Clogs

I am a descendant of clogs, two pairs of little clogs left somewhere on the cobblestones. Migrations, the fate of all times, change the essence of life. Searches for new paths, a few desires when reality is faced head-on.

Small towns, cities, gathering places for those who left behind plows, oxen, hoes, sickles. An abandoned village.

It pains me when someone out of arrogance says to another: peasant-like. That someone is a boor who spits on their own origins. Is a peasant worth any less? We gaze upon the gifts earned through toil. Who gives us the right to belittle them? Our complexes and haughty attitudes, how easily we've overlooked our origins, discarded them with contempt.

But the village is resilient, wise, the village breathes, it opens its arms.

Only those who have felt life within it have the right to write about the village and the impulse it radiates. Those who struggle for its existence.

We are spoiled, can you imagine life without electricity? A peasant can.

Let's remember them, where is our readiness to extend a hand to them, to admire them? It's easiest to permit oneself and say: you're just a country bumpkin.

Plush ones, remember the woolen socks, patchwork, fur coats. Silken ones, remember the hearth, cornbread, and clotted cream.

We haven't matured enough to look a peasant in the eye.

This is the story of two pairs of clogs.

Rada Jović