Returning to Old Places and Discovering Something New. Always.

I am writing this as I am sitting in my hotel bed somewhere in The Rockies after climbing up the elevator while listening to the hotel radio playing “Linger” by The Cranberries. I remember where I was the first time I listened to this song and fell in love with the Irish band: I was in Romania and the year was probably around 1990 something ... How long I have come! How far I have traveled! ... This life truly is a trip!

This is my umpteenth hotel in the past two months which have had me traveling from the Atlantic to The Rockies, to the Atlantic and back to The Rockies again ... How I could manage to do so much travel while dodging two hurricanes still boggles my mind, but that is a topic for another blog...

For this one, I just wanted to stop and remember the fun times we have had, the new places I found and the old ones I have rediscovered during these past few months.

We started this marathon with a return trip to Asheville. We had not been there together for 11 years. Just saying that sounds wrong, but it is true. 

Asheville seems both stuck in a timeless warp and anew and fresh with new blood at the same time. The streets are filled with hippies, Krishnas, dirt, music, joy, laden with history and memories; a bon vivant-ness flows in the olden streets at dusk on a Saturday; the breweries abound and lure the traveler in with summer brews waiting to be savored, the mountains are a stone-throw away, ready to be explored. At the end of August, Asheville was still very hot. The city seemed a lot more crowded and a lot more happening than I remembered it ... That was the new part.


The Biltmore was gorgeous, in its everlasting beauty. The only thing that rivaled its beauty and richness this time around was an exhibit of Chihuly’s works of art - stunning beauty creations of massive amounts of glass and steel. The glassworks paired with the natural beauty of the gardens and the mountains, juxtaposed with the carefully detailed architecture of The Castle gave us a wonderful escape from our daily grind into a world all its own - grandiose, rich, timeless.

Chihuly at Biltmore was one of those things you'll remember as long as you'll live. It was not on my bucket list, but it so should have been. If you ever have the opportunity to see this artist's work, don't hesitate! How something so fragile can withstand so much nature and abuse is amazing to me. A great reminder of every one of us: we're so brittle but we all weather storms.

We had brunch at The Grove Park Inn, and that was hands down the most varied and plentiful brunch I have ever had anywhere. I thought for years that the brunches in Sundance or Snowbird, Utah were well done, but The GPI has them beat.  Till proven otherwise - the best. I usually go for the smoked salmon at these feasts, but I had not one but three choices of smoked fish with this one: salmon, trout, and mackerel, alongside any other seafood you can imagine, from shrimp, to oysters and lobster ... This just to name one kind of the many kinds of dishes they offer.

The majestic stonework at The Grove Park Inn

It’s amazing that we did so much in Asheville just in a one-night weekend. I am so glad we are back in these parts where we could escape to so many places within driving distance from us, on impulse and be able to see and do so much!


In September, we went to our first Triangle Heart Walk, which benefits the American Heart Association and gives the money to the research in our communities. I have participated in it before in other communities, and this has been a cause which I have supported, for obvious reasons (if you know me) for years. All I can say about this event is that it ... was ... hot. Not just hot, but exhaustingly hot ... We were wimps and walked 1 mile instead of the 3 because it was brutal! As a heart patient, it was a great meet: I always like to hear the stories of other people “like” me - we’re really all unique and every heart condition is different. This was my first time meeting a heart transplant patient and being every bit as amazed, in awe, and overwhelmed as I always thought I would be when faced with such an individual. He was an inspiration. There is something special about people who get to die a little and then come back, there is no doubt about this. None.


Also in September I got to jump on a plane and come to Park City, UT for a conference. It has always been melancholy to travel back to the place I called home: my first married, happy home, for seven years. A place where I had always dreamed I would live. It’s a bitter-sweet feeling to go back: I miss these parts but I know, in my heart, that I don’t belong here anymore. Park City was cool and bright gold from the changing aspen; a perfect backdrop for the start of the fall.

Aspen mountains on the lake in Park City, Utah

Back on the East Coast it was time to take my sweet, amazing nephews to the SC beach - one of them for the first time in his little 7 year-long life! Call me crazy, but for a childless person, I have always enjoyed traveling with kids. It is amazing to see how they step out of their comfort zone and explore a world they didn’t know that existed. We started by barely being able to pull them out of the house, and pry them away from their devices with more or less force, and we ended with not being able to round them back up and bring them back in the room when they discovered how much fun jumping over the waves or floating in the lazy river, or sinking in the pool is. For two kids raised in the frozen tundra of Canada the beach was “pure paradise.” They said as much. To see the sparkles in their eyes with every new “different” restaurant experience or shopping adventure is rejuvenating. Reminds us, old, and cynical people, that the world should never cease to wonder us, as long as we stay open and come out to meet it.

