From Innocence to Now ...

My dear boy, 

I still remember the blog I wrote the day you were born, the day I became an aunt (https://wander-world.blogspot.com/2008/04/from-heart.html). I wrote it almost in one breath, that very day. I did not prepare for it, I did not dream about what I would write, I just did it. All my love, and awe, and wonder, and gratitude, and fears, they just came right out and poured onto the page. You were an empty page, but so full of possibilities. 

In contrast, I have been thinking long and hard about what I would say for your 18th (holy cow!) birthday - whether to you, or in a blog, or journal entry. Now, 18 years later, you are so far from the blank page you started on. You are becoming quite an accomplished little story. 

Some of the things I want to say are the usual, retrospective things, like the obvious: you have grown much, accomplished much, matured, changed, and found yourself in the process, through kicking, screaming, good times, and bad. You know the story. 

It is truly a daunting realization that you have pretty much grown up on this blog. From the moment you were born till now, you have been documented religiously somewhere on the internet, including here. It’s amazing to see how something as novel (to me, at the time I started writing here) as a blog has now lasted more than you’ve been alive. 

We each have and are a unique story. Just like the river carves its own way from the mountain to the ocean, you have carved your own singular path. Sometimes despite our wishes, sometimes in total outbursts of surprises on your part, sometimes totally guided by those around you, but always in your own original way, you have been able to find yourself and mold yourself into the young man you are today. 

Because this is such a milestone, the beginning of your adulthood, in fact, I have also been wondering how we are leaving this world to you. I’ll be honest, when I first look at the world we’re leaving behind for you, I find that we’ve let you down, in too many ways to count.

With a maturity beyond your years, you pointed that very thing out to us a year or so ago: we have left you a mess, at first glance, indeed, as you said.  Wars, and crooked politicians in every realm and in virtually every country, desperation about job cuts and losses, the need for education not a very well-argued asset (when the world seems to be measured in money, and  most rich people of the world are college drop-outs, what can you learn from that?!), a dirtier, more unsafe planet than what we found when we were your age, and so much more decrepitude ... 

But as you’ll find out on your own: where there is bad, there is also plenty of good. Our generation, I think, also did leave behind plenty of good too, things that I hope your generation will build upon, perfect and increase in value. 

We left you the most technological advancements ever produced in 50 years’ time, in the history of humanity; because of this technology, you can now learn things faster, travel faster, buy what you want faster, see your impact to anything you contribute to faster, and so on. 

We’ve left you the ability to express yourself for who you are; when we were growing up, we were not allowed to be who we were, we were censured and punished for our thoughts - you, luckily, know nothing of that. Identity awareness is something our generation fought hard for and you, I think, benefit from it largely - never take that for granted. Identity awareness and recognition is by no means done, either, but I believe it’s here to stay now, if your generation makes sure of that. 

Despite all the talk of divisiveness due to social media which was also ours to claim, we’ve left you a more connected world than ever - globalization (not necessarily a bad word) shows that no single action remains where it started and it now reverberates across the world. As you find yourself in the middle of an international family, you understand this better than anyone: we’re all connected, across the meridians and every action we take has effects everywhere in the world. This awareness has become common knowledge during my lifetime and we leave it with you to build only good things on it. 

We left you with many examples of entrepreneurship that allow you to dream and use the best of your skills to truly accomplish anything. You’re limited only by your imagination, and that, in your case, is limitless. Our generation busted the limitations of a degree and of traditional careers to encourage every person to succeed and survive from any business they dream up. We have been disruptors, in larger numbers than any time perhaps in history, and for what that’s worth this allows you to always think outside the patterns. 

Maybe we didn’t finish what we started in any of these areas. But the seeds of good potential are there. 

So, as much as I apologize for the mess we’re leaving, I am also hoping that the much good that we have also done is workable, and you can add to it and make it better. Make it perfect. I trust that you will at least try. 

As a family, we have given you everything - love, support, understanding, freedom to be who you are, and a healthy dose of cynicism which we hope prepares you for a prickly world out there. We hope. We tried to encourage more than scold, love more than accuse, and advise more than order you around. We showed you by example where your roots are and how you ended up who you are, but we were careful not to clip your wings, for they alone will carry you forward in the path you alone will choose. We hope we did good by you and that you find balance between all that we all contributed with and what you want. 

I am also remembering on this special day how hard it has been for you to find yourself and be the amazing human you are today despite all the odds thrown at you during your lifetime. You were the generation of the pandemic, and there were no rules on how to go through your most formative years (preteens and teens) without being with your friends, in person, for years. We, as your adult family, had no map for how to navigate that.

