An Enchanted Land: North America’s North-Atlantic Coast

As much as many people think Canada and the US are sisters, as much as untraveled people think we might be oh, so alike, there is a distinct difference between these countries. Looking over the pictures you snap as you drive over the border to visit our neighbor to the North, you realize immediately where the border was crossed, even if you don’t even take one picture of the border patrol officer’s booth. 

This picture taken in St. Andrew by the Sea, in New Brunswick summarizes exactly what I was after on this trip: a quiet, sleepy fishing town on the Atlantic with a view of the bay.

There is a shift in architecture between a US settlement and a Canadian one. A change of rhythm in the way seconds are counted, in the way people swag. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but once you see it, you get it. 

This was my first trip to Maine and New Brunswick. I always thought the East Coast is where both our land densities are. Small towns, strung together like a clutter of pearls, one after another, close-knit communities that flow into one another; a passer-by unable to tell when one establishment ends and the other one begins. 

But that density was lost on me on the drive from Bangor, ME to Saint John, NB. For miles and miles, all you cross are wooded and water lands. More mountains than you’d think it’s appropriate for a coastal state or province of The East, and way too many “Beware of moose crossing” signs than you ever think would be needed. As a matter of fact, in a week in these parts we saw exactly zero moose. But nonetheless, the promise is that of land and wildlife, and not of humans. 

How you know you're in Canada ...

Maine and New Brunswick are relatively scarcely populated, green states. And I mean green in the literal sense of the word. Rolling hills (or baby mountains), lakes and many rivers that cut through their bones like deep whip marks into young flesh. In July, the air is liquid and yellow, thick with bugs, mosquitoes, butter- and dragonflies; dry and melty warm like warmed up maple syrup. You think stopping the car by a river or the ocean will be breezy and fresh, and maybe it is, but not in July. In July it’s exhaustingly hot. 

The landscape is about the only thing that’s very similar between the two countries in this area. The houses are distinctively different, simply put: Americans care less about the curb appeal; junk cars and used up, beat up farm equipment are left to rot in unmowed front yards. Canadian houses have clean, clutter-free yards with manicured lawns, even in the deep country. 

There is a noisy kitsch aspect of a small American town. There is a quiet, coquette distinctiveness of a Canadian one. 

American vs Canadian home along the highway

In Maine, people are direct and to the point; spend little time on niceties. When you mention you’re not from town, they give you prompt directions and you can sense their sigh in the back of their voice as in “oh, another ignorant outta towner”. Not quite rude, but not sugary sweet nor quite welcoming either. 

Canadians don patient smiles and greet everyone with “Hello. Bonjour.” Without even telling them where you’re from, they notice your license plate and come waving from across the parking lot with “Oh, goodness! I love Maine! How long are you guys staying here?” They ask you questions about America, your trip, your plans and give you unsolicited directions of where they think you should be spending your time. It’s like the long cold winter has gotten them snowed in for so long, they are happy to see another human and happy to reconnect to the world. Americans act as if summertime is a bothersome interruption of their quiet time and are uneasy to be awoken by random drifters looking for a lobster joint. 

For years I thought the best seafood on the American continent was in Massachusetts - Boston and Cape Cod, specifically. But Maine, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island (PEI, as commonly known) have gotten Boston beat! And no, not just the lobster. All of it - clams and any manner of fish too. 

Maine lobster in Brewer, ME

These parts belong to nature first, and man second - and this is what loudly spoke to me. Maine’s Acadia National Park - an amazing juxtaposition of ocean and sea - is something you expect to see more fittingly in California, as the Sierras slide down into the Pacific, rather than on the East Coast. New Brunswick has the Bay of Fundy, with the world’s highest tides that carve amazing rock formations, slice them off the mainland, and leave them sprinkled on the beaches like a string of Greek vestiges. 

The noisy Atlantic washing the rocky cliffs of Acadia National Park in Maine

There is no metropolis to disturb the small-town feel of places like Bangor, ME, Saint John, Fredericton or Moncton, NB. Even the capital city of Charlottetown in PEI is a lazy settlement, with beautiful old architecture, wide streets that have not yet been narrowed by overdevelopment, streets so quiet and people so calm that I am sure no one knows what a car horn sounds like. Or a police, ambulance, or firetruck siren. 

