Another year older

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)"

- ee cummings

It is hard for me to understand my existence here in Zagreb. Maybe it’s because nobody, and I mean nobody believes that I am from the US studying in Zagreb. They all think I am lying. They laugh, they mutter something in Croatian under their lips.

Yesterday was my 21^st birthday. I wish birthdays didn’t make me feel so vulnerable, but they do, and as I was taking my two tests, one in Croatian and one about the history of Yugoslavia (as if it is pie to understand), I almost had a breakdown. I feel very happy here, and I’m glad I’ve been kept busy so much. But a little piece of me is poking my side reminding me that it’s not all here. This isn’t the place that sparks the fire inside of me. It became very very obvious one day a week ago or so, when I started talking about Mexico and the Zapatistas. I got excited, words were spilling out before I could say them, the warm sun and hot tortillas were fresh on my mind, the people, the mountains, the language…

I don’t feel too academically motivated here. I don’t know what I want to research, I don’t know how to talk to the people around me about certain issues, and I don’t know how to bring it to that next level.

But this doesn’t mean that Croatia, Yugoslav past, current movements, are not interesting. I have seen a lot of anthropologists very heavily embedded in one area of the world. It’s their place, where they have “settled down” as much as anthropologists can do that. I always wonder to myself how they found that place, how it got them, why, if they looked anywhere else. I don’t know if Mexico is my place, but it sure gets me going.

After the two tests yesterday, the entire SIT group surprised me with beautiful pink roses and a delicious, humungous cake. We are all getting sick, so it like this heavy blanket of stress from the tests was lifted off our shoulders and made into delectable goodness in our mouths. And all we had to look forward to was the night ahead – a night of dancing, celebration, and being together. That’s all I really wanted, to be with them. And we were, and it was good. But now I don’t have a voice really, the cold has settled in for good and I think today should be considered as “recovery”.

Don’t worry mom and dad, I didn’t get TOO drunk. I am happy because now, after all of the times of staying behind, I can finally go out to the bars with friends and talk, I don’t have to get kicked out or hop over fences, not be able to listen to my friend’s music because its 21+, and I can finally, FINALLY go out with my BROTHERS! I am very happy about that.

And now I can’t stop crying! Because a bunch of people sent me emails wishing me a happy birthday, and of course writing such nice things and bringing me that much closer to missing everything so much.

the group