The Past?! No. More: the Future!

Dad used to say that birthdays and New Years are great times to "draw the line" and remember how far you've come.

So, today, as I celebrate you, I am also celebrating all the memorable, sometimes hilarious, sometimes scary times we have shared. I can't help but feel grateful and blessed that you were born to share all these times with me!

I look back at all the years that have gone by since that fateful day when we glanced at each other in the newspaper hallway. I would have lost good money if someone would have told me we'd be where we are today on that day. And I am glad I would have lost!

Do you remember ...

• Our first camping trip on Kerr Lake (2008) - I could not believe it that Mr. “Comfort Man” agreed not only to a tent-camping trip with me on Kerr Lake, but also agreed to it in the middle of Bug Season, North Carolina. This was back when we were just “work friends” and not even dating. I guess a man does a lot when he’s (somewhat secretly) in love. You worked tirelessly for days to prepare to make sure we'd have everything, but still forgot your newly-bought, much-talked-about lantern at home. Maybe that was a good omen since our life together has been just that: a mix of well-planned years as well as feeling in the dark. Who knows?!
• That hot July 4th in the Moab desert, when we rented a hot-red Jeep Wrangler to drive around Canyonlands, totally off-grid, when it was so hot that our ice melted in the hard-top cooler inside the car with the A/C blasting? We had no cell-signal, our water boiling hot, 30 miles away from any paved roads, and truly I thought we will just die in the middle of nothing and they’ll find our bare bones, meat shriveled up from heat, maybe a week later, we'd cook that fast!
• The “big proposal” in a poetic and friendly spot called “The Devil’s Kitchen”, in the middle of nothing, atop a mountain desert in Utah?
• Our wedding day when the wind picked up so strongly it was impossible to light our unity candle. Our minister said “it’s mostly symbolic” and everyone laughed, as in "isn't it all?!". Two people had to hold the screen behind the "unity table" so as not to be blown away by the wind. In the nervousness of it all, I had to also drop your ring and scratch it before I could put it on your finger. Should we say "ominous" again?! Hmm ...
• That time when we drove to Bryce Canyon for our first anniversary, having booked a hotel and paid for it and everything, and arrived around 11PM (after work, tired, and weary, driving through the desert with no soul around) and finding that the hotel is “closed for the winter” (April is “winter” in Utah, I guess!). Good thing that another, smaller, local hotel was open right across the street, and almost empty and could put us up for a couple of nights. That "luck" followed us years later, when we tried checking into another hotel we thought we made reservations for in Boone, NC, only to be told they have no record of us. Again, we were lucky that we found another room nearby, despite it being Labor Day weekend. Life is just fussy enough for us to make us remember it, isn't it?!
• Why is it that our weirdest memories are hotel-related mishaps?! Hmm ... Like that time when we were haunted in our hotel room in Blowing Rock, NC.
• The time when we flew to Europe and we almost got stuck there in the middle of the French airline workers’ strike. We got rerouted through Germany on our way back, only to have me detained and patted down three times before allowing me to book the flight to the US.
• The first time you took me to a casino in Mesquite, NV, the day I got laid off and on my first try, the first time in my life when I touched a slot machine, I won $20. I reckon life knew I needed it that day ... 
• We have all the luck with the snow, too - especially hitting us at the least expected times: on top of Grandfather Mountain in early November (early for North Carolina for sure), when the snowstorm wind got us locked out of the car, we got snowed in in Deer Valley, UT one year and then again in Jackson Hole, WY the following year both on Memorial Day weekend (end of May). Someone up there must know you’re from Michigan and that you of all people can take it. Little do they know that 20+ years of The South melted you up.
• That time when we rode the motorcycle on the Alpine Loop in Utah (25 miles away from home) and our battery died in Lehi (50 miles away from home), on our way back in the middle of a scorching hot July summer day!  We had to walk our cycle to the nearest grocery store to get into some A/C for comfort, and wait for a tow truck. But how available is a tow truck on July 4th?! I have never in my life spent that many hours in a grocery store without buying a thing, let’s just say that. 
• That time when we took your mom for her 70th birthday to Niagara Falls and the only restaurant open for dinner was in a ... discount t-shirt store?! Yeah, classy all right! 
• That time you walked into my parents’ kitchen for the very first time, at night, famished from a 24 hour trip across the world, grabbed your first morsel of meat sitting on the table and said “I love this! What is it?!” We all answered: “Cow tongue!”
• The time when we ended up in a shipping container in Bucharest, in the middle of a foggy, wet, November night, trying to rent a car on the black market from these kids who declared the container their very legit and very official “office”. 
• Do you remember the wind- and sand-storm in Sulphur Springs, Montana, in the middle of the prairie, waiting for Donna the Buffalo to start playing at the very originally named “Red Ants Pants Music Festival”? I have never eaten that much dust in my life! I swear, 10 years later, I am still dusting off my camera and my backpack, 10 years later!
• That time you volunteered to slice lemons for a friend’s wedding and you sliced your finger instead, bad enough to require stitches?! You never touched a mandoline again, but I can't remember if you even ever attempted to slice lemons either! If life hands them to us, we eat them whole nowadays, it seems.
• You remember how you did not die, despite all your protests and refusal to advance, when I made you climb up to Timpanogos Cave (6700 feet) in Utah, nor to the end of the South Mountains Park trail in North Carolina?! I love when you just trust me ...
• That time we saw the black bears hang out in the trees off a trail in Georgia?! 
• That time when you fed the iguanas in Honduras? 
• That time we thought we bought a turkey breast and all we got was turkey nuggets in a bundle and we had a house (almost) full of people to feed for Christmas? Hmm... yeah - good times! 
• That time we were so excited to see Willie Nelson in concert and he walked off the stage and never returned?! 
• That time when we lobbied together in the halls of Congress in DC for FH Awareness (serious) and made fun of the Ben & Jerry's cow decal outside Senator Bernie Sanders' office (not so serious)?! And that is so you: a mix of stern elegance and casual comedian all rolled-up into one!
• That time when we had our first Thanksgiving dinner in our brand-new house in North Carolina with an unboxed, newly-delivered but uninstalled yet dishwasher in the middle of the dining room? 
• Our big trek in our camper, The Pup, across America?! Boy, how I want to do that again soon!
• That time when we judged the beers at the Athens Beer Festival in Ohio and actually felt like we knew what we were doing? I guess everyone thinks this after a few sips of craft beer?!

