It is always the simple things you remember: a friend walking at your side, sharing a cigarette with you, the moisture from his lips like a kiss on the filter, like a kiss you’ll receive, because he is your friend and it doesn’t matter who sees it, or how many you receive…how many you give in return. Simple things, like the sound of distant traffic as you walk, shoulder to shoulder up the slopes of Vyšehrad. You always remember the simplicity of birds you’ve never seen before, and birds he cannot name in English, though he knows their Czech names. Simple things, like the fact that he refers to birds--and other animals--as “those people.” You remember the joke you shared with him, your friend, Pavel: “Watch out for those people,” you admonish, taking on the tone of an obsessively overprotective mother. You remember the simplicity of his laughter, and his request that you finish the tabak. His lungs, he tells you, need a moment of rest. It’s always the sound of the church bells that you remember--a reference to a composer’s glorious past. As you walk, with tabak on your breath and the sound of your friend’s voice in your ears, you pause--somewhere between bird-sounds and distant, distant traffic--and listen to the bells of the great gothic church. They chime the tune of a national treasure, Bedrich Smetana’s composition, Vltava. You are careful to remember the name in Czech, though you’re certain everyone you know will recall the melody of “Die Moldau.” But the Moldau and the Vltava are different rivers, they belong to different times, and your own sympathies are with the people of the Czech lands, and so the German name crumbles to ash on your tongue and leaves the rime of mispronunciation in its wake. He was not so much of a happy man, Pavel tells you, of Smetana. His children died, he had tinnitus. You can hear it when you listen to his music. But I don’t like it so much. You’ve heard his ruminations before, and you know of his more contemporary (and wide ranging) tastes but it isn’t so unusual to hear him speak of Smetana in the silence after the bells. For a while after the bells, Pavel hears you humming Smetana’s Vltava, and he hooks his arm around yours, your elbows locked together. You exaggerate your shared steps together, humming Smetana’s Vltava until a bit later, you’re both nearly shouting the tune. He is your friend. You come from a different land, and Libuše is his ancestral mother, not yours. This doesn’t make you sad, however, because you know that Libuše loved Premysl--who came from “somewhere else” and founded a dynasty that bore his name. It isn’t so hard, you think, to understand the symmetry of this. It’s always the kind-hearted locals who reach out from the fortressed crest of Vyšehrad and offer warm embraces. *** Yet another picture taken while wandering around with my friend Pavel. As always, thank you for viewing and commenting, and hopefully you've enjoyed this. Also, to everyone reading this, have a great holiday.