The First Rain

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Yes, we had it! The first rain of the autumn was here...Well now, don't expect a down pour, a deluge. It was a short rain, nothing spectacular, but enough to leave some puddles for the kids to jump in, and definitely enough to make it one of the main events of the week. Because only in Israel, where the drought left us parched and dry, could the first rain be making headlines...
Of course all the signs of the rain are gone by now (mid-morning) but at seven o'clock this morning I closed my eyes and inhaled the fresh air, and for a few moments, I was back home, in Romania...
It was a good start for the week and I hope this feeling of freshness will stay with me for a while...

About Guardian Angels

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As you all know, my sister is visiting us...I haven't seen her for two years (when I saw her for something like four hours) and we haven't talked face to face since...I don't remember. So know as we are finally together we stay every night until late and we talk about what happened in our lives all this years, and we remember our childhood and laugh at memories until we cry.

During this late night discussions I observed that a pattern emerged: whenever I had some problem in my life somebody showed up and helped me in some way. I am not talking here about major problems and life saving interventions or miracles. I am talking about the daily problems that we have in our lives. And I'll give you an example: some time ago, back in Romania, my son and I were returning home from a few weeks holiday at the seaside. We traveled by train, as from our home town - Cluj, until the seaside is a long way. We reaced Cluj at 5 o'clock in the morning and we had to take a cab as we lived far away from the train station and we were laden with luggade (Darie, my son, was 8 years old back then) but I didn't have enough money for the trip. So, when a cab stopped to take us I told him that I had only a certain amount of money and I gave him our adress but I told him to stop when we reached the amount of money that I had, and that we'd walked from there. I remember that the cab driver looked at me and said:"No problems, lady, I'll take you and your kid home and you'll pay me whatever you have".

This kind of events I am talking about...

I always say that I had a lot of guardian angels looking after me. I remember a lot of events that at first sight , seem unimportant, but they are of great importance in the bigger picture.

When we were kids we had, on the wall in our room (I slept with my brothers and sister in the same room until I got married) a picture with a guardian angel that was protecting two children as they were crossing over a bridge, and underneath it, a tempestuous river... I used to say a prayer before going to sleep that was adressed directly to the angel, and it sounded something like this (I am translating it from Romanian):

"My angel, my little angel

That God gave to me

Be always at my side and teach me how to do good

I am small, make me tall

I am weak, make me strong

Be always by my side and protect me from evil."

Sometimes we just don't pay attention to the little things that make out our lives and we take a lot for granted. Recently I discovered that I have a lot to be grateful for and I promise not to forget my guardian angels and at least to remember them in my prayers.

Frustrated, Furious and Humiliated

I am so furious I can barely type, my body is shaking and I cannot control my fingers...Do you remember I told you my sister is coming from Romania, to visit us? Well, an hour ago my husband called me from the airport to tell me my sister is been retained at the airport, together with other fellow passengers from the same flight from Romania and that they are questioned by the Interior Ministry. Not long ago, an entry to Israel was possible only if you had a visa (I am talking about Romanian citizens, of course). My mother came here three years ago from Germany and nodoby asked her anything when she got off the plane. My mother was married to a German citizen and she has German citizenship. Clever lady!

It is already 10.00 o'clock in the evening, the plane from Bucharest landed at 8.15 and I still don't know anything about my sister and her son.

Half an hour ago somebody from the Interior Ministry called me to ask me if I am waiting for somebody...duh...I said yes and she started asking me all kind of "tricky" questions in order to find out if the lady sitting near her in an office at the Ben Gurion airport is my sister. After a few questions she said that I am responsible for my sister to return to Romania on the date that it is written on her plane ticket, otherwise there will be consequences. I said of course my sister will return to Romania (who wants to stay in a coutry that welcomes this way its visitor?) and I am prepared to take full responsibility for her. She couldn't help herself and added: "You also, are not of Israeli origin, you married here..." I pretended I didn't understand the hidden meaning of the words and I said: "Yes, I was born in Romania if this is what you're asking...I 've lived here for 10 years and I am an English teacher"...I am not going to linger on this subject because I was humiliated enough in the ten years since I came here, with an open heart...I tried to forget everything and move on and I thought I did that, but this stupid incident reopened old wounds.
And all this because she comes from Romania...Tell me please, how many America, French, English citizens are retained at the Ben Gurion airport and interogated and humiliated? And I mean like regular guys, not terrorists or relatives of Osama bin Laden or serial killers. Only my sister, a piano teacher from Romania that came to visit her sister. Some mata Hari in disguise or... I am really pissed of, so pissed of that I am about to write all about my odyssey to be accpeted here, in Israel.