You were the generation of political fights, where lifetime friends and partners became bitter enemies and opponents, including the countries in which we both reside. You were the generation mind-driven by algorithms and bad actors. Again, we had no instructional manual for how to protect you from that. But you adapted and figured it out. If anything, we learned through you and from you how to navigate this new world. 

For you to figure out on your own how to build yourself through all this, is remarkable. You’re a hustler and a doer. You never accept “can’t” or “won’t” and you figure things out - and that is all you. You’re a disruptor in your own right - nevermind us trying to hold you to a pattern, you follow your instincts and despite all our denials or doubts you prove us that an alternative approach is not always bad ... We’ve learned from you as much as you’ve learned from us. 

I hope you feel the fire under your feet and you feel emboldened by what’s to come. Just know that today you not only get to be fully you, but today the world is ready to look at you as an important contributor to tomorrow - not quite an adult, but no longer a child either. The world will start listening. The voice you have been building is ready to be heard. 

Empathy is one of your true secret powers. I have seen through these years what a difference you’ve made in other people’s lives. You taught all of us what resilience and ambition mean. You have the biggest heart I know - the way you cared during your most difficult years for a dying friend brought me to my knees! How you somehow, from somewhere found the strength to be there for him, holding his hand, I do not know. 

The affection you so generously give to everyone around you is infectious: the glorious hugs and kisses you share freely with all of us, taking your mom out for meals and being her sidekick in making art or running, your generosity and big-heartedness is incredible and all natural, unforced, and untrained. 

The world is ready for you and your many gifts, and I hope you continue, as you gently let go of your childhood years, just like a new swimmer gently lets go of the side of the pool and starts floating on their own, to make bigger and bigger waves and build the life we all want for you, the life that I always wanted for you, starting on that fateful April morning when you were born, 18 years ago today. 

Just like on that first day, I am now hopeful, happy, excited, and waiting with baited breath on what you have in store for us. The future is yours to make! 

Happy birthday, sweet boy! And never forget: you will forever be my sweet boy. No amount of years will change that! I love you from the bottom of my heart, and beyond. 

Be well! Be safe! Be you! 

The Quiet Days of Christmas

Romanians know how to do it right. We celebrate three days for Easter and Christmas and about 6 of them for New Year’s. If it were up to us, we would spend 364 days in parties, drinking and carousing, and maybe one day in repentance. And no work at all. If it were up to us. 

I have now lived in America for 27 years, but in my heart, I celebrate every holiday with the same spirit I grew up celebrating. So, regardless of what the American tradition calls for, Christmas is 3 days in my world. And isn’t it better to be able to say that you get not one but three days of doing nothing?! 

I have always looked back to Christmases past when I have this “down time” and in some fashion I want to recreate, even if it’s just in my mind, the old days. Call it old-age melancholy, or missing those that are not around anymore, call it facing your mortality, whatever you want to call it, I have thought more about Christmases past, especially those we grew up in, my sister and I, than ever before this year. 

And our Christmases were so randomly different during my 23 years growing up in Romania, that there is so much remembrance to draw from. We were lucky (I felt lucky when other kids might have felt cursed) to spend Christmases with different families. My mom’s parents did Christmas one way, and my parents a different way, and our relatives in the mountains celebrated in such an essentially different way than us city people that it made you wonder if we were celebrating the same holiday at all. 

When we were little-little (think about before I went to school), we lived with mom’s parents. Grandma would take us to this park close to downtown to see the huge, 20+ ft wooden Santa put together by the city and surrounded by all sorts of kiddy rides. Nothing too dangerous because those machines would not be able to be erected just ad-hoc for a week or so around the holidays. They were small carousel-y type things. We were never allowed to be in the machines, as we could God forbid catch a cold. But it was good to walk in the cold of the evening (you had to go after nightfall, to see all the pretty lights glowing), and see all the people excited about their kids riding the rides, cheeks aflame with the winter chill. Then, we would go home and sometimes, would find our presents already under the tree, if this were Christmas Eve. In Romania we open the presents (and make the tree) on Christmas Eve. 

We would then sit down to have Christmas Eve dinner - a lesser affair than the Christmas Day meal the following day, but still loaded with plenty of delicious, traditional foods. On Christmas Day, the close family members who also included my parents at that time, would get together and eat. Outside us kids, I don’t remember gift exchanges between adults being a thing in my childhood at all. It was all about the food and being together under one roof. 

