Croatia first smelled of sea— the sourness of fish came upon me when I stepped out of the car in Dubrovnik— sour but not unpleasant, then lightened into salt in the breeze. Later it was layered with fresh bread and sugared pastries from the bakery below on the steep hill.
This is the first solo trip abroad I have taken in many years, since I developed my chronic illness and all that it entails. I mean to remind myself of my power, the parts I have lost with the salary and stability, the sides of myself that only really come out in places unknown.
Trees grow out of nothing here. Cracks in the cement, in ancient urns mounted on the sides of cathedrals, gnarled vines reaching to strips of sky through narrow streets, figs perched in fortresses. So much of this city had been destroyed by the “Homeland war.” I saw the faces of Dubrovnik Defenders— black and white photos lining a room in one of the palaces. Much of the walls have been rebuilt, the white cubes symetrical and starkly contrasting to the darker, more textured original. But still the scars show, and the trees grow out of cracks in the pavement.
Traveling alone I hear things I shouldn’t. Answer questions that are not asked of me, often. Otherwise I am left alone with the thoughts spoken in my head, sometimes spinning in circles, and the toll of the bells, the horns of the ferries. I miss the call to prayer, my reminder of mindfulness. I should find another here.
Instead I become bold again, make friends, and take a lover.
A cute couple in the corner swaying and smiling. I like your sunflower hat. Where did you get it? They’re American too, best friends and friendly. I dare you to go up to someone and say why don’t Croatians dance? I challenge them, mostly because I have eyed a tall dark-haired man with a chiseled chin sitting on a stool in the corner and want to light a fire under my liquid courage.
He’s sweet, shy, makes me smile. He feels younger but not terribly so. We talk and drink and kiss, and he takes me to the club downstairs next door to watch Croatians dance, prove to me they can and do, but by then I am too tired so I take him home, promising nothing because I am not that kind of girl and making sure he doesn’t get the wrong idea, I don’t do one night stands.
“Technically I will probably come to America sometime so it will not be a one night stand.” Still, it won’t happen. I don’t trust men with my body like that anymore, never really did to begin with.
The first day had been nearly perfect. I climbed the highest mountain, looked out over the ancient city, wandered its streets and fortresses, drank next to the cliff-strewn sea, chased peacocks over a monastery island, pulled urchin needles from my foot and forged on, sat upon the iron thrown, tasted local wine and beer and put myself out there again in this world.
In the morning, I woke alone. He’d said goodbye and kissed me maybe. I had been more than half asleep, it had been so early it wasn’t quite light yet. He’d left his shirt but not his number. What would I have done with it anyhow, I wondered, and how did it make me feel to not have an chance of seeing him again, a different sudden kind of closure, and whether he had to go to work because I realized I hadn’t asked where he had to be when I didn’t have to be anywhere else for once. I kept his shirt.
I continued my solo adventures, exploring rocky cliffs, white sand stretches, turquoise waters and cobblestone ways, until I run back into one of my American friends. She lives 30 minutes from where I do in North Carolina and grew up 30 minutes from where I did in California. Sometimes when you decide to leave the world alone, it brings you back a piece of home I suppose. So we become partners in crime or at least in beaches and wine.
“This is honey grappa, something light to cheers with,” opens our meal.
“I’m a bitch about wine, I dated a sommelier and lived next to one,” she tells me. “And I never negotiate with food.” I don’t think I have ever tried to.
“The black truffles are a very special and traditional Croatian food. They are found with dogs. The best way to find them is with pigs, though but they are very hard to train.” I didn’t know that, I always thought pigs found them. “Yes, but they find them and they eat them.” Who could blame them? Humans and pigs are really not so different.
“I’m glad we got the mushroom soup, I needed water,” she says. “This is my way of getting water.” The food is fabulous, and I love having company to enjoy it. “Now, you don’t have to hold onto this memory alone.”
I make it to my final destination, or so I think. Pedro checks me in to his hotel, and though it feels late to me, and I haven’t eaten real dinner, when he offers a grappa I say yes.
He was proud of the Croatian brandy he served me, one dark made by his father, full of herbs—to cure covid, he joked. The other light, made by his mother, he couldn’t tell me what was in it either, he didn’t know.
They were a loud people he said, their language harsh, and when they spoke they became animated, passionate. I had seen it, in a pizzeria my first night. A group of older men seeming to yell at each other, without any sports game going on, and mussed about what they spoke of, perhaps something completely mundane like the weather.
He talks of this place, his family. His grandparents who had streets named after them, who died in the building of that square, who were war prisoners and heroes. These are the places you should tell me to see, I said, gesturing to the map he had laid out, not only the palace. He told me generations of stories, all of it because I had asked whether there had been any favorite donkeys in the family when the people had lived with them as pets for warmth in winter. There had been one.
The center of Split is ancient, white, beautiful, wise-stoned, and teeming with tourists as they do. I climb the tower, visit the tomb, and when I go to check in for my flight the next day, I learn it doesn’t exist any more. Hasn’t for a while, but no one told me, and no one will really help me find a way to get home. But I need my medicine and miss my dog, and I am tired of this city already, yearning for my stability and porch, so I have a little cry and a little wine, and pull my shit together and decide to drive across the country and fly out a day later instead of staying and leaving it to them to figure out. I have never rented my own car in another country. I struggle to drive at night with my eyes. I feel overwhelmed and brave.
I do it. I make a day of it. I stop in Plitvice National Park and walk through waterfalls and caves and moss-covered lakes and mountains. I drive through Zagreb in the dark to see the museum of broken hearts and the object remnants, to have a last supper, duck salad, walk the plaza, and return the rental car with the windows fogged, freaking out about where the key drop and parking spot was. But I did it. By myself. I still can. I proved it to me, and I feel capable and confident and able again finally. I feel my heart open and myself back as the flight takes off towards the home.
