At the beginning of last year, the being I existed in for 32 years of joint life with my wife, has split up into two parts. Her half moved into eternity, mine remained and had to fill the whole spiritual space we created together. I stretched and expanded, at the same time collecting a substantial number of traits and habits she brought into this mutual being of ours. I became tidier, more responsible, more organized, and far more physically active. These are the traits I almost did not have prior to marriage, she added them all. The last three qualities are probably the most important to the story emerging, which will be covered on this blog.
To begin with, I should say that I am a deeply religious person. Although, my religion is not an official one, rather more defined as artistic direction, I consider Sumatraism of the great Serbian writer Miloš Crnjanski to be a sort of religion, no matter what the others might think. I find this sort of perspective to be convenient, because in this way all my bad choices can be justified by the fact that the butterflies on Sumatra have flapped their wings in a certain, wrong way and started the tsunami that manifested itself through the bullshit I made. On the other hand, I have no right to take the credit for all the good things I do, because they are also, according to Sumatraism, consequences of the casual connections happening on the planet Earth.
Yes, we make our own decisions, but we always decide what we were meant to decide, it just seems to us that we had a choice.
This is exactly how I perceive the trip that will start at the end of April.
I am going because the forces, far more powerful than I am, are pulling me and there is no reason to resist them. So, the smartest thing I can do is to organize and prepare myself for what must be.
Therefore, thanks to my wife for all the qualities she gave to me. Otherwise this trip would not have been possible without her, and it is dedicated to her.
Why Lisbon and why, for God’s sake, by bike?
It is quite simple, at least the first part of the question is.
It is in Lisbon that my wife and I spent the best days of our lives, we had no doubt about it. We even had a plan which, unfortunately, we were not able to realize: once we retire, we would sell everything we own, buy a small flat on the outskirts of Lisbon (we could not afford more), spend there the rest of our lives there and have our ashes spread over the Tahoe River.
It might sound silly, but we really wanted this to happen. When she died, the first think I thought about, once I was able to think at all, was – I will never go to Lisbon again, why the hell would I, without her by my side. However, as I already said, I soon came to realize that she “remained” in me, so if I decide to go to Lisbon, I will be taking her along. That is the answer to the question why I chose Lisbon, the prettiest city in the world. That is why I chose Portugal, country of kind and friendly people, country of saudade, country in which the best of the worldwide cultures have combined. I want to travel all over this country and really get to know it.
The answer to the second part of the question might be more complicated and what I am about to say is only a part of it. The rest will be clarified in the stories to come. I consider traveling by bike to have huge advantages compared to the other means of transportation.
In April last year, when I got on bike for the first time in 30 years, I literally had a feeling I was flying. I rode around the city and was amazed that no one was pointing a finger at me. How could they not see I was flying?
Of course, the “flash” stopped after a while and as I set down to drink some cold water and to wash my face with it, it occurred to me that many others, which I passed by, were also flying in their own way, without me ever noticing.
A man can stand still and fly at the same time and observe the world from unimaginable heights. Just needs to remember, as said by the great poet Mika Antić. He was talking about the kids, but let’s be frank, we are all kinds, it depends on the way we look at the world and ourselves. Or ourselves in the world, whatever. So, from that moment on, my bike called Zorka became a part of my life and is helping me to fill the physical part of space which was left empty after my wife’s departure.
To summarize, this decision was made by itself, from different bits and pieces (not in one day, of course), the aforementioned butterfly from Sumatra rolled the bike into my life and that was it.The rest are technicalities.