You Made Me Love You. I Didn’t Want to Do It, Didn’t Want to Do It.

ABOVE: Lights of the town across the bay from my room in Igalo. I went arty with the camera and made the lights run.


D A T E L I N E : Thursday, 5 July 2007
Penultimate Day at the Institute
Igalo, Montenegro

You know a couple of weeks ago, I waxed melodramatic about how clingy I can be about things? Well, it’s true, even here in the weirdest back rehab spa I’ll ever visit in Eastern Europe. (Because there are so many others in Eastern Europe for me to judge against, right?) But, sitting here on the spacious private balcony of my room overlooking the blue-green waters of the Boka Kotorska and the surrounding hills, I’m getting a little sad that I’m checking out and leaving for Budva tomorrow, to go back to what used to be my normal life – life before the back injury, when I didn’t lay around all day trying not to move my back, when I worked more, cleaned bathrooms, hung laundry, and led walks up to the monastery 12 minutes from the hostel. When I went to the beach on my days off, took daytrips, walked around Old Time taking pictures, and could go to a bar at night with friends if I was off shift. I’m going back to the hustle and bustle of lots of strangers invading my space constantly and no chance to run around naked after a shower air-drying if I want to. I’m going back to what was supposed to be the 6-month adventure in Montenegro I was having, if my back hadn’t gotten hurt. I guess my adventure took a detour.

It’s funny, when this whole thing happened in the middle of May, I was so pissed off that my plans for the summer were being hijacked by the bad luck and clumsiness of a slip and fall accident. I had already gotten used to a month and a half of life in Budva with all new favorite things to do. And, I hated the even newer routine of lying around all day alone, trying to remain conscious when all there was for me was eating, sleeping, reading, watching DVD’s, and hanging out online. It was so frustrating not to be part of the Budva that I had gotten used to.

And now, over a month and a half later, I’m about to be discharged from the Igalo Institute with pretty much a clean bill of back health and I’m a little sad to be re-entering hostel society with all the activity and responsibilities that it carries with it. I’m a little sad to be leaving behind the slovenliness of laying around all day, every day, with no expectations on me except that I not move too much. And, I’m actually a little sad to leave behind these last 2 weeks of weird Igalo Institute routines that I’ve been developing sharply. God, maybe I’m just sad about losing yet another routine!

After tomorrow, I’ll probably never again wake up before 8:00am and be happy about going off to any sort of group activity. I’ll miss all the nice, pretty therapists who wrap me up in mud, point hoses of water at strategic parts of my body while I’m immersed in warm water, and demonstrate walking on tiptoes around the swimming pool for me. I’ll miss the cute waitress who calls me “my dear” and has a fresh, hot cup of black tea brewing at my table as soon as I arrive for dinner in the restaurant. I’ll miss being done with my day by 12:noon and having nothing else I have to do except lounge around on my balcony keeping myself entertained counting how many colors of blue I can see in the water below me. I’ll miss being so close to the promenade at Herceg Novi, which I can get to after a short, 50¢ bus ride, where there’s a great little movie theater that thinks it’s an art house, the best gelato café on the boardwalk anywhere, and a lovely cliffside walkway right next to the water which has even better people-watching than anything in Budva.

It’s interesting to me how much I dreaded coming here all this time, and now that I’m having to leave, I’m sad to go. That means I liked it here, I guess, which is the most surprising bit. Igalo turned out to be more than just good material to blog about in my snarky little way. It turned out to be a good experience that I’m not sorry I had.