an arrow pointing down a steep set of steps. 










The boys who had passed me were still in the car. I descended down the steps to find a cove in the shape of a quarter moon, water greenish blue, the beach empty. I left my bag and waded into the warm water, small fish swam around my ankles.

I lay on my back and stared up at the blue sky. No clouds in sight. I saw one of the boys from the car come down first with a backpack. Then return up the stairs. A few minutes later he returned carrying an empty wheel chair. Then finally his friend. He wheeled his friend to a shady spot and they high fived and then laughed. Then he took off all his clothes and now completely naked, ran into the water to my right. The friend pulled out a beer and his phone, cracked the beer, smiled at the sky and began to read.

In Search of . . .

I've been thinking a lot about the refugee crisis lately. I know we all have. As Hungary erects a wall and the refugees reroute through Croatia, I am struck by this paradox of their experience fleeing their home country in search of a better life, while I explore mountains and islands and desolate beaches. The privilege I have does not escape me.  

Yesterday as I walked along a path, I kept picturing having to flee my country, my home. To run away from something without a clear picture of where I was running to. . .  fear and uncertainity at every turn. 

I wrote this for them.

In Search of . . .

She had been walking for days. Her feet ached everywhere. She had blisters on her heels, her toes, the tops of her feet. She had blisters on her blisters. She clutched her son to her chest, singing softly to him as they walked and walked and walked. He whimpered, his face wet with tears. His cries had long since stopped in earnest realizing that there was no food to eat, no water to drink.

How much longer till they rested? Her mind raced, flanked on either side by strangers, her people, tied to her in a common plight – to flee. They had been right – she should have left when Rahmad had. He likely had made it into Hungary before the wall had been erected. She pictured him now, his dark eyes smiling, sitting with a family in Germany eating a pretzel, drinking a beer. Maybe she would be able to join him. Maybe the immigration officers would take it easy on her and her small boy wrapped to her chest for whom she fled. Maybe she would find her family. Maybe.

A woman in front of her stumbled and fell and she stopped just short of tripping over her. She paused to help her up, her wrinkled hand shaking as she placed it in hers.

“Thank you my heart,” she whispered her voice low and gravely, “I know what I am running from. . . but I ask you what are we running towards?” She shook her head slowly, “What if – what if they turn us away?”

The young woman shook her head fiercely, “You mustn’t think like that Ama. They will not turn us away. They can’t! They are human beings too!” But in her head, she wasn’t so sure. There were reports of terrible treatment. Of people’s inhumanity. Of fear and hate. Of mobilized forces to keep them out. To keep them out from what? Yosef began to cry harder against her chest as if sensing her mounting anxiety.

“You must be strong,” she squeezed the elderly woman’s hand wondering why at this age she had decided to flee. She hugged Yosef closer praying that he would never remember the first years of his life. “We all must be.”

Stranger than Fiction - You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

I am a bit behind in my posts due to some internet delays. This one I wrote while still in NYC on August 23rd. I'll catch up eventually. . .

Coney Island

Stranger than Fiction - You Can’t Make This Stuff Up 

“When I was in my prime – I’m 57 now – but back then, when I was 20, I coulda had the pick of the littah. But we woulda neva went to Coney Island back then to get a girl. I mean, unless we wanted a crack whore. But that was the 80s. Before AIDS. Before we hadda worry.” I felt my friend, Jen, kick me in the calf for the 4^th time in less than 20 minutes. Was this guy for real? You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried. 

We had been sitting on the boardwalk in Coney Island just to the north of the parachute jump having a beer out of plastic cups watching the world go by. We were thirsty after walking the length of the boardwalk and had chosen a prime people watching table to sip our cold IPAs as we watched the masses of humanity; all crammed into the small area between the pier and the border of Brighten and Coney Island. Refusing to fan out in either direction, the umbrellas seemed to pile on top of one another, music blasting out of multiple speakers, intermingling with one another, beach blankets overlapping. In front of us, a woman was now topless at the water fountain using a water bottle to wash the sand off her exposed breasts. No one seemed to bat an eye. 

There were two young girls at the plastic tables and chairs where we sat, the rest of the tables all occupied, but soon after we arrived, they finished their slushy piña coladas and left, leaving the two chairs open for the next patrons.

Popeye, as we came to find out later, joined us then – a man in his early 60s, wearing a white tank top, freckles dotting his exposed reddish biceps. The man with him remarked that he preferred to stand, a baseball cap pulled over his dark, weathered brow. “Cheers,” he offered and held his half filled cup out, smiling at us with a toothless grin. “We’re waving g-bye to my daughter,” the man in the tank top said as he waved at the ocean.” “She’s headed to Bermuda and Florida on a cruise,” the friend added and motioned out to a large ship in the distance. 

“You girls ain’t from around here,” Perry, the friend with the wide toothless smile proclaimed. “We been here all our lives,” he said proudly. “We seen it all.”

“Yeah but this place used to be scary,” a new friend that had just arrived added. His gold chain and crucifix caught in the tufts of hair on his chest, as he stood in front of me momentarily obscuring my view of the beach goers. 

“My motha always told me to never wear gold to Coney. She said it was dangerous. Though I gotta say that the only time I was evah robbed was that time when that prostitute stole my chain. We had just finished a half and half and I was tired. She said, ‘yeah baby, I’m sleepy too.’ But when I woke up, she was gone and so was my chain. Luckily I had my wallet down my underwear and I was asleep on my belly.”

The three men laughed and Jen kicked me again under the table. We drank just a little bit faster. “Those were the days – I was bigga then.” The man they called Popeye offered. “I was a body builder – with Schwarzenegger and others too – I knew them all. Thems guys  - they was huge. 6 foot 8, 6 foot 3. They dwarfed me. I and was pretty big back then.” Perry bobbed his head up and down above him, slapping him on his shoulders in agreement.  

He continued not waiting for us to comment, “You know that Trump guy – now he has the right idea – it’s enough with those Mexicans. We should close all those borders.” Jen leaned back in her seat and picked up her phone. The air was thick with discomfort. I could feel my face form a tight lipped smile. “What? You don’t agree?” I shook my head, opened my mouth and then closed it again thinking better of it, knowing that it was time for us to move on. We had had enough Coney Island for the day. We drained the last of our beer and stood. 

“Oh you’re leaving?” Popeye said surprised, “Take care.” 

“Be careful girls,” Perry called after us. “Coney Island’s a jungle!” we heard as we walked back down the boardwalk, across the crowded streets with $3 egg creams and hot dog eating contests. 

Past the Freak Show and Nathans offering us its historic hot dogs, past the funnel cake and the soft serve ice cream. Back to the subway D with a new mixture of characters with their myriad stories that you couldn’t make up more creatively if you tried. 

Sometimes reality really is stranger than fiction.