Anywhere on This Road

Because film is the art form closest to my heart, I chose to think at this project as to a very short film, composed of scenes of my life. And because writing about film is what I usually do, I wrote about it. I hope you will be able to see it as it was intended. The numbers in front of each paragraph represent my age when every scene took place. There is no specific order, they are just glimpses from my past trying to say something about who I am today.

3 Me sitting on the potty and looking at the television screen where Nicolae Ceausescu, the “beloved father of our nation”, was delivering his every day discourse. “You are a piece of shit” I suddenly say. I can still see my mother’s expression, wide-eyed with fear. “Roxana, how can you say something like this? Do not ever repeat these words in front of somebody else”. Even a little kid could smell the lie we were all living in, the parody of a life you were told is the happiest of all, but which was in fact a long series of humiliations. The censored book you were forbidden to read, the radio station nobody should know you are listening to (although everybody knew that everybody was listening to it), the endless and strenuous manifestations of joy and love for the party and his great leader, where you were feeling like a clown agitating a placard for hours, the delight produced by a bar of smuggled Polish soap, waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning to wait in line to buy a bread or a piece of meat, being denied to travel outside the country because you might get intoxicated by Western rottenness… all part of Ceausescu’s grandiose Golden Age. Everybody knew that he was a piece of shit, but everybody was silenced in fear.  

12 Me reading for the first time my paternal grandfather’s memories. A priest in love with philosophy and art, who wanted nothing but a peaceful corner to read his books and a church full of honest people. A man whose children were persecuted by communists only because he was a religious person. The grandfather I idealized for a very long time, regretting his early departure and missing the opportunity of a quiet chat with him. Me, hungrily devouring his thoughts and the moment when I found out what nobody had told me, that Tartar blood is running through my veins, concocting with Ukrainian and Romanian blood, and echoing the turbulent past of the land where I was born.

25 Me on the stony road of an isolated village in Maramures, Romania. Just one of the many travels, hitchhiking, carrying a backpack, walking for miles, then knocking at a door and asking “How are you? How is your life?” Being offered food, a pillow to rest my head on, and the stories… There is peaceful beauty in this place, wherever I turn my eyes I see the green of the hills, the smell of grass and wild flowers is making my happy… The houses are far apart one from another, some of them are deserted, the trees bore fruits which now are covering the ground, they are slowly decaying and there is nobody to pick them up… There are no fences, no signs of property… Next to a house a child is playing with a pig: “Good day to you, do you know where Toader Dunca lives?” “You follow the road and… do you see that hill on the distance?… behind that hill is where Nea Toader lives”. There is still a long way until there, but time and distances are different in this place… the city is far behind, and heaven is above…

6 Me in the ringing frost of a Romanian winter, dragging a big wooden sled through the snow banks formed on the road. Upset that nobody wants to come and slide on the small hill behind the houses, I stop and take out a small egg cup that I’m usually carrying in my pocket. I start to make snow eggs, dozens of them, and I carefully arrange them on the sled in a pyramid. I am so caught up in what I am doing that I don’t even notice that I’m freezing. “A glass of warm milk is what you need”, says my grandma who was searching for me for some time. Christmas is getting closer, we must take out the old ornaments from the wooden box that stays under the bed; the lights in the shape of small hand lamps need to be fixed, are we going to use the cotton balls again? On Christmas Eve I will go and sing carols at my neighbors’ windows. They will give me walnuts, apples, cookies, and maybe some money. I will watch Disney cartoons on TV, winter break is the only time of the year when the national television is allowing us to watch these for a couple of hours during weekends. And I will eat bananas and oranges; we can buy them only around Christmas and a week has already passed since we put them on a paper, on top of a cupboard, to get ripen.

38 Me at the baptism of Rose Anna, my youngest daughter. Two orthodox parents, two little girls in traditional Romanian costumes, baptized in the Catholic Church, friends  coming from different countries and religions… smiles on our faces, peace in our hearts, we are all thankful for having each other.

10 Me in my grandparents’ house wondering why the radio has stopped broadcasting the regular programs and plays classical music instead. Bitu, my grandfather, suddenly entering the room and turning on the TV. He was riding like mad his old bicycle, abandoning the shoe repair shop where he works during the day.  The first images of freedom, people yelling deliriously” We won! We won! People won! Ceausescu has left!” Conflicting news about terrorists shooting people on the streets, the army switching sides, Ceausescu and his wife being judged, then executed, mothers searching for their sons and daughters disappeared in the chaos of the fights… A revolution broadcasted live for several days, days when we didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, didn’t do anything, and only riveted our eyes on the TV screen like never before.

24 Me at one end of a table in an interview room, after passing all the required pretests at a radio station. At the other end, two famous local voices, sitting relaxed and making rakish gestures: “Ooooh, look at her… just look at her how pretty and innocent she is… And she wants to work here, with us!” Hysterical laughing. Feeling like the joke of the day and not understanding what has just happened, but knowing that I will fail the job interview. Why?

11 Me preparing to go to the seaside with my parents, after watching Kazan’s They shoot Horses, don’t they? Gulping with sadness, I feel like weeping. How can life be so cruel? My father rushes me to the train station, he is worried that we will not have enough time to get the luggage and ourselves in the train in those two minutes that we have while the train stops… We have a long journey ahead us, 10 hours, 8 or 9 people in a small compartment… you cannot sleep, it’s hot, you don’t feel much like talking… the train arrives late, maybe because my heart is so heavy, or maybe is just the regular delay of a train teeming with people anxious to spend their annual two weeks of vacation at the seaside.