Christmas was a culmination of many weeks of work back then. For weeks before Christmas, all that people would talk about was where to get the best meat for sausages, the best flour for cozonac, the Romanian traditional holiday loaf, where to find the walnut for the loaf, where to buy a new table cloth or napkins. Back in Communist times, the stores were empty, and the main food groups (meat, flour, sugar, oil, even bread) were rationed, so people started stocking up early. That fever of preparedness was all part of “the season”, part of the tradition. 

Cooking for Christmas would start about a week before Christmas Eve, with grandma kneading and raising the dough for the cozonac. This was by far the most laborious affair of the event. She would make enough loaves to give to everyone in the family which always puzzled me because everyone I knew made their own. But she was ever so proud of hers. You can look this up - anyone who has ever attempted making this beast of a loaf would tell you that it is really hard to master and have it come out right. Whenever grandma failed (by her standards, because by mine, her cozonac was always the absolute best), she blamed the flour. Grandma would clear out a whole day to cook nothing but the cozonac. She would hardly feed us on cozonac day. We had to scramble up a meal on our own with leftovers we would find in the fridge, which was not much because the fridge had to be empty for the Christmas cooking to come. 

In the following days, she’d make all the other foods - the sarmale (cabbage and grape-leaf rolls), several kinds of roasted meats, appetizers of all sorts and of course, she would fry the pork sausages in the pan. One of the days before Christmas was also dedicated to a major house cleaning. That was the one day grandpa would ever get involved, because he had to take all the rugs out to shake them and “winterize” them, as grandma said - meaning rubbing them with fresh snow and ice to clean them out and give them a fresh look. This was back in the day when Romania actually did get white Decembers. Not anymore. 

On Christmas Day - we all got together, kids, parents and mom’s parents, to eat for most of the day. It was an all-day affair, we would get together at grandma’s house (where we  kids lived) and the parents would come from out of town (where they lived) in the morning. We’d set the table up and start the feast around 12 and eat on till the evening. My grandparents only had my parents to visit and then on the second and third day of Christmas my grandma would take us kids to see her sisters. Grandpa always stayed home. 

Later on, when I was in middle school now, we moved in with my parents who also had moved back in town. The rituals were very similar: dad was in charge of buying all the food and coming up with the drinks and also the presents. Again, I don’t remember much along the lines of an adult gift-giving tradition. Kids got presents but I can’t even remember if they were wrapped. 

I remember I was the first one in my family that came up with gifts for everyone for Christmas and I was in college and making my own money. I got one thing for each person and there was no such thing as gift wrap paper, so I wrapped the presents in newspaper. And there was no tape either, so you’d have to wrap them tight without it. But that was way later. 

My favorite part of my parents’ Christmas preparation was the sausage making night. This was about a week before Christmas, because you’d need time to leave the sausages hung outside in the cold air to dry them out before cooking them on Christmas. I always helped mom and dad, usually very late at night, after everyone else was in bed. After the parents had finished that day’s chores, they’d make the sausages: dad would grind up the meats and add the seasoning, mom would clean out the intestines for the casings, and I would help dad form the sausages - he used a manual-crank  meat grinder with the blade taken out to push the meat out into this funnel-shaped contraption that fitted the grinder and through which the intestines could be filled. My job was to twist the sausages at equal intervals, to make them all the same. It was a messy business and you smelled like pork fat and garlic for a week after that. But the best hand lotion I’ve ever used, too. Mom always wanted this to be the last chore of the day because it was so messy she had to spend several hours cleaning out the kitchen for the next day’s cooking. 

In the many days after this, both my parents spent hours on end in the kitchen cooking all sorts of goodies. While grandma’s cooking stuck to a few dishes that were traditional, my parents made a lot of “modern” dishes in addition to those passed on from their parents. Dad was the chef in charge of the menu list and the drinks and mom was the sous chef with us kids mostly helping and in charge of cleaning the house. We also made the tree every Christmas Eve. 

Dad and I both started Christmas prep the same way: with a list of what's on the menu. Here is the beginning of the last list he ever got to make (right) in early November 2022, as he was thinking ahead for the season. I can tell the signs of his stroke in his hand-writing. It is shaky. By the time he was done with it, closer to Christmas, it looked more like mine (left). Never-ending. 

