Spaces in Between: Picking up the Pieces of Hope, Sorrow and Orthodoxy

O how all things are far removed from one another

and long have passed away.

I do believe the star,

whose light my face reflects,

is dead and has been so

for many thousand years.  

--Rainer Maria Rilke

The incense stung my eyes as I walked for the first time into the Preobraženjska crkva, the main Orthodox cathedral in the capitol city of Zagreb, Croatia. The only country in the Balkans with an overwhelmingly Catholic populace, I had assumed I was just walking into another Catholic church to snap some pictures and leave. But as soon as the incense hit my nose, the icons hit my eyes and the silence hit my ears, I knew this was Orthodox. It was the first time I'd been in an Orthodox church in months. But this church felt somehow different.

After making my way around all the icons, I finally realized why: it was all that gold. And, as may not be clear from pictures, we're not talking golden-rod paint here. We're talking solid, gold plating--the kind that gleams and glimmers in the least bit of light. And it was everywhere.

...All that gold.

It's not like I'd never seen a lot of gold before. 

For people who aren't acquainted with religious icons, or art history in general, it may come as a suprise to learn that images and artwork have a language of symbols that is just as rich and communicative as words in a poem may be. And in the language of icons, gold surfaces tell the viewer that the person in the image is bound up not in the time and space of this world but that of the divine world. In many pictures of saints, or Jesus and other biblical figures, there is often no background--say, that of a landscape or architecture like one would find in famous secular paintings like the Mona Lisa. To paint that kind of background would necessitate depicting some kind of depth or perception--dimensions of this life. Instead, Jesus and the saints typically "stand out against a plain gold-leaf background, with neither decoration nor background scenery. Viewed in such a way outside of either time or space, they command our attention by their spiritual presence" (http://nazarethstudio.com/index.php?icons/i_symbol). They stare out at us from a heavenly place, subsumed in God's endless light in a place where there is no night--or, apprently, time as we know it.

In short, icons call out to us from eternity, penetrating into our world of time and space to remind us of the eternal which lay beyond.

So I'd seen single saints and icons surrounded by gold before, but this... This was somehow different. Why did all this gold leave me filled with both grief and a quiet, inner joy?

Sets of doors leading out the side of the nave into the various receiving rooms of the metropolis next door. Note the depth and perception--the spatial dimensions of this world.

As in most of Europe, Christianity in Croatia--particularly Orthodox Christianity--is not without its pitfalls and scars.  As far as Christianity in general, we shall save the term "Post-Christian" for the cultural philsophers. So too shall we save the definition-izng of what Christianity even is and whether it is even possible or laudable for a country, culture or society to be a "Christian" one. My mere experience, however, is that there is a lostness in European culture I don't sense anywhere else. It is a lostness, and a latent hopelessness--as though something, or many things, have been unhinged. It calls to mind the 1882 words of Nietzsche's Madman:  

What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space?

Since those words were written, Europe has become a continent that scourged by countless revolutions, two world wars and the political attrocities that caused them, and Cold War of communism and its aftershocks. Whether by their own doing or not, the 20th century has traumatized Europe in a way that the US hasn't been. Something in Europe has been broken that, in the US, still remains somewhat intact, and I don't really know what it is. And I am not the only one who feels this. A French friend once summed it up by saying, "You [Americans] still know who you are. We [French Europeans] forgot who we are a long time ago." And I wondered if what she meant was that in America, it is still a little easier to remember that people are icons of God, that they have dignity because God has dignity. Because in the same conversation, she also said that she admires people of faith and wishes she could be one. "I am the most devout atheist I know," she laughed, "Because I want God and I want to know Him, and I want to believe He exists. But, I can't, you know..." She made a gesture as though gazing at all her surroundings. It is what I call her "historical gesture," by which I understood her to be pointing out every single war fought, past or present. The French friend is a military historian who spends her day wading through the blood of past wars, and waiting for history to repeat itself as it all too often does.

So what do you make of the churches that still exist in Europe? I don't pretend to know all the theory and answers. What I do know is the Orthodox side of things, the experiences I've had for over a year and a half. The nameless churches with little to no address, that are impossible to find even with GPS. The insular, cultural cliques who refuse to even converse with a non-member of their culture. This is the legacy of communism--people have forgotten what church really is, and remember only something that vaguely resembles a secret society.  I've shared my perceptions now with several people who know Europe even better than I do, and one is a missionary in Eastern Europe, only to find that yes, this is really the way it is. Yes, Orthodox has some brokenness. Yes, it's very sad. People who are missionaries in Europe tell me that Europe needs churches more than third world countries do, and they need missionaries who will not just talk to them about the Bible and Jesus, but about existence. About how to live and not kill yourself in despair. About hope.

The Holy Trinity. Chilling in heaven.

The day I stepped inside the Cathedral was the feast of the Transfiguration of Christ--coincidental since the church was named "Transfiguration."

Even still, between all the language barriers--English --> Croatian --> Serbian-- it took me a few tries to figure out when the next liturgy was. I finally resorted to writing a letter in Croatian via google translate in my travel notebook and showing it to a lady that was managing the library/book store. "Hello," I wrote, introducing myself by name. I explained I was from the US/ Germany and wanted to attend liturgy. In an Orthodox church, it is common practice to introduce yourself before taking communion. People want to know you are Orthodox Christian and taking the Eucharist seriously. She was overjoyed and called over two more people to help draft a letter back to me. When I got home, I translated her letter back into English:

"Dear Nicole--we have services at 5PM on Saturdays and 9AM on Sundays, please feel welcome! And yes, of course, you are welcome to take communion! Thank you so much for yur letter and God's blessings to you!!!"

I wondered if, finally, I was going to be able to attend a service that was welcoming rather than exclusionary, warm rather than secretive, and reflective of the love Christians are to have for God and their neighbors.

 

Standing in the pew-less church the following Sunday, my expectations once again were obliterated by the reality of Orthodoxy in Europe.  The friendly bookstore lady was nowhere to be found and when it came time for communion, no more than four of the hundred or so parishioners partook. Before doing so, they all had some kind of thirty second pow wow with one of the 4-5 priests. The chalice itself was only out for a few seconds--not even enough time for me to walk briskly up to the front of the church before it was taken away again. It all happened so fast--like a conveyor belt or something. I wanted to scream at someone. I wanted to tell someone how important it was for Christians to be united in Christ, in communion. That's the one thing we have that we were commanded to do by Christ, it is the staple of our lives. But no one understood English or German or even the little bit of Russian slavonic I'd picked up in the last 2 years. 