But much, much more than the many times we have spent together, I love the possibilities of what is coming ahead of us! There will be hard times but I am sure as I am of these two hands typing this that there will be good times too. I just pray for health and peace and strength and cannot wait to see the future. With you, hand in hand.

Whether we are climbing a mountain, shooting birds, making dinner, or buying a car, a house, or a camper, I know we’ll have a good time and live to tell the stories for whoever is there to listen. Even if it's just us, recollecting.

Whether I am mourning a friend, a parent, or a pet, or I am going through some near-death health scares, I know you’ll be there, stronger than the Rock of Gibraltar to support me.

I love you with all my stitched up heart. I would be lost, scared, confused and adrift without you.

Thanks for being you.

And thanks for being mine.  

Happy birthday, my love! Can't wait for the next 50+ years ... 

Memories on your birthday ...

A hotter than hot wedding in Romania one August 20+ years ago. Yours. Your insistence that you must remain in your groom’s suit-and-tie, even at 114F. Hottest day in Romania in something like 40 years! Commitment. 

Learning how to drive together and passing our exams almost at the same. All encouraged if not forced by dad. 

Living in the off-the-beach house in Costinesti all together  - piled up together in one room like hippies in a commune. So young - both you and me, my sister and your brother ... Long nights in clubs - loud music and tons of vermouth.

Traveling over the years - watching each other travel and sharing impressions. Almost missing trains and planes and living to tell the tales. Oh, the stories!

Discovering Canada and sharing the acutest, sharpest pain of a 40-degree-below day ... The inability to breathe. The frost-bite-like symptoms of simply walking outside to see what the air “feels like”. It doesn’t. It just paralyzes you. The howling wind of a Quebec winter night. The insulating of the windows, taping them shut to keep the frosty air out. 

Your first Canadian car with wires coming out of the dashboard. The lessons. Slow and steady till you came into your own adulthood. Then, head of a beautiful family. Becoming a dad. And me, an aunt. And then again, times two. 

Both of us - watching our hair gray and our forehead wrinkles deepen. Learning, discovering. Together. And through it all sewing this long thread that unites us through the decades ...

Walking up the steep, gruesome, penance-like stairs of Mont Royal. Riding the mountain cable car in Mont Tremblant. Walking across the swinging bridge of Ste. Anne and Montmorency waterfalls. Sharing with us your favorite spots in Quebec City and Vieux Port in Montreal. Discovering Canada through your naturalized eyes. Your adoptive country. And then again, sharing my new home country back...

Riding the ferry to Toronto Island Park on Lake Ontario. Bracing the sharp, cutting wind of the Great Lakes in November.

