For the first time in seven months I am fully alone. The owner of this apartment lives three-plus hours away in Kraljevo, I know no one here, and I am in a sparsely populated neighbourhood of what is largely a tourist resort, not a village.
The sense of aloneness (not loneliness; that I rarely feel) has been a rising tide within me since doing the research on border restrictions while sitting in the lobby bar of Grand Hotel Tornik surrounded by vacationing Serbians, and it hitting home that I might have a hard time getting into any other country from here.
This is my mind — jumping to the worst-case scenario, dramatising the situation.
Detached, I watch all that is going on within me mentally and emotionally. Consciously I allow the tide to rise, a little at a time, knowing that it will recede again and that I will ride the wave of it without getting swamped. My boat is strongly built and well-caulked, and I am a skillful sailor. Now.
Like a cat, at the slightest hint of difficulty, my mind projects the situation now to forever. Expect the best. That is the mantra I adopted on 9 March 2020. It has proven strong. Expect the best. I am a New Zealander and I am resourceful. It is good for me, this being alone. I have been too much around people the past months — people who aren’t friends but who expect something from me nonetheless. In this period my strength grows, and I write.
When I got up at 04:24 this morning, prompted by my bladder, I flipped the switch on the jug and went to the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet I idly listened for the sound of the jug starting to boil. Nothing. Oh no, I thought. Have I killed another jug? I have been careful to fill it always to well below the max line, since overfilling seems to be the primary cause of death. I went out to the kitchen and checked it. No light, no noise. Damn.
Then, Maybe the power’s out, I thought. I flipped a couple of light switches — no response. Was it just in this apartment or building or was it a broader outage? Looked outside: the streetlamps were out and no lights were visible in the immediate neighbourhood, although Zlatibor central was lit up.
Accepting the probability it was a general outage, I went back to bed — after first checking the fuse box and seeing that all switches were set to ON.
As I lay in bed I repeatedly resisted my mind’s attempts to create a drama of being without power the whole of tomorrow: How much charge was in my computer? About two-thirds I thought. Since there was power in town I could go to a café to charge my computer if need be and, worst-case scenario, I could drive around in the car to charge the phone so at least I would have that. (Speaking of which, I ought to check how much petrol is in the car.) I had also checked the gauge on the hot water heater, which showed max hot, so hopefully I at least would be able to have a warm shower to start the day when I got up properly. Didn’t think of the food in the fridge, fortunately.
I know why my brain is so active in scenario planning. For twenty years I have lived alone — and I have travelled alone on and off since I was 21 — and now, in this life, I have needed to be truly self-reliant. There is no one else to deal with a problem. I must deal with it alone by my own resources. I am alone. That is not a pejorative or a complaint. Simply a statement of fact.
Self-reliant. If there is a problem I must deal with it myself. Most importantly, I know that I can deal with it myself. There is a way and I will find it.
I stash cash. Major currencies like euro and USD. I had long run out of USD when I discovered in Georgia that I could withdraw that currency from a bancomat. Very excited, I got out $100 and promptly stashed it as a trump card should I find myself in a situation where it is the only thing that speaks forcefully enough on my behalf to extract me. My veteran backpacking friends tell me USD is the black market currency throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus, which explains it being available at the ATM.
I refuse to use money exchange services, formal or informal, because I can’t be bothered doing the necessary research on exchange rates to not get ripped off. I have other more useful things to expend my mental time and energy on. I let my financial institution give me a fair enough rate to save myself that mental effort on top of all the other feverish mental activity my brain is constantly engaged in to manage this life.
My aunt called it a ‘lifestyle’ in an email a few months ago (thanking me for an Easter card). That pissed me off, but it was not a surprise. It is remarkably difficult, really impossible, for the vast majority of people to comprehend that this is life. I am living everyday life. It’s not a phase or a lark, and it’s most certainly not a holiday. It is a life that is a means to an end.
About the cover image: Again and again going alone into the mountains (especially in winter), I have learnt with utter clarity that the only person who will — and must — get me out of whatever situation I have got myself into is myself.