But after the running around, preparations, cleaning, stocking up was over and Christmas Eve would ring midnight, an eerie, peaceful, almost ominous peace would envelop everything - the house, the world around us, everything ... It was time to enjoy everything we worked so hard for and let the miracle of the holiday leave us in wonder. 

Carolers came to the door on Christmas Eve and in the city, they would get money. 

Like everyone else, my parents also celebrated all three days of Christmas which were all mirror images of each other at different homes. On Christmas Eve we would have our first “preview” meal of Christmas. Then, on Christmas Day my mom’s mom and dad’s sister would come over and we’d all be together as a family. On the second day of Christmas, we’d go to dad’s parents’ house. My dad’s sister was sometimes there again too and we’d eat the same foods only cooked by dad’s mom. On the third day we would go to one of my aunt’s homes or to a friend of my parents’ house for a repeat of the same goodies. The get-togethers were always the same: a very elaborate sit-down brunch-lunch-dinner lasting most of the day, with many courses spread out over 5-7 hours. We sat around the table and talked about the events of the year, school, new jobs, other family members, and very rarely about politics. 

Back home, in-between the many feedings, my sister and I disappeared for hours into books. They were quiet and lazy days. Back then, most of the energy was spent figuring out where the next meal will come from and what it would be (the foods were always the same but we mixed them up during the three-day feasting season). Around Christmas, we had food for days, so no more need to cook; so, instead, we turned off and were couch potatoes. 

We had no fireplace, no yard, so we spent the time in our condos, being together, listening to stories, taking in teachings from those older than us ... It was the time to put on the brakes of a(n) (always) crazy, busy, insecure year and actually enjoy each other. 

It was Christmas in another dimension when we were much older (highschool and college for me) and we were old enough to go to the mountains by ourselves and live with our relatives there. Our mountain people have always had a family farm where everything you eat you grow, harvest and kill yourself. The oldest of their children, a boy, always went up the mountain and cut his own tree which is a totally different kind of tree than the one (still a natural one) that my family would buy in the city. The two don’t compare. They almost are not the same thing. We didn’t have lots of decorations in the mountains, like we did in the city, but I remember us putting pine cones and apples on the branches. 

They also killed their own pig - an event worthy of its own book. We helped with the “cleaning of the pig”, by singing off the hairs on the pig’s skin with the flame from a candle, and cutting it off the fat back with a super sharp knife, for fresh pork rinds which they would use to flavor all the foods at Christmas and beyond.

I remember how the whole Christmas pretty much revolved around this pig killing and prepping and making foods for Christmas (mostly smoked meats) from it. We ate every single thing from the animal, even the blood, and whatever we could not consume would go into the freezer for the rest of the year. The whole family was involved. The parents, the three kids, the grandparents, and my sister and I. Everything happened outside, in the yard, except for the actual cooking, in the mountain air which was always as cold as a mountain stream on ice. 

We spent most of the time during the day outside, in our winter coats, barely moving from too many layers, with the hands red and the skin chapped and bleeding from the wind burn and the coarse salts we used to prepare and cure the meat. 

Inside, the stove always had a roaring fire, ready for the mom, the grandma, and the daughter to start cooking some of the many dishes, all of them pork based. The dad and the boys were busy making the fire outside, in the smoker, where most of the cured meats would go for a couple of days. One of the two sons would take turns during the night to go out back and ensure the fire was not out in the smoker. 

The dishes we made were simple and not as numerous for the mountain Christmas - just some cozonac, sarmale, mamaliga (which is a type of Romanian polenta) and lots and lots of smoked meats - everything was fresh and so fatty! We would eat in the late morning for a couple of hours, on Christmas Day. Although we still had sit-down meals, they were not as lengthy as the ones in the city. In the mountains, you constantly had something to do, you could not linger about - mostly, many animals to feed, or wood to split for heating up every room and heating up the food. We did take naps sometimes, and when we were older we kids would go “in the village” to a club or someone’s house for a dance. 

On the second and third day of Christmas, my friends’ parents would load us all up in their SUV and we’d go deep in the woods, bracing the cold and the unplowed dirt roads to see my friend’s father’s family. They lived completely off the grid, in the middle of nowhere. One year, we got stuck in the snow on one of these roads, and one of the sons had to walk through the deep-deep snow to the next village several miles to ask for help. It took hours for a tow truck to appear (on the second day of Christmas when everyone is off!) and pull us from the snowy ditch. As we waited, it got dark and the sky was filled with stars. There was no light around us outside the moon. We started hearing wolves howling in the distance and just about wet ourselves! We had pictures in our head of how we’re going to surely die - either from frost bite, or eaten alive by wolves on the second day of Christmas! The stories are plenty and I hope to God they will make their way into a book one day, if not for anyone, they might be helpful or amusing for my nephews. They were good and real times. 

