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Early morning.
Cottony clouds above, blanket of foam on the water, gray in the sky and reflected underneath.
The waves are rising menacingly, like sharks would, like predators.
This is not the sea. This is the Ocean. It is deceiving.
Many die at shore, we have been told, the sheer force of the seemingly small waves pulling them under, making them spin in the water like lifeless puppets in the hands of nature.
It´s just water, wind and tides. However simple the combination though, it is effective and we´re small enough to die from it.
The lifeguards blow their whistles once every two minutes and at first you think ” they´re crazy, exaggerating like that”. “The water is closed”, they yell with sand in their lungs, from up on that little hill and their high lifeguard throne.
You just laugh and think “Closed? The water is not close to me…I´ll open it up with a swish of my hands.”
But just as these thoughts form in your mind, your feet get buried deeper and deeper in the sand as the waves are speeding backwards, reverse mode, into the ocean´s womb.
You look towards the beach to see where you left your towel and in the next half a second you´re dragged under by the whirpool caused by a coming wave.
Bubbles and foam and spit with salty sand. You surface out, on your knees, bruised by the intense rubbing of flesh against the sand. How can this happen when you are knee deep in water? You quickly walk away, stumbling half blinded by the wet hair stuck to your face, deciding that you were made for sandcastles or other such peaceful activities.
The surface of the water shimmers on under the sky, imperturbed by your close encounter with the afterlife and its brightly lit tunnels. The water only seems peaceful, but you foolish mortals should know better…
This is not the sea.
This is mother Ocean, where it all began and where it often ends.
There´s always something quite intriguing about trips. It´s not the fact that you are heading towards the destination, nor the act of distancing yourself from the place you just made some memories in, but the actual trip, the queues you stand in line at, the people on the bus, the anger when the bus is delayed, the excitement when you actually catch the connection for your final destination known.
It was just like that this weekend, coming back from yet another visit to Washington DC, their nation´s capital, a city with a European feel given the fact that the centre was designed by a French architect.
In America, if you do not own a car you might as well not dream of getting too far, for you are no more than a mere fleck of dust on the surface of the USA. As a consequence, train connections are few and far between…only meant for those unfortunate folks who cannot drive themselves where their hearts and engines desire.
Buses are cheaper versions of train rides, but their reliability is somewhat nonexisting. An example: having bought a ticket for the Greyhound line at midnight so I could make the most of my days off and get to DC in the morning, I found myself waiting in the station for 2 hours(until almsot 2 am) , no bus in sight. The ticket had been purchased online, they had even requested my cellphone number (heaven knows why…cause it sure as hell wasn´t in order to call and tell me that their driver just didn´t wanna come pick people up that day. Neah…he might have said. Too tired. Let the carless half-humans wait. If they don´t have a car they won´t have enough money to sue.)
The effort and adventure of getting to DC left aside, the trip back was just as eventful in the delays, the ticket machines not working unless you literally hit the screen as hard as you could (whoever invented touch screens never took into consideration the fact that someone with anger management problems would ruin them in no time), the bus drivers slowly opening the luggage trap when you could see your connection bus almost leaving. “Calm down, please. Relax.” …”But sir, my bus…”
Once you are actually on the bus and you know that you will make it home (at one point, for sure not the one n the ticket), the view out the window captures you: trees with trunks immersed in swamps freshly created by some strong downpour, houses lost somewhere in the woods, coal trains zooming past you, heavy on their old tracks.
But the most surprising thing I saw was the huge amount of tires at the edge of the road. Here one tire, torn in half, there another one, intact, to the right a small, baby tire, belly-up, on the grass a huge truck tire. Back home you see cats and dogs, smashed. The variety comes only from the degrees of injuries caused by the impact.
Here, the only roadkill spotted was a racoon, notorious for his species´ highway suicidal tendencies.
Tires. Tires to take you home, tires to leave you waiting for help. I wonder where they all came from, and what happened in the end to all the cars that lost them, all the people that left them there, willingly or not.
But that is all behind me now. Almost a week behind me.
