Every Day Is a First. And So Is Today.

You know when you are too close to someone, or to some thing ... you can no longer really see all their details anymore? Nor can you appreciate all their intricacies, quirks, charm, uniqueness? You feel like you’re too close to them to be impartial? You’re too close to them to know ... do they have blue eyes or green? Do they roll their Rs or have a lisp?  - it takes you a minute to know for sure ... 

This is how I feel about you: you consume my every thought every single second of every day. Every minute, I think or wonder: what is she up to today? I wonder what crazy file does she have to wrestle with today that would throw her in the midst of stress and frenzy? What worries will she face today? How can I make her smile more? How can I surprise her more (for I know how you much you love surprises - just about as much as I hate them!) 

I asked myself a rhetorical question today: what can I possibly say about you today, for your birthday, that I have not said before? I feel like every thought I ever had about you has been spent. Every word - uttered. Every feeling - expressed. No surprises and no novelty here. Until Aa. blurted out: “She is 45!” - and I laughed out loud! Yep! “A. is 45” has never, till today, been said before ... 

When did this happen? 45 years ago today, while I was at the beach with our grandparents, walking the streets, you were born many miles away in our home town. They told me when I would get home, I would have a sister and I did not understand, at 3 years and 4 months, what that exactly meant. When I did get home, I asked them all if you were going to spend the night. That shows you how smart I was ... 

But you did spend the night. And every night after that, thank God! And you became part of the family and slowly part of me, too! Your presence, your being, your antics and your life ... became part of mine too. 

I think what amazes me, still, 45 years later is how different we are and yet how common our lives have been. We grew together, almost twinned,  branches from the same trunk, but turned out so incredibly different. Just like branches feeding from the same life-giving water, we twisted in different directions, we grew a different number of twigs (me - none, and you - two), we turned different directions (you - North, and me - South), we bloomed at different times (you - early, and me - late), we will most certainly turn to fall at different ages, too ... I grew out tough and gnarly, you - thin, slender, flexible like the draping branches of a willow. Both, beautiful and strong, but also both singular in who we are ... 

We have faced so much together, in our own time and on our own path. But I never, for one second, ever felt like you were too far away from me. This past year has been so hard! So incredibly hard. And although I thought I knew everything there was to know about you, and about us, I have learned so much more, still. I have learned how much unassumingly stronger (than me) you are. How much more poised and dignified, to my erratic, crazy mess! You have revealed a new sorela to me - I would not say that it’s one I never knew was there, but one that I only guessed that must be dormant, lurking in the darkness, ready to come out when the time was right. And the time for strength, for ultimate, desperate strength, did come this year. And for you sharing it with me, I will thank you forever ... 

Happy 45th, Sorela! I wish you many clear mornings with strong coffee and kitty cuddles. Sunny days, as sunny as your own outlook on life. Many runs in dewy meadows, downhill and bug-free. Many days of health and lightness - in body, in spirit, in laughter ... I wish the good and easy parts in you would never change nor spoil. I wish life, no matter how hard, would never harden you. And I wish you’ll know that every day, every second of every day, I am here for you to gladly lighten the load if I can, and just like one branch supports the other, to ask for you to catch me if I am fixin’ to bend. 

I remember today more than ever what our parents have always told us: when they will be no longer, we will have each other. This promise on their part seemed but a dream till recently. But after this past year, I am starting to see that day more and more clearly come into focus now, and I am so incredibly grateful that you will be there to hold me up! You’re the only human that knows my past and my soul as well as I do. You’re the only one who speaks the same unspoken language I think and feel. 

I wish you the strength, the lightness, the youth of your first 45 years for the next 45 and beyond! 

I love you more. Now, and always. 

A Bond Like No Other

I see you when I pet my cat, or any cat for that matter ... With every purr, I hear your voice ... “It’s us two and a cat. Always.” ... 

I see you when I pick a wild raspberry and get poked by the pesky thorns ... How those can get your thumb infected! 

I see you when I see a kid defying gates and climbing over the fence to get on the other side ... A rusty nail in their thigh and their summer's over!

I see you when I see pictures of The Black Sea and remember “white nights” together ... Every time I hear waves crashing ... 

I see you when I read a good book ... I might have taught you how to read, but you taught me what to read ... 

I see you when I listen to The Doors, Tori Amos, and Alanis Morissette ... 

I see you when Aaron pours maple syrup richly on his pancakes ... 

You’re in the summer wind that brings the smell of freshly-cut grass into my nostrils... 

You're in my kitchen every time I make potato salad or I clean mushrooms... I wish there was a place where I can go pick them myself ...

You’re in every physical and mental picture of my life since I was a wee bit over three years old ... 

