“ Pe Vremea Mea…” - “Back in My Day…”

 

Usually, when uttering these words, my grandma – Buni, had that faraway look in her eyes, and her voice would tremble a bit. On the few occasions she had time to sit and take a breather from her never-ending chores, she used to tell us stories about her life. Sometimes, she used the same words to scold us when we misbehaved. “Back in my day, we ate everything our mother put in front of us” or “Back in my day, kids weren’t such cheeky troublemakers. We used to respect our elders”.

But, of course, we liked her stories best. They were usually about her childhood or her years as a young wife and about the days before the Second World War. She talked about the happy times, although we all knew about the bad ones, too. The times when the communists took everything from them, throwing Buni in jail and sending my grandfather to work on the Canal for being capitalists, the “enemies of the socialist state”.

(My grandfather was the kindest, most caring person. He had never hurt anybody in his life.)

The regime wanted to take their children – my mother and her brother –  away from them and put them in an orphanage. My great-aunt, Buni’s sister, took them in and provided for them by reading cards, working as a sort of fortune teller.

But Buni didn’t like to talk about those times. I am sure she remembered them, but I think it was too painful for her to revisit. Going from a happy life to having almost nothing left is not a pleasant thing to contemplate. She didn’t want to talk about my grandfather’s illness either, after he was finally allowed to return home from the Canal to die there, I suppose. She loved him very much and never remarried.

Is it true that we generally remember only the good times in our lives? That we tend to paint a sheen of nostalgia over our past experiences?

Personally, I don’t think so. I remember everything. Good and bad alike.

You won’t hear me saying, for example, that communism was better than other regimes.

I remember the dark period that marked my life, from childhood to young adulthood, so well. I remember the long queues for milk at 5 o’clock in the morning, standing in the freezing cold, the power outages, the lack of heating in our homes, the two hours of propaganda programs on the TV.

Of course, being young during that period meant I had some nice memories, too. Especially the times spent with my friends.

I was a stubborn, obstinate adolescent and I was determined not to let a dictatorial regime strip my life of happiness. So I grabbed it whenever I could.

Because of all this and because Buni’s words still echo in my head, I’ve decided to write about that period, about that dark age in Romania’s history. I don’t want to forget and I want others, those that were born after 1989 or those who were too young to remember, to get a glimpse into what communism did to us.

If you have stories of your own that you would like to tell , feel free to share them with me. We’ll remember together.

(The photo of this post was taken in 1942, during Christmas. In the center of it is my grandmother, surrounded by family - my grandfather, her sister and grandfather's brother. Good times, hapy times, as you can see from my grandmother's smile)

Peace and Quiet, While it Lasts

 

 

When I woke up this morning, I had a strange sensation that something was not quite right…

But what?

Oh, it was the SILENCE.

No cars zooming under my window, no buses, no garbage trucks banging, no shouting.

Blessed, pure, wonderful SILENCE.

And then I remembered. It’s Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. The day when the Jewish people fast for 25 hours in order to ask God for forgiveness for their sins.

I love the silence of Yom Kippur. Well, at least until all the kids get outside with their bikes, rollerblades, skateboards, anything with wheels, really. But until they come out onto the streets in droves, talking loudly and shouting, I have a couple of hours of clean, unadulterated silence.

I get to drink my coffee without the background chorus of a big, busy city.

But even though I love the peace and quiet of this holy day, I have some not-so-nice memories of it from over the years.

Back when we didn’t have a hospital in our city, Maya had a strange proclivity for getting sick during religious holidays, especially Yom Kippur.

You can read about it in my post from that day.

https://aloneinholyland.blogspot.com/2011/10/rather-adventurous-yom-kippur-atonement.html

Thankfully, she was OK in the end. Just a bad case of rotavirus combined with whooping cough.

Yes, seriously.

We now have a brand-new hospital here in Ashdod.

Although, if I think about it logically, how exactly are we supposed to get there on Yom Kippur, when there is no public transportation and no cars are allowed on the streets?

This is Israel. Full of contradictions.

 

 

Somewhere Between Bean Dip and Plum Butter I Found My Way Home

 

No matter what I am doing these days, whenever I am in the kitchen cooking or cleaning, my memories come rushing in and I find myself in a different kitchen, the one of my childhood back in Romania.

A few days ago while preparing fasole frecata (white bean dip), the image of buni – my grandmother appeared very clearly in my mind. Sitting at our old, battered kitchen table, waging a war against the beans, as usual. We didn’t have any modern or fancy kitchen utensils so the beans had to be mashed with a wooden spoon or better yet, with a fork. I am sure we didn’t have a potato masher. In our house mashed potatoes were prepared with a fork, too.

So, if you wanted a smooth dip you had to confront de beans with strength and determination. It was also a good way to vent your frustration, to work on your anger issues.

