Irene

I want to talk about Irene. A couple of Irenes, actually. In the summer of 2011 I went to the US to work, to see how is it like to live there, to meet new people and different ways to see life. I was trying to find myself, too. After one month, I had to move out from the apartment where I was living to some new place. There I met Irene. She was a 72 years old lady with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. It was August, and everyone was talking about another Irene, the hurricane. She heard that I just moved in the building and came with some home-made delicious cookies to say hi. I find it kind of strange, but I saw in many movies that it’s kind of a custom there, to greet the new neighbors. She invited me over for a tea. Her apartment was just like her, very simple yet extremely beautiful. She had some old decorating objects that made the place warm and cozy. I told her about myself, told her about Romania, about the beauties and the problems of my country, she told me about her life and childhood, and we talked like that for hours and hours. She showed me her photo album but what I liked most was the way she was talking. A very calm and peaceful lady.  “You are a very beautiful woman, I said, when I was looking at a photo of hers. She was in her 20s.” “I was, my dear, I was”. “No Irene, you still are. Haven’t you noticed? I didn’t ask you if this photo is yours, because you haven’t changed so much, you still have this gorgeous eyes and this beautiful smile. Yes, I know that mister Time gave you few wrinkles, but you are still a beautiful lady”. “Few wrinkles?!” and she started to laugh.

                I am 22, she was 72 but I spend many hours in her company, not because I had pity on her, but because I enjoyed her stories. And she had many stories to tell, and I’m the type of person that seeks to learn from everyone and everything. One day, she showed me her collection of brooches and told me their stories. Some were hand-made, some were very expensive, from India or China or South America.  She knew exactly who she got them from, on which occasion. And I realized that those brooches were like a novel of her life, and that is why she loved them so much.

                She taught me many things, how to talk with little children, how to maintain their attention, how to see beyond the pack. She said to me once that life can be bitter-sweet, and we choose if we take the sweetness or the bitterness out of it.

She was the one that taught me what should I do when a hurricane strikes, because, as I already said, we were expecting the other Irene. The only thing that she didn’t tell me was the fact that she had cancer. Couple of days after the storm calmed down, I went to Irene to have some tea. Nobody answered my knocks on the door. Another neighbor that saw told me she is in the hospital. “Hospital? What is she doing in the hospital” “Well, you know she has cancer and she didn’t felt good at all this morning.” “Cancer?!”

                On the way to see her I was thinking how was it possible, how come I didn’t knew, how come she never complained about it. I never saw her sad, she was always smiling and she seemed to be happy. All the time. I remember that at the beginning I was thinking that she is either crazy or she won a big prize or something. I told her this and that’s when she told me that everything relies on the way you look at life.

I understood from the doctors that the disease was in the final state and they didn’t have anything else they could do. I was holding her hand and she told me that her father used hold her hand like that every evening, and sing to her “Good night Irene” and she’s sorry that she didn’t teach me that song. But I knew it so I started: “Iiiiiireeeene goooood night, Ireeeene gooood night, good night, Ireeeene, goooood night Ireeeene, I’ll see yooouuu in my dreeeaaaaaaams ”. She was surprised, her blue eyes were filled with tears and she gave me the most serene smile. That was her last breath. She passed away on the first day of autumn, September 1^st.

I came back home in Romania and every single time I was talking about Irene I had tears in my eyes. But I wasn’t sad, I was happy and grateful that I had the chance to meet her and learn from her. One evening, the sky was filled with stars, and as I was looking up, I was thinking that Irene is up there and maybe she looks at me in that very moment and sends me her serene smile. It's so easy to make someone smile...

     I hope you rest in peace, Irene.

                All the victims of hurricane Irene, of all hurricanes, rest in peace! 





Inspired by Doamna Clara http://elzorab.blogspot.com/2011/08/doamna-clara.html

Cookies

The wagon full of cookies

Blank page...what to write...what to write...

The wagon would be a gipsy wagon. I like to think that in another life I was a gypsy. I love gypsies. Those old fashioned gypsies. The cookies are my hopes and dreams. Few are real cookies. Too much sugar is not good for health, they say.

