"AND FEAR SHALL HAVE NO DOMINION"

Sintra road

There is a road and there is fog ahead, all you know is that you have to keep going and sometime just let things happen to you.

The wisest thing to do when you cannot interfere with the circumstances is to keep calm. A long long time ago a Sri-Lankian bookstore owner, brother of a parliament delegate who came to Romania, gave me a simple Buddhist book: "How to live without fear and worry". The main idea is that we should not fear nor worry when confronted to a problem. Because if there is anything in our power to change the circumstances, then why worrying, we should just start acting. If there is nothing we can do, worrying wouldn't help anyway. 

I am a type of control freak, I like to plan ahead of time and tend to worry and get anxious if plans change and things happen in a different way. It doesn't mean that I am not spontaneous, but I tend to hope that things will happen the way I imagine them and I get disappointed when reality doesn't match my imagination and high hopes. This leaves little place for the unexpected, so every news that may have a negative impact puzzles and paralyze me with fear. Every time this happens I have to learn to deal with it, overcome my worrying and the fear and keep living the present moment as if those news never came, at least until their threat becomes a concrete evidence.

After a few days of agonizing anxiety my heart finally found the answer: let it happen, let everything happen, accept it, let it flow through you, then you'll see what needs to be done, without getting too much involved. Keep detached. Accept, with great serenity and light at heart. And the road will unfold, although the fog won't let you see the end of it. 

GENTLY SETTLING AND DRAWING LINES

A few months more since my last post and there are so many changes I contemplate now from a short time distance.

No. 1: I managed to get a stable job, after a one year not-easy-to-live-with gap. I work in a park inside of a palace, with a big window that lets in the sun, the chirping of the birds, the smell of resin in the heat. When I look outside I only see the various shades of green of the many types of pine trees trying to reach the sky. At lunch time I can have a half an hour break reading in the shade, eventually looking at the cotorras argentinas or the urracas. The ducklings I saw a few months ago swimming in the ponds and fountains are now as big as momma duck. My fellow workers are fun and kind, almost all of us get along nicely and I get to use almost all my languages on a daily basis. At the beginning of July I had to organize a reunion of about fifty government experts coming from 21 countries from Europe, North Africa and Middle East, everything went very smoothly and my department head thanked me in front of everyone at the end of the meeting. My writing skills were also put to work for the final public information text. So all together I feel useful and well treated. I was never extremely ambitious and the more I grow inside, the more I learn how to enjoy and be thankful for the good side of things in my life.

No. 2: My stand-by relationship got to a very inglorious cold end after my Cuban (future) ex paid me a one week visit enclosed in a six weeks trip to Spain. We started talking about marriage and a common future here and somehow on the way I realized that for one whole year I was floating in a beautiful and fragile soap bubble that suddenly broke and let me fall on the hard evidence that after all distance and time torn us apart. We were and we are very different, in terms of background and lifestyle, and this year our ways split to the point of no return. It was an emotional break for me, that I had to cope with after he left, that very moment was very short and I didn’t realize what was happening, that it was the last time we were seeing each other as a couple. When I left Canada and we said good-bye in the airport, there was sudden pain and many doubts about doing the right thing or not. It was a separation between two people that were in love and shared a home. It still hurts to know that the three years we were together and the one year of waiting and hoping were reduced merely to memories in no time. But at least I know there is no other way, it was a fine, sharp and clean cut, I can almost imagine a steel blade, guillotine style that suddenly falls and leaves no shreds.

No. 3: I managed to move from my cage aux folles, the Romanian run home, crowded and filled with cigarette smoke and too many times with strong cooking smells. My room was nice though and they were good people, but living in a different bubble. Now I stay in the same Sagrada Familia neighbourhood, on a street that bears the name of one of my favourite cities and above my tree level balcony there’s a blue metal plate that reads “La Ciudad de Buenos Aires”. I share with a nice Catalan girl who’s almost like a younger sister to me, and her dog, Ganja, a lovely half-blind and extremely affectionate cocker. The sitting room is big enough to be able to invite people for dinner again. When I wake up in the morning and I open my door, instead of cigarette smoke there’s Ganja happily wagging her piece of tail waiting to be cuddled.

No. 4: Last but not least, I managed to start moving around (one of the main reasons for coming back to mother Europe) and go visit friends in Lisbon and Toulouse that I have not seen for 13 and 15 years respectively. I was received with the utmost generosity, more like a long lost parent than like a friend that’s been away. Their home was my home and I was moved to tears to find out once more that friendship after all is probably the most beautiful and deep thing in my life.

