I’ve spent around one month and 10 days in the mountains in the village of my grandparents (Southeastern part of Serbia). It’s called Temska. It has around one thousand people (this number grows during summer), 3 shops, one coffee place, one bar on the beach (yes there’s a beach, actually more of them along the mountain river conveniently also called Temska) and zero telephone signal. I came back from that place to my ‘cosmopolitan’ hometown (just a couple of million people more than in Temska), and it sucks! I know I have to prepare for Chicago and university and a whole new life, but I need more of Temska to keep me calm. There I would get up around 8-9 a.m., have a snack and go swim while there was no one else there, it was just me (topless on one occasion, after which notice the fact that girls have less freedom than guys more), the sun, the river, hundreds of tiny light purple butterflies and a book. At eleven (when the sun gets evil, actually we made it that way with stupid ozone holes , but doesn’t matter now, if I start talking I’ll just get annoyed) I would go back home and have an ‘elephantic’ (no, the word does not exist, but should) breakfast, play with my insane dog – Aya, get beaten by my brother in cards, etc. I’m being dry and detailed, argh! Anyways, I’ll run through the other half – go to the beach again and stay until 7, read and write my diary, go out at 10, have a drink at the coffee place, walk, look at the stars (there’s so many, you can see the milky way and a shooting star every now and then) and talk to my friends there (people who, unlike those in Belgrade, don’t care only about looks and partying, but actually dream and make jokes). Yes, there were not a lot of extremely exciting and new things, a huge number of people to talk to, internet to let my friends know I’m ok or fruit yoghurt which I’m addicted to… But, there I had exactly what I needed – simplicity. I felt relaxed, safe, like the world stopped and I could finally sit down and rest.
These past two years were so chaotic and fast, and I practically spent them living in a suitcase, and I know at least four more years of this ‘suitcase life’ are coming my way this September… If I didn’t have Temska, if I hadn’t found this oasis of peace (sounds a bit trashy) , I know I would have lost myself somehow.
