There are times when I do not know what to cook (and cook one must). I overturn inwardly, my bowels, and I’m deaf to their ideas. I take ” disheveled scrap-scratch pad” – a home cookbook (Food network does not help) and read in the order, seeking an ideal recipe, a lottery win for that day: Branka’s chocolate cake, Ivana’s fondue sauces, Papa’s recipe for cough, Branka’s cheesecake (from another Branka), Igor’s goats , yummy lentil by Ines, Grandma’s lokum-Turkish delight, Grandma’s profiteroles, Somebody’s mint syrup, Vjeko’s stuffed pancakes, Jagor’s cake from the end of kindergarten, Homemade slice, Maca’s spaetzli, Davor’s seitan, Vesna’s biscuits, Your chutney, Amila’s tortillas, Perfect color for painting, Arnesa’s Smurfs, Pizza pastry from a Belgrade Chef, Mirjana’s cake with little cherries, Grga’s pickled cucumbers, Helen’s sticks, Spectacular Spekulatius, Beti’s Sour Cabbage, Bear goulash from wild boar, Sweet&sour à la Ivana, Miki’s yeast dough, Senad’s Grandma…

All of these listed names, were dinners, breakfasts, birthdays, celebrations with dear friends…once. We shared them together, licked both fingers and plates. By writing those recipes down, I’ve inscribed these people into my stomach too. Into my guts. Some I am still digesting, some are fermenting, and with some I still gladly cook cook.

I am in some bluish Sevdah mood today. As if I did not drink enough Donat mg mineral water. And yes, today I miss some of these old friends. From lacking, I’m hungry. My bowels fizzle hollowly. Incurably hungry, and then again satiated with everything.

Definitely, love goes through the digestive tract, and mine just swan in! Constipation is guaranteed today for somebody else, because today I’m listening, on loudest, the song from Kemal (Monteno) “Thank you all from the time of the roses” and spawning the Bosnian pot stew! If you are desirous and hungry, stop by for a ladle of melodie,salt and rosemary, former friends, future friends!

children’s tufts to their teeth, enough for two good mice dentures. I even have a bottle of tears, in case my sea dries out, the nettle seed, in case it ever comes to a world where it will no longer grow on its own in the wild, books that I read with dedications from people I did not read in time, tapes, gramophone records, old dotted pots for the ruinous look of the garden , in which I will plant plants, once I will only be planting plants. Anyway, mostly all this I can give up in my 42nd year, throw it all in or down the river …and the Red Apple …But my rocks I am not giving away!!!!!! Twenty-three kilos of stones I am not giving up, not even for the life of me!!! Defending it like the fort.

Each one of these stones (which I’m not giving up), was hand-picked only for me by my boys. I know, it is well-known and socially accepted that children pick flowers for their mothers, but I have received from my sons, with the same enthusiasm as if they were bouquets of fragrant field flowers – stones.

Wherever we were together in the past ten years, the boys would bend to the floor, studying the ground with archeological dedication, and then victoriously, as experts of some long-dead scripture, would exclaim: “Mom, this one is only for you!”

Radiant, I would take them neatly on my palms, pack them and always, always from parks, shores, mountains I would return with a couple of kilos (of stones) heavier bag (ah, and we only got rid of sandwiches, water, coffee, juices).

Over time, as I said, about 23 kilos built up and some years of surplus. The older son has long since slipped away from my question, “What is the purpose of the stones at all?” And his persuasive answer: “So one can give them to parents! “(At that age it is still acceptable to start sentences with a conjunction)

Like, of course! How did I not think of that? All these stones in this world serve the purpose, to be given to parents by their children!!!! It is wonderful to have the purpose and the meaning of existence!!

The boys have grown already and they stopped bringing me, just for me, the classic stones. Now they are collecting and bringing another type of stones and putting into my palms: bad school notes, runarounds, excuses, laziness, WhatsAppness and other Vibernesses, lousy music and food of the same content as their sneakers … I wonder if those rocks they were so zealously offering, were just a prelude to this lunatic symphony of boulders they force on me without a smile? On those smoothly contoured surfaces of those past stones, I read by the invisible letter written words: mom I love you, all the gentleness of the universe, the smoothness of the surface of the water, the rays of joy, the depth of the connection. For these new rocks, my innate translator has blocked and it is a bit hard for me to read, behind all that crap, tenderness and hope.

Today, after a too stupid quarrel (who played a minute longer which game on Playstation), I took each of the stones. Dusted them. From my soul, the speech of fairy tale whispered to me: Stone of patience, stone of patience, are you patient, or am I the patient one? You break or I will burst!

Nor did the stone break, nor did I. An idea hit me. From the stones of love I will make a wall, in the dining room. It will be my backbone  in the days of heavy categories, when the rocks will crumble until they weep or I smash the Playstation into the wall!

Oh sublimation, sublimation, you are a God-given !!!

(or how my friend Mihaela would say in her play: “Because the stones are not just stones …” and (by God) she was right!)

I’d love to meet you in this distant town, just like that, by the way, strolling on the pier like this, on the line in the middle of the sea, above the blue sky, not knowing if I walk on the sea or on the heavenly seas (courts). So, just like that,
we would soar (sail) not moving, be buried in the eyes, and they would sail showing years of separation.
We would swim in them, dive into where we started and just turn ourselves. One from the other. Under the threat of sudden drowning from the deepest pain and love. (Oh, let our ships strand!).