You whisper to me that “it’ll all be oh-kay” when I fret about the next irrational fear. Daily ... 

I hear you clearly reminding me that I am enough and have nothing to prove to anyone. Especially our parents ... I forget often. 

I see you when I look at your children - their eyes, and smiles, their mannerisms and love for life ... 

You walk with me through the halls of every museum and garden I wander through ... 

Every time I see a picture, a movie, or I read a piece of news about New York, I see us walking together through all the streets of Manhattan, popping in and out of stores, art galleries, and sushi joints, speaking about New York movies and series - you, in awe and in love with your favorite city ...

In my mind, you care for every cat and dog, every chicken and goose, and turkey, and cow and goat, too that come across my way ... 

I see you when I shop at H&M and Michaels ... I hear your voice telling me what to pick ... 

You’re in my heart, my sinews and my blood ... 

Every time they take my blood for the quarterly cholesterol check - you’re right there, with me ... 

We transcend miles and hemispheres, and I am sure universes and lives, too ... for all eternity. 

We’re born into each other and from the same common thread that sowed life into both of us ... 

There is no one like you in the whole world for me and there is no one like me for you ... 

We are as twinned as they come. Forever ... And always ... 

Happy birthday, sorela! I cherish every memory I have and the fact that we share so much makes me whole. Gives my life more meaning. Makes it full. 

I hope the next 44+ years will be more adventuresome, more full of life, healthier, and happier by far! Take some time for you and spoil yourself to pieces! 

Love you always! 

"Us two and a cat" - Thank you for always reminding me about us

Missing My Sister. Something Awful ...

COVID sucks!

I have said for a year and a half now that I don’t really miss people. “This Covid separation is doable,” I say often. “There is Zoom, and Skype, and FaceTime. I’m good! What are people complaining about?!,” I say.  But darn it, I miss my sister! For more than two years now, I have walked around broken, incomplete, and empty because there is no prospect of seeing her yet.

I miss my sister in an organic, visceral way, in the sense of her person, with her nerves, and flesh, and sinews.

I miss our chats in person, over a glass of wine (her), bottle of beer (me), a bowl of chips or sunflower seeds. I miss her smell and her smile, her jokes and sass …Her picking on her children and making them laugh. Her children are my only competition at adoring her.

I miss her eye-rolls when I say something too serious and too worrisome. I miss her cooking and her quirkiness when she moves about the room. Her clumsiness when she knocks glasses full of liquid or plates full of food off the table and then shrugs it off with a laugh and her head thrown back … “It’s oohhh kaayyyy,” she pep-talks herself cracking up.

I miss our walks, as no one ever walks like her: this girl does not walk. She runs, rather. She fidgets. She hurries and jumps. She makes your ankles snap and your belly fat jiggle and she does not look behind, so you better keep up!

I miss her hugs – they are the best! I relive my entire life when she hugs me – I see us, children, short, and bony, climbing mountains, feeding farm animals or cats, chasing dogs and making hay or gathering mushrooms and wild berries. Falling asleep in the same bed, so exhausted, we don’t finish our sentences. I miss the sleepovers …

I miss her squeezing a cat or some creature and making funny voices, as if she speaks to babies. I miss her outpouring of love on every thing and every one … The enormous display of affection she has for everyone she loves – human or beast!

I miss her state of being the most: contagiously happy and caring, doing one of the things she does best: loving creatures and life ... 

I miss us painting our nails together and her restlessness, then giggles when she “messes up another nail” because the woman can’t sit still. Not even for a minute.

I miss looking into her deep, coal-black eyes – you can drown in those eyes, lost to the world forever. Those eyes tell my life story, just like her hugs …

I miss us watching Seinfeld on a loop and her laughter, out of control, rich, healthy, contagious. At every scene. Her reciting the lines …

We do FaceTime and Skype, but none of these are possible through those. None of the palpable, blood vessel against blood vessel, smell wrapped into smell, hand touch against skin real-ness – none of these are possible with FaceTime and Skype …

I miss her so much it hurts! It makes me gag and choke up, hopeless!

Two days before her birthday (yesterday), her country (Canada) opened their borders to Americans. This was the best present possible on her birthday for me. America is still not allowing Canadians into our country … I dream of a day, soon, before I whither away with longing, when we can be together again, even if it is for just 24 hours.

Till we make it to that day (and we will. I am sure of it!), happy birthday, sweet child! Happy birthday, my soulmate … I’ll fall asleep tonight with nothing but a head full of memories of times gone by and wishful longing for more, better times to come – soon. Till then, thank you for having shared your whole life with me. You are the biggest part of my life. You hold all the secrets and all the unsaids … I sometimes fail to know where you end and I begin …

I love you …

The Most Real Sister

“The greatest gift our parents gave us was each other.“ (somewhere on the web ...)

