The Old City of Dubrovnik

...excerpt from the book:
Culture Matters

“When I first came to Dubrovnik it was hard to distinguish reality from the stage. It seemed that the more I wandered around the more one became intertwined with the other. Shakespeare once wrote in As You Like It, “All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players…”, but I had never experienced it as I did when I was in Dubrovnik. Life had a story like quality, but even so reality jolted it into action leaving an impression that still hasn’t faded even to this present moment. One thought maintaining this episode is that it was a coexistence of past, present, and future surging all at once into the sea. It was like a play to be performed as a comic tragedy entitiled, “Ravings of Pure Endearment.

Act 1 scene 1 opened with the clock tower chiming in the square. I had no idea where I was except to say that it must have been by an anonymous restaurant kitchen since I could hear the clinking of bottles, clanging cutlery scraping against dishes, bumping pots and vigorous chopping behind a dark, wooden door with a looming shield. A stray, fluffy cat carefully investigated an adjacent street to make her escape hoping that she wasn’t for dinner while a dog barked in the next doorway. I know that I too was trying to flee pesky tourists who saturated the main street.

I passed through arched tunnels into a quiet byway when a deep man’s voice started singing a melodic tune almost transforming this comic tragedy into a sappy musical. Thank God, I could hear cartoons on the TV coming from someone’s apartment while at the same time a woman opened a window to let in the cool, night air. I breathed a sigh of relief finally beginning to relax. Water was dripping from some loose spouting into a dark alley that was boarded off just before it came to a dead-end although I didn’t notice any dangerous villain coming into view. What I did cleverly notice was that I must have been ambling along the city walls. There wasn’t another soul insight so I most assuredly had accomplished the feat of eluding tourists. The only sound was the sea churning stillness into the innermost core. Pausing in boader area that opened up into a small courtyard was an old, iron football goal bound by a rope for a net where local children could practice scoring points.

As I sat listening to the crashing waves I began to feel I was being escorted by the medieval shadow of a jealous lover. Instead of feeling fear I felt annoyance. I moved on trying to ignore the rising tension in the pit of my stomach.

As the curtain rose for Scene 2 I thrust total concentration not the smallest details around me to try and settle the score between reality and imagination. Many of the residences had potted plants situated on the outside entrance while elegant, lacy undergarments enticed every upward glance at the end of the clothesline a single masculine t-shirt. In the background, two children giggled into squeals of high-pitched of laughter that could have been some kind of tickle torture. Stars gazed down upon orange poppies with closed petals outsmarting a garden filled with orange and lemon trees almost expecting the jealous lover to come to his senses. A snail oblivious to all this magic interchange slowly crossed a stepping-stone leaving a spotted trail behind as he headed for the great wide yonder. Below the garden was a solitary, white rose bush in full bloom draping over a small stone wall. Every cluster opened its entire soul shaking vulnerably in the wind, yet remaining complete in white purity. Without warning a tabby cat in heat scrambled down the stonewall a a tom followed her mournful yowls thankfully counterbalancing the moment or I would have kissed the snail. Dubrovnik’s intimate whispers were almost too much as I realized I hadn’t necessarily run from tourists or a jealous lover, but from my own feelings.”