Belgrade (Serbia)
20 AUG - 01 SEP
There's something about the sharpness of colour, the clarity and definition between the lush greens of the tall trees that surround the area of Topcider and their contrast against the rich blue of the skies that makes this time of year in Belgrade special. It reminds me of mid-April or mid-October in Sydney, the weather is mild, the skies appear to be brighter and the high running winds bring along those wispy sirrus clouds that almost look like brisk white brush strokes that you might find in an Impressionist piece.
I'm sitting in relatively large wooded area at the end of the street where my aunt/cousin lives. The leaves of the trees break down the sunlight into a type of beamed scatter gun affect, lighting up bits and pieces of the woods by its own design and will.This for me however is one my very favourite places. I remember walking through here as a five year old, my small hand clasped in the older weathered hands of my grandmother, taking me down to the local grocery store and me being excited as I knew that there was a playground in the park close to the store where I'd be able to play on the swings. Then there are also the memories of neighbourhood warfare and the toy guns that my cousin would fashion from planks of wood, a clothes line peg and a box full of elastic bands in true McGyver fashion. There are many memories, emotions and thoughts that I've left out in these woods over the years that I've been coming to Belgrade, the ghosts of which seem remain long after the time I've returned back home to Sydney. Occassionally when I walk through here I run into one of these ghosts unexpectedly and then for just a split second I'll be that 21 yr old guy that's just had his heart broken, and in that very instant I swear I can feel that same gut wrenching helplessness that I experienced years earlier (yeah Micha, you know what I'm talking about! ;) ... or at other times I'll run into that 30yr old guy who was completely disillusioned and who betrayed his own better judgment by trying to maintain a shambolic marriage. Conversely there are some ghosts that I do deliberately seek out and sometimes I have the good fortune of running into that happy, optimistic 16yr old or even that 9yr old that felt it was perfectly normal to have most of his family on the other side of the world and be able to visit them nearly every year. Sitting here and listening to the sound of the rustling leaves as the wind carries the ghosts of my past memories through this space I wonder if maybe one day I'll walk through here again and be lucky enough to run into that 35yr old guy that stepped out into the world for a minute and took some time out to enjoy himself, get a little perspective and recalibrate. I think that if I ran into that guy I'd be more than happy to sit down here for a while and look out aimlessly into these woods with a nice little grin on my face and know that I made a decision that was 100% right for me at the time.
In the same sort of vein, my dad went chasing some ghosts of his own a day or so earlier. On this occassion my dad took my cousin and I around the area where he grew up until the age of nine, until such time that the Americans kindly dropped a bomb on his family's flat and buried them all for something like 6hrs. As we walked around his old territory and started wondering along his street I noticed his tempo pick up and can tell that his mind is working overtime as a hundred memories come flooding back to him. We enter through the gate of one apartment residence and walk into a back garden. He shows me where he and his cousin used to play football and then tells me the story of how his cousin had the capacity to make any kid cry, specifically telling me of one instance he can vividly remember. He then looks into an empty space between the standing apartment blocks and points out an area where his family home use to be. He's uncertain of where the bomb hit exactly but explains that in the immediate vicinity there were three or four people that died, how all his family survived is something that he can't answer. I look around this place and wonder what may have happened if that bomb hadn't hit and how highly probable it would be that if it hadn't,well, perhaps I wouldn't be standing here with him as the whole chain of events that were set in motion at that point wouldn't have existed. Life can be kind of arbitrary in that sense. As we stand there in silence for a few moments I look at him and can see his mind ticking over, probably thinking how strange it is for him that some 70 yrs ago he had a life in this very space that is now vacant - I think to myself how odd that must be, and how unfair it is that such abrupt changes were made on his life without having any real opportunity of choice.
Some time later we walk the few hundred metres to the school that he attended until his family were made to leave Belgrade. On this day the school is empty as it's the day before the start of a new school year. Walking up to the door he somehow manages to encounter the headmaster who kindly listens to his old stories and takes him on a short tour of the halls that he use to know. Watching him walk through the doors that are the entrance to the school I'm certain that for while on this day my dad also ran into a few ghosts of his own and the films of those memories that played in his mind would have for an instant have taken him back to another time and another place. I think for all of us those memories are kind of nice to have and sometimes chasing those ghosts provides you with the opportunity to immerse yourself in a certain place in time, and even if it's for the briefest of moments - it ain't bad.