Last night, I dreamed that I was adopted. It was one of those dreams that felt so realistic. There was this woman who wanted money from my dad and she told me she was my real mother if he doesn’t pay. I confronted my parents (who paid her but she told me the horrid news anyway), and they could not lie. They didn’t confirm, but they didn’t deny it, either. So, I guess it was settled: I was adopted. 

Then, I came to you, sorela, and I said “Hey, now I have three sisters. My ‘real’ mother has two other daughters, so I have you and I have them.” And you said: “Yeah, but I am the real one.” And the dream unraveled ... 

And you were right. Even if this would ever be true (we know it’s not, of course), you will forever be my one, true, real sister. 

While writing this, I realize that although we’re so far apart in space, you are still so close to me: I am wearing two necklaces: one, a wood one with earth crystals that you gave to me to heal my energy and give me strength and focus, allegedly. The other one, a silver one, that grandpa bubu gave to me at the same time he gave you the same necklace. I was maybe 7 and you were 4. He always bought us matching stuff. Remember the watches he got us to put on our chain?! I am drinking coffee from the mug you gave me that says “Your love and your understanding are a gift in my life but there are times when you know that all I need is a hug.” You’re everywhere and always with me. Every day. Every breath. 

Rummaging through my memories this morning, I thought of all the times we were together through our lives: every new pore, every new hair, every new cell on our adult bodies grew on our kids’ bodies with us side-by-side ... We were together for our playtime, and every dinner, every holiday, birthday, funeral and christening ... All the major events and the little ones, like when we went to the mountains for the first time. Or maybe that was a major one? We were together for mushroom and berry picking and for bandaging your wounds when they got infected or needed stitches. We were there when we fell in love for the first time and when we fought like mad cats over stupid little things ...  

We were together for the starry nights and the sunrises, for the walks on the beach and the hikes in the pastures. We were together in London and in New York City ... We were together for our weddings and the kids’ christenings. 

We shared our joys and our insecurities over all of the first 20 years of your life ... 

Life came in the way, as it has done this year, too, and we were not together for other major events after it cast us in two different corners of the world. But in some ways I feel like our bond got stronger and our love deeper. Our get-togethers are more meaningful now, and so concentrated in chats, emotions, catching up, making new memories to last us till our next visit . And this year we’re learning painfully that we can’t even plan that much craved, and much needed “next visit”... 

I love how you love me for all my bumps. I know I drive you nuts with all my nagging, but as I always tell you: it all comes from a place of love and from an insane fear that something bad will happen to you if you don’t listen to me. And then ... I don’t know where I’ll be, for I’d have no bearings, no identity without you right there, besides me ... 

Yes, indeed, you are my real sister. As real as these hands that I use to type this with. As real as my heart. May you always and forever be healthy, safe, loved, and always full of life. A life, an optimism, a calm, and a peace that God put all in you and, with all the blessings he has given me, skimped on me, all things that I need to keep going ... 

Happiest of birthdays. Miss you this year extra more super special than any other time. You’ve got my heart. Forever. 

Somewhere in time, at our special place, in the mountains. Dirty, probably starved, definitely happy. This picture speaks volumes, but to notice just one thing: in a snake-infested mountain top, miles away from anywhere, way before cells reached Romania, you are barefoot and free. Because you are fearless, while me - forever boring (I know!) cautious ... 

From My Sister, on April 9th

Whatever I wanted to blog about today pales in comparison to the most thoughtful letter I got from my sis. 
Love you, A., forever and ever ... 

From my sister on my birthday:

I wanted to write a blog for my sister’s birthday since for the past year she wrote one blog for every person in our family’s birthday and I figure it’s not fair to have wonderful blog posts with such kind and heartwarming thoughts for every person and not for her in our family. I don’t know if I have the same skills as she has in blogging, especially in English, but I’ll try my best. 

Ever since I can remember, she was there. Now, you know your first memories, fuzzy and all unclear, coming back in bits and pieces, in emotions and smells. I’ve never been able to clearly dissociate in my mind which person appeared in my very first memory, my mother, my father, my grandmother, my grandfather, our nanny or even my grand-grandmother as they were all there in my first years taking care of us. But I guess it was her as she was always there, in all those bits of images and pictures scattered in my memory. 

I used to see her like kind of me, a child, but so much older and wiser! Somebody that I can look up to, I can follow, I can copy! Sometimes too bossy and annoying, sometimes so loving and caring, but so comforting that she was there.

