Radio Fresh Plovdiv

Bulgaria, Day 2

The next morning, the cousins return.

They all live on the same street, and I can tell this is a daily ritual while Didi’s family is in Bulgaria: the kids wander over to whoever has baked fresh banitsa, kick off their shoes and hug each other, even though they saw each other yesterday, and dive into some activity. Today, it’s Monopoly. As they tease each other and hand out paper money, I listen to Didi’s kids, who were born and raised in the States, speak fluent Bulgarian, while their cousins throw in “oh my god, bruh” every so often in a perfect American accent.

She and I head out for breakfast, even though it’s almost 1pm. Part of last night’s cultural lesson was on Bulgarian food, and Didi’s brothers insisted I try schkembe: tripe soup.

I ‘m game. After all, I live in a place where people eat tripe soup after a night out at the bars. “But in the evening,” I add. Because it’s 400 degrees outside.

“No,” one brother commands. “They do not serve this soup after lunchtime.”

The city is so quiet. There are better preserved ruins here than in Rome and Athens, and almost no tourists in the streets. We order the soup, and some astounding chicken and mashed potatoes, and a bright green lemonade, which is made with crushed or mashed mint (no one can agree) which I will dream about always. I don’t have room for the bread with cheese on it, but I eat it anyway.

In the evening, back at home, the whole family gathers again for dinner. The kids start sharing stories about their phones, and how they have dropped them, smashed them, or lost them in supermarkets. One nephew describes how, after losing a game, he bashed his head into his tablet, leaving a perfectly circular indent, which he shows me, proudly. At the end of every story, they add, “but it wasn’t my fault”, and everyone shrieks with laughter. It becomes the theme of the evening.

Then, despite some foreboding thunder, we pile into cars, blasting Radio Fresh Plovdiv, and head back downtown to see Plovdiv’s famous singing fountains.

Tonight, perhaps sensing the competition, they remain quiet.

We wander through the “old city”. This area is older than the main part of the city, which is also very old, but not as old as those thousands-of-years-old ruins they are built on top of. In the darkness, with the streetlights glistening off the cobblestones, it feels like we’ve walked back a century. There are no shops or ice cream places or souvenir stands, or bougie shops selling overpriced, hand-stuffed animals.

I’ve never seen anything like it.

Then, after our massive dinner and two desserts, the kids announce that they want donairs.

We head to a famous donair place, where they order cones of bread with so much meat and sauce piled into them they have to eat it with a fork. The older ones hold the little ones’ hands. The little ones sit on the older ones’ shoulders.

Walking behind them with the “big people”, I realize something.

Up until recently, I found it tough to be around families with kids. I’d get sucked into the radio station in my head about how inferior I am for not having achieved this, or that I am somehow less of a woman for not being a mother or a wife.

But I think the truth was that for so much of my life, I dreamed of having a huge, boisterous family who adored each other. I wanted to sit around an enormous table like the one at Didi’s and laugh, because that was the opposite of what I grew up with at home. As a kid and a teenager, I lived to spend time at my friends’ houses. Later, I fall in love with my partners’ families, despite the relationships not being right.

In Buddhism we learn about Muditā, which translates loosely as “sympathetic joy”. It means feeling happy for someone else’s happiness. That’s what tonight has been for me. And that—finally—is enough.

Oh my god, bruh.