Fresh is only the memory of arriving back to Williamsburg, to see the eagles in the air like kites, serenely floating towards the deepest of blues.
This is the life. The simple life.
You wake up. You work. You come back, you sleep. You eat, ponder about your purpose in life. You sleep again.
you dream of trays and strawberries on the side, water orders that you forgot to bring your customers. We do really dream about our days…and if my days involve running to and fro with plates of pancakes, how could I dream of strawberry fields forever? no, my strawberries are on the side, or on the order of buttermilk pancakes.
In life you must not take things for granted. Yes, that is a must. Rule number one.
For one month I took my free wireless internet coming from an unknown benefactor living nearby for granted…until I saw a big pickup truck hauling furniture away and I said to myself “I sure hope that is not my wireless internet moving away.”
But it was.
So now I am sitting in the shade,in a parking lot. It is 5 pm and I have the rest of the day off.
I am sitting in a parkin lot from which I can see our apartment. We tracked down some wireless internet here, so this is the new place to be.
Some neighbor’s cat is out and she is keeping me company, occasionally rubbing itself against my feet.
In a way it is nice to have no higher purpose to worry about every day. Just the workschedule and then the gratifying hours off that seem neverending. So much free time, so many possibilities *you think, until the hours go by and you realize you’re waking up to work again next day*
You go to the thrift store and buy some more books that you pile up and cuddle with before you go to sleep, you go swimming at the pool that your Romanian coworkers have at their motel.
Simple.
But I cannot help thinking that I am suuure glad I want more from life than this. Yes. More. More time for thoughts, more thoughts in my work.
But for now I will leave this parking lot, cause the ants seem to like my sweet sunlotion and are tickling my heels.
The cat (Grace is her name, since that is what her nametag proclaims) is coming towards me again, her lazy moves contagious.
I’ll go back home and sleep.
Or perhaps I’ll snap a photo of Grace first.
Last night I dreamt I was in a land far far away, where donuts grew on dogs´ tails and the streets were paved with gold.
In this land they had cures for aaall the diseases you didn´t even know you had. Actually, the cures miraculously made you realize you had the disease all along. (when I say all diseases I mean all except for obesity)
This land had so many names for the same things that after a while it was hard to remember the name for everything, so instead of saying it, people would point out to what they wanted, they would throw a magic card into the air and that card would turn into money, would replace the desired object and catapult it into your arms.
This land was based on dreams and visions of a better future, deemed by many to be new age utopias, but after several hundreds of years (not too many, but enough to prove some wrong) it had kept functioning, well at times, limping at others.
And many people, wide awake, would dream of this land too, and their daydream would haunt them at night until suddenly, there was no limit, no barrier between the daydreams and the night dreams and their visions got engulfed into the Dream.
The bubble grew, and grew…and the people in it kept treading their hamster treadmills.
This all works… until the bubble pops…and until they stop smiling…But bubbles can be blown back into the air, reality bursts can be fixed in time. So who are we to wake them up or try to prick their dreams with a needle?
Who is to say that we aren´t the ones living on the wrong side?
We´re the old dreamers. Classic style, snobbish, traditionalist, history-filled proud nations.
We think “yeah, so they´re a big power, but we know better, cause we´re older”. Hmmm.
Better give them some credit for what they can do. (like influencing the state of world economy when they have no “credit”)
Right wrong, wrong right, black and white and shades of gray..
who are we to judge, who are we to say.
I miss my past, my Europe so far, my boyfriend, my family and our trips together, Erasmus and Italy, amazing …old and full of centuries of magic. My grandpa who is a part of me and my model to live by, my neighborhood in Bucharest, cemetery and transvestites as well, I even miss the dust balls that I happen to hate, with their magic capacity of reappearing no matter how often you wipe them away.
I surely miss you, whoever you are, your kind words or your sharp tongue and wit, our long talks or our brief encounters.
I miss watching Dexter´s Lab with my brother, or a Hallmark detective episode with my mom.
Riding in the car with my dad, when he´s tired and quiet and calm as usual.
I miss his funny rhymes and the rare and precious stories from his youth. I miss my grandma whining on the phone
My classmates, my friends from university, our dances, our silliness, our philosophical truths.