First time together jumping the ocean waves - a breathless moment in time. So grateful to have been able to give them this and share this with them.

In Park City, I wore sweaters and scarves. In Myrtle Beach, SC, I wore a bathing suit and thought I was literally melting, decomposing, surely dying from sun exposure ...


Again, Myrtle Beach is one of those trips back in time for me, but I always make a point of finding something new to explore even in my old timey places. This time was the Pier 14 Restaurant which is literally on the Ocean (on stilts, part of a pier) and which did not exist 20 years ago when I lived there. The grouper filet and the mashed potatoes were to die for! I can say I got my seafood fix during this trip, for sure, and as any respectable coast town theirs doesn’t disappoint.

Blaga (look him up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian_Blaga) says that "eternity was born in a village." I say that we see eternity with our own naked eye in every sunset we watch.

There is something of that when the sun is being born from the immensity of the sky and it's reflecting its birth into the immensity of the ocean ... Time just stands still forever ...

And after all that adventure, I am back in The Rockies for more work and maybe some play, too ... As exhausting as these past two months have been, and as much as I still miss home, I am very fortunate, lucky and blessed beyond belief to be able to do this much. Not just financially, not just through the grace of my employer, but also through the grace of God and the knowledge of all my doctors who keep me going at this speed in my advancing age (aren’t all our ages advancing?!), with my advanced health problems.


I am also grateful that the world we live in is, still, allowing to some extent for us to mov about freely and explore it deeply. This is no small gift especially nowadays! 

I will continue to push on, open more doors, discover more of what this life has to give me. One page at a time.

“ ... if you could return, don't let it burn, don't let it fade...” (The Cranberries, Linger)

A Picture a Day. September 2018

Although you would not be able to tell from the temperatures in the mid to upper 80's and 100% humidity or by the baby deer still visiting our back yard, it IS September and therefore fall'ish. 

I cannot believe, again, how fast this year's been flying by. This month's been about getting together with family, getting to walk around our town, for fun or for a purpose (like for our first Heart Walk in NC together), living through our first hurricane together, and one of us returning back West. 

The air is a little cooler but not much, the rain is plenty and the plants have gone plumb crazy, because I have azaleas blooming in my yard! The world is definitely astir. As usual: summer doesn't want to leave but winter is slowing showing its sprouts. 

The noise of the world still shouts louder than I would want to hear it most days, but the close world around us greets us every day with beauty and grace. 

For this month's picture, I picked this guy: he stopped by our yard earlier this month and he was flying kind of weirdly, kind of in a random pattern, like something was wrong with his wings or head. But he was friendly and unafraid, totally trusting when he landed on my husband's finger. Just like us, some days scared, some days hurt, but all days hopeful, I could see all of us in him.

Click the picture to see all the pictures from September 2018.
Happy fall, all! 

A Picture a Day. July - August, 2018

Toasty, humid summer days. We're definitely back in the South - humidity so thick you can taste it. Your pores can't breathe from too much water on a sunny day with no rain ... 

Thunderstorms. Pretty much daily, this year. 

We walked the streets in our hometown, went to the ballpark for July 4th ... Fireworks ... We tasted and judged beers in Ohio, and walked the gardens at Biltmore ... We watched humming birds in our back yard and walked the streets of New York City. 

These two months were nothing but packed full of stuff ... While the bigger world around us is still spinning out of control, I found some moments around me that still had some beauty and stillness left... 

Click the picture and scroll through these past two month's days ... 

(picture courtesy of my husband)

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)

The Inspiration Trail

I just read somewhere this week that the new midlife crisis is taking up art, or artistic endeavors. That as the world is getting crazier around us, we are looking more and more for focus, being present, and creating art provides a good refuge for this pursuit.

Well, call it midlife crisis, or call it whatever, I crave inspiration lately. I crave good books, or just good words, good sounds, and pretty food, ordinary pictures that show the extraordinary naked and raw …

We took this little hike starting on a hidden bridge close to our house this weekend and the bridge was a surprisingly inspirational shrine …

The quiet of the hot summer day melted in the bold noise of the cicadas, and the muted trickle of the river below.

