Olives have been picked. Next stop: uljarnica! Uljarnica is an olive processing facility and in many of the Croatian Adriatic island villages it is the most prominent building in the village. During the olive picking and processing season uljarnica is the epicenter of village activity. Ever since it has opened its doors this season (and it has been open almost … Read More
Olives Are Gold
As I struggle to meet my National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo) targets (and am terribly behind), a fever engulfs the small island in the Croatian Adriatic Sea I currently live on. The fever of the olive-picking season. It is the one time in the year when all hands are on deck. Depending on how many olive trees one has, … Read More
Celebrating Life
“If you need to get news about you dying [every moment of your life] from someone else, how firmly planted in the life are you?” ~Stephen Jenkinson The mind imagines that it has time. Snap out of it mind! Do you really need to be surprised when you finally realize that time has passed? Each moment of this deception is … Read More
Dialogue Between My Inner Writer and Me
My Inner Writer to Me: I love you. You are an amazing being who can help me express myself. I have so much to say and I need you to say these things. I have no fear, no limit. I am the Goddess within you. You give me a body so I can experience bodily life. So I can cry, … Read More
When we take a chance…
Are you mostly stuck in a rut wishing things were different? Are you obsessed with planning out your life and finding it upsetting when most of the time your plan does not happen exactly the way you wanted it? My answer to both of these questions until recently was a vehement ‘yes’. So here is another question: How often do … Read More
Beginner’s Mind
Today, the artist in me is on the fritz. Self-doubt is wriggling its ugly head. What am I thinking having a blog? Who am I kidding? What do I have to offer? I knew there were other blogs and other online material about getting off the hamster wheel of life, each one unique, each one offering precious nuggets of wisdom. … Read More
Salty Sardines
By now it is likely more than clear to all of you reading my blog that I have a conflicting relationship with my home country, Croatia. I hope some day something good will at last come out of it. According to a movie I recently saw in which a senior writer shared a nugget of his wisdom with a budding … Read More
So You Are Unemployed, or What?
You know how I quit my regular job and this time didn’t want to get another one lest that put me back on the hamster wheel? The kicker is that by putting myself out of the wheel and getting myself off the single career track, I’ve also placed myself outside of most recognizable boxes Croatian bureaucracy and a large part … Read More
Croatia the Beautiful
Growing up I resented my home country. I thought that having been born in Croatia, the world saw me as an end-of-the-rope, pathetic, never-going-to-make-it-in-life loser. I felt sorry for myself. I felt angry. Why couldn’t I have been born with a passport that meant something in this world? I left Croatia wanting to never go back. Ironically though, it seems … Read More
Snake Dreams
Last October I dreamed about a snake. It wasn’t just an ordinary snake. It was a sly snake carrying a message. She bit me on my index finger. I jumped in surprise and grew angry. How dares she bite me? She made camp on my parents’ balcony and feasted on leftover food my parents kept there. She seemed to enjoy … Read More