I miss I miss I miss. When sad, I miss everything my senses ever met.
It´s bad, really…Missing things means missing out on the present.
And I know for sure that I´ll be missing this later on too.
With your head screwed on backwards, there is little place for talking steps forward, or actually seeing where you are going.
I know where I´ve been. I should start knowing where I am.
pic via http://333bracket.deviantart.com/art/Living-Backwards-47890483
You know when you have too much spare time on your hands and all of a sudden your mind goes blank as you try to find possible things to do?
And then all of a sudden you remember something…It comes from far far away, the ever so distant and vague memory of holding a book that wasn´t on your “must read for exam” list.
Then comes the more tragic moment in which you realize that you (very rationally) decided to pack only two books with you for the whole three summer months you will be working. Why? Oh, because you figured you´d have nooo time for that. Dunno what you were thinking…
But then it dawns on you. Ok, this is getting annoying.
Then it dawned on me…I had seen a bookshop on my way home from work. It even had a small couple of shelves with reduced books in front of the shop. So I decided to take a look.
It was a second hand book shop. Actually…maybe they should be called second mind…or perhaps it is called second hand because whichever books land here were probably only picked up and dusted by the previous owners, if they decided to give them away.
Maybe some passionate old relative had bought them some years ago, hoping his nephew, niece, son would have the same taste in books. Tough luck. They were just gonna sell it for 2.99 at the first bookshop they would find.
In a more pragmatic tone: just my luck.
Long story short, after half an hour in there I realized it was the place to revisit after my first paycheck (ah, paycheck sounds so professional …sounds as if I have an office job, haha). The smell of old books was juuust right (not the mouldy one you might get in some shops, but the flavoured, spicy smell of pages upon pages of personal stories wrapped up in third person narratives, historical memoirs and whatnot, paperback, leatherbound, hardcopy, you name it!). That was a large parenthesis. But I bought a book of the reduced shelf. 3 dollars for a hardcover. Not bad, I thought, not bad at all.
Last precious item I found in a used book store was a dictionary, a trilingual one, English- German- French. I spent 25 lei on it…that would be less than 10 bucks, and it was from 1841.
Now I am reading a not so valuable as a collectors´s item book, (or is it? tadadadaduuum) but one that I consider a grea find anyway. It´s a Saul Bellow that I hadn´t heard of before. It´s called “More die of heartbreak”.
I must say I do not know if that is statistically so, but I should say it is more painful a death than many others. Not that I would know, for my past lives have spared me of such traumatizing experiences, but I see how that could be true.
I did the shallow kind of research on the book, wikipediaing my good man Bellow´s novel and found out that the book was written in ´87 (not much of a coincidence freak, but it´s a nice one, nevertheless). And the book cover they showed on wikipedia was just like mine. There it said “ a first edition”. And so it is. A first edition of a Nobel and Pulitzer prize winner.
I am reading a book as old as me, called “More die of heartbreak”.
If I ever have the time or -more importantly, as I am currently out of it- talent and inspiration, I´ll write a sequel called “Some live happily ever after”. Might be filed under Science Fiction, but we´ll see about that:D
I don´t know exactly when it started…when I started looking on the ground for treasures, but I know it goes way back.
I distinctly remember being in New Mexico, in a place called Acoma where there were these Native Americans, the Acoma Pueblo, living on a 370 foot high rocky surface.
The 7 year old Mara from back then heard the guide say something like “a lot of precious stones can be found in this area”. And from that phrase on, I had my eyes glued to the ground, in search for some shiny stones.
Then I remember bringing all kinds of smooth pebbles from the seaside, for my grandmother to have…cause I thought they were magic, or real diamonds that needed a bit of help to shine.(on, like crazy…)
This passion for finding things…might be tied to the detective tv series I loved to watch as a kid, and still do. The idea that opening your eyes just a bit can help you see sooo much more than what other people see, the fact that you can find quintessential elements that some other people needed to solve some long forgotten puzzle…it´s part of the whole thing.
