Mapping the Gap

Here we are in a town we’d never heard of two months ago.  We’re settled in, waving to the neighbours, finding the best produce, with light-switches, faucets, and coffee all sorted.  Home is now a traditional Macedonian three-story AirB&B in “The Pearl of the Balkans:” Lake Ohrid.  This prehistoric lake didn’t exist in our minds or on our itinerary until I had a chance conversation with a Worldschooling mother in Hoi An last April.  When I said we were going to Skopje for a week, she said, “Just Skopje? Aren’t you going to the lake?” “What lake?”  Here we are.  Home for the month of June.  This is the type of spontaneity we wanted to invite on our Gap Year, to be guided by wispy leads that become realities, to not be in control of all the details, to allow Fortune to take the wheel on occasion. It’s been a bless-ed whim.

We had originally planned to be in Sarajevo for the month of June.  Come to think of it, as I reread those words, “Sarajevo for the month of June,” I realise they always felt like gravel coming out of my mouth.  I’m going to look out for that sensation in the future.  That was an inkling I repeatedly ignored.  Then again, how many people probably flinched when I said those words?  I mean, who spends a month in Sarajevo?  Sounded risqué, a bit audacious.  You know, like we might be going someplace before it becomes hip or we might uncover something special in the prolonged stay.  Or something. 

Well, during our days in Vietnam, this month of June kept surfacing from the floodwaters of my mind.  I kept discovering myself pacing back and forth, furrowing my brow about June.  When I trailed the paces, I found myself circling Sarajevo with scepticism.  Again and again.  I joined some Facebook groups and some WhatsApp chats for expats.  I started planting seeds for friends and meet-ups.  Although I did get flickers of promising action, it was mostly a lot of adult events and melancholic parents of pent-up toddlers.  Hmmm.  I wanted this to work.  My partner was very excited about this destination.  He had sent me a document with a list of links back in Australia.  “Sarajevo looks great,” was the subject line.  I didn’t even click the links at the time.  He was clearly smitten with the city, so I said, “Book it, babe.” And he did.  Flights and all.  Well, then, a little while later, a couple of month-long-stays wiser, I started to worry.  Without any new information, I kept finding my mother mind in worry. 

So, I took a closer look at our AirB&B booking.  We’ve learned a lot in a couple months on the road.  There are a few key things our family needs for extended sustainment.  If we didn’t get the digs right, these month-long stays could be a serious sentence of hard time.  We knew what we needed:  1) My partner needs to run video panels with a green screen at 2am without waking the whole house. 2) The boys need separate spaces, at least three rooms in total to allow peace a fighting chance. 3) A decent kitchen- five is a lot of bellies to feed three meals a day. 4) A big table or multiple small ones for schoolwork and dining. 5) Ideally, four separate beds (but we can work with whatever).  Of course, consistent WIFI and a washing machine are musts.  Greenspace outside the door is a bonus too.

It’s always a fun puzzle to try to piece together what’s what through the photo gallery on AirB&B.  Our Sarajevo place was one of those listings that had close-ups of all the charming details: artful doorknobs, a beautifully painted fruit bowl, brass Ottoman light fixtures, and a colourfully distressed cabinet.  Super atmospheric and persuasive.  Upon closer inspection, though, you guessed it, I found the source of my intuitive circling.  When I considered all the camera angles and looked beyond the exotic fixtures, I realised that the boys were slated to sleep all together in an open loft over the kitchen-slash-living-room, and also that said kitchen had only a sink and two burners, no countertop space at all.  This apartment for five people had one bedroom with a door and only a coffee table and wooden-backed sofa for dining, study, recreation, and an eight-hour workday.  Oh, and a couple squat, backless stools. The idea of making coffee in the morning without waking the boys was foolishly hopeful- an absolute essential for my mental health.  The big tv-voice projection that accompanies the green screen at 2am was completely out of the question- a threat to all of our sanities.  The month of June would have been a house of horrors.  A bow of gratitude, once again, to my niggling source guidance.  Thank you for your persistence.