In addition to money, the mountain carolers got colaci (Romanian braided bagel-shaped pastries), apples and walnuts. To this day, there is no holiday for me if we don’t have some kind of fresh, hearty dough in the house, although I don’t bake myself. Everything was either home-made or hand-picked by all of us. The care, the attention, the ahead-of-time-ness made it so special for some much longer than just the one day. 

I truly believe this rushed, modern world we live in nowadays abbreviated the holiday to a one-day affair. The Christmas I remember and that I am stubborn enough to still celebrate deserves to be lingered upon ... 

If you've been paying attention, the one thing all of these traditions had in common was the food. When I came to America, everyone warned me about Thanksgiving having lots of foods. But to me, it was an embarrassment to call it “a lot of food”. Our feasts were, like a daily Thanksgiving times 3. And then multiply that by 3 days, not just one puny dinner! 

Today, when we don’t travel for Christmas, even if it’s just the two of us, I cook. A lot. I cook so much in fact, that I end up throwing some away at the end because it’s impossible to consume it, even in 3 days, being that it’s just the two of us for meals. Nowadays, I make some Romanian staples: sarmale, my husband makes the cozonac because I am not a baker, sausages, some sort of a ground meat product like meatballs or meatloaf, a couple of other appetizer dishes. Without these, I cannot say it’s Christmas. I also give a nod to my new adoptive country and I do incorporate some American foods, as well - like ham, mashed potatoes, something green (like collards or green beans) ... And we stock up on drinks! At my parents’ house, the drink of choice was wine during these times. Especially the one dad made himself, first on farms he worked on, then in his own house. In the mountains, the drinks revolved around moonshine - the cold asked for something to warm you up. If they had wine, it was always hot, boiled, with some sorts of herbs and woodsy berries in it.  

Nowadays, my husband and I do sit down for our Christmas meals (as opposed to eating in the living room on the couch)  during all the three days (because yes, we do celebrate three days of Christmas in my house), but we mostly graze ... We don’t have set hours for set meals, but we eat when we wake up and when we feel nibbly during the day. We open presents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We talk to family online, because everyone is far away. We seldom get together with friends, because everyone is busy with their own families. 

Another thing that I relive this time of the year is the quiet around these days - just sitting around with absolutely no plans, other than letting your hard-labored-over goodies digest. It feels decadent and wasteful but so delicious, too! I know lots of people probably pity us for just “being alone” but I welcome it. Life is noisy. Worries abound. Work is busy. So much of life eats at our time, that this time of the year, staring down at days with no plans is a gift in itself.

Life, and especially our Western world, needs so much more quietness and reflection - and Christmas is a great excuse for this. We all become bears during this time of the year: gorge on food, then hibernate. 

Technology did help with the writing and the publishing of this piece, but outside of this, I am so glad we inject our lives with so much more human, touchable, organically real and un-messed with things - no AI and no apps needed to be in touch with your humanity and human-ness. 

These few days when we’re forced by the calendar to think differently are still so important to me, to pause, reflect, and enjoy the simple things that are never too far away: like feeling the raw meat of an animal that sacrificed for your nurturing  in your hands when you knead it into a meatloaf, like cleaning a raw shrimp, and spending many hours cleaning mushrooms under the cold running water, wondering what kind of muck those little hats had to push through to come to being, like waiting with bated breath for the oven to be done with its things only to be able to judge whether what comes of it is edible or just passable ... 

Around Christmas, I feel like I am consciously jumping off the mouse wheel and meaningfully taking a break. And my body feels better (albeit more sore and at times uncomfortably full, but decidedly more alive), and my mind thinks more clearly, and my thoughts are clearer and able to plan for what’s ahead - as far as we can see what is ahead. 

But the here and now, the proximity of each other and the real-ness of what’s on the table, the memories that I am still lucky to hold in my head quite vividly, this is what makes up the lazy days of Christmas for me and towards which my gratitude goes. 

Whether you celebrate the birth of Jesus, or the Rededication of the Sacred Temple, or renewal and rebirth, or ancestor remembrance, or just the end of a year ... I hope you take the time to reflect, turn inwards, find yourself truely, think back before you leap ahead. If you’re lucky like me, maybe you remember your childhood memories. And if you are really lucky, maybe you get to recreate them ... 