Take a look!

Check out this heart-shaped-leaved natural trellis. This is how the journey on the bridge opened.

The road ahead ... 

Natural "bridge" of tree branches over the river. 

The Haw River, in NC

Boy, this stretch of the bridge said so much, and so loudly ... 

More foods for thoughts ... 

Rushing waterfalls, as fast as my jumbled thoughts ... 

I am always shocked at how life finds a place to be: this grass was springing from the asphalt of the bridge. 

Summer and fall battling it out ... 

The creatures ... Click the last picture to view the whole album. 

Finding Appalachia

If you drive North from where we are on I-77 and then some other such direction on another interstate or highway you find yourself crossing three states (North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia) and ending up in Ohio.

Athens, OH is an old college town, a hippy town, an artsy town, just to name a couple of things. All this, and much more I cannot even think to enumerate. Our friend who invited us up has referred to it as a town “nestled at the foot of Appalachia” for years now. I always found this space poetic, sort of unreal, like this might be a mythical place in a fictional book, but not in real life. But Appalachia is real.

I have heard before that this region is usually associated with extreme poverty, but also hardworking and resourceful people, outlaws as much as talented artists. I guess as a passer-by, it is hard to see all of these in just a couple of days. There is certainly a sense of poverty in the poor roads of West Virginia (which we crossed on our way up), and in the leaning, one-pump gas stations of West Virginia and Ohio. But Athens is an old Southern town (I know, Southern!), with lots of charm, and lots of personality.

Street art in Athens, OH

Ohio University sits at its center and it sort of defines its vibe: students, youth, quirky professors, bespectacled and rosy cheeked, mixing with students on a Friday night at the local pubs.

Ohio University campus entry

Our friends took us on a tour and we found some treasures, like fine local beers (pretty much anywhere – this town is made of beer, really), great, very diverse food (my favorites were Thai Paradise, as well as Salaam, both downtown), Artifacts Gallery is a quirky little gift store, where you can buy your patchouli incense, as well as your cheeky gifts for that crazy aunt who is a tad too hard to shop for, otherwise. The homemade chips and the blackening seasoning on the tilapia at Eclipse Company Store were out of this world! The setting of this place was amazing, as well – just an old, tall farmhouse turned into a brewpub, in the heart of an old neighborhood, with hiking trails and forests all around …

The blackened tilapia sandwich at Eclipse Company Store

We strolled the university grounds, and we visited some of the areas of the art and visual design schools. The staff at West End Cider House is bar none the best staff we have experienced in a while: they are friendly without being overbearing, knowledgeable, and very open-minded in trying mixed drinks their drunk customers want to experiment with but which are not on the menu. And drunk people (we) can come up with some cocktail doozies. Like Imperial Stout aged in whiskey barrels mixed with Grand Marnier, or Baileys. They did not even blink and made them for us. Or rather, provided the ingredients for us to mix.

The cucumber ale at West End Cider House is by far much more delicious than it sounds. Perfect for a hot summer evening! 

We were there during Ohio Brew Week, so every bar had a special beer menu to honor that. I have not seen this many craft beer options in my entire life: every bar had many (20 – 40 - 100 - lost count) options for craft beers, and most of them were different from one bar to another. I left thinking that for sure this town is made of beer. Do you remember that song that goes something like this: “And the little streams of alcohol/ Come a-trickling down the rocks.../ And a lake of stew/ And of whiskey, too/ You can paddle all around in a big canoe ...” - well, you might as well paraphrase that song and make it about Athens, OH: “And the little streams of beer/ Come a-trickling down the rocks/ And a lake of stew/ And of beer, too/ You can paddle all around in a big canoe ... ...”. I believe that original song might have been written somewhere in or about the Appalachia, too.

Reminder on our friend's refrigerator

The bars we hopped had pretty much everything else (wine, liquor, cider), but everyone seemed to be enjoying the beer: the festival and the sweltering, humid summer weather probably called for this.