So I didn't scream, I just stared up. And up. At all that gold. And wondered what it's all there for.

And I wondered what all that gold was there for. It was not like in other single icons, where the gold just stays in the background and the icon itself is framed in wood. In this cathedral, the gold was everywhere--behind and in between every icon. Was it supposed to harmonize all the biblical events and people and saints from the ages depicted in the icons? That is, was the gold making the Church one unifed tapestry joined into eternity together? Or was it isolating everything--was each icon just an island unto itself?

I realized the gold was doing both, and that to be a real member of Christ's Church, one has to see both--one had to see the harmonizing potential but isolating realities of eternity. One has to see the wholeness of life when it is joined to Christ in eternity, but one also has to see and bear witness to the scars of sin, history, attrocities--all of which break up, fragment and isolate us from one another and from the eternal. 

 

Now that I've been back to the Western Hemisphere, I find myself thinking back on that Zagreb Cathedral fairly often. I am thinking not of how angry I was at that parish's attitude toward communion, but rather of all that gold.  Here I am, transitioning back into life on this side of the ocean, transitioning into writing a dissertation, into living in a new city surrounded by new people, new things and, essentially, a new life. I find myself sewing one more tattered rag onto the "places I call home" patchwork quilt. I find myself wondering about the verse that Christ talks about putting new wine inot old wineskins, and I wonder what it means to be sewing a new patch onto an old garment. I find myself wondering if all of the places and people in my life are a harmonious whole or just separated islands on the verge of dissolution. I find myself praying that even if I must see and experience both brokenness and wholeness, that the wholeness one day will win out. I find myself back in North American culture, my feet firmly on the ground, wondering if my European experience was a dream. 

I find myself wondering if those haunting gold-plated spaces in between the icons at the Zagreb Cathedral were real, or if they are just an optical illusion my camera happened to pick up.

Well, either way, someday they will be.

 

The Split Survival Guide

One of my main reasons for visiting Croatia was to see the Dalmatian Coast, i.e. the southern part of Croatia, a thin strip of mainland and more than one thousand islands that sprinkle the Adriatic Sea (not unlike the spots of a dalmatian dog, which were first bred here). Even though Croatia's coastline is more than 500 miles long, Dalmatia is no wider than 30 miles and sometimes as narrow as a mile or two--which basically means that, when it came to getting ports, every other eastern Balkan state got shafted after Yugoslavia fell in the early 1990's.

  
Originally, I had really wanted to visit the southern-most city in Croatia, named Dubrovnik. There are no train rails, however, that go that far south--and the bus coverage is too spotty to be able to plan ahead. Before seeing Croatia, I assumed the lack of transportational infrastructure that far south had to be because of its status as an emerging developing economy. That was before I saw the coast for myself, which basically consists of steep, sheer rock mountains. I wouldn't want to build a train track through that, either.

Note: that tiny thread-like object in the center of the picture is not a snake. It's the road.

So, I finally settled on visiting Split (on the mainland) and Bol (on the island of Brac, a 1.5 hour's ferry ride from the coast). My first impressions getting off the train in split were: a.) HOT; and b.) BRIGHT. And that was at 7AM. It's a good thing I did not know in advance that temps in this part of Europe linger for most of the day (and evening) right around 40 degrees Celsius (that's 104 for my Fahrenheit folks)--and let's not even get into the humidity measurements. The hotness and brightness were multiplied in Split due to their fondness for paving absolutely everything in polished, white marble: roads, sidewalks, buildings, parks, household pets... It all goes back to Emperor Diocletian, who in the third century made Split the site of his retirement palace. I'm guessing he had a really could 401K, because the palace was absolutely huge--so huge that much of Split lays within the boundaries of its ruins. When you walk around, you have all these layers of architecture--from 3rd century stone arches with rogue grasses growing through the cracks in the mortar, to modern low-level sky scrapers and mysterious little alleys and promenades and churches, and all with a generous helping of cafes sprinkled everywhere.

 Other than the millennia old late-Roman imperial palace, Split is pretty much your average harbor town. The key is not to let the garish sunlight, stifling heat, pore-suffocating humidity, or overwhelming stench of boats and seawater get to you. You have to come up with a survival plan. Mine was

I found Figa at about 10:30 AM, purely by accident, wandering in from some narrow, arched alleyway or other during my disorienting hike through the city. I felt a magnet pulling me in through the shadowy, open doorway--the Croatians are like flies, attracted to light in everyway. Their cafes, restaurants, shops and everything else is done in no less than direct sunlight at all times. So when you find the rare instance of an indoor restaurant--one that is practically carved into what seemed to me 600 or 700 year old, roughly hewn brick--you linger. And linger. Over coffee. Over breakfast--a crepe stuffed with rucola and freshly cooked salmon. Over another coffee. And maybe some water after that. And then maybe you ask the waiter if you can charge all your portable electronic appliances. And then maybe he is generous enough to spend 10 minutes searching his office for a plug adaptor for you, all the while teasing you that you are just like his girlfriend--you carry around that big, heavy purse that has everything in it but the things you really need. Yes, you explain, but you have two varieties of wet wipes. And vitamins. Surely those are necessities, too. And you just keep lingering, because you don't want to go back out into the heat. But, at some point, the lingering must end. And you must find another way to survive the humid, fish-smell-soaked heat.

 Water come to mind.

 

This is the closest thing to a watering hole I've ever seen. The people of Split flock to this synthetic waterfall in the middle of the city square and unshamedly dunk their hands, feet, faces and children into the water--which is clean enough to fill up one's water bottle with.

  

Yes I photo-stalked this little girl. She was standing by that fountain for ages and did everything I felt like doing--just lounging by water and practicing some form of ancient aqua-boredom calisthentic thing. Cute!

