Gizela

My mom said just yesterday: "In fact, she was a charismatic person." The only imperfection in her lifestory was that there were no people who followed her charisma.

A beautiful young lady

She was born to a beautiful young woman, Marija, and a beautiful young man, Franc. Fabčič was her maiden family name. She was born as an Italian because today's Slovenia used to be a part of Italy then. Her first years were quite happy ones, although she did never tell us so. She admired her granddad Luka, because he was a rich and capable man. She tried to please her dad, who was in fact beating his wife from time to time. And then, just before the WW2, her mother died at the age of 45. A little girl was then taken to her relatives, where kind people tried to comfort her. But she kept crying. Her father decided then to take her to other relatives, where she was treated badly and worked as a maiden servant. She was 12 at that time. Interesting, that she stretched those two years and a half into an infinity, all she could remember from her youth were those years of hard work. She kept telling us the same story over and over again, as if there was no other life after that.

But there was life after that, after the war, when she went to work to the other part of Slovenia. She met her future husband there, got pregnant and, of course, married him. Several hard years followed, when she was often hungry. She waited for her first cooking pot in a line all night. She kept telling us this story, over and over again, as if there were, again, no other, happier stories to tell. My mom was born soon after her marriage, some years later also her son, my uncle Aleš, who died suddenly last year in August at the age of 60.

With her husband, Franc.

She was only 41 when I, her first grandchild, was born and she was retired only about a decade later. She worked hard, always. In her home, in her garden. She didn't like to travel, her life was her garden. Her home was a tidy place, I have never seen a tidier one. She always had to be no. 1. And as long as her husband was alive, it was so. She spent the last 7 years alone. She stopped to exercise each morning soon after his death, but not of sadness but because she had no one anymore to prove that she was the best wife in the world.

In her garden ("ranch") two years ago.

She got sick about three years ago. Diagnosed with a cancer. We were not allowed to tell anyone about her illness. She did not believe in her recovery, she despised doctors. When she could not live by herself anymore, she moved to the old people's home, where she passed away yesterday, at 4.30 in the morning.

I was quite shocked when she told me a few months ago that she had never really loved my granddad. "Why did you marry him?" I asked. "Because he was the only one who was kind to me," she answered. 

And recently she's said: "I am sorry that I worked that hard," realising that nothing would remain after her when she's gone.

Her last word to me a week ago was: "Čau." Goodbye, grandmom! She would celebrate her 89th birthday on Wednesday.

Independence

It is hard to believe that Spain still lives in the Middle ages.
Good luck, Catalans! I keep fingers crossed for you!

A new job

People have to kind of find their own level, hack their own way through the jungle, and in that respect we've mostly turned out okay.
~ Justin Cartwright, Leading the Cheers

Finally I am off the pills, but my back is still rather tight and I suppose it will get better after quite some time. I hope that I will get some good advice what to do to heal it completely later this week at the physiotherapy.

I start it the same day as my new job. Yes, a new job, finally! Although I will be able to keep it only by the end of this year, it is as precious as pure gold. I know already that I will work very hard and that the job will not be really for my liking, but at least I won't have to think every day if I earned enough money with the guided tours to pay my bills. It comforts me a bit that I will be still able to work as a guide in my free time.

Cold months of the year are ahead of us and I am glad that at last my life will get the rythm I so long wished for. But first of all I will have to take care of my health. This means a lot of all sorts of recreation, not just hiking to the mountains from time to time.

Yes, my precious mountains ... it's hard to tell how much I miss them. This mountain season is unfortunatelly over for me ... but it seems like the weather is on my side, at least for now (in the picture which I took yesterday on my short walk are flooded meadow and field --- we will get another "shipment" of rain today and tomorrow).

The recovery

My recovery is slow but life is getting back to its normal track. Of course my idea was that Ž will pamper me just a little bit, but how wrong I was about this! It is amazing how busy life is back at home. E-mails, phone calls, but to my surprise most people are not asking, how am I doing, but when will I be back working. Soon, is all I can tell. I wish I had so much work during spring and summer months and not now, when there are other plans on my schedule. Because while I was lying in the hospital, I received a call that will change my life quite a bit. But more about this next week.

Some rainy days will follow and I will try to make the most of them. Mostly trying to rest, and, of course, to walk, to excercise, because all these things will help my body to recover. And I will try to capture these last days of summer (oh, how much I miss the warmth!) through the lens of my camera. To remember how it was.

A week in a hospital

Accept the place the divine providence has found for you.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things are not always as we want them to be, and sometimes sudden events completely change our lives. I am still not aware of how much my life will change after one single wrong move, but I do know that life will be a little bit different from now on.

It was Thursday, 24th August, when I was helping my mom in the garden. She is not as fit anymore as she used to be (oh, neither am I), so I picked a bag full of vegetables to carry it to her car. One wrong move caused a strong pain in my back. Less than an hour later I was lying on the floor in front of my bed, not able to move. Ž couldn't pick me up or help me any other way, the pain was just too strong. I called an ambulance, what else could I do? A doctor came, gave me some pills which didn't help at all.