But no matter the way, the result was always the same: the smooth, nutty dip that we ate with caramelized onions spread on enormous slices of dark bread.

Today I bought plums, we have here this type – purple and huge but pretty dry inside, I buy them to make plum jam, a feeble imitation of the jam from home. But the plum jam has nothing on the champion of all fruit preserves: magiun de prune (plum butter).

I don’t remember if buni used to make us magiun. I think it was a too slow and too long process even for her and she didn’t have the time or the energy. We didn’t really care about it, because she made us jams and compote from all the fruits she bought at the farmer’s market. During long late-summer days, our kitchen was full of sweet aromas and glass jars that waited to be filled with buni’s concoctions.

Magiun de prune could be bought at the grocery store in autumn, when they used to put a big wooden crate on the counter and the saleswoman would sell us slices of magiun that she cut with a straight, thin wire. We watched her work, our mouths filled with saliva, making the wait seem longer and the magiun even sweeter. Because sweet it was. With a hint of tartness, it was dark purple, almost black and it painted our teeth and we laughed with out mouths open and the people in the grocery store would hush and tut us with low voices and judging looks. Not that we have a care in the world.

Why all these memories now, I keep asking myself? Am I getting old and gaga? Or maybe it is my mind’s way to protect itself and me from the present reality?

Not all my memories are happy. But, fortunately, the bad ones are hiding somewhere deep in my memory and I don’t have any intention to go looking for them.

For now I am perfectly content to dwell on the days spent with buni in the kitchen or on the summer afternoons eating watermelon with my siblings, challenging each other who spits the seeds the farthest.

The kitchen is quiet again, the plum jam is ready. I spread it on the bread, taste it and somewhere, for a little while, buni is still sitting at the table across me. And she says, with half a smile: “Eat up…and don’t talk with your mouth full”.

 Living in the Past

As the title says, I find myself lately musing about the past. 

It all started when I had a discussion with my husband about the summer camps of our childhood in communist Romania. I remembered so clearly and vividly my first summer camp in Navodari, at the Black Sea, as if it was yesterday...And then, the memories just kept coming...and coming. Am I really getting old? As my husband says, I can't remember what I did yesterday, but I remember clearly what I did on the 1st of September 1972...well, I exaggerate, but you get the gist of it. The truth is, I am glad I am (still ) able to remember so many things. 

The memories of living in communist Romania are the most powerful, now. Maybe because they were triggered by the God awful summer camp in Navodari. I searched the net about that period and I was surprised to find very little information. As if that period didn't really exist, or that it had to be erased from the collective memory. I looked, for example, for my former high school, the infamous Industrial Nr. 6 and I didn't find anything. Not even a picture. I mean, why do we want to forget about those times? I think that if we will forget them we will definitely repeat the mistakes we made then. 

What I found speaks more about nostalgic times like we all lived happily in a commune where, yes, it was difficult to live but all we got by...And it is not true at all. The communist years in Romania were bad, bad times. And with the rise of Ceausescu, we got it even worse. No food, no liberty, no heating, long hours without electricity, the Securitate watching us all the time...You tell me, what was good about that. Maybe the fact we were young and detached from our parents' daily struggles. 

One of my friends said "We had dreams back then". True, I agree. We had. But we were also naive and ignorant of the true reality. I read somewhere that we were living in a jar with a lid on top. We knew only what we were told. And when all the newspapers and tv programs were censored, we weren't told much. Ignorance is bliss, right? Just it wasn't like that. We wouldn't have listened to Radio Europa Liber - Free Europe if we were Ok with the situation.

Just my thoughts, really.

And I'm off to the past. I have some memories to sort through.

Things I Miss Most

Image by dreambird via Flickr

Together with old age comes forgetfulness, people say. But I find myself invaded with memories - from my childhood and adolescence. I think we are more attentive to our surroundings when we are younger, we relate differently to places and people. I am glad I have so many precious memories and I'll do my best to imortalize them somehow. For now, I am writing "list poems" with all the things I had in life but I lost. It can be painful to remeber, but it is a meagre price to pay if you don't want to forget...

Things I miss most - I

I miss the passage between seasons,
spring creeping under winter's snow
snowdrops and crocuses
daffodils,
lily of the valley and frangrant lilac
then
the warm air
mellowing forward summer
walking into the woods
earthen, divine smells
moss and fresh leaves
a million insects buzzing
drunk on the perfumed grass
the icy water of the brook bubling
the changing colors of autumn
orange and red and soft brown
fading into the grey sky of winter
fat clouds full of snowflakes
falling on faces
frozen tears melting

But most of all
I miss the feeling of home
of familiar things
of known places

the peal of church bells
rippling the air
Easter and Christmas
full of laughter
families around dinner tables
ladden with food and crokery
that was handed down from mother to daughter

so many memories kept in tight sealed boxes
invading and painful
beloved things I miss most.