After locating water--which is easier said than done in a HARBOR TOWN SURROUNDED BY THE SEA for heaven's sake--I felt I had more energy to explore the things that Split is famous for: one of the biggest and oldest fruit/vegetable market in Europe, for example, or discover even more architectural wonders. I managed to survive--and get to experience walking a piece in the life of another place and culture, something that I consider to be invaluable no matter what the cost (or degrees celsius). By the time I caught my ferry to Bol/ Brac, I had started to get a glimpse of the beauty and "different-ness" I'd heard about in regards to Dalmatia. I hope you can agree!

Setting the table in a 1,700-year-old dining room?

 At first I thought the boy was just trying to show off for the gaggle of cute girls standing 'round the fountain.

 To my horror and surprise, he and his dad and his little sister put the fish in a plastic shopping bag filled with water and took it home... to eat?

 One of Empreror Diocletian's windows.... Overlooking the harbor.

 This is with the white balance and brightness settings on The Fiancee's camera turned way down low! Needless to say, it is not easy to take good pictures in Split! Too much darn light!

By the time it was time to take the ferry to Bol, I was interested to see what lay next on my journey.

A Journey (and i mean journey) to Croatia!

Nursing a thimble-sized cappuccino, I am huddled over my journal under one of the very few instances of shade in existence at 11AM on the Croatian island of Brac. Lush but fruitless grape vines have ambled up the rustic, stone wall next to me. Just beyond them glistens the Adriatic sea several boats have saddled up to the shore, simultaneously unloading wares from the mainland and haggling passersby to accept a boat tour or excursion. And, in the midst of it all, I find myself smoking a cigarette, or rather the equivalent thereof, thanks to the two stocky old men sitting just upwind of my table, deep in conversation about what appears to be a business contract they have spread on the table between them. They have smoked at least three or four since I sat down here a half hour ago for a sumptuous broccoli omelet. Ordinarily, I would have requested another table long ago, or taken the opportunity to put The Look to good practice. But in this part of the world, which (surprisingly even more than Germany) seems to be unaware of the Surgeon General, one would be walking around all day to find a refuge from cigarette smoke, possibly up one of the gray-stoned, brush strewn mountain sides—and by then you'd have the garish, Adriatic sun to deal with. It took me this long to find some decent shade around here. So I will stay—at least until the sun chases me from this tiny haven of shade, too.

WHY CROATIA?

I have “always wanted to go to” Croatia. I don't say this very loudly, because there are many places I have always wanted to visit. Due to current geopolitical situations, countries closer to the top of my list (right now it would be nearly impossible to even get a travel visa to Turkey, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon, for example; and, for some reason, Greece recently suspended international rail services which makes it difficult to get in and out by train; Israel will never be without risk, but I'd at least like to take that risk with The Fiance... And then there's Russia, but two weeks is unfortunately too short a duration to complete the transiberian railroad...) So, next on the list were the Balkans, and more specifically Croatia.

It's hard to say when and why exactly Croatia even came to be on the Places I Want to See Before I Die list. Perhaps it was all those hot summer days as a teenager oscillating, with my youngest brother in tow, between swimming laps at the old YMCA and lazing around the air-conditioned Oshkosh Public Library just one street over from the Y. It was then that I would feed my penchant for languages by perusing the generous foreign language holdings at the library that consisted of countless cd-sets and phrase books in every language I could imagine, all the way from Albanian to... Zimbabwish. (That is not actually a language, but I couldn't think of anything else that ended in “Z”--but if there were such a language, the Oshkosh Public Library would probably have a phrase book of it.) For whatever reasons, the books on Croatia are still the most memorable to me. In particular, there was a brand new cd-set packed with a delicious glossy box-cover of a gleaming blue sea and mountainous coastline dotted with tiny villages. If I actually committed any Croatian to memory, I don't remember any of it now. I do, though, remember listenin to the cd's—not to remember the language, but to comfort myself that other people existed, other languages and cultures. Sort of like the flagging of faith listen to beautiful music or the melodic silence of peaceful places in order to remind themselves of the presence of God in a noisy, distracting world. I listened to the cd's, too, to connect the dots of the world, to compare Croatian to the cultures I already knew. To do this, I had to determine how it was both like and unlike other cultures I already knew about. The language, for example, was slavic—like Russian—but unlike Russian they do not use the Cyrillic alphabet (sort of like the Polish, I figured). Unlike Russia or Poland, though, the Croatians have a highly maritime culture, thanks to the obscenely long coastline they got after Yugoslavia broke up (look on a map, it's absolutely ridiculous. Poor Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Albania). Like Italy, their heritage is predominatley Catholic with very little influences of Protestantism (or Orthodoxy, as I now know, despite the fact that all its Balkan neighbors are predominately Orthodox). And like so many other places in the Balkans, the Croatians have been threatened over the centuries by marauding Turks, Italians, and other colonial powers. Yet unlike the rest of their other Balkan neighbors, Croatia seen less internal civil division.

That is what the glossy cd-set taught me. My knowledge of this part of the world has expanded somewhat over the years, through my BA in interntional studies as well as preparing for this trip. But as I sit here, sipping my tiny little cappuccino and gazing out from underneath a giant restaurant umbrella and whithering pine tree over the rippling little waves of the sea, for a moment I wonder if I am really here, or if I am simply back in my fifteen-year-old self, gazing at an obscure box cover in the cozy old public library. And then the moment ends, when I realize I must be n Croatia—the Oshkosh library, after all, used their air conditioning liberally. Even if it was ten or fifteen degrees fahrenheit cooler than it is in Croatia.

A CHANGE OF PLANS. As is usually the case, living out a childhood dream does not often come to pass without any number of struggles and trials along the way. What should have been a 13-hr train journey here turned into a three day debacle that began with a surprise downpour at 5 AM, only a 10 minutes after leaving my apartment to get to the Wolfenbuettel train station. Apparently, the cheap duffle bag I'd bought for the journey is made of biodegradable material, as I deduced when the whole thing appeared to dissolve and fall apart three minutes after it started raining. In total, the otherwise pleasant train trip to the Adriatic coast ended up consisting of missing one train, getting on the wrong train and realizing it three hours later when we arrived in Ulm instead of Munich.

MUNICH.