So ok, parents say watch where you´re going, don´t look at your feet, look around too, don´t pick things up from the ground, you might never know where they´ve been. But I´m 2 now:D
On Friday I was walking towards the Williamsburg Transportation Center, to pick up my friend Ana who was arriving there.
So that is how I spotted it, in the grass, at the base of a tree. It was blue-green, a faded colour, but so beautiful and smooth, and I stepped closer to see that it was not some plastic candy wrapper, but 3 quarters of a tiny eggshell, baby bird had made its exit a while ago.
It was not some Easter egg, with fake colouring, or some plastic toy. It was the most beautifully coloured thing, the most fragile, and wonderful thing I had ever found…
At the Williamsburg Transportation center I met and old man, a really nice college professor from Massachusetts (there´s a song that goes “and the lies..all went down in Massachusetts”). After talking about stuff like the American society today and the Romanian society in communist Romania, we had to part ways (Ana´s bus had arrived!) and I showed him the egg that I was holding in teh palm of my hand.
“Oh, that´s a robin´s egg. “, the jolly old bearded man said, thus solving the mystery I was ready to google when I got home.
As we walked away he said “may your hearts remain as pure as that robin´s egg”.
And I hope he knew more than I knew, or saw in me more than I see, because I sure wish that whatever level of “pure” is still left in my heart will remain, or increase…
For there is nothing worse than losing hope and faith in the world you are born into.
*pic via http://depts.washington.edu/natmap/photos/birds/robin_eggs_20070426_01tfk.jpg
I didn´t get to see the fireworks on the 4th of July. Maybe i didn´t really feel the holiday boiling in my blood.
I guess that´s easy to understand though…
Or maybe it was because as much as I tried to stay on my tiptoes, as tall as I tried to be, the rooftops of the tiny houses in Bristol Commons aka my “neck of the woods”, were obstructing the view.
All I saw were the faint shades of light that splashed the sky ever so vaguely. All I heard were the gunshot echoes.
But I don´t regret that anymore.
This evening, as I was giving my neighbors something to talk about -I was beating my newly found mattress with a broom.
(When I say found, I mean I found it in a furniture dump. Ah, the high class life. And when I say with a broom…well, you know.)
I didn´t have the appropriate carpet beater and I wonder if they have them in America. Maybe on vintage item sales.I for one am very fond of my carpet beating memories…those two times when I made the buildings of my hometown echo and tremble, fearing my carpet beating rage.
But back to the subject. There I was, minding my own business, appalling my new neighbors…when, after seeing one curious shadow disappear from the window cause I was looking in its direction, I spotted, mirage like, my first firefly in so so long.
I thought at first that it was the light reflecting from my neighbor´s window, or maybe some other type of light refraction, reflection, rewhatever.
But then I saw it again, and again, and the evening darker shade of lawn became the perfect background for my very own, private fireworks, blazing up in short little light sequences.
I´m happy, with so little magic.
Zborul peste ocean a fost un zbor inapoi in timp, intr-un loc din lumea asta, si totusi atat de diferit, ca substanta, ca miros, ca simturi.
M-am trezit in prima dimineata in noua mea casa devreme, foarte devreme, desi nu cred ca era jetlagul de vina. Apucasem sa dorm destul pe avion, in ciuda tuturor copiilor sub 2 ani care urlau in jurul meu.
M-am trezit si am deschis geamul si am mirosit aerul de dimineata. Era cald, mirosea a umezeala si a 7 ani. Mirosea ca acum 15 ani, cand eram mica, la un ocean departare de bunicii mei si traiam cu parintii si fratele intr-o casuta in dallas, cu niste vecini mexicani vizavi, cu o curte mare in spatele casei in care trebuia neaparat tunsa iarba, ca daca nu plateai amenda.
Nu mai tin minte pe ce strada locuiam, sau in ce zona a Dallas-ului. Tin minte ca scoala mea se numea Saint Monica, era scoala catolica si spuneam Hail Mary in fiecare dimineata, dupa ce spuneam si The Pledge of Allegiance. Tin minte ca pe invatatoare o chema D. Anne Pelletier si ca era inalta, usor plinuta si avea parul ondulat si scurt.
