No Matter How You Slice It...

Meeting the first of the Village People opened the floodgates. Of course, there couldn't be much of a flood in a village of fewer than 200 souls. Still, that long day with Joze marked the beginning of my integration into Goce. People started waving to me on the street and exchanged "dober dans" with me. I wasn't yet an insider, nor would I ever be a native. I was just happy that people here seemed willing to accept an American neighbor -- even one who couldn't speak Slovene.

I really wanted to meet the family living next door. After all, we were within three feet of their front door every time we left the house. Their house is what Running Man (RM) calls "renewed," with crisp white stucco covering the stone, a new tile roof, and a stone-studded concrete paver patio stretching the length of the front of the house, shaded by a vine-covered pergola and filled with dozens of flowering potted plants. It's a cool and colorful place and the inhabitants spend many hours sitting there while a little girl plays on the patio and on the asphalt of the street that meets the concrete. Their house starts one of the "spokes" from the heart of the village that concludes with the end of my house that overlooks the vineyards and valley. Their house is connected to another old and crumbling stone house and barn where chickens strut in the walled yard behind large iron gates. That house and barn is connected to my barn which is connected to my house. The stone wall perpendicular to the right side of the old farm's gate, and the backside of another old farmhouse, form the tunnel-like passage that leads to my gates. That's what makes my courtyard so private. Since that passage is part of my property, that's where RM usually parks the van. We can't come or go without this neighbor noticing.

It appeared that the household comprised an older lady, two younger women, one blond and one brunette, a younger man and the darling little girl with huge blue eyes who looked to be about three. The older lady was the one who had been the keeper of the keys to my house, no doubt taking care of things since the former owners rarely stayed here. She's petite, with short, dark hair and those stylish eyeglasses. She makes multiple trips to and from a garden on the hill behind my house, traveling the dirt road that runs behind it. From the looks of the thriving garden and the colorful patio, she must possess a very green thumb.

I still hadn't been able to determine the times for Mass at St. Andrew's Church in the middle of the village. RM and I had checked at different times to see if Mass times were posted or if the church was open, but neither of us had been successful. With the weekend approaching, I suggested we ask "the lady next door" to find out. We walked over and found the front door standing open, which is common in the village. RM stuck his head in and shouted a greeting in Slovene that brought the lady out into the central hallway. She smiled, replied to RM and waved us into the house. Her name is Maria and she introduced us to her brunette daughter, Andreja, and the charming little girl, Spela (pronounced "shpay-luh"). Maria invited us to sit down in the kitchen where Spela was curled up on Andreja's lap watching a cartoon on the television, her big, expressive eyes moving back and forth between RM and me and the cartoon. RM and Maria chatted for several minutes before he stood to leave. I uttered "me veseli" and "nasvidenje" (nice to meet you and goodbye) and we walked our few steps back home with RM recounting their conversation. We'd broken the proverbial ice with a little small talk.

Two days later, my back was making small talk with me. The air mattress had to go. I hadn't shipped any of my possessions to Slovenia and I didn't have the money to go out and buy new things. Instead, RM had I had been quite inventive with all of the furniture the previous owners had left behind.

When I bought the house, there were five large daybeds in it. Each of them had faux wood, laminate-covered backs and sides, a big humped upholstered seat and two large drawers for storage underneath. RM and I now looked at the four we'd moved into the barn, trying to figure out how to construct a bed from two of them. After a bit of discussion, we decided we could take the arms off one of them and use the back and seat as a headboard and half of the mattress, then remove the back and arms of another one, push the two together and leave the drawers of the backless one facing outward for storage. Clever, huh. But we faced one big problem -- how to remove the pieces that needed to come off. They weren't attached to the base with screws or nails. In fact, even after we moved them out into the courtyard and turned them upside down and inside out, we couldn't figure out how they were assembled. We needed a saw.

The house had also come with several very old saws of various types. RM tried a couple on the laminate-covered material but couldn't get any teeth into them. We needed a power saw.

RM had met Maria's son, Rado, the day after we'd gone to their house. He and his wife, Kristina, and their daughter, Spela, live there with his mom and sister, in the multi-generational way many families live in Slovenia. Rado had a factory job down in the valley and a bull in the barn that he raised for slaughter. He also cut and sold firewood and, of course, owned vineyards and made wine. Surely, he would have a saw we could borrow.

RM headed next door and I went back into the house to continue cleaning, sorting and organizing. All of the sudden, I heard the unmistakable roar of a chainsaw. I rushed out into the courtyard and saw RM holding onto the back of one of the daybeds while a young burly guy with short-cropped hair wielded a chainsaw, slicing off the side of the daybed amid a cloud of flying sawdust. RM was smiling. The other guy, whom I assumed was Rado, looked seriously focused on the task at hand.

"Oh, my gosh," I thought. "What in the heck is that going to look like when he gets done?" "A chainsaw?" "Really?"

I could do nothing but stand in the doorway watching Rado sweep the heavy chainsaw through the air and through my furniture, a la "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." When he finished, he shut off the saw, mumbled something to RM then abruptly left the courtyard. He moved like a small bull with his broad shoulders hunched forward, muscular arms curved away from his torso, head down, taking long strides, each foot landing with purpose and authority.

"You couldn't find someone with a circular saw?" I asked RM as the dust settled, a slight bit of irritation in my voice.

"No, darling," RM said, his "darling" sounding like "dahhhling," as usual. 

"Can you believe it?" RM said. "Rado did the work eins, zwei, drei!" he said, making a dusting motion with his hands. (That's "one, two, three" for those of you who don't speak German.)

It was like he'd brought a cannon to kill a fly. I walked over to take a closer look at the beds, my heart filled with fear. But amazement replaced the horror I had anticipated. The cuts were straight, clean and smooth as if made by a surgeon.

"Okay, that guy should be one of those people who sculpts statues from tree trunks using a chainsaw!" I said to RM.

"And, we can buy wood for the stove from him for the winter," RM said with a smug look of satisfaction.

All of the sudden, Rado the bull strode back into the courtyard. This time, RM introduced us to each other. Rado doesn't speak English but told RM his wife does. At least I'd be able to communicate with one person in my neighbor's house.

Apparently, Rado had come back to help RM move the heavy daybeds, or what was left of them, into the house. How nice for me. All I had to do was tell them where to put the two pieces then run the vacuum over them to clean up the sawdust.

When they finished, RM told me that Rado had invited us next door for, of course, a glass of his wine. What a country. He comes here to do us a favor then invites us over to share his wine. Rado's wife, Kristina, was home so I was able to converse with someone other than RM. She apologized for her English as has every Slovenian I've met who speaks English. I told her that her English was far better than my Slovene. She actually speaks quite well.

Everyone in the household was there in the kitchen, sharing food and wine with us. Little Spela, who I found out was not quite three years old yet, started talking to me, her high-pitched little voice expressing words I couldn't understand. Like me, she was learning Slovene, although with far greater ease, I'm sure. She laid a little book in my lap that had pictures of animals and the Slovene word for them underneath. She pointed at a picture of an owl and said, "sova." I repeated it, trying to pronounce the word correctly. Then, I said "owl, English" and when we looked at each other and simultaneously said "hoo-hoo-hoo," everyone burst out laughing. Animal sounds are a universal language.

You never know what kind of neighbors come with a house. But it's a great feeling when you know that the people next door are warm and gracious people you can count on. This is especially true when you're thousands of miles away from home, and even if the neighbor uses a chainsaw to make furniture.