Due to my disembowled luggage, missing a train, and getting on the wrong train, when I finally made it to Munich, the German rail company totally rerouteded my traveling itinerary to get me on my way to Croatia. What should have been a 13-hr, pleasant train trip all the way from Wolfenbuettel through eastern Europe and over the Croatian border turned into a 3 day journey laced togetehr by two overnight trips (#1 from Munich → Zagreb and #2 from Zagreb → Split, Croatia). In between these train trips, I got to work off my over-exhaustion by exploring Munich, Zagreb (Croatia) and Split (Croatia).

Munich, I discovered, is the dirtiest, most touristy and overpopulated city in Germany. Having come from tiny old Wolfenbuettel, I felt like there were people and noises EVERYWHERE, and green space NOWHERE. I spent most of the day walking down side streets and wandering in and out of the many churches and Cathedrals there. I also found a new duffel bag (this time with wheels!) for 20 Euro in Munich, whose streets were lined with import stores, mostly owned by Muslims of various nationalities. I especially like the Turks, they can be a lot of fun. In the end, my Euro ended up going to a particularly peristant and burly Turkish man, who boasted about the biggest handlebar mustache I'd ever seen before.

I nee

“I am on my way to Croatia, and my first duffle bag has already fallen apart,” I told him sourly. “Will this one fall apart, too?”

“No, no!” He waved his hands passionately. “No, not dees bag. Dees bag very goo—ood! Llast forever!”

“Then why is it only twenty Euro?” I asked him.

“Because I no cheat my customers. I geeve you lifetime warranty. You no like bag, you come back and I geeve you new.”

“But I can't come back, that's why I said—I'm going to Croatia,” I pretended to be angry. He seemed to think about that for a while, then smiled.

“Ah,” he smiled, his white-handle bar mustache brimming with pride. “Then, you keep. Have nice trip.”

St. Paul's Catholic Church with Subway, Munich

MUNICH → ZAGREB, CROATIA. After a long, hot day of haggling with Turks and finding side streets to rest from the crazy tourists of Munich, I was looking forward to what I'd hoped would be a restful night en route—I almost always sleep well on trains, with that luring rhythm of rail on rail. Alas, God must have had other plans, that evidently had something to do with strengthening my moral character, because I was granted the extreme pleasure sharing a six-person cabin with seven other people, including a screaming, old Croatian woman who kept trying to speak broken Italian with everyone at the top of her lungs. When this strategy of making friends failed, she moved to another: waking us all up at 3AM in order to disseminate a shopping bag full of dubiously half-melted German chocolates.

My first day setting food on Croatian soil was not only the first day of a fast in our Orthodox calendar, it was also the one month anniversary of Croatia joining the EU on 01 July 2013. As I pulled my bag off the train, I was greeted by the friendly light of the sun and the dirtiest train platform I'd ever seen—a juxtaposition the intrigued me. Juxtapositions just followed me, for as I entered the station, I found walls plastered in graffiti, and in the center of the main hall an immense bazaar of used Croatian books.

The first goal was to exchange my Euro for Croat Kunae. I found a desk the station with a picture of Euro, Dollar and Kuna signs and had something in Croatian that looked like a currency exchange. But when I got to the front of the line, the woman explained they no longer—she pointed through the large windows outside the train station, to a green park across the street.

“There. Shopping center,” she explained. “They change your money there now, in shopping center. Not here.”

After locking my luggage in a locker, I brought my Euros and a change of clothes with me. I walked around the park for over a half hour, looking at several vendors selling berries and about three kiosks selling newspapers. Unless the Croatian kuna were code word for wild blackberries, none of them looked like they were equipped to change Euros. I needed a coffee and a piece of breakfast bread, I couldn't think straight. Back in the trainstation bakery, I explained my predicament to the clerk as she made me a cappuccino with plenty of froth. She smiled, and handed me my coffee.

“Yes, across street. In shopping center,” She said.

“You mean, in the kiosks? All I see are newspapers and berries. And a park,” I explained, grasping the coffee with true gratitude in my heart. The lady chuckled. She thought of how to explain something in English.

“No, you no understand,” she gestured with her hands towards the floor. Had she dropped my bread? “The shopping center... On the floor! No, under the floor.”

I looked at the floor.

“Oh, underground!” I said. She nodded, as though all shopping centers were underground. “Go, walk around park. You find the way there. It is under park. You see. VERY big.”

Well, I walked around the park for nearly an hour, not quite sure what I was looking for. A sign of some sort would have been a logical guess, but none of the signs seemed to say anything about a shopping center. I wondered if it would be something like an intergalactic portal, because I didn't really know what those looked like, and I probably would miss it even if it slapped me on the face. I asked two people I heard speaking English, but they were looking for the same thing. I asked a beggar on a bench, but he didn't know English. Finally, I stumbled upon a set of stairs—no sign, no markation of any kind, nothing in its appearance that would suggest that beneath these stairs lay one of the biggest and most modern shopping experiences I ever expected to find underneath a picturesque, baroque park.

When I finally located the exchange booth, I experienced an even greater miracle than finding the shopping mall: my Euro were exchanged at a rate even more favorable than the one online, for no fee. I loved Croatia already.

The second over night train found me in a cabin with a much more pleasant crowd; directly across from me in the cabin sat a woman who was probably about my age but who had a wise look about her eyes that made her seem older, and though she never spoke to anyone, everytime I startled in my sleep, I could see her face in the moonlit cabin, smiling at me with a comforting and motherly look that made me fall back asleep. Next to me was an old, tanned skin Italian? man who had brought his young grandson on a trip. At the beginning of the journey, he blew up a tiny inflatable pillow and made a bed for the grandson out of both their seats. Tucking the boy in for the night, he chirped a little song in a melodic Italian dialect, said some prayers, and crossed his grandson with his own hands just as the boy's eyes were drifting shut into sleep. He then stood the entire journey, pacing in front of the open window in the hallway, and every five or ten minutes sat on the edge of the boy's “bed,” and just stared at him lovingly while he slept.

Had it not been for a highly expressive and disgruntled poodle in the cabin next to ours, and the even equally expressive and disgruntled Croatians of various other cabins (who felt the need to bellow obscenities at aforementioned poodle periodically throughout the night), and the even MORE disgruntled train security guard (who, by the ominous force of his own loud voice, frequently attempted to stifle the breakout of civil war between aforementioned Croatians and aforementioned poodle), this second overnight train ride would have probably engulfed me with the simplicity of human love and care that can be observed in simple strangers. In a lot of ways, I witnessed the best and the worst ends of the human-compassion spectrum. I decided I hated overnight trains, but that I wouldn't stop taking them, because where else can you witness all of this weird loveliness.