We looked for other places in Sarajevo, but nothing sufficient appeared.  My partner kept saying that they had a great children’s war museum, that the culture of the city was special, that WWI began here, but in the end, nothing looked like what we needed within our price range.  Instead, we shifted our sights to the lake we’d overlooked in North Macedonia.  We looked to Lake Ohrid, the oldest lake in Europe, a lake that predates the Ice Age.  It’s between two and ten million years old.  (Numbers get a bit fudgy when you get in the millions, I guess.)   Here, near Lake Ohrid’s majestic shores, we have found a haven, a much-needed harbour in which to dock and drift a bit.  Gentle progress has been at work here.  Space.  Light.  Recovery.  Integration.  Which might make for a boring scroll, I’m afraid to say.  Apologies, dear reader.  We’ve been taking it easy.

Our house is situated beneath Samoil’s Fortress.  I haven’t really dug into the history of this structure yet. This is the beauty of “slow travel.”  No rush.  So far, this stone beast is just significant as a backdrop to our little story.  In this way (and many others), history is current.  In this way, people of the past continue to be relevant to lives of the present.  I feel them here, the people who paved the paths, who carried the stones, who crafted the steps, who stacked the fortification.  We look upon them every day.  We feel their mark under our feet.  In this way, they live on in our story surreptitiously.  The rise, crest, and fall of so many lifespans can be felt and understood if we allow our imagination to really have a session of vision.  I’m enjoying this period of not knowing the history of this fort.  It affords me the pleasure of unarticulated relations with the past.  I can just open myself and feel what’s around.  It’s really quite the quiet and powerful indulgence.  “Slow travel” is good like that.

The fortress wall is perched on the edge of a hill in view of our upper balcony, and after experiencing an infusion of energy from this splendid spread of earth one morning, I promised myself (and the trees) to run or walk around it every day we are here.  Each day since, I have felt a gentle magnetic pull to visit this hillside.  The inclined land around this small fortress-topped promontory is laced with a network of stone paths leading to ancient churches, modern cafes, beaches, benches, and viewing points.  Interlaced within this city-designed network is another system of walker-made paths, dirt ones made by shoes and paws.  I’m getting to know all of the passageways.  Feels like learning a new lover (without the wrongdoing), and I’m loving every curve I discover.  

This ancient hillside is a mix of pine forest, patches of wildflower meadow, moss-covered boulders, ivy groundcover, the odd pile of once-structural stones, and breaks in the trees that offer expansive views of placid blue all the way to the mountainous skyline of Albania, which shares the lake to the southwest.  A soundscape of birdsong quivers the ears, sending sensations of aliveness through any lucky walker of these paths.  I think this musical magic works whether the person is aware of it or not.  It’s a gift ever-flowing from the trees here.  Along these unpopulated paths, an olfactory symphony of botanical scents simultaneously plays on the memory.  So many familiar fragrances.  So deeply known.  So mine.  There is a pre-existing intimacy here, yet I am a foreigner.  This is all native to me, yet I only visit.  It’s private, and yet I know I am not alone. 

My favourite acquaintances on these walks and runs are the tortoises that have been popping up everywhere.  Hermann’s Tortoise, to be specific.  My first encounter was on a run through an unpaved path, a dirt trail lined with golden-tasselled grass.  Just as I jogged along, a tortoise stepped into the narrow strip of track ahead.  I stopped mid-stride, delighted to be met by such a sweet form.  I said a little hello (as you should) and encouraged him out of his shell to carry on his way.  After a moment’s hesitation, his little head emerged from the classically patterned shell, and I gazed at the gentle eyes with appreciation for his humble passage, the constancy of his roaming pace, and the softness with which he treads our shared planet.  It was a beautiful moment to savour. But I was aware he may not have felt the same way, so I didn’t linger. 

