Ash and Small Bear go on an adventure!

Outside Zagreb’s downtown train station, rows of kerchiefed, smiling old women sell strawberries in the shadows of dignified buildings and tall girls with good shoes. Stepping hungrily off the train I picked one at random and armed myself with a kilo of solidified summer air and then a loaf of fresh soft bread, to take up where all the espresso left off in fueling my walk around the city. There’s something almost indecently joyful about wandering around on a sunny day eating strawberries, the sweetness of it all chameleoning my fingers and lips from pink to rose red and smiling, as the enormous door of the Cathedral shrank me to little-girl size and the candles inside flickered all the sound down to soft, echoing footsteps. God sits above the cathedral door, perpetually deep in conversation, but not so absorbed as to miss any of the tiny humans stumbling into his house. Or the ones stumbling out, like me, to where a stone wall guards paths through huge oak trees, soft grass… and a swingset! The girl on the other swing said of course she didn’t mind my company, so I flew back and forth for a while watching the sun through face-sized green leaves. Then more coffee.

There’s a bronze statue in the corner of the park, a naked woman hiding her face with one arm, so mysterious we only get to see her mouth. Nothing explains her – no title, no artists plaque proudly owning her, no rows of tiny candles or distinguished, stern saints. She claims only pigeons for followers and trees for family, a shy, softly curving answer to the all-seeing deity next door.