I booked a week in the capital, Pristina, to get the feel of the country. Upon arrival, the airport was empty, a soothing contrast to the chaos of my connecting flight through Istanbul. I stepped outside. The air hit me first: cold, thin, and indifferent. The land was a landscape stripped of everything but the sky, dry, flat, and uninteresting, just stretches of barren dirt that seemed to go on forever.

And then, it was as if my brain suddenly hit mute. The silence was absolute. It didn’t just surround me; it entered me. The external vastness reached inside and pulled the walls of my mind outward, expanding them into that endless, quiet horizon. I just stood there, disarmed by the sudden stillness. “I feel space,” I told a friend later. “An endless, melting kind of space”. Sitting here in Istanbul, I can still feel it. It was my nervous system finally relaxing; my body recognized it before my mind did.

The Airbnb was in the old town, a shabby building, but the apartment was modern and clean. I arrived late, tired from the long flight but wired in that particular way travel does to me. I didn’t unpack. I just stuffed my gym gear in my backpack; I needed to map the area, buy groceries, and lift some weights.

The streets were sprawling with cafes, more than I’d seen in most cities. People sat outside despite the cold, drinking coffee and talking. I had a cup of coffee, the best macchiato under God’s sun, at a local cafe, watched people, and listened to the language. I walked for an hour; the buildings were a mix of urban modern and Yugoslav old. Nothing spectacular. Just solid. Lived-in. I bought a new SIM card and the essentials for a day or two, then set out to look for a gym. Lucky for me, I found one practically next door. The people were incredibly nice, and the equipment was decent.

I finished late. It was the end of September, but snow was already forecast. When I stepped outside, the air was bitter but fresh. The lights from the cafes spilled onto the streets in a warm, vibrant glow. I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. This is perfect, I thought. I decided right then: I’d give the city a chance.

The snow came, magical, unexpected snow that spread its dust over the rooftops and trees, turning the city into a different world. I had plans to hike, to move, to explore, but something deep inside, something biological, pushed back. It was a force I couldn’t argue with, pulling me toward stillness. I stopped looking for trails and started looking for a house, not for a week, but for a month, maybe two.

And I prayed again: Dear God, find me a house.

I scanned through Airbnb listings with the patience of someone defusing a bomb. I found a house that seemed perfect. The landlady was smart and intelligent; we had good conversations. The house was brand new, had a separate kitchen, essential for me, and was in the center of the city with double-glazed windows, an elevator, a balcony, and a desk for working. I was about to book it.

And then I spotted Sarah’s listing. In a world of airbrushed apartments, this felt like a real home. The photos were amateur and clearly old; instead of wide-angle lenses or staged fruit bowls, there were books. Piles of them claimed every surface, and cats and dogs were everywhere, captured in the natural sunlight. It was messy, lived-in, and honest. I read what Sarah wrote about the house and how she had built it as a labor of love. It was the exact opposite of everything I had seen in years of travel. I felt a pull that had nothing to do with logic; this woman spoke my language. I was already being drawn into her world.

I sent a random, inquisitive message. Sarah answered quickly, and her tone wasn’t the practiced politeness of a professional host; it was personal. She spoke to me like a human being, not a customer. I hesitated, as the house looked a bit chaotic for what I thought I needed. To someone as exhausted as I was, “rest” usually meant the least risk, somewhere predictable and managed. This place felt like a wild card. I thanked her and tried to walk away.

That night, my phone buzzed. It was Sarah: “Lana,” she wrote, “someone came today and wanted to rent the house, but I told them it’s not available. I’m waiting for you”. I felt a rush of embarrassment, suspicion maybe. I wrote back immediately: “I am so sorry. I don’t know about my dates yet. Please, don’t lose a client because of me”.

But then she sent another message: “It’s okay. This isn’t to tie you to anything. But I read your reviews. I’ve decided you’re the person I want in my house. I would really love to meet you. I will wait for you as long as you need. I don’t mind if I lose a client”.

I sat there staring at the screen. This woman wasn’t marketing a space; she was offering a connection. I looked at the “perfect” house I had been about to book, then I booked Sarah’s house. My reasons were simple and pathetically human: I chose her because she chose me.

Sarah and I kept a steady stream of communication. As we talked, messages moved into something deeper. Sarah was the kind of person who held her heart out in a message. It was rarer than rare. By the time I headed for the house, I wasn’t traveling to a rental; I was going toward someone who was waiting for me.

The day of the move came. It was cold and raining. I arrived at the building, it was old, not overly nice, and on the third floor with no elevator. I sent Sarah a message: I’m here.

Sarah came from the opposite end of the road. She was a burst of neon and orange against the grey rain, with bright orange hair and vivid clothes, but she looked frazzled. She started apologizing immediately: “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry”. She pointed behind me. “That’s my art school. My studio. My gallery”. It was a large space with wide windows. “I’ve owned this for more than ten years,” she said, her voice wavering. “And today I got an immediate evacuation notice. I’m in the middle of… I’m sorry. I don’t mean to, this just happened”.

My heart sank. A wave of emotions crashed into me. I knew exactly how that pain felt, but a part of me whispered: This is not a good start. “Would you come with me?” she asked, almost pleading. I didn’t hesitate.

We walked into her once-sacred space. It was a massive room that held a life: the walls where the architect had worked, the music corner where the musician lived, the area where the teacher gave herself to her students. Outside, a large poster bore her name, long, unfamiliar, and different from the one she used on Airbnb.

She was heartbroken, trying to hold it together for me, her first guest. I could feel her grief so acutely I could barely hide my own tears. We walked through to the very end, and then we closed the door together. She handed the key to the man waiting to take over the space. In that instant, and out of all the inhabitants of this earth, I was the witness to her goodbye. We became part of each other’s lives in the time it took to turn a key.

I shifted. Now I was a woman seeing herself in another, remembering the gut-wrench of losing things built with your own heart. She was no longer just my host, and I was no longer just her guest. When we left, she insisted on carrying my bag up the stairs. I could see the effort was killing her, but she wouldn’t let go. I followed her up, leaving the street and her old life behind, and stepped across the threshold toward whatever was waiting for us at the top.

TO BE CONTINUED …