When I bid him farewell, and we went our separate ways, I carried this gentleness with me. “Slow down, sister.  Have a stroll,” was the silent message he imparted.  I did mosey a bit after that.  Back at home, I looked up the symbolism of the tortoise in different cultures.  The common themes are expected: longevity, wisdom, patience, and protection- exactly what I’d hoped to summon on these fortress runs.  As always, Nature soothes, guides, and rouses.  What a gift to have landed here.

On either side of these hillside excursions, each day in Ohrid begins and ends on a balcony.  In the morning, on the lower balcony outside our bedroom, I light a candle and use the flame to set the incense burning.  Then I journal, meditate, write this blog, stare out at the sky, research, plan, sketch, message friends, and do whatever the hell I want or need to.  It’s relished time.  My partner brings me coffee, and life is quite for a spell.  It’s medicinal.  This balcony gives the light, the air, and the green needed to ground me to this unusual passage of time. Gap Year Time moves differently than normal life.  I’m watching it unfurl, and the grapevines that hang on the balcony are a reminder of the becoming that’s happening all around. 

When we arrived two weeks ago, the vines were just peaking over the railing of our lower balcony, touting a dozen clusters of tiny, will-be grape buds.  Now, the vines that were in their gentle springtime stretches are the greedy groping tentacles of Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors.  I’ve been tucking and twisting them around the railing, trying to save our view and my chatty husband from complete envelopment.  This perceptible growth is really a treat to watch though.  This is why so many people love gardening.  The tending and observance of a plant’s becoming allows one to recognise the passage of time in one’s own life.  The maturation of ideas, the evolution of a struggle, the perpetual playing of the scenes and acts of one’s life are all in tandem with the Earth’s green flourishings, undriven by human hand.  It’s life.  It’s the miraculous becoming of life.  And it’s just hanging there on the railing, bouncing in the breeze, synthesising sunlight into becoming. It’s potent medicine.

Our family is advancing alongside these vines and the little, green grape blossoms that are starting to be visited by the bees.  Potential and possibility swell all around.  What promises are pollinating?  What bulbs of juicy fruit are in the budding?  What marvellous flavours are gathering their chemical characteristics to become the fulfilment of human and vegetal assignments in life?  There’s a lot of becoming around here, a lot seedlings of impending bloom.  And there are lots of growing pains to prove the progress.  Lots of stretching and reaching.  Lots of twisting and tucking.  Lots of tending and observing.  It’s achy and angsty.  Beautiful and blinding.  It’s fleeting and expanding. These boys are becoming.  Aren’t we all though?  All of us lifeforms are always becoming.  Ceaselessly.  ‘Til fade to black.  I take pleasure to ponder it all.

Each day also ends on a balcony.  The upper one. Sometimes before dinner.  Sometimes after.  Sometimes with wine or beer.  Sometimes with chocolate or cheese. While the boys entertain themselves with drawing, screens, and other antics, my partner and I sit on the balcony in pillow-padded chairs and take in the clay rooftops of Ohrid.  From our perch, the small sea of houses is ringed with a spectrum of hazy blue mountains, snail-paced wedding-cake clouds, and whatever light-play pleases the sun that evening.  We chat and sit silent.  We wander in and out of musings.  This is the recuperation we sorely needed. 

Traveling reveals the utility of roots in life. It strains the spirit to live unplanted, we have learned.  These month-long pauses allow our family to soak hydration and nutrients into our tendrilled anchors before we ask them to extract again.  After two more weeks of Ohrid’s safe harbour, we have six weeks of “fast travel” ahead.  During this time, we will move through six countries, joining familiar faces in four.  After that, we have six weeks in Spain, and then back to the rusty-red soils of Australia we will go.  It feels a long way away, but what a relief that’ll be. This Gap Year has been worth every labour, but nomads, we are not.  That is clear. How happy our roots will be to rest, to reach deep, to know, at last, no more will be asked of them.  For now though, I’ll just nourish myself on fortress runs and balcony suns and gather gumption to hit the road once again.  Much grand adventuring lies ahead before these ragged roots will see rest. Now is a time to fortify and stock the energetic reserves for the path ahead. Lake Ohrid is the perfect place to do this gentle work.