Ne citea o data pe saptamana din cate un roman. La un moment dat fusese Heidi povestea. Unii colegi adormeau pe covor in timp ce invatatoarea ne citea.
Si in fiecare dimineata mirosea ca acum.
Cred ca acea varsta de 7 ani a fost ruptura. Un fel de ruptura dintre copilaria cea mai pura, naiva, si copilaria usor mai lucida, de cand incepe scoala.
La 8 ani am vrut sa-mi scriu povestea vietii. M-am oprit la a treia pagina. Cred ca gresisem scopul: trebuia doar sa scriu despre copilarie. Trei pagini le-am scris despre bunicu, deci despre copilaria mea pura.
Primele lucruri pe care le-am cautat in Williamsburg au fost dulciurile din trecut: cutiile de donuts ca la dunkin donuts, pe care le mancam destul de des. Urmeaza sa mai gasesc stripsurile de jeleu (nu mai tin minte numele…dar am sa le recunosc instant imediat ce le voi vedea…daca nu cumva s-au dovedit fatale sanatatii in astia 15 ani).
Apoi am trecut la chestiile mai serioase: string cheese: placerea de a manca un tubulet de branza de consistenta intre cascaval si mozzarella, pe care o poti jupui pe fire de branza…si dureaza o vesniciea, in acest proces meticulos, sa o mananci pe toata.
In aceasta intoarcere sunt singura. Si fericirea stranie pe care o simt cand recunosc cate un peisaj, cand vad cate o pasare care acum 15 ani imi canta la fereastra (ca pasarea cu penaj rosu pe care am vazut-o cantand aici, in Williamsburg, in prima zi) nu o pot imparti decat vag cu voi.
Cu aceasta fericire vine insa si sentimentul de instrainare pe care mi-l aduc bine aminte. Zambetele tuturor prea gratuite, lumea intrebandu-te mereu cu aceeasi sinceritate “how are you today”…iar tu incepand sa le raspunzi naiv, detaliat.
In afara de dulciurile copilariei si de alte cateva produse, ma enerveaza momentan multitudinea de oferte din supermarket. De obicei sunt un cumparator rapid si eficient, dar aici ma pierd in fata a 10 produse aproximativ identice, cu marci diferite si, dupa cum reclama fiecare: cu diferente minore, dar esentiale intre ele.
Produsul x este super saver, dar y este aproape natural. Z are cel mai scazut numar de calorii, dar w are proteine si vitamine cat pentru o cireada, iar tu ai 10 dolari in buzunar special pentru ziua asta de cumparaturi si te gandesti: eh, daca oricum sunt toate proaste, macar sa-l iau pe cel mai ieftin…macar pana la primul salariu.
La 7 ani m-am pierdut de mama in Walmart, la raionul cu jucarii. Brusc nu o mai gaseam, oricate raioane verificam, in lung, in lat, pe diagonala. Deja imi facusem planul de siguranta: urma sa le spun celor de la casa sa dea anunt prin statie sa o cheme. pana la urma ne-am gasit singure. Cum exact, nu imi dau seama…o coincidenta majora, in acel spatiu imens.
Poate acum mi se va parea mai mic Walmartul, desi ma indoiesc, la cat de tare ma ametesc raioanele unui simplu market cu mancare.
Din peisaj lipseste mama, lipseste tata, si fratele meu in varsta de 3 ani jumate. S-au schimbat toti, si acum fratele ma depaseste in inaltime cu mult, tata nu mai tunde iarba in gradina in treningul lui rosu si nu mai joaca fotbal cu Steful de o schioapa.
Si toti trei au ramas acasa, iar eu sunt aici, intr-un trial period de 3 luni, incercand sa imi dau seama care-i treaba.
Cum sunt, cat sunt de capabila, cat sunt de legata de casa, cine sunt departe de casa, si ce-i cu lumea asta: cat e de adanca, cat e de superficiala, de buna, de rea, de asa-si-asa.
Trei luni. Dar acum ma culc, ca s-a facut tarziu si in coltul asta de lume.
