Zagreb,
the
capital of Croatia,
has
the usual museums and galleries found in most big
cities.
But there is one which is unique—the Museum of Broken Relationships. Set up by former lovers, Olinka Vištica and Dražen
Grubišić, it is a place ‘to store all the painful triggers of
memory around us, creating a safe place for both tangible and
intangible heritage of past love’. The displays
include an axe donated by one woman. ‘I used it to break up the
furniture of the girlfriend who left me. Each day I smashed a bit
more. When she returned for her furniture all she had were bits of
wood.’ A Virgin Mary holy water bottle has the accompanying words:
‘My lover gave me this as his “special” present. He didn’t
know I’d opened his bag and found a plastic bag full of them.’
There is a stuffed toy caterpillar: ‘Every time we met, we tore off
one of the caterpillar’s legs. When all the legs were gone, we
would live together. As you see, the caterpillar never became a
complete invalid.’ Most sadly, a suicide note from a mother to her
daughter: ‘To write a letter under these circumstances is
impossible . . . Lots of love and happiness, Your mama.’ I
have more to say about this museum and why I was there in 'Left Field'. And Becca Bland from my writing group has recently started Stand Alone, a charity to help people like me who have a family estrangement to deal with.
PS Here are Mike and the Mechanics - 'The Living Years