I still didn't know what time Mass was on Sundays. No problem. I'd go next door on Saturday and ask.

The Village People

Running Man (RM) and I continued to clean the house and the little piece of property that came with it. We invited our friends from Lokve, Edbin and Tatijana, to come to dinner. They were very anxious to tour the house. We also spent some time with RM's brother, sister-in-law and their teenage sons. Other than that, we laid low and stayed close to home, except for our frequent trips to the library in Nova Gorica for wireless internet access. The telephone company was out of fiber-optic capacity for high-speed internet in Goce, satellite dishes or antennas aren't available, and because I didn't have a full-time employer in Slovenia, I wasn't allowed to subscribe to a service that would allow me to use a USB key to connect to a tower on Nanos that I could probably get a signal from given the position of the house. The situation posed a significant problem for my ability to work on client projects. But after several attempts and some arm twisting, RM finally managed to get a USB key and monthly plan for me.

Naturally, I was curious about my new neighbors but worried about the fact that I couldn't speak Slovene. Instead of venturing out to meet them, like I'm sure I would have had I bought a house in the States, I observed. I am a people-watcher, and I had a great place to do it.

There's a little road that runs right behind my house and around the corner between the house and the vineyard. When I say "right behind" I mean within a foot of the house wall in some places. On the other side of the little road is an open hayfield that meets the vineyard beside the house. The road isn't much more than a path but it has a lot of traffic.

Everyone traveling the road walks or drives small tractors behind the length of the house, rounding the corner and disappearing over the hill beyond. There's the small dark-haired lady whom I recognized as the next-door neighbor. She would travel the path a few times a day, sometimes pushing a wheelbarrow full of manure to deposit in the compost heap next to her little garden and sometimes with handfuls of flowers, herbs or some other produce. Then, there's the blue-haired lady who usually carried an empty pail over the hill and one full of lettuce or onions on the return trip. Although I never saw them together at the same time, I was struck by their incredibly stylish glasses in sharp contrast to their attire. The dark-haired neighbor would wear boots and cropped pants and bright blouses while the blue-haired lady always wore a long apron. Peasant attire with designer eyewear. I loved the irony.

The men who used the road were usually driving small tractors to their fields, gardens or vineyards. I wondered where they lived in the village, what crops they tended and what they all thought about the American woman who had moved to town. Surely they were as curious about me as I was about them.

The weekend after my experience with burja was incredibly warm and sunny for the end of October and above all, still. I was scheduled to fly back to the States in three weeks to spend Thanksgiving with my family, work on my residence permit and tie up some other loose ends. On this Sunday afternoon, RM and I had wandered through the wine cellar and out the back door to survey the house from the back and side and to take in the exhilarating views of the countryside. The grapes had been harvested and the vineyards and forests were just beginning to turn yellow, red and orange.

It was while we were enjoying our panoramic view that we met our first Village Person. He was walking with a black dog from the hayfield behind the house, back toward the road when he and RM exchanged a friendly "dober dan" (good day) and he stopped to talk. His name was Joze (prounounced yo-zhuh) and he spoke no English. The dog's name was Beno and he followed Joze everywhere. Joze was average height, tanned, mustached with dark hair peppered with gray. I listened as he and RM talked, then watched RM motion Joze down the alley and around the house.

"He has invited us to his wine cellar," RM said. "We're going to meet him around front."

It was our first invitation into the famous wine cellars of Goce. How exciting.

We walked quickly through the narrow streets to a building at the front edge of the village. Joze had restored the old building with its ancient wine cellar below, like the one in my house, and put another cellar above. Both were filled with large stainless steel casks. He welcomed us in and poured a glass of something that RM told me was his homemade vinjak (veen-yok) which is the local equivalent of cognac. We drank a shot, then another as we stood outside looking up toward the ancient church that sits atop a peak above Goce. The church is called "Maria Snezna" (pronounced shnez-nuh) which translates to "Mary of the Snow." With the spotlights on at night, you can see it for miles, statuesque among the forests and vineyards high above the Vipava Valley. RM and I had been planning to walk up to see the church but hadn't made it yet. Apparently, Joze was going to drive us there.

He opened the back door of the car outside the cellar, pushing papers and plastic bottles from the seat, and motioned for me to get in. RM got into the front seat and Joze walked around and sat behind the wheel. I was a little nervous because I could tell Joze was a little tipsy. You don't have to understand Slovene to figure that one out. And he'd brought along a full bottle of his vinjak for the journey so as he navigated the narrow, twisting rock road to just below the church, I wondered what the trip back down would be like. 

We walked to the top of the hill with Beno who had sprinted all the way up the road behind us. The view was absolutely amazing. RM had his camera with him, of course, so he had to shoot me above Goce.

There was a young couple from Ljubljana there, sitting on the wall around the Church, and a middle-age couple from Piran taking photos of the valley. Three of the four could speak English so I could make small talk with them, but most of the conversation was in Slovene. Joze was passing around the bottle of vinjak and everyone was partaking. I was reminded of snorkling the year before in February while in Mexico for my brother's wedding. My Dad, older brother, two sisters, brother-in-law and niece had taken the excursion one morning. There were about 20 people on the boat, including three local guides who passed around a bottle of tequila and only two glasses among all of us. Just as I thought in Mexico, whatever germs the strangers around me might have, the alcohol would no doubt take care of.

Joze rattled back down the mountain road, Beno running behind all the way to the wine cellar. Apparently, it was now time to sample some of his wines. The ones in the casks above were from the recent harvest and wouldn't be ready until St. Martin's Day in November, so we ventured down into the ancient cellar to sample his chardonnay, rebula and merlot. We were joined by Joze's wife, Nada, and neighbor, Tomaz. None of them spoke English so I listened closely and RM translated on the fly so I could understand some of the conversation. Nada left then returned with a heaping plate of homemade prosciutto, sausages, cheese and bread. Local fare but delicious.

After what seemed like hours, RM told me we were leaving. I thought we were going back home but instead, we walked a few yards down the main street of Goce and were waved down into Tomaz's wine cellar to sample his wines. His sons, Jan and Blaz, came down for introductions. Both could speak some English although neither wanted to. Blaz brought down a small accordian to play, which I learned is actually a harmonica because it has buttons rather than a keyboard. It was a dark red color with mother-of-pearl inlays of edelweiss. He started playing Slovenian folk songs and everyone in the room sang along, including RM who probably hadn't thought of them in years. I just sat on the bench, sipping wine, petting Beno and smiling at the warmth and friendliness of my new neighbors. It didn't matter that I couldn't speak Slovene. This experience was universal.

It was late and dark when we left Tomaz's cellar and wandered back to the house we'd left hours and hours ago. The next day, I had a bit of a headache but a wonderful memory of the somewhat surreal day before as I pondered how my liver would ever survive the Village People.

Blown Away

Three days after moving into the house, I experienced life on my own in Europe for the very first time. Running Man (RM) had always been with me, but he had a three-day tour to guide. He'd be spending the weekend with a busload of French tourists. I'd be spending time on my own in Goce. Although the thought of it was a little scary, it was exhilarating as well. After all, I had chosen to buy a house in a country where I couldn't speak the language. This was where the proverbial rubber hit the road.

This was also where the rubber would literally hit the road because RM was meeting his tour group at the airport in Ljubljana, about an hour away from Goce. We left early Friday morning. RM was driving his Citroen minivan while I watched carefully the route we were taking, asking a constant stream of questions about speed limits, emergency measures and how to make critical conversational Slovene like "I'm lost. How do I get to Goce?" My greatest challenge would be backing the car out and driving through the narrow wall-lined streets of the village. The rest should be relatively easy.Well, at least it appeared to be.

