Rooftops, Sea, and Silence
Dubrovnik’s Lyrical Hold on Time and Serendipity
We were descending toward Dubrovnik, and I was thinking of cities. Cities like pieces of music, arranged in sharp crescendos of rooftops and streets, tight as a hand clenched around a memory, or loosely strung, a dangling chord. From the air, Dubrovnik looked like a place forgotten by time, right where you left it, wrapped and untouched by all the years that have passed since. There it was, a small city tucked into the curve of the Adriatic, the walls, the red-tiled roofs, and beyond it, the sea: infinite and indifferent. There are times when you have to hold onto something for yourself — not in a selfish way, but because there’s a kind of beauty in solitude. Dubrovnik was like that. Its walls, its scars, the weight of its history — and me, days away from my 40th birthday, in a state of pause.
I should start with the walls. Every city has them, though most are invisible. They may not be made of stone or mortar, but they exist, psychological fortresses. Dubrovnik’s are real, though, peering out over the city and the sea. 800 years of standing tall, watching the city below rise and fall with each century. And these walls carried their wounds. The city had been under siege in the 1990s, during the Croatian War of Independence. I remember hearing about it on the news when I was young, unfamiliar words and placenames passing through the kitchen as background noise.
Now here I was, standing where bombs had fallen, where people had lived in fear, and that distant conflict was no longer a vague historical footnote, but a visceral reality etched into the stone beneath my feet. The main thoroughfare in Dubrovnik is made of limestone, polished smooth by the footsteps of countless people. Walking along it, you can feel the weight of those who came before you, the travellers, pilgrims, wanderers. I walked alongside Dominic, who was fascinated by impossibly tall stairs leading up to narrower and narrower streets winding like veins through the city’s heart. The stone glows underfoot, reflecting the light in strange ways, and for a moment, I felt like I was walking on the surface of a memory. But I kept thinking of those who had lived through the siege, how time works differently when you are in the midst of crisis. For them, every moment must have felt like an eternity, stretched thin by fear and uncertainty, while for me, in my youth, it had been just another moment in the endless stream of news reports, quickly forgotten.
We sat by the harbour one early afternoon, the sun rising high in the sky, when a different memory resurfaced, a song I came across when I was a teenager, Kander and Ebb’s ‘Ring Them Bells’, written for Liza Minnelli’s tv special Liza with a Z. Young and impressionable in a comfortable Ohio suburb, I was captivated by the story it told: a single woman from New York named Shirley Devore decided to travel Europe to find love but had very little luck. Just before giving up all hope of finding a husband she was advised to try, as a last effort, of all places, Dubrovnik.
There was something about that name — Dubrovnik — that fascinated me back then. It sounded far-off and impossibly glamorous. The song is what folklorists would define as a treasure-at-home narrative because in Dubrovnik, by sheer coincidence, Shirley Devore meets a man who turns out to live in her apartment building in New York. In the context of this song, it’s not accidental that ‘Devore’ rhymes with ‘next door.’ The idea that one could travel halfway around the world only to discover something — or someone — that had always been right in front of them, it seemed magical to me and I remembered a sense of longing when I listened to it. From the vantage of Ohio, Dubrovnik became synonymous with adventure, with the possibility of something extraordinary. A dream of a place where life’s most profound coincidences and encounters could unfold, where anything could happen.
And now, decades later, here I was, in the very city I had heard about in that song, a place that had lingered in the back of my mind, taking on a mythical quality. And while Dominic wasn’t from next door or even from Ohio, we had lived somewhat parallel lives when we attended the same university in England, and at one point in time even lived just a road away from one another and knowing several mutual people without being aware at all of the other’s existence. Now, turning 40, Dubrovnik, at once real and surreal, had become a kind of waypoint in my life, a place that had occupied a corner of my imagination for so long and was now tangible, present, right before my eyes.