If you want to experience a hippy vibe in one place, have breakfast or lunch at Village Bakery. Our friend kept telling us this is “quintessential Athens”. They lost our order, and after waiting for more than hour and finally asking about it, they admitted to that and started from scratch without much blinking, really … Easy going, and unfrilled is how I would describe that experience. There was no point letting your blood pressure raise at that moment. The kids took care of it in their due time. Like many other mountain towns, time is trickling here, and not flowing nor rushing like in the big cities.

Local woodworking and homemade goods for sale at Village Bakery

We visited the Kennedy Museum of Art which is housed in a former lunatic asylum. I am sure this is not PC anymore, but this is what they told us in there. Today's museum is not very good, but the grounds are beautiful, albeit haunting. I wished they would have done something with just sharing the grounds, the history of the place itself, the stories, the history of medicine through a place like that with the visitors. But maybe some other day …

The Kennedy Museum of Art

Athens is a happening city which comes alive at night. Even during the day, the pubs are not empty. The town is small and comfortable, with one way streets, brick roads, and historic buildings bordering the sidewalks. The mountains are right there, behind every hotel, home, store … you can almost touch them.

Old wooden floors and brick walls that could tell a story, in a beer store in Athens, OH

I would love to go back in the fall when hopefully the heat might let up and I could take in some trails for a hike or twelve. The leaves would be gorgeous, I bet.

If I were to pick just one word to describe Athens, it would be artistic. The craft beer, and craft pretty much anything, the banjo playing, the homemade brewing, the people experimenting with canning and commercializing little known fruits, like paw-paw, the art school, the old buildings left untouched, the old brick walls and streets tell an artful story of pure Americana. I think in the middle of all this I might have found that that mythical Appalachia is alive, well, and surprisingly real, after all.

More street art in Athens, OH. Click the image to see the full album from this trip. 

A Picture a Day. June 2018

The world continues to be crazy around us. Pain, and heartache. Pain for the sake of pain. Malice. Wickedness. Un-humanity ... Every day. Sadness and desperation. The awareness that evil is happening is too raw, too vivid, too real. And yet lots of us, me included, seem to be silent spectators, watching in disbelief. I wish we did more. I wish I did more. I wish I'd save at least one soul ... 

While all this is happening, time does not stand still. Summer has come and it's undoubtedly here, in all its glory. Simmering days and cool nights in the mountains (if you're lucky enough to get there, like I was). Hot dogs on the fire and evenings on the patio, with Gypsy perking his ears up for crickets and frogs. Roses bursting with color and smothered by bugs ... 

In this whirlwind of a world, I, once again, bury my head, of sorts, in the beauty around me, hoping and being grateful that at least there is some beauty still to be had. Still to be watched. Still to be shared. As I share with you now, my photo journey during the past month. 

Ever since I can remember, one of the things that says "summer" to me are mushrooms. Click this picture to see the whole album for June. Enjoy the ride! 

Back to Nature

We've replaced the dry, Rocky Mountains air of the desert with the watery, hot, buggy and muggy air of The South. The kind of air you see in a photo, like a light white film between all the other elements. It's material ...

We've replaced the snowy rocky peaks with miles and miles of lakes, hiding underneath green lush brush, behind tall, straight-up, squeaky pines …

We've replaced the multi-color carpet of summer flowers on mountain pastures with tons and tons of mushrooms from so much rain and humidity …

We've replaced the harsh, hot red rocks with soft, wet, green moss …

We've traded the million star-studded sky, a glorious carpet in the dark night of the desert, for the hundreds of earthly sparks of the lightning bugs over the thick, green, forest floor … Traded wishing upon a falling star for wishing upon a firefly …

We've traded scarceness of the swirly and crooked junipers, the fragrant and harsh to the touch sage, the cactus for the abundance of pine trees, stocky and bulky oaks, for sub-tropical fig tree-like thickets, and so many more species of plants, bushes, and trees than I care to remember …

We've replaced the dry and hard hidden desert trails winding up and down mountain cliffs with clearly pathwayed pine needle-covered trails winding around lakes …

We've replaced the trout in the rare stream with turtles in every lake that we walked by …

We've replaced the cool night breeze and cross-winds in our camper, from both windows being left open at night, with the noisy air conditioning unit. Windows tightly shut this time – no escape from humidity otherwise, not even at night …

We've traded the desert dust in and on our shoes with itchy bug bites and burning welts …

But the beans tasted just as sweet and the sleep was just as deep as ever. Just like with every camping trip before, our batteries are recharged, and we're turning back to our routines with the same amount of peace and gratefulness and awareness that life could be simpler and yet so rich.

