I am not aware of a medical term or a term from psychology which describes a reminiscent longing which occurs before something has come to an end. If there is such a thing as antenostalgia, it may be the cause of my experience after boarding the bus for home this evening. If life can be like a Norman Rockwell painting, then here it is.
I took the seat nearest the exit door at the front of the bus to Sauk. My backpack was full of treasures including a folio of Albanian language lessons, some hand-knit, homemade handicraft, three hand made axe-heads, and three persimmons. The folio was from my Albanian language teacher, the handicraft was from a street vendor near Zogu i Zi, the axe-heads had been purchased by Ervis on my behalf at a bazaar in Fushekruje on Sunday, and the persimmons were a gift from the woman I had ridden next to on the fugon from Fushekruje to Tirana. Before we had completed our taxiing out of the bus depot area, I stood to make room for one of the most beautiful women I have seen. She seemed grateful for the gesture, though not entirely surprised at its being made. Both of us faced away, not looking again, which is the custom here.
After exiting the bus, I walked to the local market to buy food for my street dogs. The proprietor knows me and we chatted a bit. Across the street was the baker with bread, hot fresh. She knew my order before I placed it, extending the courtesy to ask after my day. And then I was on the sidewalk heading home. I walked passed a boy of twelve with a tray laden with a coffee service he was travelling to deliver. “Hello,” he called in English. His father’s restaurant has great chofta and fruit salad. Around the corner I had a man on a motorcycle stop to ask if he could give me a ride. Before ascertaining if we had known each other from some time before, I took the seat and held onto the cargo bar with my free hand. By the time we had reached the bottom of the hill, he knew I was an Amerikan, and I knew for certain that we had not in fact met before.
He dropped me near the field path which leads up a small hill to the school house where I live. The low clouds caught enough ambient light from the houses below to reveal the ground ahead. The air was still, but not stale, wet, but never cold, quiet, without being queerly void of noises. Upon entering the school I found Paridi heading up the stairs for a nap, Petrit and Nardi playing ping-pong, Hektor and Neda seated texting on their cell phones, and Etmira mopping the floor of the kitchen. If life can be simple, if strangers can give gifts, if acquaintances can enjoy conversations, and a man can walk home alone in the dark with nothing but singing in mind, then it is here, and I will miss that.
albaniacalling 