::Your Public Place::

Three Croatian words for Ordinary Mystics (2 of 3): Konoba

If I took you to the Croatian coast of Dalmacija, I'd show you three words: Pomalo, Konoba, and Fjaka, my current favorite. They embody a life philosophy that's hard to explain but easy to practice. Since I can’t show you, let me tell you about these three words across three posts—an opportunity to recognize something in your life.

Dalmatia is made of stone, sea, and sky. These elements made Dalmatians sturdy and gentle. They turned out to be hopelessly romantic with a rich heritage of a cappella singing groups called Klapas, crooning about stone, sea, and sky. And love, of course.

Their songs encompass romantic relationships, parental love, sibling love, affection for birds, the sea, and boats, as well as friendship and affection for nearly everything, which brings me to one of the most beloved Dalmatian romantic songs.

It’s an outlier. Deep, sensual, almost Freudian, this song is not about any one person but about a place.

My Konoba

…Candlelight, lavender scent
Diluted is life, like watered wine
With gossip and fake news
But we won't give up, we're still young

Let's do it together, my friends
Let's offer stools and chairs
Let's sing a song from our hearts
In the grind and hustle, we forget our cares

My konoba, my all joy
I have given my soul to you
My tavern, my home
I protect your song like I protect my life.

(transl. Samir Selmanović)

Do you feel it?

Konoba [pronounced: ko-no-bah] is a place unlike any other.

What is most exciting about a konoba, I believe, is that you, whoever you are, can create one.

Anyone, anywhere in the world, can have their konoba. Photo by Lan Pham on Unsplash

It’s the place where the wine barrels and other precious resources, such as olive oil and dry figs, were kept. But it is not about the wine, the oil, and the figs.

In its beginnings, a konoba was a place where one could revel in hard work well done. After the working day, fishermen, farmers, and other laborers visited each other to talk and share a glass of wine.

Then people started to gather there quite spontaneously. It became the place of enjoyment. A new feature became a table on which to place food and drinks, as well as to entertain your friends. Not the living room, not the dining room, not the kitchen. The konoba.

One would think that wine should be kept in a cellar. A cellar is underground. In the north, it’s relatively easy to dig out an underground room. But in the south, houses were built on rock. As a result, the konoba found its life on the ground level, adjacent to the house, and as close as possible to the entrance where the goods were brought home.

In other words, a konoba became a room between the street and the house. You enter your home through it.

At the end of the working day, or at any time one feels like it, one has only to leave the konoba door open, and it becomes a signal that a friend, neighbor, or traveler can come in.

Nowadays, as a tourist, you will more likely encounter a konoba as a commercially operated tavern. But regular homes still have it. When in Croatia, when I roam outside of beaten paths, I sometimes enter a konoba when I see the door open. I ask about their wine or olives and if they are for sale. Or get intel about where fishermen arrive in the early morning so I can get fresh catch before it goes to the market.

Living in the West, particularly in the U.S., I noticed the way we divide space. This is mine. This is yours. Stepping into someone else's space is called trespassing.

I like to think of a konoba as a room that is neither private nor public, neither home nor street, or better yet, it is fully home and fully street. It is ::your public place:: where anyone, even a stranger, is welcome to enter, sit, and be.

Do you have a place, or time, in your life that is yours and public at the same time? A no-permission-necessary place marked with an open door. A place to which you don’t even have to invite people because they know, everybody knows, what the open door means. It means you are available.

Pomalo is about inner availability—konoba about the outer.

Your konoba, if you have one, is an easy place where people know they can be nourished by your presence and you by theirs. And that you will defend that availability with song, silence, conversation, humor, compassion, wine, food, anything and everything you've got.

I often think that a significant step in recognizing yourself as an Ordinary Mystic is to see whatever is inside your skin as you, and whatever is outside your skin as also you. And that inside of your home is where you belong, and that outside of your home is where you also belong.

Konoba is that space and time where we practice living between two worlds, or better yet, in both worlds. Or even better than that, in one world.

I am curious: where and how can you create konoba moments and places that are yours but also belong to others, and as the lyrics of My Konoba express it, “protect its song like you protect your life”?

— Samir

👇🏾 I LOVE to hear from you in the comments.

Three articles in this series:

Pomalo is a practice of living a Life at Life’s Own Pace. Don’t push.

Konoba is a practice of creating Your Public Place. Let people in.

Fjaka is a practice of experiencing being Fully Alive Doing Nothing. Let it all in.