Black and White

 We make mobiles for babies, and use strong colors, and contrasts, including black and white. My first memories are like that, in strong contrast with the surroundings. I remember the day when my brother was brought home from the maternity hospital where he was born. I only remember him, swaddled and red in his cheeks from crying and loud, and ready to be loved and cared for. I watched him and his memory stays with me, since i was three.

 I remember being raised by two sisters, called by my childhood friend the good grandmother and the bad grandmother. They were both good to me, one was open to the world, one was focussed solely on protecting the family. 

I remember my father was always leaving for work before i would wake up, usually at 7. I think he was leaving at 6 and riding his bike for about 1 hour to go to work, from the center of the town to ITS edge, some 15 KM away. I could see my mother for about 30 minuted before she would have to leave, then finish breakfast with my "grandmothers" who always had tea or coffee BUTTER and toast.  Tea meant grandmother had a tummy problem. French talk meant there were family problems discusses , which we children were not supposed to understand.  

The children were three , my cousin, by brother and me. We had fun in our small universe, toys to plAY with, boOks to read, conflicts to solve, and boundaries to test.  ANd so we did, building memories, bonds, and a foundation for love, across time and distances. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gone

Today we have put a big heart  In a degradable box We have buried the box Under layers of clay   Knowing that dreams Cannot be buried for long And that guardians protect Their loved ones Long after their gone Perhaps as long  As memory holds
Read more

stories of ice and wind

I had learned the secret of beautiful women as a child, from a grown up man and he shared it with me in return  for me  sharing a poem He said that beautiful women forget they do not bear past wounds on their chest, they move forwards past storms And they emerge clean and tall. He too shared his thought  in a poem, that i have mostly forgotten although i have pursued that kind of beauty but rather the richness of memories in all colors and flavors. sometimes memory burdens with the depths of its truths of unforgivable but forgettable acts justified or not by the quality of possible futures sometimes you crave that kind of bare chested beauty the cleaner mind, the youthful body  untouched, unmarked by scars and the weight of predictions then you bring it out when it helps you to make the decision to break with the past and if you listen there is an almost audible sound of a heart breaking. mine sounded like ice it was cracking for days and when the piece tha...
Read more

Silver

  Silver is the color of resistance, at least for me. I was baptized in a silver and copper cauldron in the house where i was born. A 150 year old house standing strong, the house where my grandmother and her sister grew up for the most part. The house their grandfather had bought from his father, who could not figure out how to divide a 3 room house to his 9 children. The house that their grandfather had expanded to 6 rooms, and where 6 families used to live during a certain period of communist times. They were all sharing one bathroom, which apparently what the communist regimen demanded from the rich bourgeois family that owned 6 rooms - to share their riches that is. The house that we were now sharing, two families with kids, plus my grandmother and her sister. We were all there and not in church, maybe because Bucharest was too cold in winter, or more likely because at least one of the family members could not be seen in church, or would loose a job that involved a position wi...
Read more