Visiting Ohrid: Another Kind of Distance

“And when silence reigned long on my tongue and my lips were sealed with only a smile, fresh, unbrave thoughts emerged and were heard in my skull, never birthed in an era where they could’ve been loosed.” – Old Sean

Silence on the Land

Following my whirlwind tour of Europe, I had month to rest in Ohrid, Macedonia.  I spent the entire time writing.

During my entire stay, I avoided speaking, I forsook internet, music and a couple of other vices. My only frequent treats were extended walks to clear an admittedly cluttered head.  And cheap local pastas.  In that regard, I may have overindulged.

In hindsight, I didn’t pick the best place for a writing/work binge. 

Ohrid is far too beautiful. 

The AirB&B I’m based out of overlooks the enormous blue lake, a sea unto itself until the sun comes up. Then, Albanian mountains rise on the opposite end. 

Everything is framed from above by the rustic red roof tiles, and autumn tones are beginning to interspace the great swaths of green on mountains in a riot of color.  The sole exception is a great blacked scar where a controlled burn cut through the land on my second day here.

Writing in Ohrid

While in Ohrid, I kept myself locally mobile. Every bump of writer’s block was an excuse to go jogging, to hunt for coffee or to hike through the night to an obscure hill. 

I’ve woken up to blearily watch sunrises on the eastern mountains while sipping tea and grimacing at my poorly cooked eggs.

I’ve made delicious poor-man’s pizza before hiking to ancient churches and amphitheaters.

On quiet days, I entertained black and orange cats on my balcony before putting obscene amounts of effort trying to prevent them from sneaking inside with me.

During the evenings, I piled up a veritable nest of blankets to defeat the nightly chills.

On slanted-sun mornings, I hung black socks in patches of sunlight to warm my feet up before going on walks. 

I’ve wandered down perfectly cobbled roads in the upper towns where people burn sweet-smelling chunks of expertly split wood in chimneys and walked under patio gardens sagging with autumn grapes.

I’ve passed by tourists who watch me hiking about in shorts with a kind of wry disbelief and let my well-trimmed beard and poorly-trimmed hair grow to redefine the word “shaggy.” 

On occasion, I bought eggs and disproportionately expensive cheese in the downtown shopping center and precariously balanced them both on my teetering hands when striding back uphill.

During weekdays, I pressed myself against rough, white walls to let taxis canter past and pet the various, unabashedly friendly dogs around the city.

Living here has been like a dream. I don’t have to budget or think about anything beyond what work I want to personally accomplish. Words spill out and I simple pick them up once in a while.

Impressions Around Ohrid

When I’m not writing, I’m walking. After so long on the road, my feet grow restless often and I have trouble staying seated for long periods of time.

There’s a low, flat marsh on the far side of the city I tended to hike through on lazy days, especially when I’m in a desperate need for the lakeside.  The water is so clear, half the time it looks like the seagulls are floating on glass.  There are always thousands of minnows hugging the shoreline, peering up at walkers expectantly. 

On the more ambitious days I wandered up to the fortress to poke around, because no matter how you cut it, there’s something odd about a lakeside, hilltop fortress.  From up here, there’s a flagpole back near the shore that’s always easy to spot when I’m looking down. 

When the winds are tame and the Macedonian flag hangs in a triangle, I often imagine it’s an elaborate ship with sharply cut sails is returning from an ambassadorial meeting from Albania.

Well Made Mute

My sleep schedule the entire time has been absolutely butchered.  I worked somewhere between ten and twenty hours a day, with no regard for morning or night aside from weekly shopping runs. There were days where I would do nothing more than go back and berate myself while regarding what I’ve already written. 

To be frank, living abroad, struggling to find a place to sleep in a country where I’m illiterate or stretching my last can of beans for a week doesn’t stress me out. But editing sure as hell does.

The most interesting phenomena that I got to experience during this whole experiment was silence. 

I spent thirty days without a single word spoken.  I’ve always wanted to try a retreat where nobody is allowed to speak and everyone communicates in perpetual silence.

Interestingly, when I’m writing or making food, my inner monologue is as loud and resounding as ever.  I don’t notice a single difference within me.  The only time I really noticed I was being quiet was during my jaunts outside. Amongst others, I tapped my musician’s earplug and spiraled my hands in short gestures to indicate an inability to speak, which people responded to in a variety of ways. 

It seems that silence, much like conversations, isn’t worth a damn unless there’s someone to experience it.  Who knew you needed other folks for a good, meaningful silence?

Pitfalls of Lifestyle

My biggest fear during my silence was depression.  Not that I’m a depressed person; quite the opposite.  I tend to have too much motion in my feet and belly for many opportunities to gain a real sense of it. 

Regardless, despite my concerns of depression rising during my solitude in Macedonia, I underwent no such trials.  Something about writing for extended periods of time skews my brain cells into a strange place.

My peace has remined constant and fruitful.

A Stately Mythos

And now it’s all done. 

My travels are on the verge of completion. 

Or, in theory, they should be.  I left the United States two years ago and crammed as much ridiculousness and blaringly terrible decisions as I could within that time frame. I was under the impression that my return home would feel like an actual ending statement. Or a return to the familiar, certainly.

But no, something else kind of tapped around in my skull instead.

There’s a certain mythos surrounding America in general and the United States in particular. 

It’s something one starts to become aware of no matter where you go, because regardless of time and place and people, everyone interacting with the fabric of the modern world has an opinion of the US, a perception ingrained in them. 

Perhaps a man in Pakistan doesn’t have much to say about Bolivia. And a woman in France avoids pondering the impact of Sri Lanka, but everyone has something to say on the US.

And I think that perception, that mythos, is what I’ve gained abroad.  We rarely think of what’s familiar to us as something obscure, unique or intriguing.  But the longer I’m away, the easier it is to have my awareness molded from the outside.

It’s similar to the nuances of an acquaintance compared to the aspects of someone who has been known deeply for an extended time. 

For example, it’s no trouble for me to tell you Dave from work is a hard-working guy who likes grey vests and blue shirts with a dry sense of humor, because for me, there’s nothing nuanced in that experience. 

But how does one say the same thing about, say, my father?  Yes, he does have a bit of wry humor on the edges, but there’s a passive and accepting undercurrent about it and as a son, maybe there are the paradox hints of higher expectation pattering around within.  And when I try to describe my father to my friends abroad, I encompass more of him than I ever could with Dave, but as a result, give an entirely incorrect impression compared if they were to meet him firsthand. 

The more deeply someone is known, the more impossible it is to describe them concisely without putting in exceptions and contradictions and quirks and paradoxes embedded within a personality.

Hence, my relationship with the States is similar in this way. 

This past two years of an outside vantage point has selectively annihilated an easy and comprehensive view, already diluted from a long-standing inside perspective.  The reverence behind the country, the dismissiveness of obscure, opposing factions, the sheer volume in its motion, the pervasive quiet of thousands of eddies of sub-history submerged invisibly in a vast, twisting flow.

Paradoxes.

I think I am very fortunate that I have an innate talent for loving paradoxes.

Homeward

I suppose that’s what I’m returning to.  Not a sense of the homestead and edgeless familiarity and a sliding back into old habits and untainted American-ness.

But instead, I’ll be reaching for something something sharper, with more edges, more oddities, further adventure, all undoubtedly romanticized from time abroad.

There is nothing within me that feels like I am coming home.  I’ll be in London for a week or two for a job interview.  But then it’s time for me to fly back to an old haunt with fresh eyes.

So, see you soon, winter states.

Best regards and excellent trails,

Old Sean

Written October 22nd 2018

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