28 Me in the middle of the room, besieged by enormous piles of books, waiting to be carefully sorted and arranged on shelves, shelves that doesn’t exist yet, and how do you make and install shelves anyway? I will figure it out, I will get rid of this mess, but I have to do it quickly, Thank God I am not all alone in this… Trading old books, this is my business… I love the books, I love to discover them in old attics and dirty basements, I love to save them from oblivion and find them a good owner… but I know almost nothing about how to run a business, I guess I will learn on the way… Every inch of my body hurts and I am struggling to move and create corridors through the books; the dust quietly bestows on their covers, the future seems bleak, my shoulders are not strong enough…

27 Me in a splendid autumn morning, walking in the bright sun on the alleys of Cetatuia Hill, stepping on leaves, and listening to their golden rustle. I have been walking on the streets for several days, refusing to speak, refusing to eat, numbed by sudden emptiness and estrangement. I have been left alone. Thinking about my parents, the lie I have kept them in for so many years, the burden on my soul, what was the purpose for all of this? It was useless, love cannot grow in shadow and everything disintegrated in a nightmare. The very moment when I knew I should stop asking myself why, and the sudden realization of freedom.  The weight that physically left my body. Knowing that I can go on with my life, and that everything is going to be alright now. By all means, it could have not been alright… but it was, it was just right.

7 Me on the Easter’s morning, with my new dress and my new shoes, swirling like crazy in my grandparents’ garden, among peonies and marguerites, under my mother’s apple tree which was planted when she was born. "Hristos a inviat / Christ has risen!" says a neighbor passing on the alley. She is wearing her best clothes and her face is alight with joy. "Adevarat ca a inviat / Truly has risen!" I answer, continuing to swirl. Earlier in the morning I was visiting the neighbors, collecting dyed eggs in a small basket. The houses were all smelling of fresh baked Easter bread and people were preparing to celebrate after fasting for six weeks. Like every year, my family is gathered around the table talking and eating the food that was taken to the church at sunrise for the priest to sprinkle with Holly water.  The crack of eggs shells that my grandma dyed using papery layers of red onions and leaves to imprint the patterns. The laughing: whose egg was the strongest one, who wins this year’s contest? The clang of small glasses filled with homemade plum brandy that my grandpa is so proud of: may we all have luck and a good health! Me… so happy in my new Easter clothes, untouched by any harm, dizzy by swirling, but not wanting to stop, in the warm sun of a Romanian spring in Bukovina….

32 Me holding Sara for the first time and seeing in the fragile creature struggling to breathe, the one I was expecting for so dearly, my whole future as a mother, the bond that will never break, my life which will  irreversibly change, my duties and worries, my joys and rewards… Me immersing for the first time in the loveliness of babbles and coos, in the melting warmth of this new love.

31 Me looking in my future husband’s eyes and discovering a world more beautiful than words could ever describe.

33 Me at the end of one of my first graduate seminars. I have a splitting headache and I am rushing home with my breasts full of milk to feed the baby, thinking that I will never, NEVER, be able to catch up with those people, to fully understand what they are saying, to phrase my ideas in the same manner, to laugh at their jokes… I feel like hiding in the darkest corner of the earth, but I will not do that… I will go home and let my man hold me, I will take care of the baby and everything else, I will fight the readings, and next day I will be back in the classroom with a shy smile on my face, straining my eyes while making efforts to follow the discussions.

7 Me watching a Russian version of Arabian Nights in an overcrowded cinema theater, with my father holding me on his knees and my mother scared that the rats are hovering around our feet. The whispers, the stale atmosphere, and the sad look of the decrepit walls. We are coming to cinema twice, maybe three times a week. Films are local events and people are cramming in the small theater, with shameless hunger and unrestrained joy. At a time when the only television channel’s programs are almost entirely reduced to propaganda, coming to the movies is like a breath of fresh air, despite the heavy smell which pervades the theater. 

 

37 Me weaving martisoare with my older daughter for her classmates. A small bracelet symbolizing the coming of spring, this is what a martisor is. A red thread for health and love, a white one for purity and peace, a little bead for beauty – together they are meant to bring good luck.  The story goes that on the first day of March beautiful Spring was walking in the wood when she noticed a small snowdrop popping up from snow. The envious Winter called the winds and a hard frost, and the snowdrop froze. Spring tried to warm it up and while doing so she hurt her finger in a thorn bush. A hot drop of blood fell on the snowdrop and brought it back to life. It is customary that when you see the first tree in bloom or a stork to hang the bracelet on a branch. That’s why in some regions of Romania you can see in Spring trees weirdly dressed in red and white, a cheerful gathering celebrating the renewal of life.

31 Me and the moment I first saw the lights of Chicago. A sparkling net covering an unknown territory. My first travel by plane, the longest distance I have ever covered. The thrill, the nervousness, the realization that the step was taken and there is no coming back.

38 Me in the car, returning from a trip to New Mexico. My husband drives the car in the pouring rain, I am holding Rosie’s little face in my left palm, protecting her sleep. Thinking about my friends, my parents, my sweet grandfather who died without giving me the chance to say good bye… Dreaming about the moment I will be able to go and sit at his grave, to tell him what I have been doing and that I am thinking about him again and again… That I am keeping the photograph he gave me, but I don’t have to look at it to remember his kindness and the gentle tears that were glimmering in his eyes every time sadness was creeping in our hearts. Thinking about the road that lays ahead. I love the road… it suits me and keeps me alive… with all his peaks and troughs, is mine, and I am infinitely grateful that I can share it with those sitting beside me. Anywhere on this road… I belong.