With RM safely delivered to his destination and me with my Slovenian cell phone, a tank full of diesel and a prayer, I kissed him goodbye and pulled out of the airport parking area, nervous but excited about making the trip back home. I found my way back to the motorway, remembered to slow down so the toll booth camera could read the sticker, and watched carefully for the Vipava exit. I was hungry and decided I could find my way to the cooperative in Vipava that had, among other things, a little grocery store and a pizzeria. I wanted to eat a little pizza, take the rest home with me, and pick up groceries to make lasagna for RM's return. How hard could that be? My confidence was building by the minute.

It was a sunny and warm October day so I sat outside and proudly used my mediocre Slovene to order a glass of water, a beer and a pizza, eating slowly and savoring my little adventure. I paid the server and left a Euro tip for which she thanked me in English. I put the leftover pizza in the car, grabbed a couple of shopping bags and headed into the store.

When you enter virtually any business in Slovenia, you're greeted immediately with a "dobro jutro," "dober dan" or "dober vecer," depending on the time of day. It's one of the qualities I love about Slovenia. When I walked into the grocery store, the checker smiled and gave me a cheerful "dober dan" and I responded to him with the same. I pulled a tiny shopping cart from the line and moved slowly down each aisle, just looking at what they had. Of course, that didn't take long because the store has only four aisles. But I figured I would be coming here often so I just wanted to know what they carried and what they didn't. 

I decided to use boxed lasagna noodles since I didn't want to spend the time it would take for me to make fresh pasta. I found canned tomatoes and sauce, dried oregano and fresh parmesan and mozzarella cheeses. I picked out a couple of onions and heads of garlic, remembering I had to note the number posted above their bins, lay them on the scale and press the corresponding number above the scale. The machine would spit out a label with the appropriate barcode that I slapped on the plastic bags for the checker. Now, I needed meat. Typically, I use a combination of ground beef and Italian sausage. How hard could that be to find in a country bordering Italy where people eat more than one kind of meat at nearly every meal?

The bakery and meat counter were run by local cooperatives. So I pushed my cart toward the butcher and sidled up to the glass case that featured the fresh meat for today. The butcher greeted me and I, him. Then, I'm guessing, he asked me what he could get for me.

"Do you speak English?" I asked. He shook his head and said something in Slovene.

"Okay," I smiled at him. "Un minuto," my Spanish kicked in. 
"Ene minuto, prosim," I corrected myself with a weak grin, although I still didn't say it correctly. Using the correct gender in Slovene, I should have said, "eno minuto, prosim" for "one minute, please." Well, he understood me anyway.

I could remember that the word for "cow" was "krava" in Slovene but had no idea what the word for "beef" was. I peered at the little signs sticking out of tubs of ground meat behind the glass. I knew to not ask for hamburger because in Europe, hamburger is truly a mixture of pork (ham) and beef (burger) and I didn't want that. I needed ground beef and a spicy pork sausage.

I pointed to one of the ground meats and asked, "krava?" The little sign labeled it as something that started with a "g."

The butcher looked at me quizzically for just a second, then his eyes smiled and he nodded his head in an exaggerated manner.

"Ja. Govedine," he said. "Koliko?"

"What? Uh, prosim?"

"Koliko?" the butcher said again, this time putting his hands in front of him as if holding an imaginary basketball between them. "Koliko?"

"Ahhh," I said, now nodding my head in an exaggerated motion. "One pound, uh, ene kilo. Ne, ne half. Half kilo," I said, now moving my hands from the imaginary basketball to a bocce ball size. I had no idea how to say "half" in Slovene.

The butcher pulled some paper from a roll and plopped what looked to me to be roughly a pound of meat onto it, holding it out toward me over the counter, nodding as he said "Ja? Ja?"

"Ja," I nodded back, starting to feel like a bobble-head doll on the dashboard of a car.

He weighed whatever meat I had just picked out, wrapped it up neatly in the paper and slapped a label on it. One meat down, another to go.

"Do you have Italian sausage?" I asked. "Italiano kolbasa?"

He gave me his puzzled expression again, then he moved to a bin of sausages, pointing to them and saying something unintelligible.

"Italiano? Spicy?" I asked, like I thought he would somehow miraculously understand the English word, "spicy." Duh.

"Italiano? Ne, Slovenija," he said.

Okay, so we call it Italian sausage in the States but here, the "Italian" part just means something that's from Italy. And why would I ask a butcher in Slovenia for sausage from Italy? Duh, again.

Maybe I could at least determine whether or not the sausages he was showing me were pork. Too bad I didn't know the word for pork. I didn't even know the word for pig.

"Never leave home again without your phrasebook," I thought.

I scanned the signs perched among the other items in the case. I spotted what I was pretty sure were a trio of pork loins in one bin. The first word on the sign was "svinjine" which is reminiscent of "swine" in English. I'd go with that.

"Svin-yin-eh?" I asked, pointing back to the aforementioned sausages.

"Ja. Ja. Ja." Again, with his head bobbing repeatedly.

"Okay. Okay," I replied, head bobbing in agreement, big stupid smile on my face.

He asked me another question I couldn't understand but reasoned he was asking me how many I wanted.

"Uh, tri. Ne, uh...." I was counting up from "one" in my head, trying to remember how to say "four."

"Stiri!" I uttered proudly, four fingers in the air.

"Ja. Stiri. Bravo," he praised me for coming up with the right word. He wrapped them up, slapped on the label and asked me something. I guessed this time he was asking if I needed anything else. I didn't and it was a good thing because my neck had started to hurt from the incessant nodding. I figured his had as well.

"Hvala. Hvala lepa," I said, thanking him.

He starting ringing up something on the cash register.

"Oh, I pay here?" I pulled out my wallet and pointed from it to the counter and back.

"Ja. Ja. Ja." More nodding.

I didn't attempt to understand the amount he uttered. I merely looked at the receipt and handed him my Euros. He counted back a few cents in change.

"Hvala. Nasvidenje." (Thank you. Goodbye.)

"Nasvidenje," I replied with a smile and a wave, then pushed my cart toward the checkout line. I had no idea what meat I had just purchased but hoped it was close to ground beef and Italian sausage. Well, it would be whatever it was. I'd make it work.

"Dober dan," the young man said as I approached and started putting my items on the conveyor belt.

"Dober dan," I replied.

"Did you find everything?" he said, catching me off guard with his English.

"Yes," I said with a huge smile of relief at our ability to communicate. "I think I did, anyway."

"Good. Good," he said, his "d" sounding like "t."

He rang up the total and gave me back my change.

"Have a nice day," he said.

"Hvala. Nasvidenje." I replied, wanting to show him that I was trying to speak like the natives.

Good thing I didn't have to be home at any specific time. I'd spent far longer in the store than I had anticipated. The day was growing old and I still had to find my way back to Goce. I drove up the foothills, winding my way around the tight turns in the road and re-entered my village. I held my breath as I made the right turn between two houses, keeping the side mirrors from scraping on either side. I was relieved and proud as I parked in the drive and made my way through the big iron gates and back into the house with my groceries. It was good to be home.