Crossing Confederation Bridge between NB and PEI - at 8 miles long, it is the world's longest bridge over frozen waters (when the waters are frozen. Not in July)

These are places where battles were once fought, mostly for territory, others for principles only - who gets to keep what piece of land that was not theirs to begin with. But the noise of battles once fought has long been quieted and what you see today is a new world, built from dreams of exiled people who lived to tell the tales. 

Originally, I planned for all of us (my sister and I and our family) to rent a house with a view of the ocean in a small fishing town on the Atlantic Coast, up there, in The North. But we ended up settling for a house in-land on the Richibucto river - in the small community by the same name- a name drawn from the Mi'kmaq word that means either “River of fire” or “River that enters the woods”. The Richibucto is a tidal river, and we passed our time sitting on our backyard dock telling the time of the day by the height of the river benches. The kids knew to drive to the ocean at high tide, when the fishing is plenty. 

There is a health and a peace that heals you when you tune into the rhythms of nature and you block out the modern appliances that tell you the time or the weather. Just watch, and listen, and feel the time passing, read the clouds to learn about the weather gathering up its forces for a quick rain or revealing the sun so close to Earth that it’s melting the air away in the July scorch. 

Plans don’t work out as you dream them up to begin with most times (we meant to put our home base in Maine, somewhere on the ocean, but it ended up being in New Brunswick, off the beaten path, on a river), and the unexpected nature of what they end up being is usually the best, because their mere surprise adds to their memorability. 

Our Richibucto homebase proved to be quite the perfect place for a quiet and peaceful retreat that had the added bonus of being close to everything that the area had to offer: the magic of the tidal bore in Moncton, where when the ocean tide moves inland and the Petitcodiac river looks as if it’s flowing backwards, east to west; the majestic Hopewell Rocks - carved minutely by the biggest tides in the world; a not-so-long day trip to PEI with the Anne’s House of the Green Gables and the birthplace of the Canadian Confederation, Charlottetown. The charming fishing town of Bouctouche, with its rich Acadian history and home of writer Antonine Maillet - author of La Sagouine (The Washerwoman), a book that tells the story of this resilient community and its character through a harsh history, is only a few minutes away. 

Hopewell Rocks in Fundy National Park - New Brunswick

Lucy Maude Montgomery's home, aka the House of the Green Gables - Prince Edward Island

The amazing, strange, unique experience of the Akadi Lumina light and music show in Bouctouche transports you to a fairy tale land that walks you through the history and tradition of the Acadians. In the wraps of night, when the deep, meaningful spirits come to life, you walk through the woods illuminated only by lights purposefully placed to tell a story and induce awe and a sense of magic. It’s a unique experience, not quite scary, but more awe-inspiring than anything else. The scenery is completed by the beat of traditional music. A show that would probably never happen in America - the unevenness of the terrain, and the tricky, occasional inaccessibility for even able-bodied folks would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. 

Think a Lynch movie, punctuated by loud, vibrant, Acadian music (which blends French-language vocal traditions with Celtic, Scottish, and Irish fiddle tunes), in the middle of the woods at night, with only occasional lighting that comes on and off in the rhythms told by the story of the journey itself. 

Everyone is asking us if we had a reprieve from the heat of the lower American states, forgetting that it is Canada that is presently burning from the wildfires of the summer. It was hot. Too hot for anyone, anywhere, but especially too hot for “The True North” as Canada deems itself. 

Restaurants either don’t have or don’t believe in using air conditioning. One of my nephews shared that “we’re Canadian, Alina. Our cold months are so long, we welcome the heat.” I s'pose I see the point. 

Mosquitoes were a different story. Greedy and mean, they were relentless. There was no amount of OFF! spray that could keep us truly safe from their ravenous appetites. 

As I look back to our trip and let the slideshow of memories scroll in my head, the images come and fade away before my mind’s eyes: the lush gardens of  Bouctouche, walks on the beach with my sister, walks downtown Moncton, alongside the Petitcodiac river, street dinners with the freshest seafood on the planet, bald eagles swiftly gliding above our heads as we sit lazily in bright red Adirondack chairs watching the river go by, at our cabin, the crystal-clear bells (polished and finished in a Charleston, SC bell foundry) striking the third hour at The Dunstan’s Basilica, stirring for just a brief moment the sleepy town of Charlottetown on PEI, kind Canadian people that bend over backwards (from our cabin’s hosts to every wait staff in every restaurant to shop attendants in every shop), the angry Atlantic waves washing off the shores of the Acadian National park, the sweet taste of melt-in-your mouth. 