I remember her curly thick black hair that everybody admired and I was so jealous of, her white skin and red cheeks, I used to see her like Snow White! Because she was the one telling me stories, introducing me to Snow White, Red Riding Hood or Cinderella. 

I remember that moment, many years later in my teenage years when we were all alone in a summer student seaside camp and stayed up on the beach to see the sunrise over the Black Sea and, like in childhood, she began to tell me princess stories. I have my life moments that I like to cherish forever and like to encapsulate in a magic box and that particular one is definitely one of them. I remember that sense of peace, of perfection of being loved and cared for. I was the little sister away from home and needing comforting. No one can tell stories like she can! Two years ago we watched again together the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean, we always chase that special moment, I guess, that we shared so many years before and I hope we can chase many more from now on. 

She taught me how to write and read. She always took her role as a big sister very seriously. I didn’t dare not listen. And still she was the first one I could exercise my rebellious nature with. Was much easier than with adults, haha.

I remember how I envied her good grades, her work ethic, her perseverance. Despite her challenges, her health that was never perfect, she was brave and she worked twice as hard as others. That’s maybe why she expects much of others too. I remember feeling lucky that I was not the one inheriting the highest cholesterol in the family and condemned forever not to be able to enjoy life to the fullest, but at the same time I felt guilty. But also I felt in awe about all her accomplishments and how she approached this terrible, condemning and limiting disease. She taught me how to approach pain, suffering, life in general, with that stubbornness and courage.

She was born to be the big sister, the leader. The one with her head on her shoulders and feet firmly on the ground, the practical one, able to repair a car if she puts her mind to it, the one with answers to every question and solution to every problem. I was not always listening but I found myself later forced to recognize she was right all along.

I remember the good times, family vacations, discovering life together, reading philosophy till late at night, debating Cioran and Eliade, doing homework side by side, discovering The Doors or Led Zep, crying at Schindler’s List, going up the mountains and walking the beaches, visiting Europe and later US and Canada together.

Realizing together the greatness of life, the beauty of this Earth, sharing our passion for travelling and nature. Making plans together, waiting for life to happen.

Remembering falling asleep with Dolly, our cat, between the two of us, purring. The mornings I woke up early and she would sleep till later. The week-end morning coffees on the balcony, lazy vacation days painting our toe nails and watching MTV UK. We were different and so completing each other. Her constant chatter about everything and everybody, me listening. How I missed all that when she left the country.

In my final French exam in high school they asked me to talk about a person or a personality that I most admire. Could be Ghandi, Einstein, Jeanne d’Arc, a family member or a rock star. I talked about my sister.  I could just not think about someone else I admire more. I was in awe at 3 years old when I opened my eyes to the world, still in awe at 18, although sometimes in our teenage years we threw ourselves in terrible fights. We just knew we loved each other so much, no matter what.

Then we parted ways. She left Romania at 22. She was so brave and so daring, she chased her dreams, even though frightening. First time in my life I could feel true anxiety for I felt like a part of myself was all alone wandering in another part of the world. She was this this small fragile looking young girl, trying to build a life in a strange land, away from everybody and everything she knew until then. But if anyone can make it out there in the wild world, than this would be my strong willed, good sense, courageous sister.

And I started to miss her so much. She used to write long e-mails that I would print and read to our relatives. My grandma was always crying while I read and I felt sometimes I was grasping for air. We wished we were there with her, I’m sure she went through rough times, terrible loneliness, health problems and we were so far away.

Life was kinder at some point and she met her wonderful husband, I moved to Canada so we were a little bit closed, I had my 2 sons and discovered an incredibly loving and caring auntie in her!

And then she had the heart surgery, I remember I could not even speak or think clearly in the days before the surgery without feeling like it’s not enough air to breathe. That fear, the impossible thoughts. And still I was confident that she will fight this like she fought all her battles in her life. She fought tooth and nail since she was little, fiercely, the odds, the disease, the genetics, anyone and anything. And sure enough she made it through and she continues the fight, day after day.

That’s probably one of the most important lessons I learned from her, to fight and to be brave, to take full advantage of the good things.  

I have been starting this blog, although I don’t have a blog, a while ago beginning, of March or so. In another time, another world it seems. The world now on April 8 is so much different than the world on March 6, at least my world, my reality, my day to day as probably is for pretty much everyone else. Now we’re in the middle of a pandemic.

