Day 16

(the one and only time I beat Frank at chess, which happened to be in Croatia)

Day 16 – I heard an author talking about how all we have is the present moment because seeking more than that, seeking some kind of certainty, well, certainty doesn’t exist.

A friend asked if I was meeting up with anyone in Berlin. While I have a friend or two, I mostly know no one. It scared me for a second, to realize this, until I remembered that that is exactly why I’m going there. Nothing like making new friends!

I remember once, on a rainy night in Dubrovnik, Frank and I made our way to a local bar filled with young Croatians. Frank liked to play chess, so we brought our portable chessboard with us everywhere. In the bar, people crowded around looking at the board, then telling Frank or I what move to make next. I was no real match for Frank, a man who spends much of his free time playing chess online with masters, so after he beat me, a local challenged him to the next game. His English was surprising good.

The young people there speak it, unlike many middle aged Croatian folks we met who speak some German, French or Italian, but little English.

What sticks out to me was how nice it was to speak English and to share the customs of booze and bar activities. To converse freely, with someone other than Frank, since he had been the only person I spent time with during our travels who shared the same language, was an unexpected delight.

We had a raucous drunken night, stumbling home later by way of a flooded upward stairway along a narrow Dubrovnik alley that had become a small river. It was one of the best nights. To be folded into a tiny corner of a culture so different from ours, but at the same time, no different at all because we are all people and happy there together.