We're camping in NC. It's definitely not anything like camping in The Rockies. But that's just it: it's just a different experience, and by no means a lesser one. This is what here is now, and we're taking it in wholly: the breathing of the land, the vibrations of everything that's alive and ready for a new year in the wilderness, the closeness to quiet, and God is still the same, in whatever dialect, and whatever the latitude.

If you want to know what's important, what is really, truly important in this world, go and speak to a tree, or a hill, or a star, or a star-like bug. Or better yet: speak not at all, but listen. Get lost and lose judgment. Just take everything in. Let nature in and allow her to awaken your senses. There is so much to learn! I can promise you it will not always be comfortable, but it always be worth it.

Click the picture for the whole album of the latest camping trip, exploring Holly Point Campground and Durant Nature Preserve in NC

Uitandu-ma in Urma cu 20 de Ani

Observatii dupa ultima revenire in tara …

Tocmai ma intorsesem dintr-o vizita in tara, dupa vreo 3 ani de absenta, cand cineva a scris, disperat si neconsolat pe Facebook, ca nu “s-a schimbat nimic.” Ca “tot aceleasi elemente conduc tara” si ca furtul, minciuna, penuria de tot felul sunt inca la putere. Banuiam ca se refera la faptul ca nu s-a schimbat nimic de 29 de ani de la Revolutie, ceea ce stiu sigur ca ar fi un ne-adevar. Inteleg ca sunt inca multe persoane in locuri inalte care lasa de dorit in ceea ce priveste moralitatea, loialilatea fata de electorat, si chiar si pregatirea profesionala, dar a spune ca “nu s-a schimbat nimic” mi s-a parut eronat. “Nimicul” e o masura enorma, in absentia.

Cel putin nu am vazut fapte concrete care sa sustina aceasta declaratie in ultima mea vizita in tara, sau mai precis in Iasi, orasul meu natal.

Stiu ca multi vor citi aici si nu vor fi de acord cu mine, ci cu persoana de pe Facebook care mentinea status quo-ul romanesc. Dar va spun sincer din experienta mea de privitor din “afara” de mai bine de 20 de ani de acum, ca lucrurile s-au schimbat. Si chiar s-au schimbat mult si inspre bine. De la cosurile de gunoi si bancile care abunda strazile din orice cartier, pana la zambetul mai des, mai benevolent al iesenilor – s-au schimbat multe. As vrea din suflet ca cei din tara sa vada acest lucru si sa continue sa propagheze aceasta schimbare.

Mergand prin Iasi mi se pare ca merg printr-un oras in care numai scheletul e cel al orasului in care am crescut. Dar carnea, pielea, muschii, arterele de sange sunt noi si vibrand de viata si posibilitati!

S-au schimbat strazi, cartiere intregi si tot ce tine de urbanistica – statii de tramvai, autobuz, chiar configuratia strazilor e schimbata in locuri pe ici - pe colo. S-au schimbat pana si numele unor strazi – ma temeam sa dau numele strazilor la soferii de taxiuri ca nu stiam daca le cunosc pe cele cu care am crescut eu. S-au construit poduri peste Bahlui (ca Podul Cantemir) si s-au reparat altele (ca fostul Pod de Lemn). Bahluiul in sine, desi tot murdar, e alt rau decat cel pe care mi l-aduc aminte din copilarie. Iasul e mai curat, mai modern, mai deschis decat il situ de 40 si ceva de ani de acum.

Zona Palas a vazut o dezvoltare enorma in ultimii 3-5 ani cel putin. Ceea ce s-a creat acolo, nu numai ca si urbanistica, dar ca si mediu de cultura si agrement pentru ieseni e o schimbare in bine din multe puncte de vedere. Si iesenii pentru prima data intr-o perioada mult prea lunga, sunt mandri de schimbarea aceasta. Se opresc in drum de la servici la o inghetata, la o bere, la o intalnire cu prieteni si colegi si se bucura de viata – ceea ce eu nu mi-aduc aminte sa o fi vazut prea des nici acum 10 ani! Parcurile din Copou au avut, de asemenea, parte de o revitalizare completa – sunt la fel de atemporale ca si pe vremea anilor mei de facultate, mustesc de istorie, dar poarta noi haine de curatenie si de comfort.

