Wet paint!

Today I finally did it. It's been on my mind for a long time but I never got myself to do it. Today, I had everything I needed so I set down to do the job. I painted the bathroom window in white. It used to be white but the color washed off and turned into a shade of yellow in time...now it's freshly painted in white.

Firstly,  I thought it would be quick...it wasn't. A double window has a lot of edges, corners, sides...phew! Secondly, I needed my arm muscles to spread the paint evenly until my dad brought the diluent and made the paint more fluid. Thirdly, after a certain point it became a challenge not to get painted myself...I could not grab just from anywhere, I could not lean of any side of it, ah...

I did it though! The next window is the kitchen one...I will probably take a day, be exhausted at the end, have sore muscles, and a considerable quantify of paint on my hands/blouse/hair. Needless to say how much I enjoy doing these things; or how much I enjoyed my run in the park by the Mures today; or just how much I enjoy being in Arad, sleeping in my bed, having mint tea at night, greeting street corners, benches, trees, alleys...

Ode to the "would do-ers" in us

To do or not to do? That is the question. What makes us do things? There are books answering, experts researching the subject. Motivation, will, desire...not a very clear answer, many theories and guesses.

Sometimes I simplify things, sometimes I think that the only obstacle in front of us when we are not doing something is not wanting to. Yes...sometimes, with some things, with some people, it's not a clear and simple rule however, I have seen often enough people doing something outrageous by their book just because they wanted to.

And so the cold weather arrived to Arad, my wardrobe is done, and I am feeling good...just like Michael Buble singing about the new day, the new dawn...

Saadeh and the orange shirt

I was in the theater tonight for a concert. It felt like being in the small theater in Fontainbleau almost 3 years ago. Memories of one winter evening came back to me; I was getting ready for my 30 seconds dance in front of a packed hall. I was not nervous, just curious. What to expect from a new audience?

It did not take more than a few beats for Saadeh to stand up and cheer like no one ever cheered for me. He was wearing an orange shirt, and from the stage I could see his blue eyes and smiling face. And boy did he cheer...

Tonight in the theater I thought of him. He passed away a year ago. These lines are for him.

Frequent train rider

My friends Alin and Oana suggested to open a "frequent train rider" account given my numerous trips by train. I just made another one...9 holy hours on a slow train we call fast from Iasi to Cluj. I slept for the most part but I arrived and feel as if an army marched all over my back.

I am in Cluj again and because students are starting university soon I had a thought about the times when I was a student. I don't know how it is to be a student in Romania, I was one far away from home. Some things seem to be the same though...the excitement at the beginning to see again friends and classmates, people coming back after the summer a bit changed, moving boxes and piles of papers from where they have been stored over the holiday, the buzz...

Bremen...that's where I lived all this for 3 years as a student, and for almost 3 more as an alumn. Good times, very good times!!!

Iasi

I've never been to the Eastern part of Romania, Moldova, just like the country. I have heard, studied, and read about it but never made it.

The day I spent in Iasi was a preview of what Moldova is all about: a large part of the Romanian identity comes from here, from history and culture created here. Names I have studied in school, books I enjoyed reading as a child, and many History classes came back to life today. My favorite part was visiting the house where Ion Creanga wrote his "Memories from My Childhood", a book through which all Romanians became playmates with the writer as he was a child at the end of the 19th century.

My afternoon ended with a contemporary story. "Tuesday, after Christmas" is one of the latest Romanian movies positively welcomed at Cannes this year. A story about adultery destroying a family, enjoyable dialogues but not the kind of movie that can beat the Sunday evening blues...Ray Charles is though.

Dreams

It always happened when I was home for a break that my brain unloaded through dreams. I remember coming back from Bremen and dreaming with exams or people from the university or later, with work and my colleagues. My explanation was that somewhere, my brain must have stored these experiences and released them while sleeping peacefully at home.

I did not dream much since getting home last week until some days ago. Friends I made in Germany are in the same room with friends I made in Brazil; sometimes I work as a consultant in Bremen or deal with ships in Sao Paulo...it's a ghiveci. 

I wake up tired but understanding...it's holiday for my brain!

Olufemi

One of my good friends from university comes originally from Nigeria. After graduation we lived together in Friedrich-Humbert Strasse in Vegesack, close to Bremen. We even worked together for a while. Femi came to visit Romania one Christmas in 2003 so she got to know my friends from home, my family, my country. We saw each other last 5 years ago...

Correction: we saw each other last just one hour ago! Femi came to Romania again, this time with her sister who studies Medicine in Iasi. So there I was...waiting for a plane from London to bring to Bucharest my Nigerian friend whom I had not seen in such a long time. Like every single time when I meet good friends I had not seen in a while the feeling was the same: as if we saw each other last yesterday, as if 5 years were just a dream.

How does that happen? Will this ever change or does time when it comes to good friends really become so relative that years feel like days?

Luceafarul

While on the train last night I realized that it was full moon. Right below the moon I saw one star. I recalled "Luceafarul", the name of the first star to appear on the sky, and the title of one of the most famous Romanian poems written by Mihai Eminescu, our national poet.