Happy Holidays, everyone! 

No More Birthday Blogs

Since 2008, on and off, and in the past more recent years, mostly on than off, I have been writing a birthday blog for people in my family. It’s a chance for me to look back at the kind of year they all have had, and to appreciate, in a more public way, all the blessings they bring to my life. 

It’s  a chance to sing their praises and hopefully outline the special-ness of each one of them. But it was mostly meant, selfishly, to give them a gift that is so hard to give on their exact birthdays, given that we are all so spread around the entire world on two continents. 

It’s not because I love them less. It’s not because I feel they are physically any closer to me than they ever were since 2008’ish when I started doing this, but starting this year, I am retiring my birthday blogs. I think the topic has run its course, for some reason. 

My sister said “Well, there is only so much you can say about one person, right?”. And it’s not even that. I will never run out of things to say about her klutz-iness, or my nephew’s obsession with money, or my other nephew’s love of kitties and puppies and all creatures, or my husband’s love of squirrels, for example ... But, at the very least for the sake of diversification, I felt like this would be the time to change course in what I give and to make future presents just as memorable ... Call it a “milestone kind of a year” change of course, if you will. 

This is by no means a hard line in the sand. Birthday blogs might make an appearance in the future. But it’s no longer a tradition that I want to follow here, anymore. 

I have always loved to give presents. I enjoy that infinitely more than I enjoy receiving them. And with that in mind, I am constantly revising how and what I give as presents. Starting with a couple of years ago, I have been putting much more thought into gifting experiences more than just things (thanks to a dear friend who reminded me of that).

Just like the birthday blog was not a material thing per se, I am giving away time together, or things that can be experienced with others, like concert tickets or trips ... I find that much more rewarding to myself as the giver, and I find that my family smiles more and enjoys them more, too. When looking back and remembering the memories, they are the gift that perpetually will keep on giving, every time we recount it. 

You might ask “why is a present needed at all?”. But the answer to that is easy: dad always told us to take the time and celebrate special moments in special ways. He took it a bit too far (he would throw a 5-course dinner party for 20+ people every time he bought something new like a car, a fridge or when he got a new job), but he always dressed up for the occasion, stopped, and celebrated a milestone - birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, saints’ feasts (or name days), you name it. I happen to share his view on this. A present, to me, is part of that celebration. 

I hope the new gift-giving will be just as welcome, surprising, and well-awaited as the former birthday blogs were ... 

With that in mind, I wish everyone in my family, happy birthdays ahead, for many, many healthy years to come! And may we all enjoy every special moment together, as much as we enjoy making arrangements to do so ...

Thank you for the memories, old, and the ones I am anxiously awaiting to make together in the years to come ...

To Kickoff the New Year

After an intense and mostly bad year in 2024 (about which I spoke enough in my previous entry - https://wander-world.blogspot.com/2024/12/no-you-are-not-welcome-2024.html), I am truly hoping for a much better year ahead! I feel like a sinner who is done doing their penance: nuff is enough, already! May the sunshine come back now. Looking forward to 2025 like you look forward to your first real meal after 40 days of fasting.  

There are, of course, no guarantees in life. Only hopes. 

Lots of folks I know are making new year’s resolutions or (in a more “modern” fashion), declaring their “word of the year” by which they will live, allegedly. I make no such promises to myself or the world, for the simple reason that I am scared of jinxing anything ... I try to let life at least think it can surprise me and it has not failed me yet. 

But one thing I do want to plan better for in the new year and that is I would like to plan for more writing. Last year, everything that happened, all the repeated punches in the gut, one after another, constantly, left me quite drained. This year, no matter what, even from the bottom of the barrel that some huge burden might bury me into, I am at least promising to make a better effort to write about it all. If for nothing else, for me and my memories alone. 

As I said many times before - there are great things to learn from travel and lots of character to build. Our latest trip to The Old Country was no exception.  I am rambling on some of the more memorable moments. 

Traveling on Christmas is not such a breeze anymore. I traveled on the day of Thanksgiving about 15 years back and there was virtually 10% (if that) of the passengers in the airport that you would normally see on a Thursday. Not so much this year on Christmas Day. The airports were packed (and this is a year when Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah fell on the same day), with people in tow with what seemed to be a kindergarten of kids and toddlers. Almost at every corner, you’d see kids outnumber the adults. 