Mai sunt locuri vechi si daramate prin Iasi, totul nu este renovat, dar aceste locuri sunt mai putine ca altadata si sunt mai mult marturie a istoriei orasului mai mult decat o marturie a delasarii conducerii. Si munca inca va continua, din cate mi-am putut da seama.

Cineva a avut nu numai banii dar si vointa de a face aceste schimbari, ceea ce spune mult, mai ales pentru un oras din Moldova unde timpul cateodata sta in loc decenii de a randul.

Am fost surprinsa ca peste tot se plateste cu un card bancar la fel de des ca si acum 3 ani cu bani cash. Am mers de data aceasta de multe ori la alimentara si am observat ca la fiecare om care platea cu bani cash (parintii mei inclusiv) erau patru sau cinci care foloseau card pentru plata. Din punctul meu de vedere, aceasta este o schimbare extraordinara in modul de a privi si organiza viata de zi cu zi: cand oamenii au incredere in banci si folosesc carduri in loc de banii pusi la saltea se sare imediat in alt sistem de valori unde timpul (mai ales) si convenienta se masoara altfel. Pentru mine, e un indiciu clar ca lucrurile s-au schimbat si au evoluat, nu involuat.

Am avut nevoie de un hotel in Bucuresti in drum inapoi spre State: am rezervat hotelul langa aeroport pe internet, prin Orbitz. Cand am ajuns in aeroport am dat telefon la hotel si au trimis taxiul hotelului (shuttle) sa ne ia de la aeroport si sa ne aduca la hotel, pe gratis. Acelasi shuttle fara plata (si cu aer conditionat) ne-a dus inapoi la aeroport a doua zi. Doamna care a raspuns la telefon cand am sunat hotelul sa ii spun ca suntem ajunsi la aeroport si asteptam sa trimita taxiul a fost draguta, politicoasa si serviabila.

Mi-aduc aminte cand mergeam la Costinesti vara si nu puteam face rezervari dinainte la hotel si cand ajungeam la mare ne cerea bacsis intai pana sa ne dea o camera, desi aveau camere libere. Civilizatia pe care am gasit-o in ultima noastra vizita in turism si comert e la ani lumina departare de acele vremuri.

Am fost enorm de surprinsa ca nu mai trebuie platite bacsisuri si mite ilogice pentru a obtine un serviciu de la cineva. Cand am ajuns in Iasi ni s-au pierdut bagajele intre Bucuresti si Iasi. Personalul de la aeroportul iesean a fost un exemplu de profesionalism si cumsecadenie. Chiar daca au durat mai mult de 24 de ore si doua excursii pana la aeroport sa le recuperam, nu a trebui sa platim bacsis ca sa vorbeasca lumea cu noi si nici “sa le trecem prin vama.” Totul a fost profesional si foarte eficient. Amintindu-mi de ultima data cand mi-am reinnoit pasaportul in tara (acuma 18 ani) cand a trebuit sa platesc mita ca sa pot sa il obtin (desi era dreptul meu de cetatean roman de a avea pasaport in ordine), mi s-a parut ca sunt in alta tara acum, si nu tot in Romania. Mita si bacsisul fara nici o logica, mita dezumanizanta care iti rade in fata ca esti mai putin decat un om, e ceea ce m-a impulsionat cel mai mult sa plec, si ma bucur ca lucrurile s-au schimbat din punctul asta de vedere. Nu sunt naiva, stiu ca din pacate ele mai exista la multe alte servicii, dar traiesc cu speranta ca incetul cu incetul vor putea disparea din viata de zi cu zi a romanului.

Poate ceea ce m-a surprins cel mai mult nu au fost faptul ca se gasesc in magazine aceleasi produse pe care le gasim noi in afara, si ca restaurantele au menu-uri mai laborioase si diverse decat orice restaurant la care am mancat in SUA, dar faptul ca lumea exista coeziv cu aceste realitati. Nu se mai spune “ei, dar la noi nu sunt ca la ei” (adica 'in afara'), se spune ca “acuma este si la noi de toate, dom'le”.