Always enjoying delicious food along the way - everywhere. This family is nothing if not a bunch of indulging gourmands and you fit in it well. Thank goodness! 

Traveling together to dad’s last birthday. The unbounded joy of togetherness, right alongside a deep sadness of the inevitable end possibly coming - the old age, the wear and tear, the loss of function in those we left behind in Romania ... Shared joys and sadness, just the same. 

Winery hopping and wine and beer tastings. Indulging some more. Enjoying the simple and complex things of life. Food. Drinks. Good movies. 

Discussing politics and wondering what the heck went wrong in the world. Respecting. Each other and wondering where the respect of the world was lost and how. Growing old. Together. Side by side. Our families becoming one. Our destinies united ...

Almost a whole week of Christmas cooped up in one house. Eating. Drinking. Watching too much tv. Talking. Remembering. Bonding. 

How we (almost) share a birthday. Today.

All of these and more ... Memories we both made together. Adventures of the mind and body. Reminders of where we’ve been and tracing a map of what happened. 

More than our shared history and memories, I love our honesty. Nothing fake. No pretense. Even when it’s hard. We speak the truth, you and I. The most precious gift! Knowing you, knowing me ... I know it will persevere in the years to come! 

On your special day, I wish for more memories and more journeys. I wish that the special bond we forged over these 25+ years will continue to remind us where we’re from, where we’re going and that we’re family. And more than anything: I wish every happiness you wish for yourself!

Happy birthday, G.!

Montreal 2015: I love when you light up around your boys. You do 'dad' well! 

Small Guy. Big Personality.

Yeah, you are “the Small Guy” because in my eyes, at least for another year or two, you are still “small” in every way. You are not as small as a year ago, or even as yesterday, sure, but in the general scheme of things you are small. And "perfect in every way", as you would say about polar bears. Or cats. Or owls.  

When people ask me to describe you, I just sigh a deep sigh. How can I fit such a huge (physically small) personality into just a few words? There are no words ... 

I say things like: Kevin is amazingly ... his own person. He is 12 going on 50! Before anything, he is wise beyond his years, self-possessed and he has a deep sense of who he is and where his life is going. Before anything, it takes loads of effort to impress him. Even at 12, he will tell you in no ambiguous terms how lame you are, or how sexist, or blind you are at the diversity of the world around you. How careless and messy you are when you can’t pick up after yourself. 

He’ll tell you how much you still have to learn about the world around you. He will scold you like you’re the child and he’s the grown-up. He is cool and collected as well as passionate and irate. He frowns upon your every lame move and breaks into song and cheer completely unprompted and unannounced. He is not one thing or another. He is never one-note and boring. He is a constant wonder and a constant guess ... 

He knows what he likes (books, animals, food, comfort, among too many other things to enumerate), he knows what he is about (serious, punctual, reliable, hard working, more responsible than the adults around him sometimes), and he also knows what he’s not about and what he hates (being told what to do, waking up too early in the morning, boiled broccoli, people talking too much around him when all he wants is quiet time). 

And that, dear Kev, is where you lose me: I wonder whether our blood is truly flowing through your  little veins when you complain about people talking too much around you. But it must be, because you’re the spitting image of your grandfather, so I know better. 

I also tell people about your incredible talent to carry on interesting conversations about anything, your amazing knowledge about animals, plants, anything that lives. Your interest in understanding the living world around you, your maturity, about your being kind and caring and protecting towards our planet and our environment ... 

Discovering you every year, seeing you grow and explore the world, watching you sift through everything that the world throws at you and choosing what it makes sense to you, choosing what gives you pleasure, what grounds you, what makes you whole is a privilege I will be forever grateful for. I love all your discoveries, from your new axolotl pet, to the fact that you love coffee so much (you’re definitely in the right family there!), to the fact that you read more than I ever do and that you can carry on a conversation with the vocabulary of a college student already. 

Just like you noticed a couple of months back, the past year “tried you” with all sorts of bad happenings. I wish you a much, much better year ahead, full of happiness, joy, and overflowing with beauty, kindness and every good wish you have for yourself. And never forget your strength!

When I am at my saddest, I will always remember Christmas morning at my house last year: when you slipped on your PJ’s and your flannel robe, you poured your coffee and made a half-serious and stern face, half-goofball and joker (just like your grandpa) and demanded a picture by the tree, saying something like: “Let’s get into my robe and take a picture looking like a retired old dad.” 

Thank you for giving me a front-row seat at this wonderful journey you call your life. I know it will never be boring ... Love you, sweet Kevs! 

