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OF CONTENTS
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Take A Look At the Sun
By Melody Heath
I decided to hide with my
computer
in a little café on the right side of the main street coming
into Old Town
in Croatia. As embarrassing as it was to waste any time
while visiting a country on a computer, I needed to update my software. My computer had been crashing off and on for
weeks and my virus protection had expired.
I
position myself in front of a window looking over the tables set
outside the
café, filled with a number of older men conversing and enjoying
drinks. I wonder for a minute why
everybody is
sitting outside. Indeed, I am completely
alone inside the restaurant itself. They
are all wrapped in scarves, topped with hats, and covered in tweed
jackets. So, why don’t any of them come
inside if they’re cold? I’ve taken my
sweater off and my hat rests on the table behind my laptop. It’s late in the afternoon and the sun is now
hiding behind the thick Old
Town walls.
Then,
I remembered something I read in an article by Nives Ritig-Beljak
called, “War
Lunch.” The article voices problems Croats had during the war with food
shortages and though they never completely ran out of food, preparation
posed
some difficulties. Often time while
cooking a meal outdoors amidst airplanes and bombings, one didn’t know
if he
would make it to the meal at all. One
woman,
explaining how they would cook food, says that if some one wanted to go
outside
“to see the daylight, he would most often get killed” (175).
So
maybe this is why all these men chose to sit outside instead of
confining
themselves inside the café. They
remember a time when it was dangerous to enjoy a cup of coffee or tea
while in
the daylight. Perhaps, the feeling of
sitting around a table, conversing and relaxing still feels precious
and
rewarding after being trapped indoors for days at a time during a war
that
ended over ten years ago.
Since
I never experienced what they did, I can’t understand how it feels. I can’t understand that feeling of entrapment
or fear. Can that be why Americans don’t
sit around and drink their coffee while chatting with friends? Why do we rush into Starbucks, grab our
caffeine booster and continue about our day? Maybe,
we should learn to relax and take a break during
the day. After all, there may come a day
when we wish
we could.
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