The next morning I called an ambulance again and they drove me to the hospital. The pain was unbearable. Lots of doctors came to see me, nobody knew what was wrong with me. I was lying there for hours, painkillers slowly leaking into my veins, but they didn't help at all. In the evening I was finally accepted into the hospital to stay there overnight. Or, better said, to stay there for another week.

Time went slowly or fast, it depended on a day, besides I was lucky that two women in the same room were a pleasant company during the first three days. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we were just alone with our own thoughts. It is amazing, how life slows down and nothing else but ourselves matters.

Further examinations showed that my back did not suffer any major injuries and it will, luckily, heal over time. All I need now is a lot of rest and most of all, a lot of exercise. Yes, I know, my laziness brought me all the way to this.

My head is dizzy of all the medicaments that I am taking right now, but hopefully by the end of this week I will stop taking them completely. Life slowed down, and I am grateful for this. Oh, so grateful! And I am grateful to all those nurses and doctors (females and males) who took care of me during those long days and nights, sometimes also with humour when nothing else helped. Thank you!

Summer reading

At a certain age all the questions a person asks him or herself are really just about one thing: how should you live your life? ~ Fredrik Backman

I've read a couple of books this summer which I could easily put on "my favorites" list. One of them was Britt-Marie was here by Fredrik Backman and the other one was Leading the cheers by Justin Cartwright. Both of them are in a way connected with what I feel right now, with how I live at the moment. They made me think of what I should really do with my life. Because things have to change, no matter how good my life looks from someone else's perspective.

A human being, any human being at all, has so perishingly few chances to stay right there, to let go of time and fall into the moment. And to love someone without measure. Explode with passion. ~ Fredrik Backman

Did you ever love anyone without measure? I was lucky enough that I did.

Mountains keep calling me

I made plans last year on top of which mountains I want to stand this year, but achieving this seems to be far from easy. Either I work either the weather is bad, the other day I injured my foot, several days it was too hot. Besides I am not as fit as I planned to be. Dreaming a lot but achieving too little. Though, most of all I am really tired of the work I did during winter and spring. Days and days of study are taking their toll now, as all I want to do is rest just a little bit longer.

But, when I am finally up there, I am extremely happy. :) So, why wait, right?

Who's guiding who?

I got my first job at the Ministry of work and I would have built a great career by today. But ... B was the one who had wanted me to work in the company owned by his family, so I simply left the ministry and started to work for them. Six years of boredom, of zero personal growth followed. Although it was hard when he left me, I see very clearly today that I could never be who I am if I still had the job in that company. Also, I would never be who I am if I stayed at the ministry. Comfortable life, that's what I would have had but I would never know people I call friends today. And I am grateful for this. For people who spend days with me, chat with me, go out with me on adventures or just for a coffee or an ice cream, discuss things with me about what we do or about life and world in general, ...

Yesterday I spent a day with one of such friends. He also works as a guide, and this time it was me who was guided by him. He led, I followed. He showed me his hometown, the places where he spends most of his free time. There were the waterfalls, the coldness of the forest through which we walked, the ideas which we exchanged, the stories he told. And of course, deserved ice cream at the end of our trek. Before we said goodbye to each other, we sat on the grass on top of the hillock above his hometown and made plans for our next joint adventure. What a wonderful day it was!

Garden goodness

For quite some years I kept receiving the mail of another man here in our village, because he has the same house number as I have it (although the name of the street is, of course, not the same). Ž knew who this man was, so when he stopped at the local cafe for the coffee, he also gave him his mail. And at the same time I received mine. Then, luckily, we got a new postman.

This man who was receiving my mail is my father's age but over the years we became colleagues. By coincidence he offered us to have our vegetable garden near his house this year. We accepted. The location is a little bit farther than the previous one but it is far more pleasant and easier to keep the garden neat. Last year slugs did their proper job and ate almost half of the vegetables and berries. This year we don't have this problem. Usually we didn't have to water the vegetables but the soil in this garden is a little bit different. Though, the underground water is just a couple of meters from the garden itself and the watering system is in these days, when it is really hot, in permanent use.

Abundance, that's how I would describe our garden this year.

On duty

Not only being a city guide in Ljubljana, in the National Museum of Slovenia and in the Ljubljana Marsh, I also passed the tests this spring to become a tourist guide in Vrhnika, a smaller town about half an hour’s drive from Ljubljana. Our greatest writer and dramatist Ivan Cankar was born there and, of course, most of what we tell to those who want to listen, is about his life. We, the guides, are also on duty in the so called Ivan Cankar’s commemorative house, called like that because he was not born in it but in the house which had stood there before. That house was burnt to the ground 138 years ago when Ivan Cankar was 3 years old.

So, four hours on duty (only about a week in a month) brings me that peace that I needed so much. My life has been a real chaos for about five years. It seems that I’ve been wandering aimlessly through my life all this time, trying to find the right place to fit in. And being there, showing the visitors the house and explaining them about the life of our greatest writer, feels good. I can share my knowledge with others and this feels so good, as it brings the rhythm back into my life. I guess that also driving slowly through the countryside to reach Vrhnika from my home adds to this.

What I also found in Vrhnika are new colleagues, new friends, people who “speak” the same language as me. Could I ask for more?