Conejos

This week I was talking with my guru about how I feel that sometimes I'm not living. She said, you know that after all this time you need to keep living things in real life. For me real life mostly happens when I'm on the move. When I'm being nomadic or in travel mood, that's when I feel super super energetic. That's when I meet most people. That's when I meet my intrapersonal mind with my interpersonal one.

That's when I feel I'm trying to become WHOLE.

I feel it's good being with my own self, but I feel we all as humans feel WHOLE when we are with others. There's nothing better than seeing bright eyes, hearing soft voices and also communicating ideas.

That's nothing better than human feelings and being vulnerable to recognize we don't know most things and that we are always living and learning. That's why I love communicating in different languages so much even though sometimes I'm stuck in my own thoughts. Sometimes I even miss words of my Portuguese, sometimes I dont' want to use Portuguese at all. Sometimes I tell people I can speak French but let them know that I cannot translate or understand everything like in a recent episode in Pristina or when I was a mediating a conversation between a Brazilian and Cameroonians in Moscow. I recognize I'm not WHOLE, I'm still on the way, on a long one.

In "Untamed" by Glennon Doyle, becoming WHOLE is when you are in the process of knowing who you are and you're so free that you don't care what people think about you. Because you are trying to be and find yourself. My guru says I'm freer now than ever in spite of all the fears I still have.

Aiming to have a glimpse of what living feels like, I walk through Struga, see the snow and feel the cold winter that is coming. Then, I jump into the bus and go to Ohrid. Once I'm there I walk near the promerade and see a few couples. I see tourists but it's not high season.

I see the lake again and again from different angles. I imagine that perhaps if it was the Mediterranean sea, we would have seen soldiers arround in big boats.

But it's a lake. FUNNY Me. I imagine that soldiers in boats in the lake or walking near the city fortress would probably have fought centuries ago, what's something more likely.

I go to a church that's known as one of the spotlights of the whole country, the Church of St. John in Kaneo. I see a hill. I love hills because as Dionne Warwick sings "There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb". So I climb the hill, I see a gorgeous view that already told me to be grateful for the universe.

On my way back I meet another foreigner and we spent the day talking about many things I haven't talked in ages. From penguins to old buildings, travels to cultures and experiences.

The thing about meeting people with different ideas is that it's always a mix of thoughts, some disagreements in the middle but still fine. We don't have to agree. If they're straight, left-wing or muslim, they're all WHOLE. We are all humans and that's what makes humankind WHOLE!

What matters in the end is how many smiles we leave in the world and how many we share and appreciate too! So, if you ever go to Ohrid, I recommend going to the churches and to Leonardo Pizzeria like a fellow Macedonian near the Serbian border recommended me.

Some other places to check are the old town, the forest, the fortress and walking in the pier near the promenade. I saw ducks, birds and a bunch of animals taxonomists would love to check. And for eating, I went with chicken at the pizzeria I mentioned. The pizza was good, they call it Indiana. Loads of curry.

We went inside, one of the songs was 22 by Lilly Allen, and couldn't be any better. I love the British artists, but I dislike most of the British culture after my short 5 months there. The British people I miss there are up north, in Scotland. Besides them, I miss the Brazilian and Spanish friends I made in England :), and I do hope a dog named M. is in safe British hands. Last time I met the Brazilian ones, we went to a Mexican restaurant and in these last 12 months I realized one of my favorite places besides our gathering in England, was another time when I was in Barcelona. That day in Spain I still remember I tried conejo.

We were two, Adele was playing, he was asking have you ever tried conejo? Then, a bunch of languages came, I was like, no, but I'll go for it. This weekend in Ohrid I chose pollo!

Trying, living, trying, learning, losing, learning, exploring, befrending, seeing, realizing, learning, winning, understanding, realizing, loving, smiling, experimenting, losing, losing more, feeling, winning, becoming WHOLE. A long way, and I'm all for it.

365 days later, the thing is that afterwards I realized it's better being bitten by a bunny rather than having a heart attack. Let the week begin :))