Between Maps and Time Zones
This morning, I finished writing the Preface for my upcoming book of short stories. I’ve been re-editing and polishing it for many weeks now. Who would have thought a single page could demand so much time to reach its final form? I'm hoping it captures the essence of my journey.
In between crafting my life here in Germany, I’ve been following the unfolding events in my motherland of Serbia. Last weekend, Belgrade’s streets filled with young people, students, their voices rising in unison for justice and freedom. These protests have been ongoing for months now, a persistent cry for change. Streets I’ve walked countless times now pulse with souls moving like a single organism, determined and purposeful.
The irony isn’t lost on me, that I now make my home in Germany as a highly qualified professional, not as the typical “gastarbeiter” (guest worker) so common for those from the Balkans. I arrived with credentials and expertise, welcomed through front doors. And Germany itself carries its own spectral weight in my story. Just last month, I discovered that a concentration camp in Dortmund where my grandfather was imprisoned during World War II has been preserved as a memorial center. There’s a permanent exhibition titled Resistance and Persecution in Dortmund 1933–1945—records, photographs, testimonies. Somewhere in that collection might be traces of my grandfather’s history that runs through my veins.
I will continue researching whether any records of my grandfather remain in Dortmund’s archives. I will write because writing is how I bridge these impossible distances, spatial and temporal, how I stand in multiple territories at once, how I honor both the dead and those currently fighting. I don’t know when I’ll find the courage to visit the memorial where my grandfather was imprisoned.
I live between maps and time zones, professionally present in Germany while my mind fills with thoughts of Serbia. In quiet moments, I find myself longing for Italy, my second home, where pieces of my heart also reside, a third point in this constellation of identity. And many other places where I lived, so to speak. This constellation of identity, spanning across continents, doesn't fully capture the entirety of my emotional geography. And yet, another part of me reaches over to the time zones of the Indian subcontinent where the world awakens as I sleep, and across the ocean to a distant Pacific where the day begins as mine ends, these quiet reminders that our deep connections stretch far beyond geographical boundaries.
As a writer, I’ve come to understand that this impossible position, this navigation between maps and time zones, is perspective. To stand at the intersection of territories, both personal and political, both ancestral and immediate, grants a unique vantage point that few can claim.
For writers, perhaps there is no such thing as exile, only expanded territory or inner asylum. Every redrawn border becomes another room in the house of our perspective. Every wound becomes a window through which we see territories differently. From this vantage point between maps, I watch my homeland, my adopted country, and all the places that have shaped me and that will shape me with eyes that refuse simplified narratives.
The protests continue as I write these words. History unfolds across multiple territories simultaneously. And I remain between maps and time zones, watching, witnessing, writing, because sometimes words are the only bridges strong enough to span such impossible cartographies.