I was thinking though that my sister somehow, again, prepared me for these terrible times . Not only that she always was a germophobe and always trying to make me aware that I should be careful in the airports, in the airplanes, in hotels, pretty much everywhere and stop touching everything (hey I’m the little sis, I still need to touch everything!). Not only that I need to always plan for worst but hope for the better, but probably the most important lesson was not to ever take the life and the health for granted. It is so precious, so fragile. Not to forget to stop and appreciate the sunbeam in the morning, the cat purring, the crisp air of the mountains, the bird singing and the sunrise over the sea. Not to forget to be there for our loved ones. Year after year, even though she is far away, even when she had heart surgery, she sends handwritten cards, she sends gifts to the whole family, to friends. Never missed one Christmas, never missed one Easter, never missed one birthday, never missed one March 8 or St Patrick lately, never missed one anniversary. Because yes, that’s important! Life is important, celebrating and cherishing it is so important, so precious. You actually can enjoy this precious gift one day and lose it tomorrow, so fast.

So thank you sis for all the great lessons you taught me ever since I can’t remember!

I love you so much and hope you’ll have a wonderful birthday!

Who Is She?!

“Cu mainile mele am prins soarele

Si mi-am sadit caldura lui in inima.

Poate de aici am invatat sa iubesc.”

--

“With my hands I held on to the sun

And seeded its warmth in my heart.

Maybe this is how I learned to love.” (my sister)

She smiles. A lot. She talks. Even more. She is constantly moving, walking, cooking, turning on some radio that plays classical music, another appliance, another device … She remembers she has not taken her pills for the day, while she yells at the kids to get ready for their play-dates. She realizes her hair needs a touch-up and that she’s behind on answering her emails – all at the same time. She is a ball of energy, constantly rolling …

And she is so much more … It seems like the little insecure, shy girl that I grew up with has morphed into this self-assured adult who would not take crap from anyone, including her bigger sister – or especially her bigger sister. She is smart. So much smarter than me. She decides people’s lives for a living and can live with herself at night. How many of us can say that?!

She is an artist, a poet, a painter … She loves symphony concerts and European old movies. She loves Starbucks, and Zara, and H&M, bookstores and shoes. Art museums, botanical gardens, and hiking mountainous trails. Her favorite city in the whole wide world is New York City, but she feels at home anywhere big, and hectic, and dirty, and smelly, and reeking with history, but also anywhere wild, remote, with lack of the everyday commodities, like a mountain camp …

She tells me always that I taught her everything, and yet I would have never tried to learn Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, the principles of painting, Canadian history, Starbucks, Guinness (the beer), patience, the freedom of non-planning and of letting go, truly, if it were not for her … I would have never slept on a beach awaiting a sunrise, nor tried a latte if it were not for her.

She is my favorite conundrum: she will have no qualms about riding a bus all alone in NYC, but is terrified of driving. I love traveling with her because she makes me look for things I would never look for on my own. To think we share the same blood is still mind-boggling. We march by totally different beats.

She is a Canadian but so proud of her Romanian heritage that she oozes Romanian into everything she does – all the foods, the stereotyping of people, the way she talks about money, the friends she chooses … everything…

She is a Leo and proud of it – in love with the sun, their ruling “planet”, and in love with gold and the thought of power. Of reign … She rules her kingdom, with grace and slyness, as she purrs coyly while walking away in a cloud of perfume. Like a true ruler, she is a lover of expensive things, and practical minded at the same time. Like a true lioness, she lives for her cubs. She dotes over them, and shapes them every day into these beautiful (inside and out) creatures. She plays with them, bikes, paints, reads and buys books with them, they plant herbs and clean up fallen leaves in the fall, she goes to concerts with them – I joke and say that she created her own buddies and a fan club at the same time. They adore her. Everything they do, they come to her first for approval. She is their Northern Star. Or maybe their ruling planet?!

She loves dark things, like stouts and full-body cabs, and dark chocolate, murder mysteries, and real-life kidnapping stories,  but her soul is nothing but light and hope; the sweetness of peaches in the summer and the gooeyness of the honey-like summer heat in the air. Her eyes filled with light are wide-open windows to dreams, and plans for the future. And mostly much hope. She dreams of a beautiful place she is trying to get to when every day closes, and she always assumes the goodness in all of us. A goodness foreign to even ourselves.

Reading the lyrics she wrote as a child reminded me of her basic connection with her ruling star, which has been telling every day of her life … She fills up every day since I can remember with this warmth and love and hope she’s learned from the sun, intrinsically, at birth.

She is my Yin to my Yang: she completes me and yet she is my true opposite in everything that is essential. She is my sister. My parents’ free gift to me. 

Happy birthday, sorella! I love you more now than when I started writing this, and less than tomorrow. Be bold. Be brave. Be happy. Be you! You are already everything else.