Bouctouche, NB - The gardens at the Arboretum

Dunstan's Basilica in Charlottetown, PE

Our backyard on the Richibucto River, NB

A purple carpet - New Brunswick and PEI were in full lupin season. It was a feast for the eyes - here, in St. John, NB

Time might put a blurry mist on the memories as it passes, but once I will intentionally lift off the blanket of time, these images will always be there for me to go back to and relive - a short but meaningful summer break with my family, when America  turned 250 and Canada turned 159 in the same week and we discovered together a land mostly unturned. 

"River of fire": Sunset from our back porch on the Richibucto River. A view for a lifetime.

A City of Scars. And Hope. Detroit, MI

The man was standing in the doorway of our hotel restaurant. Inside. The restaurant had two entrances - one from the street, where the hostess was; one from the hotel lobby, where the restaurant’s bar was the first thing you saw. We entered from the lobby and this man was standing, backpack on shoulder, shorts, and a Detroit Tigers - orange T-shirt on, and stopped us with a head tilt: “Hey! Help a guy out, sir!” - he said to my husband - “Help a guy out!”. We kept walking, and I felt some remorse, truthfully. It was Sunday. I should have given him something. Or at least offered to pay for a meal. As we were sitting down and several minutes after that, after ordering, I could not clear this man out of my head. I was thinking, “I should give him something. I’ll buy a meal for him right here at the restaurant. I need to ...”. But before I could voice what my plan was going to be to help him out, our waitress came back to our table. She had taken our order, she had brought us our coffee, we hardly had time to sip our first sip, why was she back? She leaned over to our table and in a whisper she said: “There was a guy at the back door, at the bar. He watched when the bartender went to the bathroom, then snuck behind the bar and stole her purse. The police were in the lobby and caught him, so he didn’t make it very far. They took him away, there was no violence, but just wanted to alert you to be careful.” This is when I felt a mix of sad, guilty, and scared ... But not angry. Just sad, guilty, and scared. Then, I said to myself: “Boy, I guess Detroit does live up to its name nowadays.” We were downtown Detroit, in a somewhat high-priced hotel, at 10AM on a Sunday. I have traveled a bit and I had never stayed in a hotel where we had a pair of city police officers at our hotel’s reception virtually 24 hours a day, every day. Virtually everyone I know that heard that I was going to Detroit follows it with “Wow! Be careful! Lots of crime there.” Or “Detroit? Why?” As some of you who have been following my blog for years know too well - there is no such question for me as “why are you visiting a place?” Any place. Every place in the world, every rock has a meaning and a story to tell - and that is why enough for me.

Detroit skyline as seen from Belle Isle across the Detroit River. That Ambassador bridge that connects America and Canada (faint, on the horizon) was giving me nightmares. It's famous for not being marked clearly enough and people cross it by mistake. I was worried they won't allow us back! 

But Detroit will not stay with me as a crime city. Not in the least. Detroit was not a city of crime, but of dreams. Dreams come true - maybe a long time ago. But also dreams that have been broken. A city that built America. Just as much as New York City or Los Angeles.

Our hotel's lobby - The David Whitney, a former shopping mall and office building