Later during the day while on the subway, a homeless young man got on and started reciting the whole "Luceafarul", not more or less than the 98 verses. Lovely story, sad love story about an impossible relationship between a beautiful princess and the shinning star.

A fost odata ca-n povesti/ A fost ca niciodata...

23rd of September 2010, Bucharest...having a coffee in the McDonalds in Unirii subway station and listening to a conversation between a 10 year old boy with freckles and his grandfather. The serious topic: what to wear at the birthday party of a girl from his class?

Bucuresti is...

...the name of my favorite Romanian sweet. I am not even sure of when I developed the great passion for this cake, and I don't know why. It is incredibly sweet, so sweet that I cannot have more than one at the time, and it has a thick layer of GREEN cream! Yes, very green, completely unnatural green cream. Whatever the color or amount of sugar, it's delicious and addictive, and part of my routine every time I am in Romania.

...my destination for tonight. My train leaves Arad at 7 pm and reaches the capital almost 12 hours later. We will choo-choo our way east inside the Carpathians, pass Sibiu and Brasov, and then go South towards the Romanian Plain till we reach Bucharest. This route reminds me of summer camps by the Black Sea back in school; how great it was to escape home for 10 days and be "independent" at the beach!

The blog after the nap

My day before my afternoon nap was domestic. I ironed, washed, cleaned. I realized that my structuring and problem solving skills will be of great help during my stay at home. It's an enjoyable project, I see results right away. It all started with a a basic need for wardrobes given that I am moving everything I had back home.

After my nap...wait, the nap is key! One of the priviledges of not being employed and staying at home is the afternoon nap. Today I did not even sleep but jumping in bed for a while in the middle of the day is simply nice. When you think that as a child I used to hate napping after school despite my parents telling me how great this actually was...they were right, they have been right quite often.

My day continues with a visit to the notary; what a blessing to start dealing with bureaucracy, papers, etc! A far more pleasant thought this afternoon was about the bolo de mexerica, freshly made somewhere 10.000km away from where I am...ah, I miss it together with everything and everyone it makes me think of! Have you tried the best cake in the whole world?

Today I ate a nut, bought a door, and ran

Today the Oscar for the best food goes to the nut I found in the grass in the front garden. Every fall the huge nut tree in front of our house gives us piles of dry leaves and nuts. It's been ages since I ate green nuts; they are bitter unless you remove their peal. No, my next text won't be about hugging trees...


The Oscar for the best movie for today goes to the shop visit to buy a white door with my dad. It was a tough negotiation but really...why would a door 88, 78 or 68 cm wide cost the same? And why do I have to be recently married or living in a new house to get a discount? I am learning. We got the door, tomorrow we start building the new wardrobe!



The Oscar for the best second act today goes to the dogs on some back street where I live. They pulled such a great act: they barked loudly and ran so fast behind me that they had me convinced. They stopped and ran away as soon as I leaned down...they always do, but boy they got me scared!



The final award today goes to the town where I live, to its people; the houses are freshly and happily painted, the streets are newly paved, flowers and trees are planted everywhere...bem arrumadinho, like one would say in Portuguese. Chapeau to them!

Beauty

9 years ago I left home and had a whole set of expectations from the world. Among them, I was leaving with a fairy tale about prince charming; he was the one man each girl out there was meant to find at some point and live happily ever after. Furthermore, I left convinced I had found mine…

My story is like any other story; more important to me than other stories but in all other aspects just like yours, only colored differently. What I made out of it could be different; the way we absorb the experiences we have seems to differ more than the experiences themselves. Painfully and slowly I realized that there was no prince charming. It was not from lack of trying because believe me, I did manage to delude myself into his existence for a while. Unreal things fall apart, fairy tales lose their magic, and something marvelous then happens: one starts seeing! The world was always there, I could have asked, I could have observed, I could have...I did not. In long runs I learned that I have my rhythm and that if I wanted to finish, I had to run the way it felt right for me...neither faster, nor slower. And so I am with everything else, learning as I go by in my own way, at my own speed.

I am not sure of what is it that I actually learned. I have not become smarter, that's for sure. Some knowledge and experiences get in the way more than they help. Maybe the only thing that did improve is how well I know myself now, coupled with the increased acceptance of my own imperfections. If as a teenager I thought I was my own Creator who aimed to reach some heavenly perfection, now I know I am humanly imperfect and aim to grow old beautifully with someone just like me: imperfect. 

Fairy tales would make it all easy, they would guarantee a certain outcome, happy preferably. In reality, there are no guarantees...all there is it's a constant interaction between my limited and imperfect self and the world. And that's where the beauty lies.  

Priceless

An evening catching up on life with my cousin...priceless. Who needs more than a sofa, a blanket, and two open and candid hearts talking about what not? Easy, simple, free happiness...the best kind!

What about an encounter after 13 years with a best friend and desk mate? Speechless I should have been today in front of the smile she calmly wears after the fight she put with a verdict on her life she simply refused to accept. How easily I forget that all I have is now!

And so it ends...a rainy day and a train ride listening to Johnny Cash who told me that he would rather have a hot dog with me than have dinner with the president. Ah, Johnny!

