Motherhood

“So for good or bad, she knew, to call yourself a mother the only thing you had to do was show up for the job. And stay.

And some are saints and some are martyrs.

Some are victims.

Some are vanished.

Some are walls.

Some emit more light than they absorb, creating their own planetary systems.

Some are sole survivors of the war against themselves. Some are slaves.

And some are furies.

Some are cold, and some are tender.

Few are blameless.

All have names.

Each must answer for her child’s existence.

[…] Still, she kept wishing. For years she’d taken future motherhood, her future in maternity, for granted. Look around – all you see are mothers, women born to it, women who have children just as casually as breathing, women who have babies hanging off their hips like fruit.”

(Marianne Wiggins, Evidence of Things Unseen, 239-240)

Riverside

Today, is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you, by now you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do … Well, that’s the problem. I have no damn idea what I am going to do with my life. I have no idea what is going to happen in the future. I have no idea if I can escape destiny/myself/routine and all the things that I have so stubbornly (and foolishly?) fought against for 27 years.

I once awoke on a blank page. I blew the Earth apart and flew away. I then visited history, in search of inspiration – went in the ancient Egypt in search for a true love, or among the ruins of Hiroshima, I even sunk myself into water, going down in my soul, trying to find the meaning of life. And I sunk so deep that I couldn’t write anything, finish a single page, going down and down in fear and low self-esteem and burying myself in … books. Remorse. Self-accusations. Memories. And “too stupid to do it”.

Several nights ago I dreamt the Void. My future. I dreamt it and I lost myself in it. Like sinking in deep water, unable to grasp anyone, anything, choking, unable to breathe. And going down, and down, losing every piece of dream, every piece of me, every thing and every being that I want. Barrenness. Emptiness. Loneliness. I dreamt my world without stability, without my people, without me.

Godless, absurd, meaningless world, as it is our everyday lives … Life is struggle and life is a continuous fight, but still … what if such dreams came true? 

"The color of this life is water"

In its deepness, warmth and happy moments. In its turmoil, and sadness, and scars, and irony. Water which we love and cherish, daring to walk on it in our faiths, our trust in our beloved ones. Water in which we sink and forget how to swim. Water which swallows us in a few seconds, in which we search for that thing to grasp. For a meaning. In its waves. The two sides of the coin from our lives, from my life, water as peace and water as death, water as stability and water with its insanity, silence and noise.

“Envy's color is the color of her pleasuring, and what is the color of grief? Is it black as they say? And anger always red? The color of that sad shade of ennui called blue is blue but blue unlike the sky or sea, a bitter blue, rue-tinged, discolored at the edges. The color of a blind man's noon is white, and is his nighttime too? And does he feel it with his skin like a fish? Does he have blues, are they bridal and serene, or yellows, sunlike or urinous, does he remember? Neural colors like the fleeting tones of dreams. The color of this life is water.”

(Cormac McCarthy - Suttree)

Die Worte/Words

When I say Deutschland I first think of autumn and language. Autumn because of its colours, not only in the street, but also among persons and peoples, a mixture of races, cultures, and personal searches, here, in a foreign country. A mixture of peoples, so different in their customs, voices, ways of thinking.

Language is the most intriguing, confusing, difficult aspect for me. In a war among three languages inside my head and heart – Romanian, English and German, you start feeling yourself in a maze of words, in the search for understanding, for meaning, and for Home. Words and accents get mixed inside yourself, and the more you stay among the Others (while you are the other), the more a new language invents itself inside yourself. It makes you think of what you study, of those artists who had to struggle and to live with/among/inside a new language, forging their new identities.

But language comes for me with its own anxiety, deepening the wars inside myself, with the miss of Home, of small routines, in a conflict with why you are here, with your inner searches of peace, tearing you again in two … I am used to feeling language, to play with it, to understand it … and the break in the wall comes for me from it, from the lack of understanding. I try to grasp a meaning, to find some ground beneath my feet, but there is only air, and sounds, and vivid memories of a world that was … and words go too deep, unable to grasp them anymore, but they still haunt ... as the feelings, the searches, the agenbite of inwit which are so buried, so present, inside yourself.