In its most profound way, Detroit felt like a gorgeous, rich city, with more history than I could absorb that no one loves anymore, if they ever did. Like a neglected child still beautiful but savage, or a neglected garden - still beautiful but leggy and unyielding ... Like an aged person who shows all the scars of their life, wrinkles, growths and all, Detroit shows its age and its character. No different than any other historic city, as history goes, for America which is not much longer than a family album. There is a passion and an intense-ness about a heavily industrial city. I was born and raised in a university town, with a very small industrial district. But when I wandered off in the “industrial zone”, the pulse of progress, of a life driven forward, as opposed to stagnation, felt real. Felt alive. Felt strong. In the streets of Detroit - you feel that - you feel what it must have been like 100 years ago, when plants were hopping and people came from rural America to work on the assembly line, as Johnny Cash tells us. Detroit once put America on the map of the world! And to some extent, you still feel that - in the streets, in the history, in the architecture, and stories. The architecture alone rivals that of Chicago and New Work City. The streets are wide and lined with as many styles of construction as there are books on architecture. The materials are diverse and for the most part durable. But the vicious winters, the lake-effect weather, the winds, the many years of neglect have left deep scars on every brick and every marble panel. Detroit used to house about 1.8 million people back in its industrial heyday. Today, it barely has a bit over 600.000. Our culture has vastly changed and our lifestyle shifted, here in America: back in the day, people worked and lived in the city. Despite being the birthplace of the American automobile industry, a legacy that gifted it with the nickname of Mo(tor)town City, having a car was a luxury. People could not afford to ride to work and in cold, long winters, they preferred to live close to where they worked. Things have changed. Now, everyone rides. Everyone drives. People moved outside the city, in the suburbs, and some jobs remained in the city, while others, the industrial ones, got shipped, mostly overseas. This gutted the industrial Midwest, and Detroit was probably its heartbeat. You can imagine the emptiness that a city built for 1.8 people to live and work in leaves when it cuts that population to a third! Detroit just about feels like it’s populated in about a third of its spaces ... The empty two thirds echo with ghosts and memories ... The rest of the buildings are prey to decay and rot. Unfortunately - and I mean this with all my heart. You can see the uniqueness in the craftsmanship and the inspiration of every architect that ever designed for this city - much like Chicago, but in its own style and vibe. Although Detroit comes across as a big American city (sky rises, aerial tram and interchanges, urban feel), it has the noise and crowds of a small town. It’s sleepy and quiet. Hardly anyone walking around or even driving around. We had the least amount of traffic in any big city we have ever been in, for sure.

The eerie empty streets: the streets in Detroit were the emptiest in any big American city I have ever seen. 

People are amazing! We never encountered a rude, vulgar, or snappy person during our stay. They are polite, smiling, patient, calm, incredibly kind and welcoming. We asked one of our restaurant waitresses if we could bring our drinks from the bar across the lobby into the restaurant so we could have their dessert - something that I am pretty sure was not allowed, since the restaurant had their own bar and was more than willing to make a sale on their own beverages. She made up an answer: “Sure! Why not?” I asked her, “Is this legal?” She said with a smile and a shrug: “Well, if it’s not, no one told me, so I say it is legal. Come along.”

Just like there is such a thing as "Southern hospitality", there is also such a thing as "Midwestern down-to-earth-ness." A friend of mine (from Ohio, oh my!) spoke to me in my earlier years of living in America about Midwestern values - blue collar, hard work, honesty, trust. You feel these in every interaction with people here, too.

As wonderful as the renowned Henry Ford museum is (and its outdoors counterpart, the Greenfield Village; and yes, you can really see the actual car that JKF got shot in as well as the chair that Lincoln got shot it in the Ford theater in DC), the Detroit Institute of Arts was really my absolute favorite! As much as this Beaux-Arts-style building impresses through its own style, it impresses more through the top-notch exhibits that it houses. Entire houses and churches ensconced within its walls, original paintings by Monet, Van Gogh and monumental, large-scale industrial murals by Diego Rivera overwhelm you. We spent about three hours there but I don’t think we saw half of it. Not in depth for sure. I could have spent a day. The only other museum that impressed me more was The Met in New York - and we didn’t finish that one in one day, either.

The industrial Diego Rivera murals at the DIA

There is always hope, and there is always life when there is art. And the DIA in the heart of Detroit gives me that hope.

The Detroit Institute of Art

Just like I failed to eat a slice of the famous Chicago pizza last year, I failed to visit the Motown Museum this year in Detroit. Another local landmark not met. This was on my bucket list, as they say, but we got there too late and the tickets were sold out. Cannot tell you what a sigh of disappointment I unleashed! And that was the last day in the city - so, no do-over - the next morning very early, our plane would take us back home.

The Motown museum - here, in this house, some of the most consequential American music was born and launched. It is a non-descript single-family home in a row of historic houses, but it pulsed with life for me! 