Lisbon was celebrating the national day and Santo Antonio, the streets were blooming with colourful decorations and the smell of grilled sardines filled the hot air. On Saturday night I went alone to a fado concert set inside the Sao Jorge castle on the hill, overlooking the Tejo estuary under the stars. Besides, the city is as beautiful as ever and I got to visit other spots in this small and charming country by the ocean: Alcochete, Montemor-o-Novo, Evora, Cabo da Roca. Fabulous blue, green and pink (roofs) landscapes, great food, not to mention the company…so I’m going back in August, to spend more time with my Portuguese soul sisters and keep discovering the Lusitanian hidden treasures.

Toulouse, la ville rose aux bords de la Garonne, en plein Midi, with amazing Gothic buildings still standing up, especially le Monastère des Jacobins (I have a special weakness for cloisters) and the scrumptious French desserts. Not far, on the shores of the Tarn, there's Albi, home of Toulouse-Lautrec, dominated by its high episcopal palace and the Ste. Cecile cathedral, masterpieces of pink brick Gothic, so far from the cold gray stones that usually served as building material.

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I am at a point in life where I dreamed and wanted to be ten years ago, is it still the same, am I able to enjoy it and appreciate as much as I would have then? I won some things and lost some things on the way, I’m a little stronger, a little emptier, a little wiser and even bitterer and less ready to believe in the beauty of things and expect the unexpected. But the sense of balance is here; my life is in Barcelona now. Although, after changing places quite a few times, I know nothing, no one and nowhere is for life, there´s no real security in anything, and that’s probably close to the Buddhist teachings about accepting change and transiency as unavoidable. I feel peace, there's only love missing.

Waiting room overlooking the Mediterranean

The Germans have a saying: Alle Anfang ist schwer - all beginnings are hard. Starting over for the umpty umpth time at almost thirty six (well, one day away by now) is certainly hard for me. And I wonder how smart it was to stay home in Bucharest for five months, as it broke my heart leaving the house I grew up in, that in end I was sharing with barely my cat. Certainly, I have a strong affinity with Spanish culture, I am eager to learn more about Catalunya and I've always dreamed to live close to the Mediterranean, this space where cultures met, clashed and eventually mixed. The trendy and touristy Barcelona certainly doesn't attract me at all, but I am fascinated by its long history and beautiful imaginative buildings. Besides, it's a very functional city, where transports and cleaning work pretty well, and so far people seem to be very nice and helpful, from the bank clerk who gave me visitor information when I went to open my account, to the people who explained me thoroughly the annual celebration - Festa Major, of the sea town Sitges.

I have a strange feeling of being in the right place at the right time, although the job market is a mess, and at the same time I can tell I won't be staying here forever, my guess is that I will move further South, in Spain or another country. But for now I have to stay and learn some new life lessons here. The six months since I left my last job start to weigh on me, I need to keep myself busy, and not exactly entertained, that wouldn't be enough, and it requires money too. Since I came three weeks ago everything has fallen into place, except medical insurance, which depends on my social status: student, worker or no income person. The PhD programme won't start until October and jobs are hard to get, there are many Spaniards and Europeans in competition, although my knowledge of languages and international studies and experience are good assets.

I miss my cat, I wish I could bring her over as soon as possible, but my roomie, who happens to be nice, is allergic at animal hair. At least it's easy to make new friends, I tried the Meetup groups of interest and they work well here too, I can't wait to go hiking this Saturday and the next whole week-end. Nature and art are my best friends when the dark thoughts overcome my enthusiasm.

When you ask yourself

It's quite an interesting endeavour to live with one's self, learning to know which of your whims are acceptable or not, for you, and not for the sake of others. Interesting to question your choices and either you are what you do, or rather not, you're keeping your true self aside, waiting for an opportunity to let it out.

Last week I've seen "Tetro" by Francis Ford Coppola, beautiful visually but heavy, redundant and symbolistic on the story side, mixing love and power, Greek tragedy and Freudian theories. It is a powerful film indeed, very intense, but that's due in great part to its splendidly achieved gloomy ambiance, in a black and white run down Buenos Aires. Alden Ehrenreich is too much Leonardo di Caprio and Vincent Gallo bears a ressemblance to Joaquin Phoenix, lacking his force though, he seemed quite cold and unresponsive to me during the whole film. Maribel Verdu and Klaus Maria Brandauer were too much for them, while Carmen Maura played a cliché. To my great joy and surprise, I saw two Romanian names on the crew list: Cinematography by Mihai Malaimare Jr. and Production Manager Adriana Rotaru.

And I felt an urge to look for "Youth without Youth", the film Coppola made in Romania, with Tim Roth, Alexandra Maria Lara and Bruno Ganz, seconded by great Romanian artists, some of them (Mircea Albulescu for instance) playing silent parts. As the story of Mircea Eliade itself is very intricated, it is really hard to come up with something better. The film follows the original plot with just a few changes, sporting good performances, especially on the side of Tim Roth (as usual, I would say) and again, hauntingly beautiful images, using light and shadow in many interesting ways. Mircea Eliade uses love stories a lot in his writings, but they are mostly just a base for the development of his esoteric theories of existence. His characters seem to be rather prototypes than real people, made to comply with his demonstrations.

