All posts by vica

Everyone’s perfect

April 23, 2014Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

“The perfect human being is uninteresting. … It is the imperfections of life that are lovable. … Perfection is a bore, it’s inhuman. … the imperfection, striving, living … that’s what’s lovable.” Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth (discovered in Creating Unforgettable Characters by Linda Seger).

I like this quote very much. But I admit that we all strive for some kind of perfectness. Or “good enough” as we sometimes put it in order not to be blamed being a perfectionist.

Perfect according Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is among other “having everything that is necessary; complete and without faults or weaknesses” or “the best of its kind”. In this Learner’s Dictionary, there are seven definitions of perfect. And my guess is that there are many more in various other dictionaries and thesauri.

I had the most wonderful Easter holidays this year. I can say they were perfect. But not because I liked everything or everyone that came my way all the time. Far from it. I had my share of upsets and happened to be angry at least once.

But what was wonderful is that I was more and more aware of what was happening around me and inside me, without judgment, and discovered novelty and the wonder of the current moment.

This is what is truly perfect: the novelty of a moment.

I realized that as soon as I am here in a given moment and discover the novelty of this particular moment, as soon as I say “Wow!” it appears perfect to me. And I suspect I am not alone in this.

To anyone who reads this: have a perfect day full of discoveries at the very place and in the very moment where you are!

Picture: when I saw these trees, close to where I live, being surrounded by flowers, I said “Wow!” and took this picture.

Every year on April the 12th

April 15, 2014Memories, Portraits, True Storyvica

I love languages. I think they are like various sides of a diamond, all letting very special light and glitter to shine through them. But I always wondered what my favorite was. My father was in love with French. My mother is devoted to our mother tongue, Romanian. My sister, my niece and I grew up with Romanian and Russian. Nowadays, I poke my nose in about thirteen languages, of which in five I can understand and be understood.

A few weeks ago, I finally admitted to myself: English is my favorite. My wish to write in it makes it pretty obvious. And I guess, one of the reasons for the love of it was my English teacher. Valentin Ignatievich Jeleapov was my all times favorite teacher. He was a good friend of my father and after my father died, he became a father figure to me.

He used to give me his salami sandwiches. He engaged me into the work on our school museum. I gave guided tours in this museum. It was my first school of speech. I spent a lot of afternoons at school after the lessons and remember fondly those days.

The teachers in Soviet schools didn’t have much possibility to improvise, because the school program and material were prescribed. The text books were not very exciting. Foreign languages were not an exception. Most of us thought we wouldn’t have a chance to use them.

Only after finishing school and after Perestroika years, I learned how much passion Valentin Ignatievich had for English. I started teaching English to adult beginners, and upon advice from my mother, I brought him all the material I gathered and received at the University and from English friends I was lucky to make in Moldova during my years of study.

But there was one special “English” lesson we had with Valentin Ignatievich, and which I will never forget. It happened every year on April 12. It was done in Russian. We were not asked to read our assignments during those 45 minutes, although we were always told to prepare diligently, also for April 12.

On that day, Valentin Ignatievich told us how he and his fellow students experienced the day when Yuri Gagarin went to space as the first human being. He told us how his professors called off all of the courses and seminars, and how hundreds of students were extremely quiet listening to the report on the radio of the Gagarin’s flight and his landing. He shared with us the emotions he and his friends were living through on that historic day.

I loved those English lessons on April 12. I asked my sister, who is eight years elder than me and who learned her English with Valentin Ignatievich, too. She reported of the same experience. My friends from other classes said the same. This was an unofficial tradition at our school. And it was way out of program and rules.

In the seven years of learning English with Valentin Ignatievich, two times a week, I had several occasions, on which an English lesson for me and my school friends fell on April 12. And I was always glad to experience it again and again.

Valentin Ignatievich told us the same story every time, but the way he told it to us was always new. New sparkle, new detail came every time. I will never forget those special lessons. Every year, on April 12, I remember them with a smile. That is why I write this post. And that is why I created a scene in the novel I write about my father, inspired by my teacher’s story.

I was also glad to learn and experience two other things, occasions, connected to April 12. My mother told me that my father, if he would ever have a son, wanted to name him Yuri, after Yuri Gagarin. And my PhD exam was on April 12, 1999. When I learned that my exam was put on this particular day, I knew that everything would be all right. I was still nervous. But the memory of my father, of my English teacher, and the fact that I defended it in English, made this day very special, festive and unforgettable.

Picture: my father at his PhD defense in 1971. One year before I was born.

A laundry picnic

April 7, 2014A mother's diary, Contemplations, Discoveriesvica

Several months ago, I have written in this blog that my son didn’t like tidying up.

This has changed. He doesn’t throw things on the floor anymore but puts them into boxes or onto the tables. I had to take one of his socks off the dining table today.

He also started to be appalled when we spill his toys on the floor in order to find one particular toy. Or he gasps and laughs afterwards.