Ah well, we always need reasons to go back, right?! I have a friend who was born in Detroit. When I met him, in 2000, and asked him where he was from, he reluctantly said “well, I was born and raised in Detroit.” He was quick to follow with: “But none of my family lives there anymore.” - like it was some kind of sin to admit this. He went on: ”I feel about Detroit, just like you feel about Romania: I am from there. But I have no desire to go back.” I felt a lot like I used to feel about Romania on this trip: a place that was beautiful, with hidden gem-like history pieces, but a place that its own locals didn’t know how to sell and brag about. I no longer feel like Romanians do much of that anymore - Romania has, finally, earned its well-deserved place on the map of Europe and the Romanians I know are proud of it. I hope that Detroit achieves that too. One day, soon!

Ford rules the city! And I felt like it always will. 

Old single homes were beautiful, all over the city. 

View from our historic hotel's room, with the aerial tram (which was incredibly quiet) to the right. 

This gutted building looked quite the opposite of what the billboard promised 

The gorgeous, Art-Deco Music Hall building

 

Classic old Detroit - the good and the bad, and the beautiful ... 

Another shot of the aerial tram tracks and an old building downtown right by hour hotel

A picture of the "new" Detroit

We'd never miss an opportunity to see a Frank Lloyd Wright house - the Smith House in Bloomfield Township, MI, outside of Detroit

A Touch-Base Blog. A Ramble.

What a big pot of steaming, vitriolic poo this year has been in so many ways! The garbage and vileness, the debasement, the gore seems to gurgle up infinitely from everywhere. If you’ve ever been to Yellowstone or in any other part of the earth where hot, steaming, gurgling poisonous materials come to the surface of the earth, in a stench you can barely take, hot and lethal - you’ll get the very picture of what our world is like today... 

I don’t even think it has to do with one country or another. Sure, there are better and worse places you can be in - but as a whole, even the so-called “good people”, the people on the “right side of history” - even those ... have their blame and their contribution to the current state of the world ... 

There are people literally fighting with their bare chests for their freedom and their lives - and those are the people who are put down and made fun of. The other people, no, not just the aggressors, but the other people, sitting on the sidelines are judging and pointing and laughing and masquerading as political gurus and protectors of freedom. But they are all but actionless. ... Sickness to my stomach sometimes ... 

The world has not yet learned that demonizing the opposition does only one thing: burns the fire under their feet hotter and makes their revenge that much more gruesome. No, I am not saying we should sleep with the enemy, as it were, but we should dang-well make a better effort to understand how they have come so far as to rule the order of things. We should shut up for a minute and listen. And learn. 

It’s a game (their game)  that we (the “good” people) know nothing about. A new game with new rules. But blinded by our rage we fail to learn what the rules are. Cutting our nose to spite our face in the process ... 

Because of where and how I grew up, I know that humans against the system rarely renders humans the victors. Most often than not, the system wins, albeit for only a period of time. I still hope for heroes and wish that people would actually honor their oath. Because so many of them aren’t, right now. But life is seldom fair, and this time is one of those times where fairness has become in dire short supply. 

I decided that I am too small and too powerless to make a significant difference in turning the world on its head to make it “normal” again. I decided a long time ago that I am not of the heroic or patriotic persuasion. I know this of myself and I don’t see it as a failing. 

So, if your people didn’t win, and if you’re a little person with no power to make a difference, your only weapon is to conserve your energy and try to stay sane. You at least owe it to yourself to survive, however you can. To survive and help your kin survive too. 

So, I do what the communists taught us to do: stay low, for a lowered head is rarely severed, and try to protect your own identity. Only staying whole and true to yourself will you weather the storms. This is my full-time focus instead, because this is the only thing I can control. I try to be kind to myself and mine, and to whoever comes in contact with me. I am scared and bloody-knuckled at the end of every day, but I try to build a survival kit for us, too. It’s all I can do to stay sane or preserve some semblance of sanity. I am grabbing tight to those sharp, stoney shores while the torrents are trying to rip my arms off and carry me away ...   

But this does not want to be a political blog. This is just a  “touch-base” blog on our lives, for those who normally keep up with those things ... 

It’s been a busy year for us already, which is amazing given that half of the world would tell you that two middle-aged childless people have absolutely nothing to show for themselves ... Well, anyone can walk a half mile in any of our shoes and they’ll want their lives back, I am sure of it ... It’s perfectly OK. I would not want anyone’s life, either. 