When I crawled onto the air mattress that night, I hoped I could fall asleep quickly. I left the light on in the bathroom at the other end of the house to cut the thick and heavy darkness of the night. I closed my eyes then re-opened them immediately as I heard the tiny feet of something scuttling around above me. The ceiling in this room had two rectangular pieces of heavy white paper taped to it. The former owner said they covered some plaster that had started falling due to water damage before the roof had been repaired. I was regretting the fact that I hadn't ever pulled back the paper to see what it looked like above. As I continued to listen to the pitter patter of who-knows-what little creature's feet above my head, I prayed that whatever it was wouldn't come crashing down through the paper. I got up, turned on the light and moved the air mattress a little further away from the patches. At least maybe nothing would fall directly on me.

I listened for hours to the rattling of tree branches outside the windows and the hum of the two little refrigerators and the tiny freezer in the kitchen as they went on and off and on, over and over again, sometimes in unison and other times, in totally separate cycles. Then, I heard rain start to fall, lightly at first then heavy on the tile roof. The scuttling noises above ceased. Instead, I listened to the sound of water dripping. A lot of water dripping. It seemed to be dripping onto the floor above me. I hoped that if the roof were leaking, the water wouldn't find its way back through the paper patches. But after hearing lifeforms of some kind up there, I wasn't going to venture into the dark attic to see if the roof was leaking, that's for sure. That would have to wait until daylight. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, I fell into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.

On Saturday morning, I put on my socks and shoes and bravely opened the door to the stairs that lead into the huge attic space. I wanted to see where the roof had leaked but didn't want to see anything alive, so I made a lot of noise tramping up the steep wooden stairs, hoping that if there were any critters out and about, I could send them running for cover. What I couldn't see wouldn't hurt me.

The upstairs space featured a vast collection of stuff. Some things, I wanted to keep. Some things were junk I wanted to clear out. And others, well, I didn't even know what they were. As I scoured the place for evidence of leaks, I found none. The attic was as dry as a bone but it certainly wasn't airtight. The wind had started to blow. The beams creaked, glass rattled in loose windows and cobwebs shuddered and shook. Creepy.

I spent the morning cleaning, then started making lasagna. I wanted to have it all put together in the pan, ready to pop it into the oven on Sunday evening when RM and I returned from Ljubljana. I'd inherited a lot of dishes and pans with the house, but no large skillets and only a medium-size pot. As I put the first of two batches of noodles over the tiny gas flame to boil, I opened the packages from the butcher and browned the beef first, then the sausage which I'd removed from the casings. Before adding any onions, garlic or seasoning, I tasted the meat. The beef was stronger and more gamy than I was used to. The sausage didn't have the spicy kick I wanted, so I thumbed through the little collection of seasonings RM and I had started to accumulate, adding a little of this and a little of that until the meat mixture no longer tasted bland. It would do.

I found myself facing another evening without even a book to read. I'd finished mine on the plane trip. I poured a glass of local wine RM and I had picked up from the cooperative in Vipava, wrapped up in a blanket and went out to sit in the dark courtyard, staring at the house and the countless stars in the sky. I picked out constellation after constellation, finding comfort in that fact that no matter where in the world I was, the stars above would always be the same. That song from the Disney movie about some mouse kept going through my mind. "Somewhere, out there, beneath the pale moonlight...."

The wind had been picking up speed throughout the evening and by the time I was headed back to the air mattress, the term "gale force" came to mind. Burja (brrr-yuh), the incredible wind phenomenon I had heard so much about, had arrived. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and started toward the bedroom. I stepped down from the vinyl-covered concrete floor in the kitchen into the middle room. The vinyl covering the wooden floor there gave a "whoosh" as my foot landed. The wind, coming through the cellar below, filled the space below the vinyl with air, pushing it up like a balloon. I whooshed my way into the next room and crawled under the covers dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. The floor under the mattress was cold and I could feel it through the plastic, air and cotton sheet. I really needed to get a bed.

If there was scuttling above me, I couldn't hear it for the din. The entire house rattled and moaned as the burja wind roared and whistled. The paper patches on the ceiling breathed with a sucking noise as the house drew the air in and out like a huge pair of lungs. I curled up and pulled the blankets up over my head and prayed.

When you're from the Midwest, you tend to have both a fascination and a fear of the wind. Specifically, of tornadoes. RM had told me that tornadoes didn't occur here but what damage could a 60-mile-per-hour wind wreak on my ancient house? I told myself the burja had blown here for centuries and this house had withstood it. Smart thing to build a stone house with two-foot-thick walls, few windows and a cement-and-tile roof covered with large stones. I would survive the night and so would the house. And once this house could focus on something other than the wind, it would, no doubt, laugh at my fear.

Sleep-deprived, I crawled behind the steering wheel of RM's car on Sunday to make the drive back to the airport to pick him up. Burja was blowing violently. I dreaded driving in it but knew I had to get used to it. I also knew I would drive out of it halfway to Ljubljana. Wisely, I left Goce giving myself an extra hour for the trip. The electronic sign in the valley registered the wind at 120 kilometers per hour. That's nearly 75 miles per hour. It was going to be a very long drive.

I crept onto the motorway. The "no trucks" signs were flashing above the road. Trucks are prohibited on the motorway during burja because they apparently have a tendency to blow over. Yep, that's right. Blow right over on their side and onto whatever other traffic is around them. The orange and white-striped wind socks along the motorway were standing straight out, parallel to the ground, whipping around in tiny little circles. Speed-limit signs abandoned the normal 130 kilometers per hour (81 mph) for 60 kph (around 40 mph). I was afraid to go even that speed, feeling the wind push against the roof of the minivan. Nonetheless, the locals flew by on my left, unafraid of burja's force. Maybe someday I'd be like them but today, I'd travel in a white-knuckle fervor. Was it only two days ago that I had thought getting through the narrow streets of Goce would be my greatest challenge? What an idiot.

The motorway rises from the flat Vipava Valley up and up toward the peaks of Nanos. Although burja has been around since the beginning of time, they say that it became more violent and unpredictable when they cut the motorway into the mountainside, altering its natural path from the Adriatic Sea to the Julian Alps. As I climbed, vicious gusts rocked the minivan. I prayed, hoping that none of them would actually push me over the guardrail on my right. In many places, the mountain below the roadway is so steep and sheer that there would be nothing to stop you until you fell all the way down onto the valley floor. And in some spots, you could fall and not be found for days unless someone actually reported seeing your vehicle hurled over the railing. What in the hell was I doing driving in this? Oh, yeah. I had to pick up RM. On the bright side, if I didn't show up, he'd surely search for me.

By the time I emerged from burja territory, I had to pry my stiff fingers from the steering wheel. My neck, shoulders and spine were wracked with tension-derived pain. Unsure that I'd even bothered to breathe for several miles, I inhaled deeply then exhaled long and slow. I thanked God. I had made it.Then, it started to rain.

"You've got to be kidding," I thought as I found the wipers and figured out how to turn them up to full speed. Big drops of heavy rain turned into a dense downpour. I slowed down again as the tires hydroplaned from time to time. The rain let up before I reached the airport exit, becoming a slow drizzle by time I arrived. It had taken me an hour and 15 minutes to make the normally one-hour commute. I felt like I'd been behind the wheel for days.

I pulled into an empty parking lot just past the airport entrance. I had 45 minutes to burn so I pulled out the little notebook I always carry in my purse and starting making a list of things I needed or wanted to do this week. Driving wasn't on it. But getting a bed, rat traps and a flashlight were, as was a visit to the butcher with RM who could communicate my thanks for his patience.

