Experience and expiry dates,paths and roadblocks

Surprinsingly walls fall down easier when something has an expiry date. It's not the inevitable ending that scares some people, but the fact that they do not see the ending, being incapable of knowing when everything will suddenly stop.
The thought of having a limited period of time, helps them to dive in, fearlessly and thouroughly, without any shadow of regret. When the expiry date comes, they know they have made the most of it. And even when that experience leaves deeper marks on them than they had expected, they still feel happy knowing they'd had the courage to take the risk of giving in, of losing their solid ground for a moment. But was that truly courage? Or was it the comfort of believing they did all their best, of knowing the pre-established end was not their fault and that they would not bear in any way the responsability of a break-up?
Courage implies moving onto a path , despite fears and hesitations - for some the terror lies in seeing from the start that their their path is blocked, for others in not seeing the roadblock at all...

Within Temptation - All I Need

The conflict within

Disappointment and anger, followed by the fear and the refusal to confront the situation...you must have felt that at one point in your life. Sometimes all those feelings are pointing a certain person that did you wrong, and without knowing you end up dispising them and hatred wreathes the mere memory of what you had shared with them. The first impuls is to blame and to dispise the other, thinking that if they had acted differently things would have been much better. You strongly believe that the seed of your dissapointment was made of the other person's wrong actions. You want revenge, you might even succeed in getting even, but still you can't come to peace with yourself.
However, time has a weird way of putting things into a different perspective, when you switch from the heat of the moment to the coolness of retrospective thinking. Life's wind of change sweeps away both positive and negative feelings and also helps you to look inside yourself, without rushing into blaming the other.
After questioning yourself about what happened in a dusty past, you realize that you don't disdain the person that hurt you, as much as you hate the person that you became, while being with them. You don't throw stones at them anymore, since you feel you are responsible for the negative influence they had on for and for the person you turned into. You realize you don't hate them, but you hate what they are reminding you of.
All the feelings, if there ever where some, have been washed away by daily living, the charm of other love thrills and the embrace of other arms. However, you still don't feel comfortable with that person, because they remind you of what reprezents the weakest and the worst in you. Although you are strong and confident now, their mere presense evokes the image of a part of yourself that you despise.
You don't care much about them anymore, their life doesn't interest you, and you may have even forgiven them. And yet you can't stand them, not because you hate them , but because you haven't forgiven yourself for what you were once. Neither hate, nor love prevent you from being indifferent, but the fact that you still charge yourself for having been weak.
Only when you forgive that part of yourself that was once wrong for so long, will you be able to confront that person with a bright look in the eyes that shows a peaceful indiference, say hello and ask about the weather as you ask any other common aquitance.

Martina Topley Bird - Poison

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

Warmness on the inside

Christmas is my favorite part of the year after summer and it's even better since I live in Bucharest and have a place to come home for Christmas. The first night at your cozy home, after a long journey by train is one of the best feelings one can have. And the more freezing outsite is, the warmer you feel home. The blizzard outside, the fire and the lights inside, the friends by my side and warmness on my inside...

Mario Lanza - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Old stone....

A song for the old stones that we think were swept away by the waves of daily living. A song for the people who still stumble over such a stone.

Laura Marling - Old Stone

Idle days

I haven' posted for quite a while and it's not that I've been terribly busy. It's just that I couldn't collect my flow of thoughts into a consistent text. I moved back to Bucharest, and as I was trying to get back into the rhythm of college life, I lost track of the days which have past since my last post. I lost track of some of some of my older preoccupations too. Things that one day seemed clear, got blurry the next day. The lifecarouselle didn't stop spinning, but it seemed that nothing could get trapped in it. Instead, everything flew by and now a new clear horizon seems to appear in front of my eyes.
One thing that didn't flew by was my decision to get involved into a ONG, a students' organization more precisely. So following my desire of getting involved into a project outside faculty and hopefully gain some more practical experience, I went to some interviews and I am now waiting for the answer. I did get involved in some extracurricular activities last year, like conferences and workshops and they proved to be very useful for my personal and professional development. Which is why I decided that this year I should get involved more. Another important thing was my old wish to learn French from zero, since the two foreign languages I know are English and German. I guess my admiration for French music, movies and figure skaters, plus my Romanian - Canadian little cousin enhanced this ambition of mine and I am now happily attending French courses at the French Institute in Bucharest.
Apart from those things, my other activities were not as coherent. There are moments when you feel tired after past struggles and when you just want to rest, repair old defections and and enjoy the idle days of a clear horizon, before new dreams rise in front of you and claim for fulfillment.

Beirut - Mount Wroclai (Idle Days)

Morning Glory

On my way to Bucharest I was lucky to catch a great sunrise and simply had to stop the car and take some photos. The little church in the middle of the field looked marvelous too. These were taken an hour and a half before sunrise and I admired the rest of the morning spectacle from inside the car, as I was rushing to Bucharest and couldn't afford to lose any time.
However, it was a great morning to leave home, cause it made my day brighter, despite feeling sad for my departure.