Despite the crazy world stage and the fear of traveling anywhere, despite the fear of maybe never seeing our families abroad or of never seeing them alive or the fear of never coming back home if we venture outside the borders ... life still goes on, as it must. We find things that keep us going and keep us engaged and attentive. 

It’s been a hard year on every level - material, historical, familial, professional, global, emotional - but it’s also been a good year, too ... The blessings are many. I am still not sure if this blog will get posted, or  erased, or would render me in jail, but for now, I am going to post it. To do that - that is a gift. I am not sure if it’ll last, but when are we ever in the business of believing that anything is forever? 

We have learned to be more focused, live more in the moment, and we have learned to help more if and where and how we can. I help my family, my family’s friends, and I keep people who matter close to me. I can only hope they, too, can keep their inner circles close and healthy and so, one circle at a time, we could all become a more empathetic and healthier, and stronger, and less poisonous community. 

There are so many god-awful things in this world of ours that we have no way of changing. None. No power. No means. No reach. But what we can do, we should do. And little by little, the interconnectedness of us all will amount to something better. It must. Do two rights make a wrong? I ponder ... If there is any hope left in the world, maybe not. And there is always hope, we are told. 

We are moved by the belief that what we are witnessing is not new. It’s just humans being human. And they’ve always done this. In some shape or form and intensity, this is the human world in action. It’s just more prominent now as it seems particularly more “everywhere”. It’s not just one country or one group of people - it is everyone. And with the amazing communication we have nowadays (thanks, technology!), it’s in our faces a lot more often than ever before - and being visual is what makes it more gruesome, more real. More “there”. 

I am trying so hard to establish a healthier routine for consuming the news. I try (it is so hard, I won’t lie because my brain’s been re-path-ed already and I am old - so re-learning is not easy) to re-train myself on what to do with my time - not to pick up the phone and start scrolling.

I read three sources or so (four if you count a Romanian one) of news. Because I do want to keep up with the news to see how our lives are changing with the world (faster than ever, and not for the good, I would say). But I try to avoid social media as much as I can - because I am poisoned by everyone’s bias and opinion about the news ... I want the facts alone and I want my brain bandwidth to make up its own bias. 

I avoid Facebook but I am still there every day. I find that Instagram is a lot less poisonous. And I love pictures. So that helps. I absolutely hate memes (yes, “hate” is the right word) because some people stop there with their education. This is unfortunate and does no one any service. 

I try to write more and read more, and more consequential stuff. I subscribe to things that keep my focus captive for longer, more complex thought. Yes, it takes longer but my brain feels so much better and I feel a lot less hateful at the end of the day. 

We go to museums and book launches. We go to concerts and speaking engagements and learn. Kids, I am here to tell you that you will never in fact stop learning. And you should never even consider it. When you do consider it, consider your life over, too. 

We take weekend trips and long walks. It’s an old, rusty, moldy, decrepit cliche that nature nurtures the soul. But truly: there is something restorative in a walk in nature. We take advantage of the freedoms we do have for now - and we believe that there are no guarantees for tomorrow. We recharge to be ready, physically, emotionally, mentally, for what might come ... 

We’re planning for a long and once-in-a-lifetime adventure, and we pray that our years-long plans for this won’t be foiled. But, again ... there are no guarantees. We lead with hope and try to have patience. And still, even in this rotten world, where a big, steaming turd seems to be handed to us every day, we look forward to the good plans we work so hard to keep together. 

I am so incredibly grateful for my family who keeps us sane. We talk, we cry, we laugh, we despair together. And we take time to celebrate the wins! The health, the peaceful days around us, the beauty of our shared children, the beauty and strangeness of the seasons. We take lots of pictures - of good and bad. We want to hold on to the moments we do have, so we document. One day, they might serve as history to someone. 

We are our loudest cheerleaders and that’s OK. As people are more and more self-absorbed and guarded, or reprehensibly vitriolic, we shelter within our own selves, like snails. Waiting for the storms to pass. They might not stop during our lifetime, but we hope to be deep inside, taking care of our own and still breathing. We hope. 

Cardinals have visited us way too often lately. They usually tell me that something bad will happen but that in the end it will all be OK. So, as we all sit on this powder keg of a world, we heed the advice of the cardinals and we wait. 