We ran into a “new rule” (I feel a little like Bill Maher, for those who know what I am referring to) this year, that requires that you weigh your carry-on and your “personal item” together at check-in and they should not be more than a 12 kilos (26lbs) combined. This is not about weighing the checked luggage that you are sending under the plane, this is the items that you plan to take on the plane with you. If they exceed this weight, you have to check one of them in and send it under the plane. After 26 years of air travel, this was news to me. After checking into it more, we found out that this rule only applies to Air France and that every airline is different. Some airlines have a dimension requirement, but not a weight requirement, some of them have a different weight than 12 kilos, some of them weigh only the carry-on (which should not exceed 8 kilos like in the case of Austrian Airlines). Most of them don’t really enforce any of them. But Air France does. I guess Unions are strong establishments and France is known for them not joking around. 

Airports are nasty, nasty businesses, if you asked me, and I am speaking just like a regular person, and not as my usual germophobe self.  Google Translate translates the very expressive Romanian word of “spurcăciune” as “defilement” but this does not even begin to scratch the surface of what we really mean by it in Romanian. In Romanian, it means a mix of nastiness, dirt, despicability, thoughtlessness, and just pure grossness all wrapped into one and it defines the human condition of polluting everything it touches. My late English teacher used to say that people “go out into the world, say to have a picnic, and leave behind their spurcăciune just to let the world know they’ve been there”. This is what airports are: just layer upon layer of human spurcăciune times infinite! 

The amount of traffic they handle around the clock makes it impossible for any true cleaning to occur. How can anyone ever disinfect all the traces left by boots filled with pee from the bathrooms lying on the chairs? Or the coke spilled on seats, floors, counters, and tables? How can anyone truly undo all the stickiness, the nastiness in the bathrooms? We sat at this bar where all the beer taps were rusted through, visibly, with beer leaking from every one of the taps, even when they were not in use. There is no cleaning and disinfecting that. In Paris, the cleaning lady was using the same squeegee for the sink counters as for the floors. You’re welcome! 

I am always either patiently awaiting the kick-off of the next disease after every trip through an airport, or sending special prayers to The Heavens for protecting me from stomach bugs, respiratory bugs, and skin diseases ... I give myself about a week of quarantine after every trip before I declare that I have been spared. I build my immunity system during these trips, I swear it! 

The airplane announcements are stand-up comedy bits sometimes. And not just because they intend for them to be this way in some cases, but when a foreign person is trying to convey in English some strict rules, words and meanings get confused. And confusing. Again, on Air France, we hear things like: “You may never smoke, not even in the toilets. Refusal to comply will result in persecution (sic). Using the power plugs is prohibited during take off, landing, announcements or any time requested by the crew.” In other words: you’re screwed either way, so don’t even try. The last bit just about covers the entire experience, don’t you think?! 

I have done the trip back home for what feels like a million times. I know people who have immigrated to The States (or Canada) who never go back, or go back every 20 years or so. Not me. Not in my family. We have always been close and dad and the whole family made sure we stayed that way even after I stubbornly turned my back on them (physically) more than 26 years ago. I went to Romania three times last year. It was a hard year for us, so I had to be there for this and that. 

Every time, it is a bit of an old experience but I try to always look at it with new eyes, because just like there is no such thing as the same sunset, every experience is different and unique in its own right ... I miss my family when I am away. I miss the people who make sure my head stays the right size all the time. It’s not modern anymore to beat yourself up for things (if it ever were), but this is what being in my family is like: always trying to defend myself, always trying to justify, always trying to remove the guilt. I won’t say it’s welcome or pleasant, but it is what I am used to. 

I love everyone back home, and I am a true believer that blood is thicker than water; I would never turn anyone with the same blood as me away; everyone in my family (parents, sister, extended family) has each contributed very much to who I am today. Their love and their unique roles in my life are familiar and are “home” to me. So, at the threshold between years, it was a familiar place to be. A familiar and cozy place to put an end to a wretched year and open the door to new possibilities in the new one. 

I have not spent the winter holidays with my family since 1997. I was nervous I might not know how that’s done anymore. But what you have grown up into is not that easily forgotten. The enormous amounts of food, the insane cooking, cleaning, and the full house were all there like the old times I remember.

The many flavors of the Romanian Christmas (this is just the appetizer spread)

The TV entertainment for New Years' Eve has changed over the years, and I must say for the worse: I was used to a lot more comedy and nowadays it’s a lot more music that is not all that great (just like in the US). But the all-nighter parties on New Years are still there if you have the stamina for it. 

