I just returned to Motovun after a morning spent in Pazin, and I am still shaking from the experience. My mind is still hazy, as well. Whenever I go to Pazin, the same thing happens. I get shaky and hazy. Which is why today’s visit was no surprise. This time around, I went to the tax authority dealing with my foreign pensions. Everything went smoothly enough, but I still shook. My mind was still hazy, too. Having gotten out of the accursed office, I walked around the town in which my mother was born. “Calm down,” I kept telling myself. “Take hold of yourself!” To no avail, though. Everywhere I went, I saw buildings where I had horrible encounters with Croatian bureaucracy, the worst I have ever witnessed. Over here was the office where I had to go when I was trying to get my Slovene pension, which could not be gotten without the Croatian authorities. Over there was the office where I had to go twice to get my Croatian passport and identity card. And over yonder was the municipal court where I had to go many times when the former mayor of Motovun started his duplicitous legal campaign against me. “Silly woman,” I raged at my dead mother, “why did you have to get born in this fucking town?” Simply put, I had no chance against my feelings. I was shaky and hazy even on the bus going home. Only when I reached my house and closed the door behind me, I felt kind of normal once again. And I went for my laptop without a moment’s delay. “Fucking Pazin,” I hissed as I started writing about my last visit to this bureaucratic hell. But I knew that only writing about it could ever get me back together again.

Addendum (November 15, 2024)

Once again, I just returned to Motovun after a morning spent in Pazin, but my feelings are entirely different this time around. As a matter of fact, I am delighted by my experience of my mother’s birthplace. To begin with, I went there to buy a bunch of things that I used to buy in Zagreb, where I had not been since the beginning of this year. And I found almost everything I was looking for. From now on, Pazin will be the place where I will go whenever in need of something that is not available in Motovun. More important, I was delighted to see not a single tourist in Pazin. All the cafés I visited during my visit were crammed with locals. After more than two decades in Istria, this is something to boast about. All along the coast of the peninsula, towns have been taken over by tousists from all around the world. Little towns in the boondogs—such as Motovun, Grožnjan, and Oprtalj—have also been deserted by locals and overtaken by tourists. Whence my unexpected enjoyment of Pazin. “My apologies,” I kept repeating thinking of my dear mother, “my apologies!” As soon as I returned home, I searched for my derogatory writings about her birthplace. And this one struck me as the right one for an apologetic addendum. Although deeply buried in my magnum opus, the extension to this piece of writing will remain close to my heart. And I would not be surprised to revisit it every now and then. As soon as I finished writing, I burst out loud: “Three cheers for Pazin!” Most of Istria has been devastated by tourism the last decade or two, but my mother’s birthplace will remain a bastion of locals. Oh, I can hardly wait to revisit it again and again. And again.