A year ago leaving Manhattan en route to Lady Liberty

Looking for Something That’s Already Found Us

“We're reaching for death

On the end of a candle
We're trying for something
That's already found us” (Jim Morrison – Freedom Exists)

I’ve traveled a bit to find my heart. I traveled from country to country, continent to another continent, one mountain peak after another, just in search of that one place – twin to my heart.

With every trip, I hope that I will hear back that echo that my heart puts out into the world. Sometimes I think I hear it, and it quickly fades away. I cannot positively tell you that I have ever heard the true one, the one I have looked for since the day I was born.

This past month I went back to that beginning place we all have: the one we are born in. I can only picture that first day when I came into the world: atop of a hill in my home town, at the top floor of a maternity hospital, the first child of very young parents – however many hopes and dreams they were building upon that little bundle of flesh! It was a snow-day, I am told, cold and surprising in the middle of April. Sometimes I think: quite like myself.

Every time I go back I wonder: am I truly home? Or am I visiting? And I can never truly answer that question for myself. God only knows what is in my heart when I go back. Most times I think that if it were not for people related to me being still alive and still there, I would never go back – not even every 10 years to visit. I never understood people who are born and raised in America that want to visit far away countries just because their ancestors come from there … I find no interest anymore in my own country. That is until I actually go back.

This year, I was blessed enough to go with my sister. The bond we have had through the years transported us back straight in the middle of our childhood: going to the same schools together, eating from both ends of the same loaf while walking around the city and hopping around pot holes while chased by stray dogs, eating street food, stopping for a cold beer when we got tired, or a latte at the new fancy mall which also harbors a Starbucks nowadays.

Once I was there, my heart was beating in unison with everything else around me. Every barking dog, every honking (for no reason at all) car, every speeding tram, the churches, the cobblestone streets, every person who opened our doors to visit us – they bore such familiarity that all of a sudden not only my heart, but my whole body just melted in the fabric of my home town and home life … The smells were familiar, the tastes of every food – so different than mine at my own house now, although I cook by the same recipes – everything was like an extension of my own body. I, once again, belonged.

We wandered around old streets where we used to live, or went to school. We shopped till my toes were the size of walnuts. We crisscrossed the entire downtown and spent hours in book stores and cafes … We ate, we laughed, we remembered where we came from and how incredulous our lives’ journeys have been – how different and yet how much the same in many ways – driven by the same principles we were shaped in. America and Canada were in the rear-view mirror and we were once again … home.

Then, there were the parents – the main reason we ever go back, really. They are not old by age (they never have been! They are still the young parents of my birth, in my head), but they are aged beyond their years, with heavy decaying health burdens to bear. We fight, almost every time we go there. We argue, we criticize our mutual choices, and we hug, and we laugh, and at the end of a teary and sobbing argument, we love each other. At the end of every tiresome and restless and commotion-full, overly dramatic day, when I look into their eyes, it’s like I look into a mirror. They make me crazy and angry and they also give me an identity. It makes me happy that somehow I know where this crazy, unruly heart of mine comes from.

This year, more than ever, seeing them was both a desperate cry for gratitude of being with them for a few days (who knows when the last visit will ever be?!) and a scream for help! I want to do more. I want to turn back time to the day when my dad was young and playing badminton with us, or hiking mountains for mushrooms, and mom was happy jumping waves with us at the beach. Happy and smiling, with big dimples and blue eyes. They are tired and curmudgeonly now. Their lives lost to many hard and what they consider lonely years.

I am still not sure where my heart belongs. Being of Gypsy blood it is probably my curse to keep looking. I am still lured by many corners of the world, and by meeting and knowing other people … But just now, this month, I found one thing for sure: I may not know where my heart belongs where it will end up, but I know where its roots are. I know the place that it stubbornly hangs on to, the earth where its roots stubbornly spread, beyond extrication … I know where my heart’s foundation is – and that’s enough for now.

Seafood street food

The Pope was visiting my home town of Iasi right as we were visiting

Old Communist crumbling mess of a block. I cannot believe, each time, that these structures are still standing today. 

More Communist "beauties" lines up on the shore of a very much redesigned Bahlui bench. The river looks so posh nowadays - a far cry from the dirty, smelly mess that it was back in my childhood - no concrete edges then, either ... 

My parents' kitchen has a microwave, two ice-free refrigerators and many other utilities of the modern era. However, they still grind their veggies and meats by hand, with a manual grinder. 

We celebrated The Ascension when we were there. It is almost like a Second Easter for us. 

The entrance to one of the many blocks my sister and I grew up in

Our high school 

I was blown away how long Romania has come in the matters of making recycling available. Much, much, much more modern than anywhere else I have lived in The States. 

Our elementary school. 