Update
They let her enter Israel. I talked to her on the phone...She said she never felt so humiliated in her entire life. You know, my sister, teaches piano at the Music Academy in Timisoara, studies for her Ph.D. came to visit her sister in Israel. Stupid me!

O.K. I need to calm down...she'll be here any minute now and I want her to forget the ugly incident and to have fun...After she'll return home, to Romania, I'll tell you a story...

My Special Place (for Katherine)

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Before I start writing, I just want to say that this post is for Katherine Jenkins, for her insightful and inspiring blog"Lessons From The Monk I Married" http://lessonsfromthemonkimarried.blogspot.com/ . After her last post and the comment she left me, she made me think: if I would get out of here, where would I go?

Well, when I meditate, do respiration/relaxation exercises or when I simply want to get away, I always go to my special place. It is not an imaginary place. It exists in this reality and it is situated in Romania, in the Apuseni Mountains. A place called, in Romanian, "Alunul"(The Hazelnut Tree). A tiny village in the middle of the forest near a huge artificial lake. The place is secluded, you can reach it by boat across the lake or through complicated mountaind roads. But once you've reached it, you'll be spellbound for ever, and you'll have to return...Because you found heaven on earth.

The nature is almost virgin there, there are only a few houses, some of them from immemorial times, and its inhabitants live like they used to live 100 years ago, without electricity or running water, sleeping in winter in the stables, for the fear that the bears will take away their livestock.

There, at the forest's edge runs a creek, its water very cold and crystal clear. Huge trees shadow the spring and the sun peeks through the leaves, making golden reflections on the pebbles in the river bed. In a sense, it is quiet. Not traffic, no people talking loudly, no signs of civilization. You are sorrounded by the sound of nature: the bubbling creek, the wind in the tall grass dotted with wild , whispering flowers, millions of insects - an amazing chorus, birds chirping, the ram's bell keeping the cadence.It is so paceful there.

I used to sit on an improvised bridge - a solid tree branch, with my feet dangling just above the surface of the water, drinking in the peace that surrounded me. The sun was gentle on my skin, the wind carresed my face and hair and my heart was beating in the perfect rythm of the nature.

I am sure things have changed there, too. Ten years have been passed since my last visit there and people started showing an interest in the zone, bulding holiday homes; thirsty, as I was, for the peace and quiet of the place.

Although I long for it, I am not sure I want to go there now, to see that, maybe the magic place changed, becoming just another village in Romania... In nature, where the hand of the man touches, it desecrates...And not only nature...I remember how dissapointed I was after my visit to Cluj - Romania, two years ago, after an absence of almost 8 years. The city I knew and I loved changed and was changing before my eyes and I wasn't able to reconnect with it only with great effort.

So I think maybe it is better for me to keep it this way. The image of Alunul, frozen in time, in my soul.

Katherine, when you asked my where would I rather be I automatically thought about Alunul. But I am really afraid to confront a changed present. I prefer to dwell in the past. So what now?

Books and ... Chain Letters

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I have to start this post my writing about something that really bothers me. From time to time, I receive in my e-mail box all kind of letters, you know, chain letters...the type:"If you don't send this letter to x people, something awful will happen to you and your family, but if you'll send it, you'll win the lottery".
I usually don't re-send them, because I don't want to annoy my friends, and I hope that nothing bad will happen to me and my family because I didn't re-send them.
Guys, friends and family who wish me well, please don't send me anymore chain-letters, please! I don't want anything bad to happen, but I'll do the un-doable and break the chain and simply delete them...

O.K. now that I'm done with it...I got so annyoed I had to write about this stupid thing. Sorry. But sometimes it is good to just spit it out, whatever bothers you...
Today I'm going only to babble a while on my favourite subject: books. I found a writer that I love, and I got sucked up in this Universe. His name is Sergei Lukyanenko, he's a Russian writer, and after seeing two movies based on his books, I hurried and got his books and started reading... First of all, I have to say I love Russian movies. I grew up with them, in the communist Romania, when we didn't see much on the TV or at the cinema. We usually had Russian, Chinese and Indian movies. Some South American also, and of course, Romanian movies. They weren't that bad, you know. I love Russian writers also, I learned about them in school and "Crime and Punishment" was one of the books that I read when I was a teenager and I remember discussing about it for hours with my best friend from high school, a girl named Marieta. So I felt a sort of nostalgia when I saw the movies, even though they were not even close to the movies of my childhood (for one, I think vampires would've been a taboo subject in the communist culture). What can I say. The books are even better than the movies, Lukyanenko writes damn well and I felt a strange comnnection with this writer, whose hero, Anton, is nothing of the Superman type of hero we are all used to.
I'll keep reading ( I have four books to read, it is a tetralogy) and I'll keep you informed...
And before I return to Anton, just a few links with really nice articles:

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• Breaking the chain letter (svmoms.com)
• The wink that changed the world. (slate.com)
• How far do you live from writing? (sararyan.com)

It is not me....