Strangely enough, both films deal with the difficulties of writing, "Tetro" with creative and "Youth without Youth" with scientific. Both Tetro's family drama and Dominic's study on the origins of language go unachieved, and the two films deal in a certain way with the scope of life. What do we live for and how much are we defined by either our actions or our actual creations. Is life worthy and meaningful if we leave a lasting work behind says "Youth without Youth", or shall we rather count its importance by the events we went through? In "Tetro" the creative act is actually seen as cathartic, liberating and unifying, as the two male characters are finally brought together, after fighting about it. This was what I was left with, to me the dominating father didn't seem that important, as much as Tetro's refuse to face his past and subsequently himself.

I was left pondering on this issues and the way they relate to my life, but I guess this is part of who I am, constanly questioning myself.

So calm

During my three floating ship years, untied to the shore and ever moving on mostly smooth seas, touching and leaving land continously, like in a strange love-hate relationship, I struggled with my deep feelings of rootlessness, with anger, anxiety, solitude, pain. Beside island exploration and a small circle of good friends with whom I shared my taste for nature, music, books, wandering, wine and cheese, my support came from the time I spent alone, either walking, swimming or lying outside on the deck at night, enjoying the salty warm breeze, the wave spray and many books. Everything was changing and still staying the same.

It happened then that I became kind of aloof, cutting myself from the pettiness of the so called ship life, its merciless inconstancy that alternated kind and mean gestures supported by a main background of rage, solitude and indifference, palliated in all possible ways. Ship life looked to me like a fearful social experiment, that I was part of, living it and observing it at the same time, which made take a step back so I can watch myself playing on that turbulent stage. This way I learned not to worry too much, as many passengers were constantly complaining, just like many crew members, for a definitely different set of reasons, ranging from food and cabin quality to the colors of the walls or the various accents of people. But we got rid of the passengers at the end of every cruise, which was not happening with the bulliyng colleagues and bosses. I started watching myself from a distance even when I was passing through my worst moments, to the point of asking for my pictures to be taken when I was disfigured. In other words, I learned to take it easy the hard way.

When people tell me now that I look so easy going and unstressed under any given circumstances, I smile to my secret thoughts. There's nothing permanent and worrisome in life, except death and its causes. All the rest is like cruising from port to port, embarking and disembarking feelings, people and objects.

Latest fashion lips - trout pout

Plastic surgeons fill lips with collagen, and people fill their pockets with money. It's an even situation: full lips and full pockets. Even the nice girl type actress Meg Ryan or the classical beauty model Nicole Kidman did it. Why on Earth would they do it? Or everyone wants to look like Angelina Jolie?

Looks like people don't have enough with fake food and fake smiles, they want fake themselves to top the cake.

AUGUST 28, 06 - SOMEBODY DIED ON AUGUST 24

898 days ago

CRISTIAN NEMESCU - Romanian film director, born in 1979, died in a car accident. Someone I never met, who made a few short movies, won prizes and was probably full of dreams and hopes. He was filming his first feature, California Dreaming, with young Romanian actors and Armand Assante. A comedy.

May his soul find peace.

MARCH 18, 06 - THE FESTIVAL IS ALMOST OVER:(

1061 days ago

My interview with Laurentiu Damian went very well, too bad is restrained only to a local Romanian newspaper, he has many interesting things to say and a passionate, touching way to say it. One can feel he cares about people, art, his professions: film director and university professor. About the people he pictures in the movies and the people that might see it.

His film touched me deeply, first of all it is a poem, not a biography, dissection of the artist's life. The objects created by Onisim Colta, his story - alone in the theatre attic, surrounded by heaps of disparated objects, the poems of Anghel Mora (another film director who left us not long ago), the voice of Romanian famous actor Adrian Pintea, the poetry of the images, all brought together under the magic stick of the sorcerer. Any director re-creates the world according to his own soul and mind and Laurentiu Damian is a poet, who sees the world through the lens of the sensibility and the unspeakable. The film is poem to creation, who transported me to another world, the imaginary world of Onisim Colta, an artist in Arad, thousands of miles away, who hidden in his attic wroughts out of broken things wonders of the form.

FEB. 06, 06 - HUMAN IDENTITY

1101 days ago

Quoting from Italian writer Alberto Moravia standing in Hiroshima "That very moment the monument raised to the memory of the most infortunate day in the human history "reacted" inside me. Suddenly, I understood that the monument was ordering me to stop recognizing myself as the citizen of a determined nation, belonging to a determined culture, but rather, in some zoological and also religious way, member of the species"

Saturday I helped out two Philippino boys for school, today one Sri Lankian and one Hindu girl. I offered to do it every Saturday morning for two hours and from 4 to 6pm one day a week. It feels so good, the kids are exceptionally sweet and well behaved, I have a feeling Oriental kids are taught to be more respectful.