I was relieved to see RM again. He was saying goodbye to his French guests as I drove around to the bus parking area. He introduced me to the drivers who'd been on the tour and we all walked into the terminal for a drink. The drivers, still on duty, couldn't have a beer. Me? I needed one. At least one.

As RM and I walked back to the car, I pulled the key out of my purse and handed it to him, walking toward the passenger door.

"You aren't going to drive me home?" RM asked.

"No way in hell," I said with a smile.

The Key to My Heart

When we returned the keys to Zvonka's office on Monday, she told us to meet her and the seller on Tuesday morning at the house in Goce. We would sign the final papers there and the property would be mine. Words can't adequately describe my feelings of excitement, joy and trepidation. Was this all really happening?

That night, Running Man (RM) and I started to pack up our things at Edbin's apartment, anticipating our impending departure. The next morning, we headed down to Goce. I had an appointment with Fate.

Zvonka, Mr. M. and his wife were there when we arrived. As we greeted one another, I noticed that we were all wearing big, almost stupid, smiles on our faces. Mr. M. seemed thrilled to be selling the place and, frankly, happy he was selling it to me. RM had told him about my dream and he seemed glad that he was somehow playing a part in it. Mrs. M. looked the happiest of all. When I commented on this later, RM snickered that she probably already had the money spent. Zvonka's smile expressed her delight in being the one who delivered this little piece of paradise to me. We had spent a lot of time together and despite the language barrier, we'd learned much about each other. She had treated me well and I was very grateful to her.

Zvonka had arranged multiple copies of the final papers on the kitchen table. She walked through the documents paragraph by paragraph with RM translating. Part of the closing process was the witnessing by all parties of the electric and water meter readings and a final walk-through of the property. I had few questions at this stage of the game, so I just kept initialing and signing as instructed by Zvonka via RM. The phrase "signing my life away" popped into my brain more than once. While that saying was accurate in some ways, I preferred to view this experience not as signing away my life but as signing up for a new one. A much better one. 

During the meter-examination phase, Mrs. M. and I made small talk. I told her about seeing a couple of small scorpions in the wine cellar. She grimaced and told me that they often came inside when it rained.

"Into the cellar?" I asked.
"And in the house," she replied with a shiver.
"Yikes!" I thought, making a mental note to research the toxicity of a Slovenian scorpion sting.

We were standing under the grape arbor in the courtyard. It was heavy with juicy red grapes. I plucked one from above my head and popped it into my mouth, closing my eyes as I chewed slowly. I savored the flavor of it. It was, after all, my grape. Well, almost.

We all walked back into the house where one more signature line awaited for Mr. M. and me -- the proverbial "bottom line." He signed one copy as I signed the other, then we grinned at each other as we swapped copies to sign them. I might have been holding my breath as I signed because I was suddenly aware of the extreme exhalation of air coming from deep inside of me as I put the pen down on the table. Everyone was still smiling. Mr. M. then pulled the keys from his pocket and in an exaggerated gesture, swiped them through the air and handed them to me. 

"Hvala lepa, hvala lepa," I repeated, shaking his hand with vigor. "Thank you very much."

Never without a camera, RM wanted to document the momentous occasion so we re-enacted the key exchange in front of my new home.

I now owned a house in a foreign country where I couldn't speak the language and knew just a handful of people, only half of whom could speak English. Missouri was very, very far away. Rather than be overwhelmed by the enormity of the life-altering decision I had just consummated, I did what any red-blooded American girl would do. I went shopping.

Topping the list were cleaning supplies, the European version of a shop-vac and a new toilet seat. There was nothing wrong with the toilet so it would stay, but the seat would be new. I've spent much of my adult life renting apartments and houses and the first thing I've always done is buy a new toilet seat. I guess it's like marking my territory in a sanitary kind of way.

Also on my list were pillows, bed linens and towels, and a couple of electric heaters. It was October, after all, and the nights were getting chilly. The only heat in the house would come from the wood stove in the little dining area. There was some wood in the barn and the stove had been used fairly recently, so I hoped I wouldn't have a flue fire or anything catastrophic. Finally, of course, I had to get a coffeemaker and beans because my morning coffee is a necessity. There was an old electric grinder in the cabinet that still worked, although it was tough to find an electric coffeemaker that didn't cost an arm and a leg. RM called it "American coffee" which I guess is to distinguish it from the strong and thick Turkish coffee most people made here. The apartment in Lokve had a coffee carafe but no coffee maker, so I'd been placing a paper towel in a metal sieve placed on top of the carafe, adding ground coffee and pouring boiling water through it slowly. My method worked, but my new home would have at least one modern convenience.

We shopped in Slovenia and Italy, making a trip to the massive Ikea outside of Gorizia. I'd never been to an Ikea before so it was yet another first for me. But you can't be an American and not experience a sense of familiarity in any huge warehouse-type of store. I was confident that my first trip there would not be my last.

Our final stop was at the little grocery store in Vipava. There would be no more eating out for awhile so we bought enough staples for a week or so, including boxed milk and a dozen small sausages I couldn't even pronounce.

We deposited the groceries in the kitchen and the rest of our shopping spoils in the middle room in Goce. We also brought in some of the items RM had in his car, including the grilling equipment and supplies he kept in a large handled bag. It was convenient for grilling along the Soca River. Now, we would put it to work in the courtyard until I had time to wash all of the dishes and clean the stove.

We spent our last night in Lokve and the next morning, filled RM's car with luggage and wound our way down to the Vipava Valley then up to Goce. I was dressed for a day of intense cleaning. I couldn't wait to start throwing things away then scrub everything from top to bottom, inside and out. I needed to know that when I found dirt somewhere, it was my dirt and not someone else's. As particular as I am about that kind of thing, RM is, perhaps, even more so. He dove into our first day of cleaning with a vengeance. I walked into the bathroom once to ask if I could use it and found that he'd removed the large plastic and mirrored medicine chest from the wall and had it immersed in a tubful of bleach, water and suds. By the end of Day 1, we'd depleted two gallons of bleach but had finished cleaning only the bathroom, entry and kitchen. Despite the fact that this was basically a three-room house, we had a lot of territory still to cover.

I couldn't sleep that night and it wasn't just because of the air mattress. The wind had picked up outside and I was awake, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of my new, very old house. I think that every house has its own unique rhythm. In the quiet of the night, the house was speaking to me, telling me about itself with every hum, shuffle, bump, whisper and groan. I listened in silence, familiarizing myself with each nuance and understanding that soon, I would know this place well and its hearbeat would start to lull me to sleep at night rather than keep me from it. We would become good friends, comfortable with one another, respectful of each other and content to grow old together.

As I started to drift off to sleep, I hoped the same would hold true for RM and me.

You Can't Lose Control if You Never Had It

I spent less than two days in Spain but what an incredible experience. Running Man (RM) was finishing his time with the Count and Countess for whom he'd worked before. His job there was part concierge, part physical therapist, part friend. When the Count and Countess wanted to attend a concert or social event, he coordinated that. When the Countess wanted to swim in her icy cool pool in the mornings, he helped her in, assisted her with aquatic exercises, then helped her out. He took daily walks with the Count who called them "our walks to Paris and back." 

The Count and Countess were both becoming increasingly frail, and RM enjoyed spending as much time with them as he could. He'd met them several years before while guiding a tour they were taking, and they'd stayed good friends ever since.

I admit that I was somewhat intimidated about meeting them. They are people of influence and means in Spain and I'm just an average middle-class American. I hoped I wouldn't embarrass myself or my nation. I've met national leaders, celebrities and even President Bill Clinton while working on his press advance team. But these were titled people and that put them into a different category.

