My latest dream began in a similar way.

I’m walking through a sun-drenched ski resort where people don’t ski on snow, but on special beige twigs from conifer trees. The whole place is beautifully built. And it was designed and constructed by a guy I dated in high school—the one I turned down back then.

Today he’s a chief physician and a wonderful father.

In the dream we’re chatting happily, and everything suggests that I belong there. It almost feels as if I’m one of his wives or something.

I don’t get it.

I don’t even like skiing. And I’m not afraid of doctors—unless they’re also poets or my friends. But who knows. Maybe I did long for it once.

To be one of them.

One of those inconspicuous little twigs, easier to ride on than snow.

Strangely enough, something similar is happening to me now.

All my life an outlier, and suddenly I belong. I belong when I’m wandering around our construction site. I belong when I’m hosting at our writers’ club. I belong at Scribeton, which I originally created mostly for myself. And now more and more authors say they want to be part of it.

I don’t even feel particularly out of place in my own family anymore. The other day, while writing an Instagram post about our apartments on Brač, I suddenly realised that I belong there too. Even when I’m not actually there.

It took only twenty years.

I first noticed that feeling when I was a child. I’m standing in a doorway and I can’t get in. I can’t get in because I’m missing exactly that ten percent. And of course there were rooms where I had ten percent more. And even there, it didn’t work.

But is it really about percentages? About intelligence, beauty, or the abilities I supposedly need in order to… ?

With that dream came the feeling that my place never was in any of those rooms.

But somewhere between them.

Among those inconspicuous twigs, easier to ride on than snow.

***

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