The longing...

I remember even from the early literature lessons the history of the romanian word "dor". Romanian teachers used to say it cannot be translated, but if I come to think about it more, there are possible translations. The english word for "dor" would be "longing", the german one "Sehnsucht" and the list can go on.
The Romanian teachers also used to say it cannot be defined, tough some tried to explain it as a diffuse and acute feeling, triggered by the absence of a person, object,or place with which a person feels emotionally connected. In this case, if I come to think about it more, "dor" cannot be defined. The longing is based on a emotional connetion, but is it the same thing with sadness, love,hope, outrage, nostalgia, or is it a mixture of all those and many others? We love something that is missing, therefore we feel sad; the absence urges us to revolt against a fate that we call unrighteous. However, tired of asking ourselves questions, we come to terms with the so called fate, dwelling in our nostalgya the memories of the object that we are longing for. "Dor", or "longing" doesn't only imply revolt, but also sad acceptance, sometimes with a feeble flavour of hope, but also many other contradictory feelings. Can we get a coherent definition out of the description above? Not really, and if we tried we would inevitably cut from its complexity and magic, in our attemp to make it fit into a logical structure.
Ceasing to run for generalizations. there are two things I could say about longing. Firstly, there's a paradox about it - a multitude of feelings ,triggered by an absence. Secondly, there's something pure and unselfish about longing - it implies the kindest feelings, without expecting anything in return, since the object of the longing is always away from us...

Ducu Bertzi - Asa-mi vine cateodata (Sometimes I feel like...) -a romanian folk song about fate, bad luck and longing

The relativity of being home

We are all pilgrims in one way or the other... wether we travel with our minds in search for things that could fulfill us, wether we scour the world to see sparkling cities and breathtaking sceneries, or go afar to see the ones we love. Yet every pilgrim has a home - it might be place where they first started their journey, but it might also be the place where they arrived.

Some travel so much, as if they had thickets. Many leave their hometowns to go to other towns or even other countries, in search for something where they can feel they belong.

For my parents the question was: in which city from Romania should I settle down? For our generation the dilemma grows even bigger: in which country of this whole wide world shouldd I live? It is better to have more options, but it's also more frightening. So in such an uncertain and open world, what is the meaning of home?

Experience has taught me that home is more about having the people you love around you, than being in a certain location. I have felt home in Winnipeg, Montreal, Wildwood, in a little mountain town in Austria, in Iasi, Bucharest and neither of those is the place where I grew up in, but in those places I was sorrounded by people that made me feel like home. No matter how far, even across the Atlantic Ocean there are those places that I can relate to as home, because that is where some of the people I love are.

So that is the relativity of being home. It's not a place, but a state of mind, a feeling that the people around you can help you achive. It's where you feel you belong, where you feel content, even if miles away from the place you were born. We might not know where we are going to live, we might even go through more places of residence, but somewhere on the road we will eventually find that inner balance, that state of mind called home...

Enya - Pilgrim

Life in an amusement park

Round 'n round

Carousel

Has got you under it's spell

Moving so fast...but

Going nowhere

(Norah Jones - Carnival Town)

I have entitled my blog lifecarouselle and posted the song by Norah Jones long before I knew I was going to work for three months in an amusement park called Morey's Piers. Wildwood, New Jersey is where I spent all the summer of 2010, and Morey's Piers is the place where I met the most interesting people from all over the world.

Working in the park, having fun in all the rides,parties over parties, no worries and no future prospects to consider, just getting into the dazzling rhythm of the moment, that is what the life in an amusement park meant to me.

Everything was moving fast, there was always something new happening, some new people to meet... friendships, crushes, all moving with an increasing speed, just like the whirpool of a carouselle. You fly off the ground while in a carouselle, you lose your sense of ballance, you feel dizzy, yet excited. We flew off the ground during summer too, losing connection with our homes and going with the flow. Ouw world became the park and the ocean, and three months felt like a lifetime.

There was craziness, happiness excitement, but there was also goodbye. The carouselle is spinning in circles, it does not go anywhere. We have been spinning the same way, losing ourselves through the ride, but every ride had an end...

The carouselle does not go anywhere, it spins until it stops.

Summer left us, and we left the park. We left our world to go to our worlds...

Mads Langer - You're Not Alone

Behind the Forbidden Door

One of my favourite books is entitled The Forbidden Door by Gabriel Liiceanu, a romanian writer. The whole book is full of insights into the human spirit that basically help you to discover yourself in his writing, but a certain fragment particularly remained imprinted in my mind.

We all travel through life dressed in sobriety, shame and discression. For some it's more pronounced than for the others, but in a way we all wear a mask to cover our emotions. We don't always cry, laugh or yell when we feel like and we almost never want to let the others see that we are fragile and vulnerable. The shame that arouses as a result of our interaction with the others acts like a censor, a censor that decides what should go pass the forbidden door and what should remain only inside ourselves.

However, as the writer describes, this door does open sometimes, and this is, after all, the meaning of love. There is a place for everyone where they can be sad, or experience ecstasy, without being afraid that their image might suffer. There is a balance between taking our clothes off and revealing our souls, and love is when the shame of undressing our body and the one of undressing our feelings are both defeated simultaneously and in correlation with one another. Then we are light and free. All that has been hidden and untold comes out, the clothes and the masks fall down and we are exposed in front of the other just as we are, while witnessing the intentional fall of our censor and our protective sistems.