RM kept telling me to not be nervous and he was right. As soon as I met them, I realized that they were kind and gracious people and, well, normal. That is, if normal people have multiple homes, wealth and influence. I stopped thinking about their titles and lifestyle and just thought about them as being warm people, welcoming me to their home. (Okay, one of their homes.)

The Countess herself gave me the tour of their lovely villa in the northern Spanish countryside of Puicerda, near Andorra and the French border. Her father had built this home. He had been smart, innovative and made a fortune by using both of these traits to introduce penicillin to Spain. Imagine that. Being the one person who brought a life-saving pharmaceutical to an entire country. RM told me this, not the Countess. But a blind person could see the pride she had for her father as we walked through a villa filled with the inventions he had put into the house, long before their time. I was awestruck by communications devices and electrical systems, the tiny elevator and the massive gasoline-powered stove moved from a ship to the middle of the villa's kitchen. I was fascinated by the observatory at the very top of the house with its star-painted ceiling and huge telescope. I was simultaneously saddened by the disrepair in some of the house. I couldn't imagine how much money it would take to restore this phenomenal home to its original grace, and doubted their children or grandchildren wanted to make the investment. Were I wealthy, I would have done it in an instant and opened the doors to show the world her father's brilliance.

Biography has been one of my favorite literary genres since I read a paperback about Helen Keller that I bought through the Weekly Reader in elementary school. I was hooked on reading about the lives of others ever since, and as a writer, I've always wanted to research and write about the life of someone significant. If I could do such a book about the Count and Countess, their families and their own marvelous love story, I would die happy. But they are very private people and I would not intrude upon that for the sake of a book. But perhaps someday, when they are gone, when I have time to conduct the research, and if I could get the blessing of their children, I just might consider sharing what must be a fabulous story with the world. Another dream for me.

The villa was a place where we dressed for dinner, had cocktails on the terrace overlooking the pool, mountains and horses, then moved into the formal dining room where wonderfully attentive staff served us a four-course meal. For this Midwest American farm girl, it was the stuff of British novels and Hollywood movies. "Dorothy," I thought silently to myself, "You sure aren't in Kansas any more."

The Count and Countess introduced me to some family members who were visiting, including a niece who was beautiful, very talkative and has led a rather intriguing life. They all spoke English for my benefit, although I tried to follow their Spanish. While RM admits his fluency in many languages, Spanish isn't one of them. I'm convinced that people who speak several languages like he does have a genetic propensity for this gift. I'd taken Spanish in both high school and college and he could talk circles around me, having just "picked it up" during his time around the Count and Countess. RM had spoken Spanish to me before and I'd poked fun at him because he sounded like he was speaking the language with a pronounced lisp. I would say "buenos dias" and he would say "buenth diath." When I listened to the conversation around the table, that's exactly what I heard. I guess it's not unlike learning English in the United Kingdom then hearing a bunch of Americans speaking. To paraphrase an old saying, the United States and England are two countries separated by a language. Apparently, the same applied to other countries that speak the same language. I tentatively used a little of my Mexican/Costa Rican Spanish but felt extremely self-conscious with my pronunciation among all of these native speakers. And when I head a little Catalan, a regionally unique language that seems to combine, among other things, Spanish and French, I was utterly lost but fascinated.

The Count and Countess were leaving on Thursday for their home in Switzerland -- a much cooler place to spend one's summer. RM and I were headed to Slovenia via southern France and Monaco, through northern Italy and back to Edbin's apartment in Lokve where we would stay until I had the keys to the "new" house in Goce. During our long drive, RM and I talked about our hopes, dreams and ideas about this huge change in our lives. I was living a dream and kept praying that I wouldn't wake up and find myself back in a dead marriage in small-town Missouri.

Edbin and his mother were happy to have us back and excited by the fact that I was buying a home in Slovenia. They welcomed RM and me back like we were family, and Edbin's mom smiled joyfully at my few clumsy conversational words in Slovene. Slovenia is a very small country with its own language, and a difficult one at that. The mere fact that I attempt to speak their language brings a smile to the faces of people there. The fact that I might be butchering the hell out of it doesn't really matter; only the fact that I'm making the attempt. Thank goodness.

I was nervous. This time it wasn't about meeting influential and titled people. After all, I was in a country of peasants here and, frankly, I was much more comfortable among them. They are my kind of folk. I was nervous because I was buying a home in a foreign country. Who wouldn't have a jitter or two? I wanted to sign the papers, transfer the money and move in. I could deal with the inevitable buyer's remorse later. I also didn't want to put out any more money to stay in the apartment. My budget was tight so I needed to stop paying rent.

RM and I drove to Ajdovscina on Friday. I needed to open a bank account so I could have the money from my U.S. account wired there. I wanted to wire it to my own account this time, convert Dollars to Euros, then pay precisely what I owed. I opened my non-resident account at a local bank where the tellers seemed pleased to use their English. It's not every day that some Americanka walks in to open an account. I immediately contacted my bank and asked them to wire the money to my brand-spanking-new account. Then, we walked over to Zvonka's office to tell her that I was here, had put the wire transfer into motion and to ask her what was next. Zvonka was happy to see us again and told us to come back on Tuesday to sign papers and make the final payment. RM would have the dubious honor of keeping me occupied for the next three days as I anxiously awaited closing the deal. Making my financial matters worse was the growing Dollar-to-Euro conversion rate. It had shot from $1.25 to one Euro to more than $1.44. While that may not be a lot when you're converting $100 to Euros, when you're converting Dollars to 88,000 Euros, you choke on the difference. I would have to pay between $16,000 and $17,000 more now than under the conversion rate available when I made the down payment. I had budgeted for the balance, realtor's fees and a few extra dollars. Now, I would struggle to just pay the balance owed. I was frustrated and angry but knew that I couldn't control the conversion rate. One of the things I've learned in dealing with adversity in my life is that it's acceptable to stress over the things you can control, but it's futile to stress about the things you can't. For example, in planning public events for more than 25 years, I learned a long time ago that you can stress about everything except the weather. Despite your experience and expertise in event planning, you cannot control the weather, so why worry about it? All you can do is plan your event for both good weather and for bad then deal with Mother Nature that day. There was nothing I could do about the conversion rate. I would just have to suck it up and transfer the money. Then, I could turn my attention to how I would pay Zvonka's fees, taxes and everything else I would have to spend money on to start establishing my new home.

I was more worked up about the fact that the sellers were vacationing in Croatia. They would be back on Tuesday to sign the final papers and relinquish the keys. Until then, I would have to keep paying rent for Edbin's apartment. Not a great thing when I now had barely enough money to pay the balance on the house, let alone for an apartment. 

I had RM ask her if she would take us back to see the property. I wasn't backing out, I joked, but I really wanted to see it again. Zvonka handed me the key and told RM to return it on Monday. I just stared at it in my hand, two keys, one for the gate and one for the door, attached to a ring with an Eiffel Tower charm. I couldn't believe she was just giving me the keys before the sale was final. The scene from the movie, "Under the Tuscan Sun," ran through my mind. In it, the Italian woman hands Diane Lane a huge skeleton key before the money has been transferred and the sale finalized. The woman tells her they'll take care of the rest later and says sardonically, "It's a house. What are you going to do, steal it?"