No. I was sitting here and trying to figure out what to write. I mean...what are those hopes and dreams of mine? Of course, I could write about those that I used to have. Not anymore. I’ve lost most of them.  And they never got replaced by new ones. I remember something that is written on my uncle’s wedding photo:  “It may take years to realize a dream, but dreaming itself is an elevating experience.” I think there was a time when I was dreaming more. It’s called childhood, I guess. I got used not to dream anymore about millions of things because of the fear of getting disappointed.  I don’t want this to be a sad or pessimistic story. It is not. It’s the way life goes. I take it as it is; it’s a step that made me who I am today. Of course, you lose or forget some dreams you had when you were a child. I don’t remember dreaming to become a doctor or a ballerina. I was just thinking about a happy life, a careless existence, with lots of true friends, joy, and of course, I was dreaming about finding the one. There has been a period of my life when I thought I found him. After a while, I saw that he wasn’t that one. After another while, I was certain that the one does not exist, because we are selfish and do not compromise that easy and we want to experience more. And you do need to compromise to live with someone. And you do need to experience more. Now I’m trying to forget all this and just sit and wait to see what happens next, like a spectator at a good movie. Life is a very good movie, I believe. The only difference is that we are the main character, the director and the screen writer of the movie. So that could be a hard job sometimes.

But I lie. I do dream. Even through these words I dream. In that field of sunflowers I was dreaming.

And if I think about it, I smile more often now. Not only because I don’t get disappointed, but because I salute the irony of life and I’m trying to greet every hit with a smile.

But let me get back to the wagon full of cookies. So what are the cookies? Well I guess the wagon is my life and the cookies are the events that I’ve been through and those that will come. Some are with Swiss chocolate and some are full of worms. Sorry for the grotesque image.

A gypsy wagon can be colorful and full of life and joy and music. Gypsies know how to enjoy life. But it can also be dusty and dirty and ragged.  

The best cookie of all: the music. Period.

Sunflowers

My imperfect "essay" in my imperfect English about  

How to spend time in a field of sunflowers

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In a field of sunflowers? How would I spend my time? Hmm...first of all, I want to say that I could use “we” instead of “I”, to talk about the both of us, to talk about what we could do, but I don’t know if my ideas would fit your personality or desires, so I’ll just talk about myself.

So, I will expose my ideas here, and if any of them will sound fun or relaxing for you, then we will going to find ourselves a field of sunflowers and spend a nice autumn day there.  

I’m going to dress in some old and funky and comfortable clothes. Those which any of us have in the closet, but are too old or too out of line to still wear them. Those old clothes that we used to wear a lot, to love a lot, but now are just laying there in the closet, because we just cannot throw them away. A hippie colorful long skirt, a shirt that has little holes in it, and lost a little bit from the power of its color. I wouldn’t care if my hair is straggly because the wind played with it. And barefooted. Definitely, barefooted.

I’d be running after birds, trying, just like them, to spread my wings and fly. And I would fly. I’d close my eyes and see everything a bird sees from up there. I’d tie a yellow ribbon around a tree and start to sing as loud (and lousy) as I can that song. But I wouldn’t be expecting any one else. And of course I will be dancing. As clumsy as I can. With the wind, with myself, with you, if you feel like dancing.

I’d stay still for half an hour to see how a sun flower changes her position after the sun. I’d ask her why is she doing that, because I’m even more colorful than the sun is, and I’m spreading even more heat than the sun does. Then I’ll laugh and kiss the little flower.

I’d take pictures. Tons and tons of pictures. Of me, of the sunflower, of me and the sunflower, of any little bug I see, of you, of us, of the present, of the past and of the future. I’d play with kites. My kite will be yellow with purple flowers. I love yellow and purple, in this combination. It’s girlie and childish, and I like it. When I’ll get tired, I’ll just lay on the ground and watch how the clouds are passing by. I’m going to dare you to tell me their shapes. Some look like Jerry, some look like dinosaurs, some look like flowers, airplanes or turtles. The winner will be that one who finds the strangest shaped cloud.  And the prize will be...hmm...a poem about a sunflower or a wreath of sunflowers. Then I’d dare you to try to hear how a stone is growing. I’d pretend then that I am Japanese, maybe even a samurai.

Just sit and have the deepest sigh ever. For all the sadness in the world. For our dead relatives or friends, for our killed past loves, for the friends we used to have and changed or left, for the pets that used to lick our faces in the morning, for our grandparents’s house, that is now a modern 20 levels apartment building. And afterwards, we’ll capture that sigh in a smile, we’ll have the sunset in our eyes, and we will be grateful for what we have now.

We’ll know it’s time to go when we’ll see the sunflowers bending their heads down, because the sun is going to sleep.

So, B., what do you think?