Insomnii

De ceva saptamani am uitat si eu cum se mai doarme. Noaptea in special, in acel intuneric pe care tot incerci sa-l alungi de langa tine. Poate ca nu am stiut niciodata, si m-am obisnuit - mai mult decat ar fi trebuit - cu insomniile care nu-ti mai dau pace. Asta pana ce te intalnesti din nou cu tine insati, acolo unde te astepti mai putin, in incercarea de a chema somnul, de a rupe sirul gandurilor, de a te uita, de a nu te reintalni cu tine insati. O pagina cu mici semne descifrate parca intr-un alt timp, care-ti aminteste de acel tu - uitat, insomniac, ratacit. Prea ocupat cu gandurile adunate-n manunchiuri de amintiri, gata oricand sa dea pe dinafara. Le linisteai candva scriind. Si asta parca intr-o alta viata. Acum doar umbra ta mai poposeste deasupra unor ecouri venite din acele alte lumi, rostite de alte glasuri, pe jumatate vii, spre a-ti aminti ... numai somnul nu vrea sa-si reaminteasca de tine. 

,,Am uitat deja deseori cum sa dorm si-a trebuit sa reinvat apoi cum se face. Ori e foarte simplu, ori nu merge deloc. Totul doarme spre dimineata, chiar si pisicile si cainii se tot invart in jurul tomberoanelor doar o jumatate de noapte. Cand stii ca tot nu poti sa dormi, e mai usor sa te gandesti in camera intunecata la ceva luminos, decat sa inchizi ochii degeaba. La zapada, trunchiuri varuite de copaci, camere albe, mult nisip – cu asta mi-am petrecut timpul pana s-a luminat de mai multe ori decat mi-as fi dorit.”

 (Herta Muller - Astazi mai bine nu m-as fi intalnit cu mine insami)

Re-Imagining Old Languages

“Our family is not what it was, but we are all gravitating back into family lives of one sort and another; it is a drift that people cannot seem to help, in spite of lessons learned the hard way … I think often of the ancient times, long before Latin, when words were new and had no connotations. Pure words stood for single things: ‘Family’ meant people in a house together. But that was in a language so far back that all its words are gone, a language we can only imagine.”

 (Rich in Love, Josephine Humphreys)

Travels in the Scriptorium

Mi-e teama de singuratate. Mereu mi-a fost. Atat de teama incat am acceptat ani la randul iluzia unei inchipuiri. Atat de teama incat nu am vrut sa vad sau sa inteleg cat de singuri suntem in aceste iluzii, in aceste creionari ale oamenilor pe care dorim sa ii pastram in viata noastra si pe care ii consideram speciali. Atat de singuri incat nu mai vedem ca acei oameni pe care candva i-am venerat si i-am pretuit nu mai sunt demult aici, cu noi. Dar continuam sa ne hranim prin amintiri.

Ne inchidem adeseori intr-o camera ideala, feriti de Realitatea mult prea nemiloasa, nemaigandind, nemaidorind sa ne amintim, captivi in rutina, in cotidian, in iluzii si afundati in temerile noastre pentru a mai vedea si altceva. Daca dam frau liber imaginatiei si incercam sa ne jucam putin cu filosofia sau cu teologia, am putea ajunge si noi in camera lui Paul Auster, din Travels in the

Scriptorium.

“Who is he? What is he doing here? When did he arrive and how long will he remain?” (1)

Travels in the Scriptorium este o carte ideala pentru o zi caniculara, de vara, scurta si simpla, dar care ne antreneaza imaginatia. Suntem cu totii niste Mr. Blank, prea absorbiti de fricile noastre pentru a mai indrazni sa verificam daca usa este sau nu deschisa, prea adanciti in remuscari inconstiente pentru a ne aminti de ceea ce am facut sau de oamenii pe care i-am ranit. Si de ce nu, suntem cu totii niste personaje in cautarea raspunsurilor de mai sus. Cine suntem? Ce cautam aici? Cum am ajuns aici, cat vom mai sta? Ne jucam de-a Dumnezeu, asa cum demult, poate un Dumnezeu/creator s-a jucat cu noi. Si la fel ca el, ne intrebam la sfarsitul unei zile “When is this nonsense going to end?”

“It will never end. For Mr. Blank is one of us now, and struggle through he might understand his predicament, he will always be lost. I believe I speak for all his charges when I say he is getting what he deserves – no more, no less. Not as a form of punishment, but as an act of supreme justice and compassion. Without him, we are nothing, but the paradox is that we, the figments of another mind, will outlive the mind that made us, for once we are thrown into the world, we continue to exist forever, and our stories go on being told, even after we are dead.” (129)