The size of a small postcard, my travel companion is always near me. Looking like an icon on account of its gold background, it shows a composition of mine from the mid-Nineties (“My New Travel Companion,” May 22, 1994). Painted by Miša Papić on a wonderful piece of Norwegian Pine, it stares at me as I write on the dining table of my Motovun home. Now that I travel only between Motovun and Zagreb, it is still with me at all times. Showing a submarine-like character hovering above an egg-like throne and gazing at a rack of my boards exhibited on a temple-like platform, it gives me solace wherever I go. This is my extraterrestrial home. It has nothing to do with the world in which I actually find myself against my will. Humans are quite unimaginable in it, to be sure. Looking at the icon, I place myself out of the blue: “A wannabe Martian.” Exactly! The only mystery is why it has taken me so long to see myself in the icon so very clearly.

Addendum (April 17, 2016)

For my morning coffee, I went to Savo’s on the town walls. Jozo Brandić and Ana Krnjus joined me soon afterwards. There were not too many people on the outdoor terrace of the café, and so Savo Grubor sat at our table, as well. At some point, the conversation turned toward national feelings. I talked about America, where everybody would accept a newcomer’s American feelings. Nobody would challenge them on account of their short stay or poor English, for example. “But I never felt like an American,” I added. Jozo talked about feeling Bosnian. Although he had lived most of his life in Croatia, he still felt his strong Bosnian roots. “And you?” he asked me point blank. “I am always ready to admit my Croatian and European roots,” I said, “but I am not very enthusiastic about them.” Jozo chuckled: “What would you rather be?” It did not take me long to come out with my feelings: “I would like to be a Martian!” Everyone around the table chuckled, but I quickly turned to my difficulties with the human race. “For every Mozart there are forty Hitlers,” I summed it up in the end. The conversation quieted down after that point. But I am sure to be remembered in Motovun as a wannabe Martian. By the way, my travel companion is staring at me as I am writing this addendum on the dining table of my home.