And, finally, yesterday, I got to the city of Split—on the coast of the Adriatic sea. All that was left was an evening ferry ride to the island of Braç, where I'd be staying. For now, though, I had the whole day to explore the ruins of Diocletian's palace, built in the 4^th century, and boil alive in the positively indescribable Croatian heat. Speaking of heat, it is really picking up here. The burly Croatian men have long taken their business dealings and cigarettes elsewhere, my cappuccino has long been sipped to emptiness, and I haven't even gone swimming in the sea yet. So, goodbye for now! 

 

When Siamese Twins Must be Separated, and other grief the historian must bear.

In June, my good friend Sarah and I resolved to each write an academic article during the month of July. We're loosely following a proven plan of attack, and every few days or so we meet online to see what kind of progress we are making. It is not too difficult to write an article—even when aforementioned term is preceded by terms like “peer reviewed” and “academic journal.” These bad boys weigh in at approximately 10,000 words (30-35 pages, double spaced). It might seem like a lot, but for people who are basically trained to write their way into a doctoral title (a dissertation is upwards of 250 pages, emphasis on the "upwards of"), an article shouldn't be that difficult. 

Like most thing in life, however, they are.

I am three-quarters of the way finished with my rough draft—right around 8,000 words with most of the notes already added. I'm probably done with the hardest part of the writing, so by now it should be a sprint to the proverbial finish line. Instead, I've been stuck for days in the penultimate section of the paper, where I take everything I've talked about so far and try to support it with some bits of theory and methodology. This feels suspiciously less like the homestretch of a race, and more like standing idly on top of a vast, barren plateau—with vultures circling above me. Figuratively speaking. I hope.

I am coming up on a little less than two weeks left in this tiny place. This past Saturday marked the official commencement of my sorting-trashing-and-packing routine which has precluded all of the eleven+ relocations I've experienced in the last thirteen years. This ritual usually begins with a lot of baffled attempts at surveying my possessions, and reliving that moment you realize you will never be able to take it all with you. Despite the fact I've kept myself on a very tight leash regarding purchasing here, I seemed to have acquired more than what I came here with. As the research fellow who has been here longer than any other current scholarship holder, I have been the dumping grounds for the generosity of others who have faced the same quandary of what to do with all the stuff they've amassed here. Hence, I've acquired any number of things, from computer speakers to a computer printer/ scanner; from 3 kg dumbbells to a yoga mat; a rolling office chair; a large-frame reading chair; from random throw pillows to large, framed portraits that say things like “home” and “dream” on them; countless pencils and other office paraphernalia; books; magazines; picture frame; the cook; the baker; the candlestick maker.

In an effort to make the chaos of it all seem about as stressful as a trip to the grocery store, I started by making a list. Of lists. In all, eight lists. A list of things to trash. A list of things to keep and give, and whom to give them to. What to pack in my checked baggage. What to pack for the vacation I'm taking to Croatia before flying home. What to pack in my carry on. What to pack in the carry on I will take to my best friend's wedding in Wisconsin the morning after I arrive in Toronto (don't worry Rachel, I love you). A “before leaving WfB” to-do list... Plus a few other lists I've probably forgotten about.

The one thing that these lists basically taught me is: I only have two suitcases. And there is no way everything will fit in them. And no amount of list-making will change that. So, stop stressing and start trashing (or “gift” giving, as Trish will soon learn).

This morning, while enjoying the first, serene hours of the day in the library reading room, the reason why I am stuck in my article finally revealed itself. I'm stuck because I'm trying to write two articles into one.

For my next trick, I shall try to explain what those two are. The first paper, the one I actually set out to write, is about how 01 January made people think about the end of the world a lot more—I mean, a lot more than usual for that time period (if you've read my blog so far, you know that's saying a lot, since they were pretty much thinking about it most of the time anyway). There was something about concluding an old year, and taking those first few steps into the pristine, freshly fallen snows of a new year that made people wonder about what heaven would be like, and about the divine judgment they'd have to withstand in order to get there. I really like this topic because a.) I get to talk about the end of the world for the umpteenth time in my very young and naïve career as an academic; and b.) I thought of a really schnazzy title for the thing, so schnazzy I won't even mention it here, just in case thousands of the world leading early modern historians are secret closet reader of my blog and steal the title from me before I have a chance to do anything with it (one can dream, right?)

Anyway, that's the paper I wanted to write. The second paper is a lot more basic, and unfortunately, is probably the one that needs to get written about first. Essentially, it's about new year's day in early modern Germany (1500-1700). See, pretty boring, right? For obvious bore-related reasons, I did not anticipate talking about this very much in the article about new years/ apocalypse article. Surely, I thought, it would suffice to just tack a few paragraphs onto the introduction, in order to provide “historical context” that would explain “where we get our new year's from.”

Well, thanks to the fact that history is never as simple as you think it is, “This is where we got our new year's from” turned into “By the way, for a really long time, there was some serious confusion as to when the year even started—some thought Christmas, some thought 01 January, and other people thought 25 March. And some people thought it was all three or neither.”

And then, that turned into “here's why everything you ever thought about new year's was a lie.”

Well, not everything.

Besides my goal with Sarah to write an article this month, I set a goal with the Fiancee to wake up at 6:30AM every morning this month—7AM on weekends. I don't really know what was going through my mind when we set that goal, I think something about trying to reset my body clock or be more productive or something. 

At heart, I am a morning person—I function best when I wake up at the crack of dawn and work before anyone else get up. But every so often, I go through phases where I just laze around in bed not doing much of anything until I'm darn well good and ready. Strangely, such phases coincide with seasons in which I have no real responsibility to anyone or anything but myself and my own work, which becomes really depressing after a while. It turns out that a lack of obligations can be really stressful. I find setting arbitrary goals helps me recreate that sense of obligation, which can be really fulfilling.