A "simigerie" which is a bakery that makes these fresh hard pretzel-like wonders covered in poppy seeds. My friend who is Turkish calls these "simit" - and now I know where the word for the place comes from. Most likely the same root. 

My home town of Iasi seen from above - you can see the Palace of Culture somewhere in the center of this picture

Almost perfect example (minus the pizza) of a Romanian appetizer platter: meat, cheese, fat back and more meat ... 

With my sister in front of The Palace of Culture - downtown Iasi

"Tochitura modoveneasca" - one of the most traditional Romanian dishes: slow cooked pork meat, fried egg, a big chunk of aged cheese and "mamaliga" (a type of polenta). 

The utra-urbanized Iasi (the power lines are in my parents' yard) in the sunset

An attempt to copy the Western World - an English named B&B

This was the year of the snails ... 

Sights around downtown Iasi.

Click the picture to view the entire album from this trip

New York in the Rear-view Mirror

There is something poetic about a leaf falling in New York City. If I had a dollar for every time I see this image in a movie, I'd be filthy rich! There is a timeless quality about it, an identity all its own in a city that erases every identity there is. In the whirlwind of the New York life there is this one living “creature” dying and your eyes are watching it.

I think about this identity crisis every time I visit New York. I am not a big city girl and going to New York cements that once and for all. I cannot even hear myself think there. But for a short period of time, a couple of days, even hours, I let myself be swallowed by this big city, the noise, the crowds, the dirt, the honking horns, the fire engines, the ambulances, the lights, the moving ads … For a few days I forget I have a life, and a name and I become one with the great unknown around me.

Every time I visit I wonder the same things: how can someone live here, with no ego, no identity, no physical proof that they exist?! How can they live knowing that they do not matter, for this is how I feel in New York: alive or dead, rich or poor, who cares?!

But New York is bigger, larger, deeper than this humdrum mix of nothingness and everythingness. New York is richer than this still. History oozes from every wall, filling up the filthy gutters. Pop culture and the present are leaving their marks seemingly with every second, as we breathe …

The stories, as told by our many guides on our hop-on-and-hop-off buses, abound: “this is where Cary Bradshaw lived, and this is where she got married; this is the first Trump tower and the only one without his name on it; this is where John Lennon got shot; and this is where Sully landed that plane on The Hudson...”

There is never a boring second in New York. If you're not visiting a museum or a sight to learn about history or art, you're listening to some story about something that you have seen in a movie, a series, or a documentary; if you're not doing that, you're probably eating something memorable, even if it is a hot-dog on the streets of Manhattan, or dim sum at an obscure neighborhood eatery . If you're not doing that, you're just wandering the streets of Little Italy and hearing century-old echoes of Italian voices disputing rent and ownership … You're riding the boat on the way to Ellis Island and crying because you can relate to every immigrant story you're about to listen to! You're seeing Manhattan and beyond from some high-rise building and seemingly seeing all the way to Florida on a clear day! I am convinced that you can be born and raised in just one of these boroughs and live to be 100 and not exhaust seeing, hearing, learning everything there is to see, hear, and learn about it. Every day is a visual and auditory explosion of life and death, everywhere you turn.

Like I said, I don't like big cities much, but I enjoy once in a while knowing and feeling, with every pore of my body, that there is something undeniably bigger than myself. New York ensures that.

I have seen it three times so far, and every time it is the same and every time it is a little bit different. This month, it was (if you can believe that!) quieter than I remembered it. The traffic was not as bad as I once thought, but that may be because I have driven in Utah now! Cars were not double and triple parked anymore and two lanes meant two cars in one direction, unlike what I remembered.

9-11 still hovers over the city like a dark cloud, an open wound, still oozing with pain. People talk about it and remember the city “during those days” – probably the most recent historic moment they got to watch with their own eyes. The infinity pools that replaced the towers, flowing deep into the ground, are a profound symbol of what was there before, in absentia: once shooting towards the skies, they are now buried inside the underground of the city, just as deep as they were once tall. Touching the names of those gone sends chills up my spine. I remember the first time I was in New York (1999), the second thing to Ellis Island to impress me was the Twin Towers. Their massive stature, their impressive views. The amount of people they housed. If you have ever seen them or any other high-rise that compares to them, all that would consume you when you see them collapsing would be “those thousands of people have no chance!”. The sadness is all-encompassing and lasting for many years …

And that's the thing about New York: beyond the multitude of buildings and streets and public transport vehicles, there are always the people. 8+ million of them – and you wonder in mute awe: where would they all fit? How can they all fit?! And somehow, you are seeing it: they do …

There is a strange familiarity about New York. Maybe it is the fact that we do see so much of it in pop culture?! Maybe it is simply the fact that we're all human and we relate to all these millions around us?! But there is a certain reassuredness that you're going to be OK, in the end, no matter how overwhelmed you might feel. Walking the streets has always felt friendly and familiar to me, and I never thought I would ever get lost in New York. It's pretty simple: grid system all the way, except, we learned this time, in Greenwich Village.

