On and Off

After about three hours of driving through the mountains, along winding roads that pulled my stomach into the air and dulled my senses, we finally arrived.

Sea breeze.

We had reached Velipojë, a small beach town in northern Albania. It was a hot day, bright and clear, the kind of day that you want to just exist. The beach was nearly empty. We were early. Still May, midweek, just before the holiday season takes over. The kind of time when the beach belongs to those not bound by calendars or clocks.

The sea in front of us was the Adriatic. Beneath our feet, soft sand. Not all of Albania is like this—in the south, where the Ionian meets the coast, there are cliffs and rocks instead. But here, the landscape breathed. The water simply stretched, calm and indifferent. We were in the first row. Nothing between us and the sea.

And I felt happy. Simply, entirely.

The day passed quickly. The sunset did not. It slowed down for me, as if it knew I needed more time. For once, it allowed me to feel every layer of it, without rush. I felt held, in the softest sense of the word.

And I felt happy.

That evening, freshly showered and lightly perfumed, we walked out to the promenade by the sea. We sat down for dinner, ready to enjoy some grilled fish. Across from us, the waves faded into the dusk.

Then, a small light caught my eye to the left. Streetlights had turned on, but this one flickered strangely , on and off, like it couldn’t decide. In all the clarity around me, my eyes were pulled toward this one patch of hesitation.

It blinked in and out. In and out.

And my mind wandered.

I started thinking about everything that exists in these two states. On and off. Lit and unlit. Here and not. Like my attention lately, so easily interrupted.

Like my hope, on good days, bright; on others, not. Like my energy, there, then gone. Like my faith in things, my capacity to dream, my confidence in others. Like how I sometimes feel love, deep, glowing and then, unexpectedly, as if it had never been there at all.

The flickering light reminded me of all the pieces of myself that can’t hold a steady current.

And at that moment, something shifted. The mosquitoes were suddenly unbearable, buzzing, biting, relentless. My peace, just seconds ago complete, now felt thin. The day that had held me so gently, now agitated at the edges.

And I stayed in that space. Between. Between comfort and discomfort. Joy and irritation. Light and shadow.

Between versions of myself. Versions of the same day.

On. Off. On.

Like Altin’s desire for the mountain over the city.

We met him in the middle of nowhere, quite literally. A clearing halfway up the slope, where someone like him had somehow managed to build a café between rocks and forest.

Altin made the coffee himself. No machines. Just a blackened pot, a small flame, a rhythm that felt practiced but unhurried. He was tall, thin, sun-warmed. Wore no watch. Spoke like someone who had heard his voice echo too many times to waste it now.

As he stirred the grounds, he told us about New York. Seven years there. The full story compressed into a sentence: “And one day, I just said no.” No to the office. No to the rent. No to the constant need to achieve, prove, climb. “I didn’t want that life anymore,” he said. “And I didn’t just want to leave it, I wanted to go far. Far enough to not feel its gravity anymore.”

So he came to Albania. Not just to Albania, Rragam, a village tucked deep in the mountain, where even maps lose interest. “Hardly anyone goes there,” he said, and smiled like that was the point. He wanted silence without noise-canceling. A view that stayed still. 

But he still comes down sometimes. Builds things. Makes coffee. Talks to strangers with the kind of openness only people who no longer need anything from you can afford.

As we sat there, listening, watching the light catch in the trees, I couldn’t help but wonder— Is the mountain still home?

Some desires don’t die. They just dim. And some parts of the city, I suspect, still live inside him. In the way he talks about the skyline. In how he watches people’s shoes. In the pause before he replies—as if translating them into a language he no longer wants to use.

Desire flickers too. It can chase silence while missing noise. Crave invisibility but hope to be seen. You can flee the system and still wonder if it’s wondering where you went. Altin, I think, lives between those poles. His mountain, like our sea, holds him. On. Off. On again.