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Before coming to live in Israel, I was pretty content with my life in Romania. I had the chance to do what I always wanted to - I was a journalist, I had friends. I know, sometimes it was difficult too, and the only reason I left my homeland was LOVE. I fell in love with the guy that I call now my husband, so I left everything, I packed my bags and my son and ...Israel, here I come...
I don't regret the fact that I married him. He is a good husband (well, most of the time), he is an excellent father for our daughter.
I tried hard to fit in. I went to a teacher's college and studied to become a teacher. I went to the ulpan (Hebrew-learning school for the new-comers). I tried to make frieds, I smiled a lot, I started working as an English teacher, I suffered like crazy, I did yoga, meditation, aerobics, anything to help me cope. It didn't work. I got pregnant and had Maya (actually, the only good thing that came out of this) , left teaching and finally got to antidepressants. That is what this whole process got me.
Well, I managed to kick the habit and I'm now clean of Cipralex, and I know I am supposed to learn my lesson, but I just haven't gotten it by now.
This woman that is now walking on the face of the Earth is not me, Ramona Lazar, she's a fraud. I write in English, but it is not my native language, I speak in Hebrew but it is not my mother tongue, I read in English...but my dreams are still in Romanian. The lullabies that I sing to my daughter are in Romanian and I say to her "Te iubesc, comoara mea" - "I love you, my precious" , because only this way the words have the right meaning for me.
In Romanian I am funny, and witty with a bubbling personality and it is easy to me to connect. In Hebrew...well, somethimes I now that people think I am stupid because it takes me longer to answer a question. People ussualy usually think I am Russian, but after they realize I don't understand the language...well, they assume I am slightly retarded.
I know that if you'd asked Romanians, they would happily swap places and lives with me ( the moaning bitch), but this is just me. I long for my Romanian-ness in a way I didn't think possible. It is difficult for me to explain exactly how it feels, living in two languages and having inside me, inside myself another one, that eats me from inside. Sometimes, I feel I have to write in Romanian, or read some books, just to feel the words coming out or getting in, healing me.
In a sense, it fells like Eva Hoffman's "Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language" , but at a different age, when the process of losing one's linguistic identity is even painful. She says in her book: "Linguistic dispossession is close to the dispossession of one's self". And she is damn right!

I have to finish now. It is late in this part of the world and tomorrow we're going to Tel Aviv and I am going to buy me some good books to read...

Night night whoever you are...

Where is My Shanti?

Maya always wakes me up in the morning by asking me what's the time, and then where's her daddy. But before that, at about 5.00 in the morning my son's alarm clock goes off, then the busses start their day, then the cars and finally the workers from the building site across the road...

I grew up in a small town in Romania, and on our street there hardly was any traffic, at all. Then, when I moved to Cluj, in the beginning I stayed in all kinds of crazy places, blocks of flats with crazy people that kept shouting at night, drinking to much and beating their wives, or having parties. When I finally bought an apartment, I thought it was in a pretty normal area, where normal people leave...How wrong I was! Above me, I had a couple that trew huge parties almost every week-end, and on my floor two apartments with party lovers. Once we had to call the police because they were making such a racket we thought the building was going to collapse...O.K, then I came here in Israel, and in the beginning we lived in an apartment in a small building and of course, above us was living a guy thet kept shuffling his furniture at night, making a terrible noise. Near him, we had a drug dealer and sometimes junkies came to beg him for a fix, shouting his name...He went to gail at some point. Now, we live in a decent neighborhood, nice neighbors (well, with the occeasional party, what do you want?) BUT, our bedroom is facing the busy and NOISY road, I cannot open the windows because of the traffic, and we have a building site where the workers start shouting at 7.00 o'clock in the morning...

I really need some peace and quiet here!

And we cannot move again. That's it. I want my shanti. I cannot bear this noise anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!