In this case, however, I realized that even succeeding in one's goals can have its downside. Namely sleep deprivation. Waking up at 6:30AM means I can't just go to bed whenever I please. Going to bed early means I can't loose track of time scouring facebook for signs that other people exist. Nor does it mean I can keep drinking coffee until dinner time, no matter how much I adore the bitter guzzle of tar juice. The more I try to have my cake and eat it too, the more exhausted I become.

You just can't fit it all into one day. Or suitcase. Or article. Life is short, and so is everything else. Better to live selectively and intentionally rather than all-inclusively and indescriminately, right?

I don't care. I don't want to split them up. I don't want to write two articles about new year's in post-Reformation Germany—even if it would look good on my resumee. I want to write one article, and tie it up masterfully into a beautifully bound, logically cohesive, spell-bindingly captivating read (by academic standards). And then I want to write a poem about it. And then I want to paint a picture about the poem, and sell it, and make everyone think how brilliant I am. How I just capture, in one glorious brush stroke, the full spectrum of what it means to be a human being suspended in this both tragic and magnificent fabric of temporality. And then I want to use the money I make off of that painting to solve world hunger.

Sigh. Sometimes people tell me I set unrealistic goals for myself.

There comes a time in every woman's life who gives birth to Siamese twins, a time when she must decide whether to intervene and separate them, or let them play with the cards they've been dealt. Even if their mutual liver(s) are fused between the two bodies. She (and hopefully the father too) must make the choice knowing that, either way, one or both of the twins could die. I'm sure that whatever decision she arrives at, she does so out of love—she wants to give her darlings the best possible chance at life.

Today, I am that mother. Kind of. And, as Steven King explained once in regards to the writing process, if I want my article to survive, I must “kill my darlings.”

But, should someday my two little Siamese twins topics come back to seek retribution for my fateful choice to separate them, I would like to say how much I love them. How much I want them to survive in the field of history as fully formed arguments, rather than to be eternally constrained by the parameters of one article. And so, I am cutting their wings—in the hopes that one day, they will fly. (That is the most incoherent and poetic metaphor ever! Which is why I'm not deleting it!)

I just better finish all of this by the end of the month if I want to make that goal.

Lessons Learned as of Late

There are times in life we learn important lessons to help us grow. This may be why I was always sort of tall for my age.

Lessons learned for the week, in chronological order:

1.) Being on top of your to do list and life tasks is usually the first indication you have overlooked something, usually something that could potentially send your life catapaulting into chaos when remembered (after it is too late).

2.) Do not let the following people fool you:

• End times gurus who proclaim the Euro to be the One World Currency. The Euro is about as compatible with credit institutions outside Europe as water is with... oil. No, tar. No, tar made from oil.
• German bank personel who assure you they are doing everything they can to help you transfer money between foreign accounts, yet fail to inform you they actually have an associate who SPECIFICALLY HANDLES SITUATIONS WITH FOREIGN BANK TRANSACTIONS.
• Aforementioned German bank personel who assure you it is not possible to transfer money overseas.

3.) Making partial payments on car loan until you can get money transferred into AMerican dollars to pay bills is not just like paying the minimum balance on a credit card bill.

4.)  Just because you haven't actually heard anything from your car loan officer, and just because there are no huge red flags on your online account, does NOT mean loan sharks haven't been stalking your stateside mailing address trying to repossess your car.

5.) Loan sharks do not care that you have been in Germany for a year, trying in vain to transfer Euros into dollars so you can pay your bills from an American account. They do, however, care that your car is not at your mailing address but "smuggled" (i.e. driven in plain daylight with full knowledge of customs official) across the border to Canada just as you stopped  making full car payments, where it now resides with The Fiancee.

6.)Never doubt the Fiancee's ability to be my hero and save the day with his mad Western Union skillz and unconditional love.

7.) Wallets are not to be unattended. No, not even in a library locker in naive little Wolfenbuettel.

8.) Always be thankful for your rival arch nemeses. Sometimes when they go out of their way to prove they are better than you, they actually can be handy for something. Like recovering stolen wallets in the bottom of a woman's bathroom garbage can.

9.) Do not attempt to take stress out on tin cans of tomatoes with a dulled can opener whose lever is missing.

10.) Do not mistake gushing blood for tomato juice. Also, try not to die of blood loss if possible.


Yep. I knew I was feeling tall lately. Growth spurt!

The Breakup

I have some news. A regular character in this blog, aka The Boyfriend, will no longer be featuring here. That's right, The Boyfriend and I are no longer dating.  It's a long story...

This recent change in my life has been developing for some time, now. In fact, I suppose it all started when the Boyfriend became the Boyfriend (as he put it, when he asked me to "go steady" because he is charming like that). There we were, standing in the crowded Toronto airport: he dropping me off, me heading to Germany. He calm and collected, me crying. He standing still, me being ushered by a clerk towards security. When suddenly, amid the bustling crowds and blaring security announcements, he pulled me back from security, took something from his pocket, and got down on one knee.

"Nicole Marie Lyon," he asked me, his gesture suddenly halting the crowd of passersby to a curious stop. "Will you be my keychain buddy?"

The onlookers followed us with their confused gazes as the boyfriend and I enthusiastically began exchanging key rings with tears in our eyes. To the rest of the world, we were sharing keys. But to us, we were sharing our heart. On the keychain The Boyfriend gave me was a tiny prayer rope he had made some time ago, identical to the one he had on his own keys. He made it wanting to give it to someone special. He had told me a long time ago about the keychain, and I knew how much it meant for him to give it to me, so I barely noticed there was something else on the keyring.

"Do you see the key?" He asked. Looking back at my keys, I nodded. Indeed, there was a tiny key with a matte, red handle--the kind that might open up a suitcase or diary.

"That key leads somewhere very special, but you will only find out later," he told me. "Just don't lose it."

I nodded and looked back at the prayer rope and hugged him. And in a few moments, I was whisked into the security line, and in a number of hours, I stepped off the plane in Germany all alone.

And yet, not alone. For somewhere out there, I had a key chain buddy. 

 We even got roped into paying eighty Euro for a charcoal portrait of our two Franco-Hispanic look-alike cousins. 

