Timeless notes / From my shelf (:

Since I came to my family home and my hometown a few days ago, something different from my old bedroom keeps catching my attention every single day. I find myself completely absorbed in it, reading, flipping through things, rearranging shelves, organizing little boxes filled with memories, and so on. I take photos of all sorts of things for my collection blogs and just enjoy getting lost in it all.

One evening, I sat down and started thinking about all the books I had received over the years in and when I got each one. At the end of every school year, we were awarded books for excellent grades and exemplary behavior. On top of that, I would receive an extra one for participating in and winning first, second or third place at municipal recitation competitions. Those are actually my favorites, but I will not be presenting them to you this time.

I truly loved elementary school but I was not a nerd at all. On the contrary, everything came so easily to me that I rarely had to sit down and likeee study hard. I remembered most things from class, and at home I would only occasionally, maybe once every month or two, sit down to seriously study something. Even then, it never lasted long because I had to rush outside where my mostly male group of friends was waiting for me to play games like KR KR, our version of armed teams, hide and seek, tag, jump rope, freeze tag, dodgeball, football...

I got these three books: History of Western Art, The Guardians of Light of Our Home and Crime and Punishment, at the end of my elementary school.

Why are they so special to me? Well, not because I have always been some devoted book lover, since I really have not been, unfortunately. Only now as I am geting older, I slowly starting to read a little here and there.

What makes them truly dear to me is that each one contains a beautiful dedication inside, a carefully chosen excerpt from poetry or prose. That is what gives them their charm.

Every day, the Lord grants us,
together with the sun,
a single moment
when it is possible to change everything
that makes us unhappy
and unsettled.
We need to recognize that magical moment
that lies hidden…

It is by Paulo Coelho, but since I translated it from Serbian back into English, it is not exactly the same as the original. Still, I am sure you will recognize what it is. 😍

This book contains the essential things we should know about four important Serbian historical figures: Saint Sava, Nikola Tesla, Petar II Petrović-Njegoš and Vuk Karadžić.

Each of them representing one supporting wall needed to hold up the house and the roof above its people.

The dedication inside says:

If you can be in love, but not lose your mind because of it, if you can be strong and still remain gentle, not hate those who hate you yet still stand your ground and defend yourself, if you can keep your courage and your head when everyone else has lost theirs, you will be a man, my son.

It is one of unofficial translations of the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling, which I am now translating for you from that Serbian version back into English. So what we end up with is a completely new version of the poem.

But is that not what makes it interesting? Different, and yet still the same. 🥰

And then we came to Crime and Punishment, the book which, guess whaaaat, I of course did not read, hihi. But I did watch the film, and that counts for something. That is pretty much how I made it through school. In high school as well, I rarely actually read the required books. I would prepare everything from teachers’ guidebooks and retellings I found online, and voilà, no one would even notice.

The only exceptions were Antigone and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Those are thinner than half of my little finger, so I managed to make myself read them. From time to time, I would also read a play with clear dialogue and characters. But prose, novels, long narratives, no chance. I have always divided poetry and prose into two separate worlds. I am definitely the poetry type and that is that.

In this book, I found the following verses by our poet Miroslav Mika Antić:

Create the dawn when it is evening,
let life learn from you
to foam and to flow.
Be that kind of wonder
that cannot do anything small,
so when you set out - set out wildly,
trembling, curious!

How do you like these kinds of dedications in books? Did you have anything like that from your school days? And which do you prefer more - poetry or prose -or maybe neither, which of course is also perfectly fine. <3