When I tell my new friend Edisa that I have never seen a pomegranate tree before the one in her back garden, all she can say is:
“Unbelievable.”
I realize it’s like someone coming to my home state of Virginia and saying they’ve never seen an apple tree before, but that’s exactly one of my favorite things about travel – trading your normal for someone else’s normal.
Naturally, I ask Edisa if I might return to sketch her pomegranate tree, and on a clear Friday afternoon, she invites me back over to her home in Mostar. While I’d planned to simply pull up a chair under the tree, Edisa has a different idea – we’ll move the table from their downstairs patio into the garden.
As we begin to navigate the table up a set of stairs, I wonder out loud whether it will make it through a short hallway, but again, Edisa knows best:
“It will fit. We are doing this every night during Ramadan – eating in the garden with our friends until dawn.”
I let the beauty of this image linger in my mind while we position the table into the garden. There’s a particular branch with a pomegranate hanging perfectly from its end, so perfectly it seems worthy of tempting Eve herself, and it is beneath this laden bough that we place the table.
No sooner have we done so than my company for the afternoon arrives: Edisa’s adorable children, Iman and Hamza, and their next-door neighbor Anela, who is proudly bearing a new sketchbook her mother bought her for receiving top marks on a geography project.
Iman and Anela join me in my endeavor to sketch a pomegranate, but Hamza fills his notebook with the whimsical motifs that only a four-year-old’s imagination can conjure. And it’s as our pens are scratching against paper and pop songs are playing from Anela’s cell phone and Edisa is cracking open pomegranates, offering us all jagged halves of the sweet, tangy fruit, that I sit back for a moment in my chair.
You have to do this every now and then, don’t you? Give your wonder a chance to breathe and marvel at where this strange and beautiful thing called life has brought you: to Bosnia, to a family’s back garden, to a plastic table beneath a pomegranate tree.
It’s somewhere I could never have imagined finding myself, and for this reason, I love Mostar all the more.
I can’t even begin to tell you what this did to my two hearts….my momma’s heart and my teacher’s heart. Wow. This is what gifts do…they keep giving. I love seeing you use your gifts selflessly. Only wish I could have been a witness. Can’t wait to see children ALL OVER THE WORLD using your sketching book for children to unleash their potential and creative power. You go girl!
My thoughts exactly!
And thank you, Cat! Really glad you enjoyed this post 🙂
Thanks so much for this, Mom – your teacher’s heart would have definitely felt at home in Mostar 🙂 By the end of the week, every sketching session usually turned into an impromptu art lesson. It got me quite excited to get to work on different books of sketches, and I love the thought of doing one just for children to help them start sketching. Lots of ideas to mull over!
What? I see Pomegranate trees all the time in Virgina ;-). I love the Eve / forbidden fruit reference, i remember reading somewhere that the “apple” in the story would have more likely been a pomegranate (which would have been known in the region vs. the apple). This story causes me recall the Pomegranate tree in my grandfather’s house’s courtyard from when I was a child. Lovely time in Mostar indeed it seems.
I’d never heard that before about the forbidden fruit being a pomegranate, but that makes a lot of sense! Thanks for sharing that 🙂 And yes, Mostar absolutely was lovely, and it was all because of the people. I’m so grateful my plans got changed around a bit, as I now couldn’t imagine having not visited there. Speaking of plans, where’s next for you?!
Hmm…plans are a tough question. Lots of interesting possibilities going on, some potentially exciting, but would be a bit long to write in a comment unfortunately. I’m “home” currently because I need to be to sort them all out, and likely my life will be different in a month regardless. So now I’m just watching the absurdity of the government shut down. And you, what are your plans after Turkey?
I definitely understand! Plans and possibilities are always exciting, though, so best of luck sorting them out – and keep me posted when you do 🙂 After Turkey, I’ll be heading home to Virginia to spend the holidays with my family, and then it’s off to the Seattle area for a few months to finish my memoir!
How much more do you have remaining in your memoir? I’ll totally buy it once I find myself with umm a place that I really live. Sure if you want to know I will be happy to tell you. I’m curious to know how it ends myself, its a crazy story so far, with some pretty dichotomous choices. I can’t wait to follow the Turkey adventures (any other destinations or just there?).
I’ve got about a third of my memoir left to write – so around 25,000 more words 🙂 And I’m excited to have you following along the rest of the trip. I’ll be briefly passing through Serbia and Bulgaria, but yes, the last part of the trip will be mostly focused on Turkey. I can’t wait!
Wow, dear, i like so much ours story. Hope to see you soon. Best regards from all my family and beautiful Mostar 🙂
Thank you so much, Edisa! If you couldn’t tell from this post, meeting you and your family truly made my time in Mostar 🙂 I’m so grateful our paths crossed and can’t wait to swing through your lovely town again soon!
My neighbor in Norfolk has a pomegranate tree. In the late fall and winter, the tree is a-flutter with songbirds eating the seeds of the split fruit.
(I’m a childhood friend of your mother’s from dancing school; I found your blog from hers.)
Thanks for checking out my blog and saying hello, Linda! That’s quite cool to hear there’s a pomegranate tree in Norfolk – I didn’t realize we had a climate for it. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it when I’m home next 🙂
I love the line about trading your normal for someone else’s normal – I think that’s so true about travel!
Thanks, Laura! I’m really glad to hear that thought resonated with you 🙂
I love that line:
“…that’s exactly one of my favorite things about travel – trading your normal for someone else’s normal.”
So succinct, yet saying so much 🙂
Thanks so much, Zak! And I just have to say – it was SUCH a pleasure to finally meet you in person. I’m pretty stoked for the epicness that I’m sure the rest of this week holds 🙂
Giving your wonder a chance to breathe – what a lovely concept. Anela is quite a talented artist. Both of the girls’ pictures were fabulous!
Thank you, Staci! And isn’t she just? I was so impressed with all the little artists I met in Mostar 🙂 Lots of talent to be developed!
Love X a million!
Thanks so much, Andi 🙂 Hope you’re doing well!
You are such a gifted writer and storyteller. With words, sketches and pictures. Wow! Impressed!
Thank you, Anja! That really means a lot. I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed the story, and thank you as always for reading!
I love how unplanned moments can lead to unexpected treasured memories. I’m so glad to have stumbled across your blog. Your sketches are brilliant.
I couldn’t agree more, Joanne – as I’m sure you can probably tell in these stories 🙂 I’m so glad you stumbled across my blog as well, and I look forward to hearing from you again!
Candace, I love how you often include others in your sketching adventures. Especially the sweet children.
Thanks so much, Diane! Sketching has really become a way for me to connect with people when I travel. I love how art opens the door to these encounters – especially when there’s cute kids involved 🙂 Hope you’re doing well!
I bought a sketchbook and a pencil in your honor. I love how your art is so inviting to be shared with others. I have zero experience sketching and no idea if it’ll be fun for me or not, but I wanted to challenge myself to spend some time really looking at a place, not just snapping a photo of it and moving on. I’ll let you know if I ever have something worth sharing.
Carmel, the news that you bought a sketchbook literally made my day. It is so fun to think of you sketching in Korea, and I really hope you enjoy the experience. Almost as soon as I started sketching, I fell in love with how it helps me truly see a place – even if my sketch itself turns out to be rubbish 🙂 It’s just about taking the time to slow down and look, you know? Please, please, please feel free to share any of your sketches with me – you know I would LOVE to see them. xo
Just beautiful. I love your second photo. It feels just like a moment frozen in time – I can sense the fluidity and movement.