As beautiful as the beginning as our relationship was, however, our life together has also had its share of reality. Over time, the distance in between us put a strain on things. It sifted us. It taught us. It made us think about what it was we loved--and didn't love--about one another. It made us wonder about our lives, our futures, and what it means to love someone. There was loneliness, there, and sadness sometimes. I remember all the nights falling asleep, and wondering how he was doing at work. I remember all the mornings, thinking about him on my way to work, while crossing the picturesque bridge called "Little Venice," whose love locks you may remember from an earlier post. I have always loved that bridge, since the first day I came here. It is one of those places one simply longs to have another person there to share it. I always thought about the boyfriend when I crossed it, wishing the bridge could cross over everything in between us. But, us girls. We never say the things we really think. And I never told the boyfriend how much I wanted to share that bridge with him. Until it was too late.

Standing in the center of Paris.

It's not that we had a bad time together here. In fact, our time in the eastern hemisphere started out thrilling enough--after all, we met in Paris. In our five days there, we more or less divided and conquered the subway and bike-rental system, we systematically tracked out the best quiche lorraine, the best boeuf bourgignon, the best comte cheese and beufort wine. We visited and made new friends at the Orthodox churches in the area. We studied the architecture, took lots of beautiful pictures, drank too much over-priced coffee, spent ample time inside Notre Dame and St. Germain des Pres (my favorite two cathedrals there), learned some French, and even got roped into paying eighty Euro for a charcoal portrait of our two Franco-Hispanic look-alike cousins. And in between all the big tourist attractions, we had our own share of memorable moments, ranging from the happy (a quiet spot we found on the Seine river to watch the boats go past) to the lesson-learning (the reality of two people making all their schedule, and food, choices together for a week), to the just plain maddening (one word: insect infestation. And hostel. Okay, that's four words.)

But by the end of the week, we could look back on a trip that had been both magical and, somehow, realistic. On the last day, after walking through the city and saying goodbye to our favorite places, we made one last trip to the Eiffel tower.

When we got to the observatory deck, The Boyfriend put his arms around me.

"This has been the best trip of my life," he whispered into my ear.


So it's not that we had a bad time together. But still, something was missing. I didn't know what, but something.

On the last day, after walking through the city and saying goodbye to our favorite places, we made one last trip to the Eiffel tower."This has been the best trip of my life," the Boyfriend whispered into my ear.

 


Back in Germany, it was back to life-as-half-normal for me, and life-as-vacation for the Boyfriend. Things started coming to a head when he saw the scavenger hunt I had put in the little gift basket on the guest bed. The envelop read "Everything you need for a totally awesome photo-scavenger hunt." Inside was a map of the historic inner city of Wolfenbuettel, and a list of ten clues for him to find while I was working during the day.  I'd thought about the list for weeks, but only wrote it down right before I left for Paris. I already had the tricky clues like "a street paved (partially) with gold"  and "a bird's eye view of wolfenbuettel that you can fit into one picture frame." (The former was referring to gold-plated cobblestones that Germany has erected across the country in front of homes that Holocaust victims lived in before they were deported, called "stumbling stones." The latter referred to a small miniature model of Wolenbuettel that sits around the corner from my house, but the boyfriend went all out and somehow found his way to the top tower of the highest church in town.) But after I wrote down the tricky clues, I only had 7 items to find and I knew that would not satisfy the Boyfriend, who loves finding things and being curious in new places. So I threw on a few easy ones, locations that were somehow special for me: 8.) "find your favorite building"; 9.) My favorite bridge with love locks; 10.) a horse.  After that, I threw it all in the envelope and promptly forgot about half the clues I'd put on there.

For several days, while the Boyfriend was working on the scavenger hunt, I had to listen to comments such as: "This is one of the most fun things anyone has ever done for me... The only complaint I have is that the clues are too easy," and "I hope you don't try to give me any more hints at where to find things, because I'm not an invalid." On  Wednesday night, we decided that the next day, the Boyfriend would meet me at work. We would then spend Thursday afternoon sampling Wurst (brats, sausage) and going through the clues.

"For each clue, I'll show you the picture, and you tell me if it's right or wrong. And then if it's wrong, you just take me to the right clue and we take the picture together, okay?"

"Perfect," I said.

As we went for a walk later that evening, we past Stober Strasse.

"Hey look," I turned to The Boyfriend. "That's the street I walk down for work in the morning. Want to see? There's something I want to show you there."

"Not really," The Boyfriend said in a rare tone of apathy, and pulled me in the other direction. "Is there a nice biergarten open?"

A heart sank as I stared down the cobblestoned alley. So much for showing him my bridge.

a list of ten clues for him to find while I was working during the day.

Thursday morning at breakfast, the boyfriend was a little quiet. I barely noticed because I was rushing around in my usual cyclone-esque way trying to get my things together for the archive.  At work, though, I kept wondering what had been bothering him. We'd been together 90% of the time for almost two weeks, maybe he was getting sick of me. Maybe he was happy when I went off to work during the day, maybe he needed some space. I felt funny inside, but didn't know why.

When he showed up at lunch, I began to pack my things up for the day.

"You look nice," I said in sort of an absent way, because I saw he was wearing my favorite shirt.

"Yeah," his face unexpectedly turned a rather violent shade of red. "Just... you know... There was no real reason. I guess, sometimes, it's nice to just... I don't know, freshen up, as it were. I guess."

His whole tone immediately struck my ears as strange and unfamiliar. I stared at him. What on earth was going on? A quick glance to his pants pockets did not reveal any sign of a quadratic-shaped jewelry box, so I knew he couldn't be thinking of popping the question.

"Sorry, I wasn't teasing you," I smiled. "You know I like that shirt."

"Yes," he answered. "I do know."

Anyway, we got out into the beautiful sunshine (for one in it's life, Germany decided to display normal spring weather.) After a few good Thuringer Wurst and mustard, we started in on the clues to the scavenger hunt.

As I perused the list, I realized I had forgotten about half of what I'd even put on there.
"Wow, I didn't know I put the horse and the bridge on there!" I commented. "Let's go to the bridge! Number 9!"

"Well, I was thinking. Let's go from easiest to hardest. Those ones were really hard for me," he said. "And I dont' know if I got them right. Can we start with the easy ones?"

And as he started showing me his pictures, I was amazed. One thing I can say in all honesty about the Boyfriend, no word of a lie, you put that man in charge of a scavenger hunt, and he will not disappoint. He did not just find the clues, he practically ate them for breakfast..  