"So, this is the secret! Each of us could cross life dressed in sobriety, shame and discression. We might be severe, distant and appear unbreakable. On condition that there is, or was, at least once in a lifetime , a person in front of which we can stay with our soul naked , without feeling ashamed. "

And even if that love fades and we close our forbidden door once again, a memory of the freedom of undressing our bodies and souls still survives. And that memory is what gives us confidence, strenght and peace. We don't discover yourselves or truly live when we hide behind that door. The best way to explore and to set ourselves free is to open the door for the other.

Hooverphonic - Inhaler

The Drums that guide my steps

This post is about a song from Florence and The Machine called the Drumming Song .

When is comes to certain choises, even the strong ones follow the haunting drums inside their heart, while crashing the image they have built for the others to see. We always care what the others are thinking about us, we always think about the consequences, we always question the future. Yet, from time to time the voices of the others, the gossips, the worries that screams about the future are all reduced to silence. Calm and cerebral as they might be, in the end they do only what they want and feel. Only drumming noises inside their heads, and those are the drums that guide their choises, probably the most sincere ones.

Who are the others to tell them what to do? Why should imaginary rules prevent them? The ony rules that I follow are those drums, and whenever I hear them I know I am right to step further...

-Painting by Sabin Balasa-

Postphoning the inevitable...

Days passing just like the cigarette after a love affair...you want it to last as much as possible, you try not to blow it, you try not to flick it, still it gets shorter and shorter. If you don't smoke it the wind will and just when you were enjoying it the most it will turns into ashes. You see the smoke dance in the air and going afar even if you don't blow your cigarette, as you sigh passionately and try to stop the time...just one thirsty sip from it and it's gone.
You try not to think about the ending, believing that this will prevent days from passing, you think that keeping the ending out of your mind will keep time away from your numbered days. You leave your stuff thrown away in your room, you wander the streets, you drink one more coffee, you refuse to sleep, anything but trying to pack a whole summer into one suitcase. But time still passes, you can feel the hours flowing, just like you could see the smoke flying... As you found yourself with nothing but a filter from the cigarette you've been sensually sipping from, you wake up in the eave of your leaving with a huge suitcase and no more summer days to enjoy...
How can you make one cigarette last forever? How can you pack a summer of thoughts into a suitcase and how can you squeeze thousands of moments and feelings into one notebook?

Tori Amos - 1000 Oceans

March reflections

March has never been my thing, more precisely it's my least favorite month. Summer is my moment, fall is the most wonderful visual delight, winter is about holidays, the loved ones, mountains, skiing. Since at this point it's still winter I'll talk more about it. December is fire and ice, a mixture of blizzard and warmth,no matter how cold outside is, the atmosphere of the month is electrical...January is about planning, about icy walks and hot chocolates, about piles of books and long indoor days, combined with skiing adventures on steep slopes. February is about idle days, as you feel entitled to relaxation after a long, tiring exam session.
Now March is about waking up, while you still feel lazy, or about wanting to go outside, run and breathe fresh air, while the weather outside prevents you.March is a month that simply doesn't inspire happiness to me. It's not that I haven't experienced thrilling moments in March, but this month simply puts me off. I can only be wondering what will this March bring...a bulky atmosphere, or the sense of a rebirth, closer to the collective representation of March, closer to poems and tradition? Will the pond of heavy thoughts be shredded by a daring beam of light?

p.s: Picture taken by a friend during a trip in the Parang Mountains

Tschaikovsky - March (Song of the Lark) is closer to my representation of March- not an energetic and sharp melodic line, but more a smooth and thoughtful tune.

The deaf and the mute

For the simple fact that we can speak and hear, does not mean we can properly communicate. There are abnormalities, treacherous situations when we wrongly believe we are in control, or on the contrary, when we want to give up, although the fight should not be over.
On the one hand, there is the "dialogue of the deaf"- people may speak, they may use the same vocabulary, still their language is different, words do not stir the same mental concepts for both of them. It's the illusion of communication...using the same vocabulary, and even talking for hours won't get them to any consent or understanding. And the worst part is... they don't even know they speak different languages, they can't even begin to imagine they are two foreigners who just met on the ground of a common vocabulary. Consequently, they start blaming each other for their useless and meaningless conversations, failing to realize that together they are both deaf, each trapped in the world of their own language.
On other other hand, there is the "dialogue of the mute"- between those people there are the subtle signs of a common language, yet at a nonverbal level. Those signs are never verbalized because of two possible reasons: people either do not share the same vocabulary (one speaks Japanese, the other Romanian), or they avoid using it. Due to real or imaginary constraints, they can't put their latent common language into words. They let it float into a realm of silent understanding, deciphering each other beyond words.
Can the deaf and the mute be cured and which of them has more chances? Hard to answer...perhaps the mute are more likely to recover, as they are at least aware of their problem. They know they lack the common vocabulary, or the verbal communication. The deaf, however, think they are properly healthy, they don't even know what they need. The deaf should start by admitting they are not in control and that none of them holds the ultimate truth, while the mute should not cease to seek for a way to verbalize their conversations.
These are not pathological cases, they are part of the universe of our interactions. It all comes down to this: we are all deaf to some people and mute to others...

Hooverphonic - My Child

The New

The first new year with a new vibe, the first true New Year's Eve. We always say that entering a new year will make us implement certain decisions, will make us improve ourselves, but does always the new year imply experiencing the new? Or is it just another year of indulging in some old habits, dwelling old feelings or still hiding old desires? Don't know what the year will bring, but the Eve was truly new, like it hasn't been for a while.
It might be that it was just another day in the calendar, or just another fun party to remember, but it made me see that inevitably the new comes. Sometimes it's unwanted, sometimes it's craved for, sometimes it's premeditated, sometimes it's unexpected. Either way it is what makes live fun and worthy. So raise the glasses for The New!

The Arcade Fire - Wake Up