I guess this is one of the things I was looking for in Canada, the feeling of belonging simply to humans, beyond borders.

NEW YORK - DECEMBER 21, 05

1133 days ago

Everything about New York seems to be big. I didn't mind that about the Metropolitan Museum ("Met"). Started off with the Greek and Roman Antiquity, but didn't stay there for long. I lingered in nostalgia over the Precolumbian art, the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Inca, and other less known people. Also saw an interesting exhibition about the Pacific Marquese Islands and took my time looking at African Art. The Egyptian section was huge, covering all periods. I got all existential looking at statues from 4500 years ago, the catscan (radiography) of a mummy 2700 y old, the monumental statues of the beautiful queen Hatshepsut (dressed up like a man, as she was a pharaoh) the next pharaoh wanted them destroyed as he consider a woman king was a blasphemy...a chair, boat models, animals, all made thousands of years before we started counting time, miniatural or monumental. So why worrying and striving, and getting new cell phones, and new computers? Everything will be just memories...museum objects. All passes, all flows.

The Arms and Armor also captured me, for whatever reason I like blades. Their cold steel beauty, especially the Oriental ones, Arab, Turkish, Japanese, Indian. Daggers and cimitars, the smaller and the sharper - the better. Dangerous jewels.

The Middle Age is also one of my favorite periods, crossing by the Byzantine art I was missing home. I like the pre-Renaissance kind of stiffness and purity, all gothic Virgins and Saints, the miniatural work. The whole section was dominated by a huge Christmas tree, decorated from top to bottom and surrounded by colourful Neapolitan figurines of the Virgin, St. Joseph, the Child, Shepherds and the Three Kings, on elephants and camels. The Naples area is well knows for its beautiful Nativity scenes. Church songs were playing and the whole ambiance was one of a magnificent splendid solemn Christmas.

I wandered around the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts, lots of French rooms - all furnished and decorated, a Swiss one, an Italian cabinet, a Venetian room, a real palace. I find neo classical and baroque rather tedious though, tiring. I was really impressed by a whole Spanish yard though, it even had a couple of trees next to the statues. A couple of statues by Bernini, Canova, more French artists, chinaware by Josiah Wedgwood (beautiful cameo style, on black, blue and green). I was absolutely charmed by the items left from the fire that destroyed the house of Tiffany, the most exquisite lamps and decorative objects designer, as good as Émile Gallé or René Lalique, one of my idols. Two full walls, a stair, a few columns, all in Art Nouveau style.

I ended up all dizzy, going for coffee with B., a nice Hindu writer I met in the Egyptian section, next to the Metternich stella - we started talking about it and decided to have a chat later on. We went to a nice Italian coffee shop he knew on the West side of Central Park.

Then I walked towards the theatre area on Broadway and Times Square, all in huge screens and light ads, looking like Japanese movies. I guess Broadway is more interesting inside.

Walked back home across the Queensboro bridge, with a group of youngsters, talking to Diana, half Jordanian, half Philippino - nice person. Went to pick my cousin up at work and got a lift from a couple of clients (I needed one reeeeeeeeally badly!). They told us they live in the same building as a famous Romanian poet - Nina Cassian.

DECEMBER 6, 05 - CRAZY LAZY

1163 days ago

I became such a drag since I don't have to wake up early anymore. Staying up until awfully late at night and lingering in bed like a lizzard in sun. Every day I am telling myself NO MORE, and every day I end up delaying it until the next one. Hard to find motivation to do anything.

At least the last two weeks I kept being busy with the Climate Changes Conference. I'm afraid of the next ones to come, I'm afraid of my own lack of will and fatalism. I just hope change will come, something will happen before I get depressed. Right now I'm just kind of numb, like nothing really matters, just living one day at a time. And still hopeful.

Busy week-end coming anyway.

OCTOBER 21, 05 - AVIARY FLU AND HURRICANES

1209 days ago

Aviary flu spreads around Europe, saw Romania at the news - something really bad has to happen so I can see this. Saw people masacrating birds, that are a source of food and revenue, people that already lost a lot with the summer floodings...breaks my heart.

Besides, two spots I do love and remind me of some beautiful moments: New Orleans and Costa Maya (Yucatan, Mexico) have been devastated. Playa del Carmen and Cozumel - I was there weekly since 2001 and until last summer. So many memories, friends...WHY? I know those people, they work really hard to make the Western tourists happy, they are generous and proud, many lived in kind of cardboard shacks, I just couldn't believe my eyes.

I do hope they'll succeed to get over it, I pray they do.