RM and I set off immediately for Goce. I couldn't get there fast enough. Despite the fact that I had now been to the village several times, I was as enchanted with it again as I was the very first time I had seen it. RM's sister-in-law had told me before that there was something magic about Goce, and I couldn't agree with her more. The house also still held the same magic for me. Mr. M. obviously had been there, clearing out the items he was taking and cleaning up a bit. Still, it looked mostly the same as it had before and RM and I explored every nook and cranny a little more closely than we had during previous visits. I didn't have to feel like I was snooping now; the house was virtually mine. The courtyard flora was starting to wane a bit but the view down into the valley, with the hillside vineyards heavy with grapes just before harvest, was just as breathtaking as I remembered.

When preparing for my return to Slovenia, I had forseen the fact that I would have no bed when I moved into the house. So, I had packed an air mattress, a battery-operated pump and basic linens. Now that I had the keys for the weekend, RM and I decided we'd camp out there on Saturday night. We returned to Lokve to make plans and pack a few things, then headed out Saturday morning to buy groceries and cleaning supplies. Since the house wasn't technically mine yet, RM and I sneaked in quietly, opening both gates and driving the car into the courtyard.

He volunteered to handle the bathroom while I took kitchen duty. He turned on the water heater and starting cleaning. I turned on the water heater above the sink, plugged in a fridge, pulled on rubber gloves and went to work. Mr. M. had actually left the place pretty clean so it didn't take us long before we were ready to open a bottle of wine and prepare a fabulous dinner of mussels and leeks. We ate at the concrete table in the courtyard, under a canopy of stars. We marveled at the fact that although we were sitting in the village, we felt completely and utterly alone. It was magical, and I couldn't stop fearing that I would wake up from what simply had to be a dream.

As it turns out, I wasn't dreaming. In fact, I was awake most of the night. The air mattress, while better than nothing on the vinyl-covered hardwood floor, was uncomfortable and the unfamiliar sounds of the house kept me from falling into a deep sleep. Still, as RM and I watched the sun rise above the foothills and vineyards, I was enchanted and relaxed for the first time in a long time.

The bells of the village church were ringing as we left Goce, headed back to Lokve. In my mind, I was rearranging furniture and creating a lengthy "to-do" list. I refused to let my dwindling budget dampen my enthusiasm. You can't control the weather. You can't control the Dollar-to-Euro conversion rate. In fact, you control very little in your life. Those who struggle with such issues are the ones foolish enough to believe they ever had control of something. I was learning more about that with every passing day.

Overcoming the Fear of Water

I found it nearly impossible to concentrate on anything but a way to buy the incredible home I'd found in Goce. So I started pigeon-holing everything in my life -- focus on client projects from this time to that time of the day, schedule these specific times for family and social events, spend these hours trying to sell things, devote these hours to figuring out how to finance the property. With a mere 24 hours in a day, my life was insane.

I also found myself dealing with some familial stress. My brothers and sisters were happy for me and this new direction in my life. When I asked my Dad what he thought about my moving to Europe, he smiled, shrugged and said, "Well, I don't know why you shouldn't." He thought this adventure would be good for me. My Mom was the only person in my life who didn't want me to go and would, in fact, tear up a bit every time the issue surfaced. Among my family members, Mom is fairly famous for being masterful at what we call, "The Big G." "G," of course, stands for "guilt." At times in my life, The Big G has been beneficial as a tool to put my moral compass back into alignment. At other times, The Big G has been a big pain in the you-know-what. Of course, I was magnifying the effect with my own element of guilt. My parents are getting older and more frail and that's often the time when kids decide to move closer to their parents rather than half a world away. My Mom and Dad sacrificed for me during the first 18 years of my life. Didn't I owe them? 

I have to place some of the blame for my Mom's lack of enthusiasm on the fact that she believed if I moved to Europe, she'd never see me again. You see, I have a sister who lives in Florida and hadn't been home for six years. I told Mom that I wasn't my sister and that I hoped to come back to the States at least twice a year. I don't think that reassured her much and since she's a mother, that's her prerogative. The irony is that she and my Dad had raised me to tackle the world, instilling in me confidence and my rather dominant independent streak. Didn't they have to shoulder at least some of the blame for my mid-life move?

The mere idea of living in Europe is, well, foreign to her. My Dad served a brief Army stint in Europe between Korea and Vietnam. My Mom hadn't traveled outside the U.S. except for my brother's wedding. Their world might be small but they made sure their children's was not. They didn't send us on study-abroad trips; too many kids and not enough money. Still, they showed us the world by encouraging us to read, achieve and dare to dream. 

The fact is, my Mom simply has to overcome her fear of water. She's done it before and I know she can do it again. 

The first vacation I can remember was a week at my aunt and uncle's resort on a lake in southern Missouri. In fact, that's where we spent a week every single summer during my youth. While that didn't offer a lot of variety, we kids and Dad loved going where we spent as much time as we could in or on the water. I have great memories of fishing in the wee hours of the morning with my Dad, canoeing along the shoreline, swimming from a tiny patch of sandy beach, and learning to water-ski from a sitting position on the dock. We had no fear of water or anything else, and getting us to wear our life jackets was nearly impossible. 

But from the time we were very young, Mom hauled us kids to Red Cross swimming lessons every summer. We didn't realize until years later that not only could Mom not swim, but she had a deathly fear of the water. For most of my childhood, she sat bravely in boats, always with a life jacket bound tightly around her and, had I noticed, probably white-knuckled most of the time from gripping a side rail on whatever boat we were in. I never remember seeing fear in her eyes or hearing it in her voice. She took us to those swimming lessons because she wanted to make sure none of us would have her fear, and that all of us would be able to swim. Years later, when my youngest sister started taking lessons, Mom did too. She learned to put her head under water without panic, to dog paddle, and to float on her back and her stomach. And somewhere in the process in her late 30s, she overcame her fear of water. None of us kids will ever know what that fear is like because of her resolved determination to make sure we didn't. I pray that she can overcome her fear of my life on another continent just as quietly and as bravely as she overcame her fear of water. My parents gave us all wings to fly (and fins to swim). Still, when any of us chooses to use them, Mom and Dad are entitled to be apprehensive. It's their job.

Besides the emotional turmoil, I faced the practical financial matters of my mid-life move. I kept trying to liquidate possessions, selling several things during a yard sale but failing in my attempts to sell most of the larger items. No matter how hard I tried, they just wouldn't move in an economy where everyone had cinched their belts tighter than a hangman's noose. Unfortunately, I was the one who was poised on the platform, ready to fall through the trapdoor. I had to relent on my stubborn need to go it alone, telling my generous friend that I would take her up on her offer to co-sign my loan. Not even full disclosure of my current financial situation scared her away. She is a believer. She would co-sign a loan for an amount that should allow me to pay off the balance, the realtor's fees and leave a little in my pocket for the inevitable expenses I would have when moving in. 

Having someone co-sign a loan for you is a frightening proposition, to say the least. I didn't want this to be all about some dream of mine, so I based my acceptance of her offer on logic rather than fantasy. First, I knew the property was worth far more than the sale price of 98,000 Euros. There were people willing to pay at least 150,000, if not more. So, I knew that if I never made a single improvement to the place, I could turn around and sell the property for a profit of more than 50,000 Euros. After repaying the loan, I would have more than $70,000 in my pocket that would pay off all of my debts and give me a huge chunk of change for whatever I pursued next in life. Second, I was putting my proverbial affairs in order which included a life insurance policy that would more than cover the bank loan and my debts. Bolstered by these facts, I reached a decision.