There is this belief inside me that moves me every day which is made up of some simple truths that give me energy and reason to wake up in the morning.

They go like this: 

What we are witnessing is not new; we are stronger than we think, if only we’d shut up and listen to ourselves; we are deeply human, and deeply flawed - we will never win or lose the war in one battle; there is work to be done; start with the person next to you and do well by them, even when that person is yourself; smile to rejuvenate the brain; it will help you when it’s at peace, and not when it’s at war with itself; think before you do; drink coffee; smell the air after the rain, or even after a forest fire. See the difference. 

These are some of the simple, unarguable truths that move me every day. And yes, I still stray and I get lost - or else I would not be human. But I try to be back at it the next day. And I hold the candle of hope that it will all end well. One day, hopefully with me as a witness ... 

Our guardians, our hope ...

January 19, 2025

My favorite grandma, my second mom, my ‘maia’ loved the beach. It was her happy place and she didn’t stop going to it every year till she got really, really sick, right before she died. Romania doesn’t have palm trees though, but she lived for almost 75 years dreaming about seeing one, one day. I remember her buying fabric with palm tree patterns for summer dresses. 

When I landed in America, 27 years ago today, life or fate, or some happenstance brought me to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This is not where you dream of migrating when you dream about moving to America. You usually are told America is New York and Miami and Los Angeles, and anyone you know who moves here shoots for one of these places. Well, my story brought me to Myrtle Beach. My first home was on the beach - I thought I literally won the lottery. 

Every day, I would look at nothing but palm trees and think of ‘maia’. It kept me going, knowing she would never say ‘no’ to living on this new planet where it was so easy to take every tree for granted. 

Then (1998) and today (2025). A lifetime and the same shore at the same time. 

I had nothing but a head full of dreams and absolutely no idea how I would make them come true. Those who know my story know by now that dad had one dream for us: to make America our home. I went out into the world on his specific promise that America is the only place where our character, our education, our upbringing, our talents will not go to waste. This was our pie-in-the-sky. The possibility of failure was never factored in. That was not a chance in the world that would happen.  

Over the years, I have looked back, and realized every time that I did make those dreams come true. I was lucky enough to learn how, and I was even luckier to know people who helped me out to facilitate them. Those who did all that know who they are and they also know (I hope) that I will forever be grateful to them. 

This immigrant girl didn’t know how to put gas in a car, or how to write a check, much less how to get and pay for a mortgage or a car loan. I didn’t know how to pay taxes or how to navigate the complex and disorderly, a-logical dark alleys of health insurance companies. I learned everything from scratch, at the age of 23: how to get and keep a job with no credentials or history in one of the most competitive places on the planet, how to survive an abusive marriage, how to keep a household, how to make friends who had no cultural common ground with me, and so much more ... 

When I look back and think of the past 27 years, I literally shiver. It’s more than half my life! Where has it all gone and who am I today?! 

People have asked me over the years if I ever regretted coming here - if I ever got scared when I landed here, amongst strangers, in a foreign land, and wanted to run back. Are you freakin’ kidding me? Look where I landed! Palm trees, pools, and the roaring Atlantic Ocean in my backyard. I was 23! Do you think any 23 year old would say no to that? I knew I had to work hard to make all that my own (and I learned over the years that the beach is really not my jam), but I wanted nothing but to make this land my true home. 

America held such promise in 1998! Back then, I never even thought about the politics in America because its reputation preceded it. I knew politics-wise, America’s got it figured out. They would always offer the best place to live anywhere in the world, I was sure of it. From my small Romanian town, it was heaven on earth and things just “worked” here because everyone is responsible and everyone pulls together. Someone reaching out a hand to give you help to move here, in this blessed land was the type of fortune that movies are made of. That’s how you know what a dreamer I was ... 

I was a literature and music buff and America offered a never-ending playground for both. 

I came to walk in Jim Morrison’s steps on Venice Beach, California, and breathe in the chilly, piney breezes of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks magnificent Douglas firs in the Pacific Northwest. For me, New York and Los Angeles presented no pull. But I wanted more than anything to live in the desert of Arizona or the mountains of Montana. I wanted to live in and to understand the complicated South which I grew to love after reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Gone With the Wind, among other things.

