On Classification
When rights in a society are determined by what group one is considered part of, aggressive attempts to police the boundaries of who “really counts” are almost inevitable. It is not enough to just be something, you must act like it too.
Across the River
A small, cold weight lodged in the body. I have held it there, contained, neither mastered nor erased. It rises only rarely, most often when I cross a state border.
Epistle on a Mnemonic
Numerous tests are being conducted on its centenarians without providing persuasive answers on why Ikaria is on the list of what the world called Blue Zones: is it the diet, the air, the sea, genetics, companionship or even tradition (!) that keep warding off death and dementia from its shores?
Airborne
We share the air. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
When the Fields Spoke Bulgarian
I can’t help but wonder what’s left in the wake of progress— in abandoned fields, in the spaces between people, in the moments that once were and will never be again.
A Few Things I Know About Asparagus (and A Few More That I Don't)
Foraging asparagus is about navigating little dangers.
Mothers Who Eat the Good Strawberries
I think of pleasure as a serious business, an act of survival, even. One that must be dug into to help one bear the pains of motherhood.
The Weight of Wool
Ottoman and Habsburg coins turned into jewelry; the remnants of successive empires worn on the women’s chests. In some cases, the đerdans are so elaborate that they almost entirely occlude their wearer, turning them into knights in shining armor.
The Swimmer
I miss the bathhouse. I miss it alive, but I miss it haunted too.
Duh
Suddenly I realized how much I had cemented Duh into a fictional character, a romantic stereotype of the victim who could not be anything else.
Kinder Surprise
He acted as though we saw each other every day. After that, I didn’t see him for years. My father ghosted me.
My Grandfather is a Cadaver I Dissect from Afar
My grandfather is a cautionary tale, hovering over me every time I have a drink. He is a cadaver I dissect from afar, dead before I was even born.
Pilgrimage to Ilije Bursaća 51
I imagined that the world before April 1992 was meticulously preserved in our former apartment, and I wanted to reach out for that life and reclaim it.
LIght Needs
She read and she gardened, but she wouldn’t have described herself as a reader or a gardener. Interests, preoccupations, and desires anchored the days without defining the self.
Ivanka
With age came the insecurities; she questioned every aspect of the dish—what’s the perfect amount of salt, what’s the right portion size for a person, almost as if she’d never prepared a meal in her life. And she prepared so many.
Hercegovina Kalifornija: Landscape and legacies in the Neretva Valley
Can the stories of vineyards, orchards, cow farms, the agroecological institute, and irrigation systems once again become interconnected in a vision of slow progress?
Mirage (academic autofiction)
I had been warned multiple times about risks of the topic I chose as a potential doctoral project. Well, that was a tricky one.
My First (Almost) Extinction Event
At the time, I did not know that I was swimming in a mass mortality event.
Balkan Waters
These spa towns all have traces of the different empires that thundered through the region that at least had the decency to leave behind some nice pools. Two of them are particularly close to my heart.
Against Summary
Escaping the summary’s grip would mean to choose observation over argument, arriving at conclusions through sustained—perhaps interminable—seeing and listening.