Sweet shall be my sleep tonight!

Cluj

Waking up at 6 am is harsh. Taking the train for 5 hours after that is a nightmare. Not for me; I guess my love for trains and the fact that I am still under a happy drug that makes me see everything I live as a great adventure in my own country made the trip...interesting.

I am in Cluj, a city three times the size of Arad, known for being young and dynamic because of its large student population. I meant to visit for quite some time, today was my chance. My friends who live here happen to be away but this only created the chance to meet a cousin whom I have not seen in 10 years. Sometimes I realize that time has passed only by watching how the lives of others around me have changed. Curious...

What helps me somehow remember my own life are notes I made in different moments in the past. The other night I found some notebooks from exactly 4 years ago. INSEAD was a big dream and a huge uncertainty, Brazil was not even a remote idea, and everything in between...a collection of experiences I could not even wish and cannot but be grateful for. My memory, like any memory, has a mind of its own so the only real proof of what has happened in the past 4 years are all the people I met during this time...and what people!

A friend of mine claims that books and theater plays find us, it's not us who find them. I tend to agree, some things seem to "find" us when we need them.

For example, as I was searching for the ONE women magazine I read, I saw on the cover an interview with Sandra Pralong, a woman who returned to Romania after reaching one of the top positions working for Newsweek in New York. Asked why did she leave everything she had (and the potential to have more and better) to come back to Romania where one is expected to get angry and angrier with the way things work, she answered that she felt she belonged. She believes in the country, and if I am called a dreamer, she is sleepwalking...that's how positive and optimistic she is! Her book, "Why I came back to Romania", presents her story and other stories of Romanians who had it all abroad but decided to come back to build something here, in Romania.

The same magazine had an interview with Gabriel Liiceanu, important contemporary Romanian writer and editor. He published a diary-like book and talks about why blogs, although in a way similar to diaries, are different. I have to agree with him that writing letters to my friends would bring us closer to each other in a way a blog will never manage to do. Its superficiality and shallowness is the price the blog pays for being quicker, more spontaneous.

I would love to write letters...

Write as if no one is reading

Not sure who said to dance as if no one is watching, love as if you have not been hurt before, and so on. Whenever I sit down to jot some words for the day I think of who will read. Faces, reactions, eyes, smiles, frowning front heads come to mind...how to write and what? I figured I might as well follow the dance analogy and write as if no one out there is reading... it's the kind of dancing I enjoy most so why not?


I thought of the blog during the day...oh, wait, the musical suggestion for the day is Bacilos...anything from them but look for "Manchados de amor". The song was on and distracted me. Lately though there is something about music in Spanish...have not figured out why its rediscovery gives me this good feeling.

Moving on...I realized that writing makes me be more observative during the day. I pay attention to things and I tell myself: "This I will mention in the blog tonight!" My mind had a blast today seeing the woman in the tram wearing the Brazil sweater...verde- amarelo all the way! And the tram...older than me but so much fun to ride it. Finally, the coffee with milk foam I had...heavenly! I thought many times of making a list of things I love; three items for today: coffee with milk (espresso with rich milk foam if possible), pears (they belong to autumn, and thus occupy a special place among the fruits of this world), and popcorn (not sure what about it makes me feel good!).

Peace!

Sleeping, patterns, Arad

I woke up this morning and felt like I did not feel in ages...so rested, but sooo rested. You know when you sleep sometimes and you have the impression that the bed absorbs your tiredness like a sponge? It was like that. I barely got out of bed...barely dragged myself to the window to see the sun shinning over the gardens surrounding the house. It felt good, it felt peaceful...I felt that way.

You know when you perceive a certain pattern in your life? I am still surprised when I notice them, I laugh and tell myself: "You should have seen it coming!" Maybe if we could take some distance from our lives we would notice just how many of these patterns exist! Now what about being attracted to people who have the same patterns? That surprises me too, every time...

Arad...before being a Bremerin, a touch of Parisian or Paulistana, I am an "aradeanca". Today I walked around the center, saluted the town hall, and silently announced the mayor that I am back in town. The city is full of students, and I recalled my eternal September limbo: the times when I still did not have enough to do for school and the holiday was still fresh on my mind. I also checked the theater today...I missed it and I can't wait to be able to go again. Arad is not a big place but at least for a while it will keep me busy rediscovering all the things I used to enjoy doing when I was living here. It's like being thirsty to get to know the place again...I love this thirst!

Monday, September 13th

13th of September 2010...after too many hours on the plane, here I am, in the home I left 9 years ago on a bus to Bremen. I can't really process the fact that I am here, or, for that matter, the fact that I have been gone for so long. Both home and me changed in this time so it's not really "coming back" home, it's arriving somewhere I used to know but don't really know anymore. So I am curious...what happened during this time?...

It's fall in Romania, my favorite season. School started today, it smells like burnt, it gets a bit colder in the evenings, and the sky has that light blue, crisp color...you just want to stare at it. Oh...and there is fresh pie, apple and plum...and eggplant salad...and dear faces...and...I am happy to be here!

But for more...tomorrow.