The Boyfriend went all out and somehow found his way to the top of the highest church tower in town!

Finally we got to clue #9, the bridge. Since he had found all the hard clues, I was hopeful he'd finally found the bridge, perhaps he had even developed a special relationship with it in the meantime that we could appreciate together. After all, it was the only item on the list that really meant anything to me in a personal way. The bridge was the most special place in all of WfB to me.

"Well, I had some trouble with the bridge, like I said," The Boyfriend confessed. "I walked around for a really long time this morning trying to find it, because it was the last thing on my list. And all I could come up with was this."

He showed me a picture of a bus stop near the river, with a contemporary art statue in the background.

Once again, my heart sank.

"But that's not even a bridge," I commented. "And where are the love locks? I thought you said you weren't an invalid."

"Well, I don't even know what love locks are," he said and pointed to the so-called "art" in the picture. "I thought maybe that thing represented love, because I know you like art."

"No," I sighed. "That's not it. I guess I'll just have to show you myself."

"Yeah, I guess you will," he answered wryly.

And on we walked. Bridge-wards.

And all at once, my face started blushing uncontrollably. Maybe it was the fact we'd been standing there for five minutes, and the Boyfriend was still taking pictures. 

"I still don't get it," the Boyfriend commented. We were standing at the bridge. My hopes of him ever understanding how special this spot was to me had completely dissolved in the face of his unromantic cluelessness.

"Pumpkie, I'm sorry, why are there locks here? Can you explain it again?"

"I already have like three times!" I was trying to hide my exasperation. "When couples get engaged or married, they come here with a lock that has their names engraved on it. They lock it to the bridge and then throw the key into the water."

"Yeah, but why?"

"Because it's Symbolic!" I nearly shouted at him, fingering through the locks and looking at all the names and colors. "Because it's romantic! It's not that hard to comprehend."

"But why do people lock their wedding rings to the bridge, then?" He asked, showing me a lock on his side of the bridge that had a ring attached to it.

"I don't know," I said flippantly, flicking the emerald ring with my fingers. "Maybe their wife died or something. It's probably not real, anyway."

After a while, the boyfriend crossed the path, taking pictures of the bridge so he could officially complete his scavenger hunt.

I stared at the water, only then realizing how much I'd wanted the boyfriend to just understand the bridge was special, even if it seemed stupid. For whatever reason, every time I had crossed that bridge in the last year and seen those locks and flowers, I'd thought about him. I thought it was because of how beautiful it was, but only then did I realized the real reason. Maybe all along I'd just hoped that someday, somehow, we would have a lock to put on that bridge. But due to the Boyfriend's stubborn ignorance on the topic, that dream was proving to be just that: a dream.

I gave one last look at the locks. And all at once, my face started blushing uncontrollably. Maybe it was the fact we'd been standing there for five minutes, and the Boyfriend was still taking pictures. Maybe it was the words of my youngest brother and others, who had wondered casually whether the Boyfriend had really come to Europe just for a visit. Maybe it was the fact I knew that lock, the tiny one with the ring, was new and it made no sense why anyone would lock a ring to the bridge. Maybe it was the fact that this same ring matched the necklace The Boyfriend had sent me previously for our one-year anniversary.

But why would he be giving me a ring? Had I forgotten about some kind of milestone? What was going on? Was he trying to trick me? There was only one way to find out, and that was to test his resolve.

"Maybe their wife died or something. It's probably not real, anyway."

"Come on," I whined, walking over to him. "I'm starving. Can't we go get our sandwiches?"

"Yup I'm done. My scavenger hunt is officially finished!" he smiled triumphantly. Not the response I had expected from a man who should, by all accounts, be sweating bullets and freaking out by now.  Guess the ring wasn't mine. My heart didn't sink, though. It was already racing and rising and falling so many times per second that it was pretty much in a state of antigravitational free fall. When I recover my senses, I vowed, the boyfriend would hear about this. He would hear about how special the bridge was to me, how much I'd wanted to share a special moment there with him, how much...

"Can you take your keys? I need to put my camera in my pocket," he asked. At the last moment before clenching my hand around them, I saw he was holding them by the prayer rope. Or rather, not by the prayer rope. I did a double take. How on earth could I have forgotten?

"What does this mean?" I asked frantically, my hands shaking, as I stared at the red key.

"Well," he began. "Do you want to unlock the padlock and find out?"

It was not how I thought it would be, getting proposed to. I didn't cry (right away). I didn't scream. I didn't think about my answer (or answer at all). The boyfriend wasn't sweating or shaking. He didn't get down on one knee.

"When I asked you to be my girlfriend, I knelt," he told me. "But in our marriage, I want to start as equals. Neither of us stands above the other."

I didn't picture a perfect future, either. I knew in his eyes he was afraid, and I knew in my heart that I was afraid too. We both have so much growing to do, so many things to learn about life and loving. The joy in my heart came not because I knew we had an easy road ahead of us, but because I know I get to share whatever comes with him.

And yet, despite--or because of it all--it was the proposal I'd always wanted. Though  I didn't know how important the lock-and-key- symbol was to The Boyfriend, he got to propose by involving a lock and key. And though he had no idea how important that bridge was to me, I got to get engaged there. We got to be real people, with joys and fears. But most of all, we got to get engaged.

And that is my news. The Boyfriend is no more. Ladies and gentleman, allow me to introduce...

The Fiancee.

 The Fiancee's afterword: After approving this post, the Fiancee wishes to clarify that he didn't come to WfB with the intention of proposing in that spot. Nor did he know when he gave me the key how he would use it in the end. He bought the ring with to Europe, thinking perhaps Paris would make a good place to propose. Over the months he has thought about various possibilities, none of which felt right. Then, he read in a tourist guide there were love locks in Paris, and if that failed, there was always the Eiffel tower. But, for various reasons, the timing in Paris was never right and it did not work out. He resigned to wait until I made it to Toronto in August. When he saw the love locks on my scavenger hunt list, he took it as a divine sign that he was meant to propose there. In the end, it was the perfect proposal--for both of us. We are thankful for each other, and to God for bringing us together--from Toronto to Germany and Cincinnati and Wisconsin. It has been an amazing journey so far, and Lord willing, it's only just begun.