This is the way Niklas tidied up last Saturday. He took an empty laundry basket, put it in the middle of our living room, which is also his playroom today, and piled various toys in it, so that the toy-tower was taller than him. Looking at his creation he said proudly: “Now I have tidied up!” I had to explain myself to him when I started to un-pile the tower and put the toys on racks and into boxes at the end of the day.

On the same day, I was folding up our washed and dried clothes as I recalled several occasions, on which I did this before. On some of them, I was in hurry and folded up the clean clothes and linen while standing in our master bedroom between the bed and the closet and trying to finish the task as fast as possible. I didn’t enjoy those. On other times and this time as well, I sat on my cover as one would sit on a picnic blanket and played memory while folding up the socks. I had fun. And I came up with a fun name for my new hobby. A laundry picnic.

The experiences on this day made me realize that we humans are not only complaining or seeing the things we usually enjoy sometimes as a burden, of what we often accuse ourselves in. I realized that we are definitely able to turn the activities, we might not have liked before, into a hobby.

When did you have your last laundry picnic?

Picture: Our window sill tidied up by Niklas.

Questions and answers

March 31, 2014Contemplations, Discoveries, Memories, Portraitsvica

I sometimes look through the collection of quotes I gathered in many notebooks and on scraps of paper. The following caught my eye today:

“The value of the question depends on the answer.”

I heard it at an IT conference in London, in June 2008. I don’t remember who said it, but I remember hurrying to write it down on a folded paper sheet of the hotel hosting the event.

I am often nervous to put a question. If questioning goes easily, that is, if the answering person gives me a feeling that I have put a good question, then I tend to “over-question” and bombard the others with questions. This is followed by feeling resistance of those who answer and my consequential withdrawing from putting questions. And then again from the beginning.

Contemplation about this quote made me conclude that persons, whom I valued most in the past and those I value today, made and make my questions meaningful by their answers. They made and make me feel that what I said and say matters.

My father was the most prominent in this array of my personal heroes. He was a true listener. And I loved going with questions to him. His answers were always extensive and given without hurry. But also to the point. He had an instinct how much answer was needed.

When I think of those I know and interact with today, my niece and my son are the first who come to my mind, who find my questions intriguing and make me feel good upon asking them. And I love the fact that both of them are much younger than me. I learn a lot from these two sweet people. They do laugh sometimes at what I say, but I notice again and again how they stop and contemplate upon the questions I put. My son has not lost yet the ability to find everything new and worth considering. And my niece, in her mid-twenties, has kept it. While observing, listening and learning from them, I am rediscovering my ability to do the same.

And here is a quote, I discovered in German and translated into English, so, it might not be identical with the original. It confirms that children and young people might be ones of the wisest among us. Because of their ability to make experiences and to wonder.

“Die Weisheit eines Menschen misst man nicht nach seinen Erfahrungen, sondern nach seiner Fähigkeit, Erhafungen zu machen“.

“Human wisdom is not measured by a person’s experiences, but by his ability to experience.” George Bernard Shaw.

Picture: My father (the first from the right) with his students at the University of Annaba, in Algeria (around 1980). Students loved him. My guess, also due to his answers and his ability to discover and to experience the brilliance of the others.

A letter to a long lost friend

March 25, 2014Books I read, Memories, True Storyvica

Dear Misha,

I met you almost thirty years ago. And it is almost thirty years since I last saw you. How long have we spent together? One week?

The evening before we parted I promised never to forget you.

That summer was special for me. My memories of many events during that summer vacation are very vivid. And every time I recall this time, when I for example talk to my Mother or my sister about then, I think about you.

I am finishing reading a deeply touching, a deeply human, both heart-breaking and heart-warming book: “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini. Maybe you read it? The main characters are boys who grew up in 1970s and 1980s in Afganistan. It is a novel. But it might have been your story. Although, I hope it wasn’t.

Did you know, that we were prepared for your arrival? It was summer 1985. I was twelve, not quite thirteen, years old then.

After my father died in 1983, I was diagnosed with anemia, and my worried mother and sister made everything to put me back on my feet. The trip to this sanatorium was expensive, as well as the black caviar my mother was buying specifically for me because it was known to promote production of the red blood cells. The caviar was like medicine for me at the time. Today, I like the taste of it. It is close to a miracle that my mother could arrange me going to this sanatorium, which was known as one of the best for children in Soviet Union.

And it was the best for me. It was good for my physical health. But it was also good for me in any possible sense. For the first time in my life I learned that I could be taken in any other way than as a crying softie. I was astonished to find out that the girls with whom I shared a room in the sanatorium thought of me as of a rebel, close to a “hooligan”. In the Soviet school times then, the word “hooligan” was secretly considered with admiration and awe. A “hooligan” was an ultimate rebel and leader in the never ending “children-adult” conflict. I was very much surprised and endlessly pleased to be seen as a rebel. Agreeable with the adults at the sanatorium. But a rebel nonetheless. At the end of the stay, after you have already left, I demonstrated my strength to myself. I stood up openly against harassment by some silly boys from our otriad and could look directly into the eyes of the one who thought he was allowed to do anything. Before this encounter, I thought what many of my schoolmates in Moldova thought of me. That I couldn’t stand up for myself. That I ran away, hid and cry. But this summer was different. In every sense of it. It was also a summer what I met a person for a very short time, but who would always be one of my dearest friends.