Enya- Morning Glory

Creating Happiness

I opened a fortune cookie on Facebook today (I know, it might sound silly) but found something which I've many times thought about, yet never managed to put it so simple. It said "Some pursue happiness. You create it." I don't know if I create it but I really struggle to do so.
If happiness is only about obtaining, then it may not be attainable, cause you will always have needs. In this case going for happiness is a never ending pursuit. On the other hand, if happiness is your creation, it means you've managed to see the bright side of the things you already have.Even if you don't get a certain thing, creating happiness means squeezing the best of your current situation, enjoying them and setting new goals.
When you try to create your happiness is doesn 't mean you stop fighting, or that you settle for less. It means cherishing the things you have, while pursuing the things you want, and not focusing only on the outcome. Lets' face it, the whole universe is not always plotting to make a strong wish of yours come true. Sometimes it may not come true at all. So what's left to do then? Declare that you are not happy? From my point of view that is the point where you you start to create your happiness. Analyzing what you have might get you to discover things that you have forgotten about during your pursuit, and might offer you resources for new dreams and new plans.
I guess happiness depends more on us than on the other people or things. Like a friend of mine said: nothing and no one is irreplaceable. So let's become artists and try to create our happiness from anything that we have, whether it's gold or ash.

Cat Power - Maybe Not

The ultimate hope

I am now reading one of the most wonderful books I've ever read, The Karamazov Brothers by Dostoevsky and just as I was breathtakingly reading, trapped into the realm of human passion and sorrow and digging into the meaning of the characters' assertions, I remembered a real case, one of the most popular this summer.
It was when I got back from my trip that I found out about a monk priest video recorded while having sexual intercourse with another man . As a punishment he was sent to another monastery and lost his rights as a priest, remaining a simple monk. This decision displeased a number of people stating that he shouldn't have the opportunity to be a monk anywhere anymore. As far as I understood, the guilty monk is really trying to make amends and got himself interned to get a proper treatment.
Now this is what I remembered while reading a polemic discussion between Dostoevsky's characters Abbot Zosima and Ivan Feodorovici. Ivan, an intelligent man of letters stated that in order for Russia to become a prosper country, the Church law should bind with the civil law, so that any crime against the state would become a crime against Church. In his oppinion that would prevent crime, since Russian people are such devoted believers. Abbot Zosima, an old wise monk rejects his opnion while trying to emphasize the true meaning of the Church. Unlike the civil law whose punishments stigmatizes the guilty and deprives them of their rights, the Church offers them the possibility to atone themselves. The guilty know that they have no possibility to be forgivven in the eyes of the state, but they know they are not totally lost, because as long as Church exists and appreciates a criminal's atonement, their feeling sorry is not worthless. But what would happen if those two laws combined? A criminal would have no refugee, no one left to forgive him, not being able to fit in any form of order. This is why Abbot Zosima says that the two laws cannot combine, since the Church accepts everyone and its law remains a hope when the other law ends. The punishment of the Church is not ultimate (one can be forgiven), but sometimes for a criminal the Church is the ultimate hope.
From my point of view, the monk involved in the scandal got the right punishment and shouldn't be forbidden to be a monk anymore, as long as this is what he still wants. The Church gave him the possibility to atone himself and to be forgiven, a possibility which many of the ones who judged this scandal do not give.
That's it for now, but I will probably post something more about this book, The Karamazov Brothers, as there are many things in it which laid a mark on myself.

Lisa Gerrard - Sanvean (I am your shadow)

Metaphorical Realism

While enjoying my last lazy days before college, I started seeking more information on some of the things that impressed me most during this summer. Among those is an exhibition of the Russian-born painter Vladimir Kush, now living in the USA. His work is very close to surrealism, but he refers to his art as metaphorical realism, a concept which I find very appropriate. Now I must tell you I don't know much about painting and when I visit a museum, or art gallery I see everything through the eyes of an admirer, who can either be touched or not by the paintings. I cannot analyze their quality or other technical aspects, I can only tell you whether they enchanted me or not.
What impressed me is that Kush's paintings all reveal an idea. They are the plastic side of a metaphor. He paints real things, but the originality lies in the assotiations he makes, which send to another level of understanding. In his works, different things combine in a metaphorical unity which resembles the world the poet Baudelaire describes in his Corespondence poem : Like extended echoes which mingle far away/ In a mysterious and profound unity / Vast as the night and as ligh/ Perfumes, colors and sounds answer each other.

Here are some of the paintings which I've seen at the exhibition:

Pillow Book

Moonlight Sonata

Anticipation of a Night's Shelter

Music of the Woods

Ship and Sea

Please listen the song for today, as it really matches the ambient of the paintings!
Erik Satie - Gymnopedie No.3 (orchestrated by Debussy)

Just an autumn post

Autumn seen from one of my dearest places - Vlasinesti, the village where my grandparents live and where I spent most of my childhood. I love autumn, all its colors, the smell of grapes, the falling leaves and the soft sun. Maybe I'm weird, but I love autumn and hate spring.
What I've really been into lately is reading some tips on digital photography and experimenting with my new camera, so the photos are the most appropriate things to post on the blog for now.

Patrick Wolf - Thickets

Stuck

And the hardest part was letting go, not taking part

Sometimes it's not the ups and downs of a situations that are overwhelming, but the CHANGE, even the change that might be for the better. You get used to something, you find it natural like it's the way it's supposed to be, you even overlook some outrageous downsides of the situation, finding some imaginary compensation, or just indulging yourself. Accepting it's not the hardest part.
I admire those who took the change within their stride and pushed the wheel forward when something didn't work anymore, whether that implied leaving their job, their country, their home, or someone dear.

Cause that's the hardest part

Coldplay - The hardest part