We wandered into an ancient pharmacy, one of the oldest in Europe, to get out of the midday heat. Dominic, always curious, became fascinated by the history of the city, regularly sharing gobbets and beads of history that he had read on his phone or in a travel guide. He talked about how the people of Dubrovnik had had weathered wars and plagues, invasions and sieges, and yet, somehow, the city had survived. Diplomacy and goldsmithing are good skills for a city to have. We carry time with us, in our memories, in our bodies, in the outcomes of the choices we make. And yet, at the same time, we are constantly creating new histories, constantly adding to the story of our lives, of our world. It’s a strange paradox — that time is both something that happens to us and something we have the power to shape.
Staring down into the stunningly clear Adriatic, a feeling took hold that part of what had been weighing on me as I approached 40 was that I hadn’t accomplished enough, that I wasn’t where I thought I would be by now. But in the long, winding history of his city, I began to see time differently. Life isn’t a race against the clock. It’s about the journey, about the experiences you collect along the way, about the people you meet and the places you see. It struck me, in that moment, that I had always imagined myself as the kind of person who would feel at home in places like this — foreign cities, bustling with history and life. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to recognise that the reality is more complicated. I’ve always teetered on the line between introversion and extroversion, caught in a kind of social limbo. I’m not shy, exactly, and I love the energy of new places and new people, but there’s always been a part of me that feels drained after too much social interaction, that craves solitude even in the midst of excitement.
As a teenager, I tried to lean into the extroverted parts of myself, often pushing aside the quiet voice that told me I needed time alone. I loved the idea of being the traveller, the explorer, the one who went abroad and effortlessly made friends, had grand adventures, and returned home with stories to tell. ‘Ring Them Bells’ spoke to that part of me — the part that wanted to believe that the world was full of chance encounters and that all it took to change your life was to buy a ticket and go. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized how deeply I value stillness. The idea of constantly being surrounded by people, of never having a moment to yourself, can feel suffocating. It’s a delicate balance, and sometimes, it feels impossible to find.
When I was younger, the thought of being constantly on the move, of filling my days with new experiences, had been intoxicating. But now, as I sat in an outdoor café in the centre of the Old Town, watching the sun-drenched tourists pass by, I felt a kind of dissonance. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there, or that I wasn’t enjoying myself. It was more that I was realising how much I needed to slow down, to find a rhythm that worked for me, rather than trying to keep up with the frenetic pace of the world around me.
Dubrovnik had survived centuries of both abundance and hardship, and here it was, still standing, still beautiful. Its history wasn’t a straight line. Maybe the walls of a city are meant to be messy and unpredictable, full of surprises and detours. And maybe that’s where the beauty lies — in the unexpected, in the places you never thought you’d go, in the moments you never saw coming. Time doesn’t move forward in the way we imagine, a straight line from birth to death, events neatly arranged along its path. Time bends, folds, warps. It slows down when we least expect it, speeding up in moments we wish would linger. It forces you to confront history, not as something that happened, but as something that is happening, constantly, all around us.
There is a way time settles over everything, like dust in a room closed off for years. Dubrovnik, I realised, wears time differently. It’s not heavy here, not oppressive like it can be in other places, where you feel the weight of history pressing down on you, every stone a reminder of all that has been lost. Here, time lingers in the corners, catches in the folds of the landscape, but it does not smother. It flows, like the sea, steady, eternal, but also elementally fluid.
I wondered what those long-gone merchants and sailors would think of the city now, their city, turned into a backdrop for Instagram posts, where history is packaged and sold in neat little souvenirs, where every corner of the old town is commercialized in some way. But then again, isn’t that how it’s always been? A city built on trade, on the constant movement of people and goods. Maybe this, too, is just another layer of time, another version of the city’s story. One moment, you are in the twenty-first century, surrounded by the noise and bustle of modern life, and the next, you are standing in the middle of the fifteenth century, the walls of the city towering over you, the echo of footsteps long gone still audible in the narrow alleyways.
