park benches

He leaned over his empty seat and told me "ten minutes". 

It was 11pm, we were crossing the border into Croatia, and I had no idea what was going on. 

Understandably so, because everyone on the bus was either Italian or Bulgarian, and the bus driver spoke about one lick of English. 

The man who told me ten minutes...to be honest, I was in love with him by the time he said that. Mostly on account of earlier he said something to shut up the chatty ladies who were outraged I had sat down in my seat when I boarded in Ljubljana. I appreciated him very much for that. And then he told me ten minutes for our break before entering Croatia, and then we chatted when we boarded again. By chatted I mean he spoke about three licks of English, so I kept my answers to a smile and a yes, or no, and then tried my best to explain simply why Ljubljana. 

Not like that's an easy task. 

And then when the obnoxious fat man started saying going on and on and the old lady in front of me tried to respond and he totally shut her down, my ten minute man approached her after and apologized, or something like it. In a not-creepy, not-condescending way. Two thumbs up, and thus me being in love. It's the little things, I tell ya. 

I said, hello, 3am moon, 3am stars, 3am Serbia. 

By morning we were almost at the Serbian-Bulgarian border.

This is what Serbia looks like to me, almost too tired to keep my eyes open even in the bright morning sunshine. And cats, three mangy cats twining around bus wheels and passenger feet at our stop in Serbia. And these falling apart tin sheds, just absolutely crumbling, beside red brick houses, red rust dust shingle roofs like everywhere here. Clothes hanging on dipping lines, dogs chasing cars. The occasional man in a thick coat on a bicycle, old woman tottering down a dirt driveway. 

I shook out my arms and legs and the sky was blue, the breeze cutting in a sort beyond refreshing, I said, this is Serbia, pieces and bits. 

As we crossed into the Republic of Bulgaria, the passport lady looked at me strangely. "Alone?...You have very much courage." She asked me where I was staying and I said I had a hotel...which was vaguely the truth insofar as I had written down several addresses of several hostels I would inquire about upon arrival. 

Ten minute man joked as we waited for the bus to roll through, "nice day, but cold. Cold like Canada!" 

I think somewhere along the line of european education, Canada became synonymous with freezing weather "minus thirty minus forty all days!"... uhhh...yeah. Sure. 

Bulgaria was...is...hm. I think what's throwing me is their alphabet, actually. I don't know what it is, kind of Greek looking, sort of Russian maybe?, kind of h's and backwards n's..but there's no way I could read it let alone pronounce things.  

In the countryside, they have these brick houses, some of them still under construction. And I kid you not, they look almost exactly like the half-finished brick houses we would pass on rare occasion in Nepal. 

Moving closer to the city, these apartment-type buildings would be there. Looking old, like if you rewound time to the 1980s, it would be exactly this. Towels and sheets hung over solid white-washed balconies. Everyone bundled up so as to negate the sunshine. You feel cold before even getting off the bus. 

When we pulled in to the main bus station, my ten minute man shook my hand and said good luck. 

Thank you so much. Truly. You're the reason I still believe in people. 

I found a tourism stop that changed my money and gave me a city map. 

Literally I think my game plan for life is to change currency and get a city map. The lady was kind, of course, but hesitating with English. Not like obviously, but in a way that Slovenes don't. I understand so much less here than in Slovenia, and even less than when I was in Nepal (again, totally different alphabet, everything nowhere near close to anything familiar). Not because things are less familiar here (I mean, McDonald's, coca cola ads, all that, trams and buses and cafes and things I know), but because I'm in a very different headspace. Here's a bit of ignorance revealed: I guess I just had no idea that things got so different so fast. 

Hm. No, let me elaborate on that, because it's not that everything is totally foreign (Nepal). It's that I just didn't expect it (because going to Nepal I knew, new continent, new country, new religion, culture, keep your eyes totally wide because none of this has happened before). Granted, none of this has happened before either. It's a feeling thing, I think. Because the feel in Ljubljana is this cozy, small, clean-street kindness. People will switch to English in a second. You can't read the signs but you can recognize the letters. 

    The feel here is different. Harder, in a way. And I think this is just as easily a fabrication of not enough sleep on a bus ride and no real food till now (I asked the lady at this Moroccan restaurant for a litre of water and she looked at me like "a whole litre?"), so disregard if this goes against your sensibilities or experiences in Sofia. 

Oh, shoot but that makes it sound like I'm not enjoying it. No no no! This is AMAZING. I walk down these streets like, holy shit, look where I am, and I shamelessly snap pictures of stuff like this

and this 

and take some prime selfies

not dead but looking pretty travelled/haggard...wearing some harem pants to compliment the look ;) 

It's so cool. 

fall colours are here in force

and people sell corn kernels, sweet and yellow, in carts on park corners, and boys skateboard and flip and turn over the park benches and between the turning trees, and old ladies walk slow in spots of sunshine

but you must watch your step because the curb doesn't always cut and nobody asked the broken bricks to appear over the cobblestone but they do. 

The buildings are old old, grey streaks by windows telling tales, and some streets are new and wide and no cars, and the traffic is hectic moving around and around old churches, magnificent parliament buildings

But you must watch your step.

Do you get what I'm saying? Am I making any sense? I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not. 

In which case I think I will leave this here for you, keep going, and get back to you. 

light like this. 

-k

Oh oh oh.

Oh.

I finished my meal with a coffe with milk and some Moroccan cookies. And as I sat and sipped, I suddenly realized how happy I was. Like the complete thought of "I honestly love this so much" crossed the entirety of my being. Alone, sipping something, music from another place, streets of another place.

Alone. 

Just Kelly. 

And I am sitting here 

and these two men just finished playing guitar. 

And I am in serious danger of crying alone on a park bench. 

Because I said to myself "follow the moon", big as it is in this dark dusk sky, so I did, down a shiny street of jewellery sellers and boutique coffee shops, and there was this fountain. And these green lights under the trees, and the trees against the now dark sky, and lover sitting on benches, and people walking by me. 

And the music. 

And I. 

I am alone. 

I am somewhere I never could have imagined 24 hours ago leaving lectures. 

I am, I don't know how to say this, I don't know how to describe it, but maybe this

I am alone

and this is freedom,

is wanting nothing more than to watch the fountain fall, nothing more than this, cold fingertips and a heart beating warm on my body 

this is sitting in an absence of ego, because there is now this quiet in my head, in my heart, and whoever walks by me can just continue doing so, and I want nothing more than just that, no desire to be noticed, to be talked to, about: just me. 

please

in learning how to let go of that

I have found this. 

complete and entire, myself in my shoes, my journey, 

alone. 

How to be alone. 

Lessons that could not sink more truthfully into the weight of me right now. 

I am free, I think this is my freedom, to have only this and be perfectly where I need to be, of no longer waiting or expecting or wanting: just here. 

Oh. 

And tomorrow Catarina will get here and we will explore together but for now, for now, for now this is everything. 

I feel it in streetlamps and footsteps, shadows along the night, this exactly .  .  .