What was unusual this last time I was there was that my first thought after I got back home from New York was: “I wanna go back.” I am not sure if that was because this time I was there with my sister, the true big-city girl, the true cosmopolitan, the true art monger who really knows how to do a big city justice. Might be all that or I am not sure why, but I wanted to turn right back around and see, hear, taste, live … some more.

We never finished seeing The MET, nor did we really walk Central Park. If I were to go back those would be the only two things I truly would want to see and then just turn around and come back home. If I am lucky, it would be a gentle fall day, so I can watch all the leaves leaving the trees in Central Park and listen, for once, at the silence in the big grinder. With every leaf, one second of silence, one single identity of life making its brief existence known. What puts the world in motion, life, and its swan song right in front our eyes … There is good to know that there is room for poetry even in the dirty, noisy streets of Manhattan … So much room …

With such a dense forest of buildings, where are the streets?!  Manhattan seen from The Empire State Building, looking South towards the unified One World Trade Center in the misty sunset. Click to view the album of our adventures ... 

Sorella Turns 40 ...

40 years ago today, I was walking hand in hand with my grandparents and they announced that they received a telegram from my dad saying that I had a sister. I remember asking them how that was going to work. Will she live with us? And if yes, where? Younger kids reading, I hope google can explain the telegram concept to you.

40 years later from that hot August day, I cannot imagine my life without her.

I have struggled for days with what I was going to say about her on her big day, because no words can describe who she is and how I truly feel about our bond. How lost I would be in the world, without her.

We used to fight as kids and I used to tell her I hated her. Mom, patient as she always is and an only child herself, used to say “there will be a day when you're both going to thank me for giving you a sister.” Truer words have never been spoken!

We have been together, side by side, at least conceptually if not physically every second of every day for these past 40 years. I have watched her grow from this small, scrawny child to the beautiful, confident, plucky woman she is today. She's had a hard life putting up with me and trying to prove her own self when all the world wanted to do is see her just another version of me. And that, she never has been.

She has always been her own person, with a big, if not loud, voice, sometimes muted and shy, sometimes going against all the streams she ever swam in, sometimes sneaking around in anonymity to get where she wanted to go, but always with a clear plan in her head of where she should end up. Through it all, she has been an original. As much as I was a late bloomer, she was always way ahead of her years. A beautiful soul, lover of freedom and fairness, a lawyer by trade, and an artist by choice. To this day, she remains wide-eyed, highly educated and incredibly curious. She is a unique mix of clinical fear and adventurer, a wild kid and a prissy girl who loves pretty dresses and shivers at the sight of spiders but doesn't blink twice about going for a run before sunrise in the middle of the woods.

40 years later we still learn, every time we talk with each other, something from one another. I from her, as much as she from me. Only the respect has gone deeper over the years. The love has always been there, sown into our blood streams by mom.

The only people luckier than I am to have her in their lives are her two boys. She is their role model, their guide, their North Star. As parents and kids go, they don't always see eye-to-eye, but their bond is deep and transcends the everyday.

I cherish and worship every minute I get so spend with her alone, because that's when we both can be our truest selves, when we can leave the worries of today aside and we can rediscover our childhood selves, the most pure selves we've known. The past almost week we spent in New York allowed us to do just that and I will always remember, even in senility, this trip and the full circle that it closed and celebrated.

What I wish for her now is boundary-less dreams ahead, a world of miracles and possibilities fuller and richer than the first 40 years. She used to pick on me when I turned 40 that I was old. She gets a taste of “old” for herself now, too, and all I can promise her is: old doesn't taste that bad and she is here to make it look sexy.

Happy birthday, Sorella! I love you to The Sun (your ruling planet) and back and as always, know that your name is forever engraved into a big physical part of my heart.

Thank you for existing, and I thank mom and dad for the most priceless gift they ever gave us.

She introduced me to The Doors, as she was a hippy before I was. I think Jim Morrison had a vision of her when he wrote this:

Wild child full of grace
Savior of the human race
Your cool faceNatural child, terrible child
Not your mother's or your father's child
Your our child, screaming wild
An ancient lunatic reins
In the trees of the night
(...)With hunger at her heels
Freedom in her eyes
She dances on her knees
Pirate prince at her side
Staring into the hollow idol’s eye

Wild child full of grace
Savior of the human race
Your cool face (Jim Morrison, The Doors - 1969)