Time folds in on itself here, as if the past and the present exist side by side, intertwined. I’ve always been someone who dwells on the past, who replays conversations and decisions in my head, wondering if I could have done things differently, if I could have changed the course of my life by making just one different choice, the butterfly effect writ large. And when I’m not dwelling on the past, I’m worrying about the future, about where I’m going, about what comes next. But here, in Dubrovnik, something shifted. Maybe it was the way the city seemed to exist outside of time, or maybe it was simply the fact that I was so far from my normal life, from the routines and responsibilities that usually consume me. Whatever it was, I found myself thinking less about the past and the future and more about the present. About what it meant to be here, in this moment, in this place, at this particular point in my life.
In many ways, ‘Ring Them Bells’ is a celebration of extroversion — of the idea that life’s most important moments happen when you put yourself out there, when you take risks, when you go to places like Dubrovnik and meet strangers who change your life. And there’s a grain of truth in that, of course. But in the years since I first heard that song, I’ve come to understand that life’s most meaningful moments aren’t always the loudest or the most outwardly exciting. Sometimes, they happen in the quiet spaces, in the moments when you’re alone with your thoughts, when you’re able to hear the voice inside you that gets drowned out by the noise of the world. For me, the most profound moments of travel have often been the quiet ones — the early morning walks before the city wakes up, the moments of stillness when you find a hidden corner and sit down to watch the world go by. It’s in those moments that I feel most connected to a place, not in the grand gestures or the chance encounters, but in the quiet observation of life as it unfolds around me.
As we wandered through the Rector’s Palace, a grand manse befitted by camp objet procured with a discerning eye, I found myself thinking about Shirley Devore from ‘Ring Them Bells.’ In the song, she sets out on her adventure because she’s been told that the key to finding happiness is to go out into the world, to leave the familiar behind. And she does find something, but it turns out to be something she already had all along. Sometimes, the answers we seek aren’t out there in the world — they’re inside us, waiting to be discovered.
Near the main gate of the Old Town is a large fountain where people had been drinking the same water for centuries. I cupped my hands under it, letting the coolness flow through my fingers, and I thought about time again. Water doesn’t care about time. It flows, constantly reshaping the world, carving through stone, wearing down walls, polishing streets. We stayed by the fountain for a while, not speaking, just letting the weight of history settle on our shoulders. And then we moved on, the shops selling trinkets and souvenirs, the tourists snapping photos, and it was easy to forget, for a while, where we were. But Dubrovnik doesn’t let you forget for long. It keeps reminding you, in small ways, that the past is never far away.
Time is like that, I admitted. It’s constantly in motion, constantly reshaping the landscape of our lives, erasing some things, leaving others behind. And just like the sand, we are always being reshaped, always changing, whether we realize it or not. I thought about how different I am now from the person I was at 20 or even 30. How many of the things that used to matter to me no longer do. How many of the things I thought I wanted, I’ve since let go of. And how many of the things I never thought I’d have, I’ve somehow stumbled into along the way.
Life, like the sea, has a way of surprising you, of taking you places you never expected to go. There’s a kind of surrender that comes with this realisation. A letting go of the need to control everything, to plan every detail of your life. It’s not about giving up on your dreams or your ambitions, but about recognizing that time has its own flow, its own rhythm, and sometimes you just have to go with it. You have to let the waves carry you, trusting that they will take you where you need to go, even if you can’t see the destination yet. I wasn’t thinking about what I needed to do tomorrow, or what I hadn’t accomplished by now. I was just there, in that moment, fully present, fully alive. And it struck me then how rare that feeling is, how often we let the present slip away because we are so focused on the past or the future.
Our hotel was perched on a hill overlooking the sea, and every evening, we would sit by the pool and watch the light change over the mountains. There’s a stillness that comes with watching the sun set over the Adriatic, a kind of quiet that seeps into your bones. The sea stretches out endlessly before you, and the mountains rise behind, and in that space between, you find yourself caught in a moment between land and water, between the known and the unknown. I’ve always been drawn to the sea, though I don’t know why. The sea is vast, indifferent, and yet we are drawn to it, time and again, as if by some primal instinct.