There is no New Year's Eve party without some sort of meat in aspic. This is my turkey "jell-o" which came out perfect, according to mom and my aunt

 

Every Romanian New Year's meal must have fish and "steak". We call "steak" everything that resembles beef steak in America but can be made from any meat - here pork, chicken and turkey "steak". We also must eat 12 grapes at midnight (not pictured here), for good luck. 

Every trip back is different. Some of them are for obligations and logistics alone. Some are for catching up with friends. Lately, they have been about doctors’ appointments and making sure mom and the house are in safe hands. This trip was about family. About togetherness and about holding each other up during the momentous event of changing the year mark from 2024 to 2025. We welcomed the last year of the first quarter of this century. Momentous indeed, more than usual, I would say. 

Romanian holidays put American ones to shame. If you gather all of the American holidays together, you would not come up with the amount of work and cooking you do for the Romanian Christmas and New Years alone. The grocery trips, the days you spent in the kitchen with your mom and aunt screaming recipes across the table while you happily ignore them as you are now grown and have learned a trick or two in your day will all be memorable. We have a 3-day Christmas (not one) and a 3-day New Years celebration. And then we have the Epiphany and St. John the Baptist’s feast, too, at the beginning of January ... When we wish people “Happy Holidays” we ain’t kiddin’. ‘Cause it’s not just one. 

My sister received the carollers for Christmas and made the Christmas tree as she came there sooner, we received the well-wishing singers for New Years and we took the tree down before we left. These simple tasks, ancient-old are small reminders that the world is still spinning, despite humanity’s best worst efforts to the contrary. 

Wrapped up in the muck and tragedy of every day that the past couple of years handed to us, we might have forgotten the ancient customs that defined who we are. This trip was a nice reminder that these customs are sewn into us like the flesh and blood that makes us - never to be removed. It was a familiarity that our now Westernized selves might have kept dormant for a while. Sure, we do celebrate “Romanian style” to some extent when we are in North America (the beauty of being an immigrant here, for now, is that you do bring with you who you are), but it is not the same as when you are in your home-town and everyone around you celebrates the same way. There, you are no longer a minority. Although the actions and specifics might be the same, the experience, what you feel with your heart, is totally different ... 

Food is food everywhere. Drinks are drinks. But the atmosphere of Romanian-ism can only be experienced in the country. A deeper meaning can only be felt with those close to your heart. 

My home-town, and I am guessing all the cities in Romania, dresses up its downtown and main promenade area for the holidays. There are holiday lights, holiday decor, a huge tree, amusement park rides set up smack dab in the middle of the town. We have this huge museum called The Palace of Culture and everything in town revolves around that. The special decor is set up all around The Palace. There are outdoor concerts, street vendors, fresh food cooked in every booth, it’s like holidays had spilled into the streets and it’s a huge block party of entertainment where the whole city is invited. We did not have all this growing up. This is new. An import from The West, no doubt. This year was the first year when I experienced all this. It was new to me and a new experience. 

I love visiting places I call “home” with the eyes of a world traveler - this way, everything looks new and you are surprised by it all ... 

We spent most of our time eating and catching up with family. We spent exactly 4 hours max doing things we wanted to do, like visiting the Holiday Village in Iasi (the downtown “done-up” area), riding the ad-hoc Ferris Wheel that the city throws up downtown, and going to a restaurant for a nice meal. The rest of the vacation, all 10 days of it, were either in an airport, or with family. 

Aerial view of the Iasi downtown Holiday Village

Christmas street food focuses on pork products: lots of sausages and cured, smoked meats, all cooked in lard

Huge vats of mulled wine in the Holiday Village

We came back exhausted, cold, and feeling older (by a year). The memories we made are all worth it. Another holiday season with our mom and other aging relatives, another holiday with all of us under one roof is in the books ... In some ways, this was all familiar, and in many others, it was all new. 

Sure, I wish I could spend 10 days in many other parts of the world that are on my bucket list and that I have no plans to visit yet but which are teasing my heart something awful. But this was good too, and necessary. Not sure if so much for us but for the people who are aging fast, who are part of who we are and who might not be here in one or two or three years. Paris, and Rome, and Antartica can wait, as they are not going anywhere. We hope. For now, we have Iasi 2024-2025 and we’re filled to the brim with its fullness. 

Happy New Year, everyone! I really mean it: may it be happier and more giving than any year you’ve all had! Make it a good one!

"Merry Christmas from the family!"