Pe vremea mea, adica inainte de 1998 cand am plecat din tara, era o disctinctie clara intre ce e posibil inauntru si ce e posibil in afara. Liiceanu vorbea de limite reale si ireale. Ei, asta era o limita foarte reala in trecut. Acuma simt si vad clar ca linia diferentelor intre cele doua lumi este mult mai estompata. Am asistat din afara si prin ochii familiei mele inca ramasa in tara la estomparea aceasta de ani de zile de acum. Dar anul acesta lucrurile au fost si mai clare. Aducerea Romaniei la numitor comun cu Europa nu mai e o realitate de neimaginat, dar acum pare mai mult o realitate accesibila tuturor. Si asta a fost faptul frapant si decisiv in a spune ca intr-adevar lucrurile s-au schimbat.

Oamenii isi permit, cum spunem noi, sa accceseze aceste schimbari. Am vazut lume mai multa in restaurante, la gradini de vara, la magazine ne-alimentare decat am vazut vreodata. Si oamenii sunt mai calmi, mai zambitori, mai afabili, scot un ban din buzunar cu un zambet pe buze si nu cu o grimasa in care e impietrita frica zilei de maine. Pentru prima data in 20 de ani de cand ma reintorc in tara am vazut multi tineri care au copiii mici si sunt fericiti, nu intristati de povara zilei.

Strainii spuneau imediat dupa 1989 ca romanii au uitat sa zambeasca. Anul acesta am vazut mult romani nu zambind, dar si razand copios, tratandu-se la o bere rece in mijlocul unei saptamani calduroase la o gradina de vara, sau asteptand nepotii de la scoala pe banca din fata blocului. Tot se vorbeste despre “ce e de mancare” mai des decat “ce citesti” dar mancarea e azi intr-un context de petrecere si de adunare cu cei apropiati si nu de supravietuire.

Candva, cineva, undeva, intregul popor, a schimbat multe in cel putin ultimii 20 de ani. Cand locuiesti cu cineva zi de zi nu iti dai seama ca imbratranesc si cat de mult se schimba. Dar va spun eu sincer, din observatia mea de semi-turist: s-au schimbat multe in Romania.

O sa spuneti ca da s-au schimbat ca lumea merge la munca in Europa si are bani. Si asta e, cu siguranta, un lucru trist, inca. Dar simplul fapt ca putem merge in Europa si face bani fara a fi persecutati si fara a ne pierde identitatea e o schimbare enorma. Tin minte in anii dinainte de Revolutie cum guvernul iti baga familia la inchisoare daca aevai rude in afara, sau orice dovada de legatura cu cei din afara. Sigur ca s-au facut toate cu multe sacrificii, dar ce se poate oare face in viata fara ele?! Fara a renunta la anumite lucruri si a vedea progres si a caladi o viata mai buna?!

Oricare ar fi motivele schimbarilor, sunt schimari in bine si in frumos si bine de salutat. Ca orice progres, nu vine fara sacrificii si fara durerile de rigoare ale re-invatarii a unui nou cod de viata. Un lucru pentru care ma rog si pe care il sper din suflet este ca cei din tara sa fie constienti de aceste schimbari si sa continue sa le sustina. Revolutia e inevitabila, si mersul inapoi in istorie nu mai e posibil, oricat de mult ar incerca cei rau intentionati. Eu zic ca toti cei din tara trebuie sa fie mandri ca au sarit peste decenii de istorie si au ajuns departe intr-un timp relativ scurt, iar sacrificiile lor isi vad clar roadele in mai bine. Pentru fiecare zambet nou, pentru fiecare copil abia nascut, pentru fiecare cumparatura din placere si nu din obligatie fiecare roman din tara ar trebui sa fie mandru.

Stiu ca viata e altfel la tara si Romania ramane o tara majoritar rurala. Stiu ca aceste progrese nu sunt vazute egal in toata tara. Dar cred ca tot ceea ce s-a realizat pana acum ar trebui sa fie un exemplu bun, acea proverbiala linie argintie la marginea unui nor negru care promite existenta soarelui, care sa promita tuturor celor din tara ca se poate si mai bine. Ca lucrurile, cu rabdare, cu bani, si conducere de rigoare, se pot schimba, si se pot schimba in bine. Si speram ca peste ani aceste realizari sa infiltreze cu adevarat toate colturile tarii, oricat de indepartate.

Sper ca toti cei din tara sa gaseasca aceasta dorinta de a evolua in bine in tot ceea ce isi propun si in tot ceea ce realizeaza, si sa fie constienti ca schimbarile in si mai bine le sunt numai lor in putinta. Numai lor in mana.