I came here to drive on Route 66 and chase Elvis’s Tennessee-born music; I came here to be “on the road again” like Willie Nelson promised and take the vastness of this land in, to learn it like the back of my hand; I came here to see if the stories told by Mark Twain and the criticism of Henry James towards Americans bear any truth. I came here to see Hemingway’s hangouts, homes and learn where his kitties spent their days. I came here to hear the blues in Chicago and the zydeco in New Orleans. I came to make the land of original blue jeans and bandanas (some of my favorite pieces of clothing growing up) my own. 

More than anything in the world, I came here for freedom. True, unbridled freedom, the kind of which no nation under the sun promised to know how to make. As I found out later through knowing the work and activism of Martin Luther King, Jr. "the goal of America is freedom." I thought that and to some extent still do, to my core. I figured then as I figure it now, 27 years later, America't got what I am after, and I have what she needs to give her, too. How could it go wrong?!

In the past 27 years, I did all these and so much more. In the process of slowly making America my home, I have learned that there are few things in the world as decadently delicious as hushpuppies, or fresh backyard bar-b-que. I also learned that the worst thing you can ever put in your mouth is without a doubt a peanut butter sandwich. Now, this one is one of the things that America got wrong. 

It was not until recently that I doubted the freedom part, but that is now the saddest realization yet. As Bill Clinton was saying in an interview "no victory is ever eternal" (or something similar).

Happiness is a basket full of crispy fresh hushpuppies at Sea Captain's House

I lived in Myrtle Beach only for about 10 months after I came over. Life and my new family moved me around to North Carolina, to Utah and back to North Carolina. While I was living close still, I used to go to Myrtle Beach every year after 1998 on my “off the boat” anniversary, which is today - January 19. After moving away for some time and during the pandemic the tradition went stale, but I felt the strong pull to start it again today. 

We went to some new places that I had never visited before (who would have known that after visiting my first American home for almost 12 years after I came here, every year, there would be any “new” places to see?), and I recreated the journey from my first home to my old beach and further to my office back when I made it here, and to one of my favorite places for food - a little old place called Sea Captain’s House that is still there and still offers delicious food and quirky Southern hospitality. Walking around my old neighborhood felt so familiar and welcoming. Like time never washed over anything ... Just like the waves washing on the same shore - the wave, always different, the shore permanent and steadfast ... 

In front of my former home. Look at all the those palm trees.

We booked an ocean-front room when we got here. I woke up this morning yearning for a gorgeous sunrise. But it was so overcast I did not even see one ray of sunshine. It was so windy that all the birds were flying backwards. I thought to myself: what an interesting coincidence that the weather, and the general mood of the beach matches the world of today, January 19, 2025: not a ray of hope is left for so many of us today, on this day; and just like the birds going backwards, some of us want to go back for better times, some of us are taking all of us back from ignorance. But we’re all looking back, for one reason or another.

When they pushed me out of my home country and into America, they told me that this is the land of opportunity; that there is nothing you cannot achieve here if you set your mind to it and work hard. The one thing they didn’t mention is that the land of all opportunity also includes the opportunity to fail. The opportunity to lose sense of who you are and what right and wrong is and how to tell the difference. 

I didn’t fail, or at least I didn’t fail me, but at times this country that held so much promise and that I cherished, has failed me. 

But if I were given the opportunity to come here again, knowing what I know now, I would do it again in a heart-beat! Even if one day, I can say that I came to witness the fall of the greatest empire of my generation, that, too, is a (strange) privilege and a chance of a lifetime. So, I would do it again. 

I used to sit like the picture shows on my patio and look at the ocean in front of our condo, thinking that at the other end of all that water are the people I love but that I am here, in this safe boat and if I steer it right, I could make my own and their lives better, fuller, more meaningful.

Nowadays, I don’t feel like I’m on that safe boat anymore. I feel like not just me, the whole country is on The Titanic. The people who see the iceberg have no power, nor authority to steer the boat away and avoid hitting it. The people who have the authority and the power cannot see the iceberg and are heading straight for it, and they are so ignorant or controlling they are not listening to the people on the same boat to go around it. 

In the end, I feel like we’re all headed for peril. But only one half will know why and that it could have been avoided. The other half will blame the iceberg. 

As we were walking out of Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach, the speakers were shouting as a sad reminder: "Bye, bye, Miss American pie ...".