I left Reading a month ago, but I arrived in Motovun a day later due to the British Airways strike. July 19 has been such an important date in my life, and for so long, that I cannot but notice its return on the calendar round. Dorian’s birthday on June 19, a month before my departure, has only reinforced the recollection. How long will I remain aware of this date, though? A few months? A few years? Judging by all the other major moves in my adult life—from Belgrade to Cambridge, Massachusetts; from Cambridge to Ljubljana; from Ljubljana back to Cambridge; and from Cambridge to Reading—it will evaporate in several years. Still, things may be different this time around. After all, it is my last move. More, it amounts to my own Independence Day. July 19, 2003! Come to think of it, I will do my best never to forget this fabulous date.

Addendum (August 13, 2016)

For better or worse, I have long forgotten about my own Independence Day. July 19, 2003? In fact, I cannot even remember the last time I celebrated it, as it were. This piece might well be the last time I did so it in any sense of that word. I do remember the day I arrived in Motovun, though. July 20, 2003! As luck would have it, my father died in on the same day a couple of years earlier, and I almost died only four days later the very same year. Returning to my own Independence Day, I quite like the idea so many years hence. Indeed, it marks the end of my working life and the beginning of my retirement from the world entire. Retirement sans phrase, that is. Although it has taken me a bit less than thirteen years to become liberated for true, this was the first but crucial step in the right direction. In retrospect, it was necessary but not sufficient for liberation proper. Hooray!