What were you told before you came to the sanatorium in Crimea that summer? Our group, the pioneer division, otriad, as it was called then, consisted of about twenty children before you and other children from Afghanistan came to join us for a part of our stay. I don’t remember our teacher’s name. But I remember her face. I remember her telling us that she lived in a small town nearby where she worked as a teacher during school time. During summer months she worked with children at sanatorium, and took the role of a class teacher, with exception that instead of lessons we had various medical, health strengthening procedures, sports and leisure activities. And I remember what she said in the evening before your arrival.

She said that there were twenty or thirty of children, originating from Afghanistan, coming to stay with us for a week. She said that most of you were orphans. That most of your childhood in Afganistan consisted of hiding away from bombs, of fear and hunger. That you were now brought up in an orphanage in Tadzhikistan. She asked us not to inquire you on your past, but just let you enjoy the summer and think, even if for a short while, that you had a happy childhood.

The group of children you came with was divided into smaller groups of eight to ten children and assigned to various otriads, which differed by the age of children in them. The teachers guessed that all of you were older than of guessed age, meaning older than us.

The following day we met you. We had the usual gathering in the hall, where we were all seated in a circle or rather rectangular around the walls of the hall. All of you were speaking very good Russian with a very pleasant, as I thought, accent. The softness of your accent sounded familiar reminding me of the accent I heard at home in Moldova. We were told that every one of you has chosen a Russian name, so that we, on the other side, wouldn’t struggle with names unfamiliar to us. Then, you and your friends introduced yourselves, first by telling your original name and then the one you have chosen in Russian.

We all listened with curiosity to names unknown to us and then tried to remember the names you have chosen. As the last from your group has presented himself, we all erupted with laughter. His real name was very long. I thought it contained more than ten words. And then he told us his name in Russian: “Vásea”.

You have chosen the name “Misha”. The name so important to me. The name of my father.

But there was something else that draw my attention to you. I thought I saw you before. I knew this was impossible. But I still had this feeling.

And then I had it. You looked so like my father on a very old picture taken many years before at an orphanage. Like him, you were one of the smallest in the group. Like him, with short shaven hair. With tanned skin darker than of the others around, and with the same serious look.

And like him, you grew up in an orphanage. I was so excited with this similarity and this “connection” that I hurried to share it with you. You seemed to be as excited as I was. You asked me about my father and what he has done in and with his life. I didn’t realize then, what this might have meant for you. Today I see that my father’s story might have given you hope. Hope that an orphan like you could have a bright future.

I remember us being inseparable during your stay at the sanatorium and how we went for sports and common activities together. Was it really only five or six days? With the vividness of the emotions and wonderful experience of our friendship, I have a feeling it was much longer. You were a brother I never had but always wished for.

In the evening before we parted, we watched the closing of Spartakiada, a socialistic alternative to the Olympics. I don’t remember exactly why, but there were only the two of us in the open hall of our otriad, where the TV-set was standing. I think, many went to the bonfire made in frames of a farewell party for you and your friends. Some went to watch the closing of Spartakiada with the elder children from the neighboring otriad. And there we were, sitting side by side and watching the show. I told you how I watched live, at an edge of a highway in Moldova, together with my father, a runner carrying the Olympic fire on its way from Greece to Moscow in summer of 1980. At some point we held each other and cried. We didn’t want to part. There and then we promised never to forget each other.

You left early next morning and I never saw you again.

I don’t know whether you went back to Afghanistan or grew up in the Soviet Union. Or where you might be now. I even don’t know your real name. But I dearly hope that you are happy. Maybe you have a family and children of your own. And if you do, then I am sure that like my father, you do everything to make their childhood as best as it could be, because you want to save them from the fate given to you.

My heart squeezed with pain when I read “The Kite Runner”. With pain and fear that such fate as described in the book could happen to anyone.

I have now a boy of my own. He is three years old. With dark hair, dark eyes, tanned skin, and furrowed eyebrows so similar to my father’s. So much reminding me of you. My heart of a mother wishes that he never endures pain of a war. The pain, which had hit you and my father so hard.

I am aware that you may never read this. And even if you do, you might not be able to recognize yourself in this story. But if you do, then here are two pictures. One of which I told you about so many years ago. The one with my father. Taken on June 10, 1953 in Moldova. And another is of our otriad in summer 1985 in Crimea. It was taken at a morning lineika, translated “ruler”, morning gatherings, where we lined up in pairs, listened to some standard socialistic music, call-outs and propaganda, and then were informed of the events planned for the day. I am sure that in this picture I am turning to check up on you, to see whether you noticed that we have been photographed.

Thank you for crossing my path, Misha! And thank you from all my heart for those memorable and unforgettable days!

With love and affection,

the sister you found during one summer in Crimea,

Vica

My father is the second from the left.

Vasea is the first from the left. You are the second. Another parallel. I am the fifth or sixth from the right, who looks back at you.