December 2022: My small "retired old dad"

Wrightsville Beach, NC

My mind is very fragmented lately. I have struggled to write complete sentences and the truth comes to me in snippets, much like a bulleted list. Without numbers. Without a specific order of events. 

These are my random thoughts on our recent trip to Wrightsville Beach, NC. 

• Hotel beds are the worst. Why do they make them so back-breaking soft? 

• Off-season beach season should be the most popular. Who needs the heat, the noise, the sand when you can have the beach to yourself to roam and any restaurant open with no waiting time? But I guess if this would be the peak season, this all would change?! Hmmm ... 

• Falling asleep to the sound of the waves. Who needs a noise machine? 

• I still love the cheap t-shirt beach stores where everything is always on sale. You can never have too many cheesy painted t-shirts (for the days when you decide you’re bored enough you want to start painting your cabinets) and too many $1 thong flip-flops. Summer is long in North Carolina. 

• Overheard in a coffee shop (paraphrase): “All I have left is to prepare for class this semester. Which is basically a lot of reading. But it’s kinda odd because all I have to read are heavy books. Like, you never thought you’d ever say ‘boy, I am really pumped about reading this book on ... suffering!’, ya know?!” Laughter follows. (Drift restaurant in Wrightsville Beach)

• The best seafood gumbo vegan outside of the fish is at The Oceanic at the Crystal Pier. Best view in town too, right on the ocean.

• It’s a mystery to me where birds go when we go to the beach. You see all these gorgeous waterfowl photography everywhere from the fancy hotels to your dentist’s office and you’re thinking: “sure, I can do that! Just get out there on the marsh, point and shoot.” Only you can’t. Nope. Not birds at any rate. I watched the sunrise from my 7th story hotel room and there were hundreds of water birds on the beach. I get dressed and get out there to “shoot them up close” ... not a one! Ridiculous! And that curse followed us everywhere else all weekend. Almost. A small pond in the middle of the Airlie Gardens saved the weekend. 

  Finally birds! At Airlie Gardens.

• I have never found so many absolutely perfectly whole sea-shells in a 20 minute walk on the beach. And I didn’t even pick up all the ones we spotted.

• When coming out of The Oceanic, a random gentleman with a zoomy-zoom camera propped up on the railing told us he is waiting to see the launch of a SpaceX rocket somewhere South from where we were standing. Now, we were about 600 miles (more than 8 hours) away from where the rocket was launching, so this sounded highly dubitable, but we decided to wait for the rocket. 

And oh, wow!, were we in for an experience! The rocket, like a crisp white beam of light, came out from low on the Southern horizon and ascended so incredibly fast, leaving behind a thick and luminous train, so long that given the distance we were aware it was from us, might have been hundreds of miles long in the sky.
At one point, we could see it drop its boosters that had propelled it into space, and then the two boosters, like mini-rockets themselves, made their own train of light from the dropping point all the way back towards Florida where they eventually landed.
At some point, it looked like the rocket stopped “writing” on the sky with its white, luminous train, and it kept only a short “tail”, almost like a comet flying high above the water. Although we could not hear the launch nor feel the earth shake, it was still breathtaking. Definitely the highlight of this weekend, regardless of however many successful pictures of birds we might have gotten. 

Sometimes what you get out is not what you go there for. 

When we left our house, we were not too eager to be on this trip, for various reasons. But once seeing this miracle of human engineering, just a token of what is possible once you venture out beyond your front door, you realize that no matter how sad or poorly you feel, as long as your body is still able, you should get out and take in the amazement that the world still has in store for you. 

The synchronicity was moving:

We saw the SpaceX Falcon Heavy on January 15 - a Sunday - outside The Oceanic Restaurant in Wrightsville Beach, NC. The rocket launch had been scheduled for January 14th (the day before) and it had gotten delayed till the following day, for “reasons not immediately disclosed” (if you follow the SpaceX launches, they have a good record of punctuality). We knew absolutely nothing of this, as we don’t follow rocket launches. 

We had come to The Oceanic the day before, but we could not get in because they were too busy, so we decided to come the following day a bit earlier to have a chance at eating dinner there. And a place we picked totally randomly, and a day and time we picked totally by accident paid off in a big, big way. We took the experience as a reminder to stop making plans (or hiding from them) and get out there and embrace life and wonder just as they are: always there, always waiting, always in need of nothing but eyeballs to enjoy it.

The rocket and the two boosters putting on a spectacle as seen from Wrightsville Beach, NC on January 15, 2023. Who needs New Year's fireworks when you can have this?!