I was going to own a house in Slovenia.

Now, I had to create a new "to-do" list to work on before I flew back to Europe at the end of September. I had three weeks to move my account to the bank we had agreed on, meet with a lawyer to handle my will and power of attorney, work out the loan details and sign all of the paperwork. We signed the papers on Tuesday. Six days later, armed with my new passport, driver's license, international driver's license and money in my U.S. bank account, I boarded a plane bound for Spain. I had never been so excited and yet so scared at the same time.

When I landed at the airport in Barcelona, Running Man (RM) was waiting for me, again with a white orchid. Suddenly, I felt my fear subside leaving only my giddy excitement. For more than a year, I had placed fanatical importance on making this move entirely on my own. But seeing his handsome, smiling face waiting on the other side of the customs line, where the officials put the first stamp in my new passport, I realized something very important. I was never going to have to do anything alone in my life. I never had. Family had raised me to be independent and confident. My family and friends had always provided moral support and two very good friends had loaned me money to make this happen. RM had given me not only phenomenal support with his knowledge of Europe, language skills and connections, but had been with me every step of the way, reassuring me, educating me and talking me down when I wandered out on a ledge. His was not just the voice of reason but an echo of my own thoughts and dreams. Could I have done this without him? That was a critical question for someone who never, ever wanted to be dependent again upon a man for anything in life. 

But I knew the answer. I might not have ended up with this magical property in Slovenia, but I would have landed on my feet somewhere in the world. I was absolutely, positively sure about that. I had no fear of water or anything else.

A New Window on the World

Coming home again was different this time. Of course, I didn't exactly have a "home" in the States any longer, nor did I have one yet in Slovenia. I wasn't exactly a woman without a country but I was certainly a woman without a place of her own.

One of my favorite writers, Virginia Woolf, wrote that for a woman to be a writer, she needs financial means and a room of her own. Having neither of those items, I wondered how I would ever be able to focus on writing. Years ago, when I had left my well-paying job at the hospital to re-open my agency and be the general contractor on the construction of my house, I had planned to spend part of my time writing. I don't mean just writing client website and brochure copy, or simply taking the time to record daily progress in my construction journal. I wanted to start writing the great American novel. Well, who doesn't? More important, who actually ever does? It's really an unattainable goal for us mere mortals. But if you don't set your sights high, what's the use?

I started writing numerous things but nothing I felt like finishing. Blame it on writer's block, lack of talent or the fact that nothing I started would go anywhere under its own power. But after years of spousal betrayal, all I had to show for my writing career were three journals of private pain and humiliation mixed with factual documentation of infidelity. Not exactly the writing I had planned to create. From time to time, I would actually start writing something. Then, I would move on to something entirely different. I was searching for a genre, a style, a story I could tell. I still hadn't found it. Like most would-be writers, I was searching for a muse.

My guess is that most people entertain romantic notions about writers who just sit down, churn out a novel and get paid some fabulous amount of money which allows them to take a month-long vacation. The fact is that successful writing is a disciplined endeavor; a writer writes every day. Ernest Hemingway is remembered not only for his talent as a storyteller but as a heavy drinker and a womanizer. All are true. But what most people don't know is that he stood (yes, stood) at his typewriter every day from dawn until at least noon, writing. Writing is a passion and a talent but it's also work, make no mistake about it. I still hadn't found time in each day to write, and I certainly didn't have any when I returned to the States. My life was about to change drastically and I had much to do and not much time to do it.

I had taken a trip to Europe and returned an almost-homeowner. It was mid-July and by the end of October, God willing, I would be back in Slovenia to close on the sale and move into my "new" home, altering absolutely everything in my life. I would no longer be visiting Europe and living in my friend's house in Missouri. I would be living in Europe and visiting the U.S. What a concept for a Midwestern farm girl.

Between client deadlines, family visits and social engagements with numerous friends, I spent time researching ways to finance my new life. That part would be a tremendous challenge whether I was moving to Europe or to somewhere in the the States. When you have a mortgage, you sign a contract with a lender. My signature was affixed to a very large mortgage for a very large home here. The bank doesn't care whether two people are married or divorced. The court settlement specifies the division of all the stuff of your life among divorced couples, but the contract with the bank remains intact until the person who retains the property can re-negotiate the mortgage. Between my credit debt, my meager self-employment income and my name on an existing massive mortgage, I wouldn't be able to squeeze a dime out of any respective lending institution in the entire country. I would have to pursue alternative options and based on my research, I had three. First, win the lottery. Second option, find someone who would give me a private loan. Third, find someone who would co-sign a loan. The likelihood of the first option happening was nil since I don't play the lottery. I don't even bother with the Publisher's Clearinghouse sweepstakes. So, I moved on to the second option and actually had two friends who probably had the financial wherewithal to loan me the money, but not necessarily the inclination. Still, that was the best place to start.

Despite my current income limitations, I did have the assurance of receiving a specific amount of money every month from the ex for the property settlement he owed me. For that reason, I pitched the loan to my friends using that monthly settlement amount as the payment I could guarantee making on the loan. I had a plan and built a case that relied more on their generosity than on my actual credit-worthiness. They considered my proposal seriously because they wanted to help me rebuild my life but in the end, turned me down for their own financial concerns. They were entering retirement, were expecting their second and third grandchildren and the economy was in the proverbial toilet. Of course, I understood and was thankful for their friendship and moral support which I continue to receive from them.

Next, I turned to the angel-investor option. No one there would be motivated by my sad mid-life rebuilding story. It would be strictly business. I further developed my business plan and put it out on the appropriate websites but didn't receive any interest. I certainly wasn't surprised, but I kept trying every time I found a new site.

I was just about out of options. I even considered writing a tearful letter to Oprah to see if she would help. Then, I slapped myself in the face and told myself to wake up and come up with a realistic solution. Once again, I countered my depression with the fateful belief that perhaps it wasn't meant to be. If so, I had lost $13,000 on the attempt but to me, it was worth it. I had to shoot for the stars and if I didn't quite get there, at least I knew I had tried.

I continued to try to sell things to raise some of the money. After all, if I could reduce the balance due by $15,000 or so, maybe I could find a way to finance the rest. Had this all been occurring two years earlier, I probably would have sold everything for top value and found the financing. But with the economy in dire straits, I was lucky to find anything positive. I knew I wouldn't give up all hope until the actual October 31 deadline, but it was fading fast.

It was a friend who stepped up and bravely offered to co-sign a loan for me at a local bank. That meant she would put up the collateral and I would use my monthly settlement payment to repay the loan. When she first offered, I was still hoping to find another way -- a way I could do this "on my own." I continued to search with confidence boosted by the offer on the table.

Running Man (RM) was working in Spain until the end of September. The Count and Countess had graciously invited me to stay at their villa during RM's last days there. I wanted to see Spain, even if it would be very little on this trip, so I booked a flight to Barcelona for the last week of September. Our plan was to spend a couple of days in Spain, then make the long drive back to Slovenia. My hope was that I would return to open a bank account there, have the balance due on the house wired, then transfer it to Mr. M. If I didn't have the money by then, I would be going back to negate the contract and try to figure out the next move in my unsettled life.

Once again, I was running out of time. If all I needed was a room of my own, perhaps I should just be content with my friend's guest bedroom for the time being. But from there, I could only look out on a world I was familiar with. What I really wanted, no, needed in my life right now was a window with a view of a different world. I had found the house with the perfect window. I just didn't know if I would be the one looking out from it or not.