If I want to understand Blato and Osika, I need to wake up early. At least, that’s what they said. And so, in the early morning, heading toward Osika, I start counting the mugs hanging on fences. There are so many they could tell a story of their own. Czech Canada is still asleep. Not that the village of Blato ever gets too lively – most of the day it’s wrapped in silence.
Osika
I sit down by the shore. Absolute stillness. Morning mist hovers above the calm surface of the pond like a thin veil. The day will turn hot, but the chill of these mornings settles in your bones, even in summer. In the distance, the sun begins to rise, its shy rays breaking through the fog. The cottages around are still asleep, most of them empty during the week, coming alive only on weekends. A spruce forest frames the scene in quiet majesty, interrupted only by the splash of a fish or a distant bird call.
When I walk through the spruces, I often take off my shoes. I like the soft ground, sinking slightly into layers of needles and damp moss. If you’re lucky, you’ll find juniper berries – provided the locals haven’t picked them all already.
Monologues of Czech Canada
I sat by the water, surrounded by nothing and everything at once. Just me and my thoughts, rippling in my head like waves on the pond. Why do I keep coming back here? What is truly important in life? Why am I experiencing this moment so intensely, right now? Time felt as though it had stopped, and I was part of something bigger.
I watched a bird gliding above the water. Free, unbound. Why can’t humans move through life this easily? Maybe because we’ve locked ourselves into the cages of technology and social media. Where is all of this taking us?
Nearby, cows were grazing. They looked content, unaware of the paradise they lived in. Maybe their freedom lies in that unawareness. We humans know too much – and yet somehow less. Why do so many of us struggle to tell facts from lies? Why have we stopped reading? Stopped thinking? I once heard a truth that stuck with me: “We live better than any generation before us, yet most of us fail to understand it.”
So what is freedom, really? Is it the ability to fly like a bird, or to graze peacefully like a cow? Or is it simply the ability to sit by a pond and ask yourself these questions?
How should we live? Maybe like this – on a bike or a scooter, discovering the wild beauty of Czech Canada. Why does it keep pulling me back? Maybe because I still feel Czech lands as home. I didn’t take the country’s division “about us, without us” lightly. Or maybe it’s because here, in this quiet, I can hear answers that the noise of civilization and the race for success no longer allow us to hear.
Back to village
The sun finally pushed above the horizon, piercing through the mist. Czech Canada was waking up. First the birdhouses, then the outhouses. A swarm of mosquitoes demanded attention, but it was a tick in my leg that tore me out of my lofty reflections. Reality never misses its chance.
I stood up, brushed off my trousers, cursed a little, then laughed. Life is full of contrasts – from deep thoughts to itchy nuisances. And maybe that’s the point. With this realization, I hopped back on my scooter and rolled toward the village, leaving behind the pond, the fog, and my morning musings. Breakfast wasn’t going to wait.
Life in Blato begins in April and ends in October. Once, winters here were magical – dozens of kilometers of cross-country skiing trails. But in recent years, snow has failed to fall, and winters have grown lifeless. Still, summers on two wheels…
Already I know I will return to Czech Canada – maybe to marvel, maybe to look for answers to questions that don’t even exist. But that, perhaps, is exactly what gives meaning to my travels.