Dominic was reading, as he often does, lost in the pages of a book, while I sat there, staring out at the horizon, letting my mind wander. I had brought books too, of course, more than I could possibly read in three days, but I found myself unable to focus on them. It was strange, because reading is usually my escape, my way of shutting out the world. But here, in Dubrovnik, it felt unnecessary. I didn’t need to escape. I was already somewhere else, somewhere far from my everyday life, and that was enough. Sitting there, watching the waves, I felt a kind of peace I hadn’t felt in years. It wasn’t the peace that comes from doing nothing, but the peace that comes from accepting that there are things in this world we can’t change, and that’s okay.
There’s something about travel that does that to you. It pulls you out of your routine, forces you to look at the world with fresh eyes. And in that space, you find yourself seeing things you hadn’t noticed before. The way the light reflects off the water, the sound of the wind moving through the trees, the small details that make up a moment. It’s like the world slows down, just enough for you to catch up, to take a breath, to really see.
Dubrovnik is a city of contrasts. On the one hand, it is a city of trade and commerce, a place where merchants once gathered from all over the world, exchanging goods and stories, building a thriving economy that lasted for centuries. On the other hand, it is a city scarred by war, a place that has known violence and destruction, that has been rebuilt time and again. As we walked through the narrow streets, past the shops selling magnets and postcards, I couldn’t help but think about the tension between these two realities. It is a place that has survived, but at what cost? The scars of war are still visible, in the craters left by mortar shells, in the stories of those who lived through it.
And yet. The tourists keep coming, the shops keep selling, and the city continues to thrive. It’s easy to forget, when you’re sitting by the pool, sipping a cocktail, that this city was once a battlefield. But every now and then, something would remind me. A plaque on a wall, a conversation with a waiter, a glimpse of the old city from a certain angle. And in those moments, I was reminded of the fragility of life, of how quickly things can change.
Celebrating my birthday in Dubrovnik felt significant in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I had expected it to be a milestone, of course, but there’s something about being in a city like this, where history is so palpable, that makes you think about your own history, your own journey. As I sat by the pool, watching the sunset. I thought about the people who have come in and out of my life, the friendships that have endured, and the relationships that have faded away. I thought about the dreams I had when I was younger, the ones I’ve achieved and the ones I’ve let go of.
I found myself letting go of a lot of those things. I stopped worrying about what I hadn’t achieved, about where I thought I should be at this point in my life. Instead, I started to appreciate where I am, the person I’ve become, the experiences I’ve had. The city, with its ancient walls and polished streets, had become a kind of mirror, reflecting back to me the ways in which I had been wrestling with time in my own life. And in that reflection, I began to see things differently. I began to see that time is not my enemy, but my companion. That it is not something to be feared or fought against, but something to be embraced. Time, after all, is what gives life its shape, its meaning. Without it, there would be no growth, no change, no movement. It is time that allows us to evolve, to become more than we were, to learn from our mistakes, to build new dreams from the ashes of the old ones.
‘Ring Them Bells’ is ultimately a song about serendipity, about the unexpected twists and turns that life takes. In the quiet stillness of a sunset, in the feel of the sea breeze on your skin, in the laughter of a friend, in the touch of a lover’s hand. These are the moments that make up a life, that give it meaning. In the end, our visit to Dubrovnik wasn’t about grand adventures or life-changing encounters, at least not in the way I had imagined as a child listening to that Liza Minnelli song. It wasn’t about finding something — or someone — that would magically change my life. Instead, it was about finding a different kind of connection. A connection to myself, to the rhythm of time, to the quieter parts of life that often go unnoticed. It reminded me of the importance of both movement and stillness, of the need to balance the desire for adventure with the need for reflection. It reminded me that time is not something to be rushed through, but something to be savoured, to be experienced fully, both in the quiet moments and the loud ones.
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