My Snowy Prishtina❄️

Written November 27,2015

There are those moments in your life that bench mark significant periods of awareness and clarity. You don’t realize it when you are living them of course but they become pivotal periods of reflection and eventual change. Sometimes the things you thought you loathed most are the things that bring you the deepest meaning. Waking up today with the snow falling on a still emerging post war former communist hub of the once Yugoslavia ... nostalgia plagued me. Floods and floods of memories and emotions came rushing in. This is the Prishtina I remember. The cold snowy muddy Prishtina that left speckles of wet slushy dirt on the back side of my trousers on my daily walk from the hilly outskirts where I lived back in the winter/spring 2000-2001; into the city center and the media building in which I worked during those still first months/years after the horrific ethnic cleaning war of Milosevic.

The Prishtina that I have yet to ever see a snow plow clearing a street. The Prishtina that left broken limbs and bruises on foreighners not accustomed to the cement ice combed streets of a still modernizing city. No salt. No one to sue. You learn to not cry ... pick up and move on.

This Prishtina reminds me of the hope of freedom of a relieved post war nation. Victory of a very long fight and even longer wait. And even today when I hear the angst and criticism from its citizens towards a struggling government or towards each other's challenging Balkan behavior followed automatically with the reasoning that this bad behavior solely stems from the fact that they are "shiptare bre" - they are "Albanian" aka that's why they are the way they are … further validating that being Albanian is synonymous with stern unwillingness to evolve or change the self. I know that this is the same progress any country, city or village faces anywhere around the world.

Progress = Evolution of our individual soul to process our experiences into a “better” tomorrow. This word “better” we all seem to misuse into automated meaning of more materialism, more advancement in science and technology, more human rights ultimately ties into our own individual advancement. Because if we hold strong to 'we are the individual' and in being true to our own kindness and irreverance for superiority we learn that we are obligated only to our own "superior" self; that we find within ourselves the best self. The self that says I am who I am and you are who you are and I see you. Do you see me? I will not excuse my evolving self but acknowledge and help you to see yours. Because I can not be you and you can not be me.

If we are ourselves we can attempt to find peace and contentment. Prishtina was a pivotal turning point in acknowledging my own earthly identity having grown up in a family that insisted "we are Albanian" even being born in NYC -the epicenter of the modern world. The elders of our family wanting us to identify with Albania-Kosovo and not with the country we inhabited and only knew - but with this land they stay attached to. With all their advancement they still persisted in calling us Albanian; myself, my siblings, my uncle's children and all of us that came from these parents that willingly immigrated to this America.

It was Prishtina that closed my divide. The tiny micro little bit of doubt of where I belonged. Because the country I was surrogately tied to identified me as that “Americanja”- “the American” and although not at all offended I quietly validated within myself “yes, I am that American” because I am foreign to you. I speak with full hearted concern and longing to help you be the best you you can be because I come from a place that people treat me as such. When you come from a place you exemflify that place like it or not. I wasn't born knowing everything and in the acknowledment of not knowing everything I can learn anything and not live within an empty bubble. I am that "Americanja" that wants to look you in the eye and say 'go ahead I hear you and you are important'. I can learn from you because I am not you. Your experiences count. If I can't be open to all then "I" can not grow and learn more. And I know there is a lot more to learn and grow until those very last seconds of my life.

I am also from that Albanian family that longed for a time when they would not be persecuted or stifled for being who they are whether from the communist dictatorship of Albania or Kosovo. These people taught me to acknowledge I am strong and I am proud to be who I am, whether American or Albanian or a little bit more of one than the other.

This snowy Prishtina today reminds me of the possibility of change and that even when we condemn hope and the possibility of change ... we irrevocably know that we still live in hope or else we could not continue to exist.

This today is my snowy Prishtina.