Maja Vidmar

I’ve been in Pazin for three weeks now. Everything is just as I hoped it would be, but for  the weather. In the gorge beneath the Writers’ House snowdrops have been blooming for three weeks now but winter just wouldn’t go away. Luckily, the small house is warm, the air-conditioning is working fine. Whenever I wake up I keep guessing what’s murmuring: the air-conditioner, the rain or the Pazinčica? Usually all three of them.

People in Pazin are open armed and kind. Not just at the Memorial Centre, where I have always received assistance and been invited to various events, everyone is so kind. I did not expect I would spend so much time in company. I thought that I had lots of time and I gratefully accepted all the invitations: exhibitions, theatre performances, travel lectures, book promotions and dinners … now the day when I have to go back to Ljubljana is nearing. I’m afraid I haven’t done enough, but that’s not true. Among other things, I finished a book of poems and, first of all, rearranged my thoughts and intentions – mostly by allowing myself not to think at all. This is easiest done beneath, by the water.

When it is not raining, I get down the stairs into the gorge and reach the Pazinčica and then across the little bridge, when it is not flooded, up the path to the hotel. Water always overwhelms me. Something is always divided anew beneath the cliff and then wildly enclosed on the other side of the it. I can watch it happen again and again.

In Pazin one gets enough peace for reading (I have read more than in the previous two years) and enough peace for writing. This is the greatest privilege of all. If only I could afford a month like this for writing every year!