RIP forever with the angels...

Today a student in our school was killed. She was run over by a garbage truck that was was going backwards...She wasn't my student, but I knew her sweet face, I've often met her on the school stairs, she was always struggling to climb...she had a disability at one leg and she had had several surgical operations on it...I would always admire her for the determination she had in regards of her disability...She was a 7 grader and she looked so sweet...This tragedy has just left me speechless. These kind of things should never happen...I don't know what Turkish people say in such circumstances (she was of Turkish descent and a Muslim)...I'll just say rest in peace, sweet child, fly with the angels...

My necessity room

This is me back in 1994. It feels like it was taken ages ago, worlds ago and so many mirrors ago...which have kept intact through the years but have been blackwashed somehow and stored in an attic where I can't seem to be able to reach anymore...Sometimes reflecting flashes show me the way to that attic where all my mirrors found refuge. I never look for that attic even though I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could...because you see that attic is some sort of a Necessity Room, like the one at Hogwards (pour les connoisseurs), all you have to do is really wish to be there and bang! You're there!:)

Lately I have been reminded of things I did and said in the past and even though they're all ME it still feels like they all belong to someone else whom I admire but who's seemingly lost forever...somehwere while working, while trying to become conventional, shallow, boring, polite, a face in the crowd, while trying to fit in, while worrying about money, my job, while shopping, buying mobile phones, losing friends, making friends, loving, getting my heart broken into a million pieces, while moving on and walking on with no apparent time for old or new mirrors for that matter...well, during this so natural and commonest process I've lost my way to that attic...It's definitely time to find it. I've had enough of this mirrorless me.

The silent caller

Well yes, dear readers, I've got a silent caller and I've finally decided to take the most adventurous voyage  and explore my two mobile phones options in search of a rejection method for calls generated by unknown numbers...And that's not easy for a non-technical person such as myself...

I can't really remember when these phone calls started, maybe last fall...Anyway, I answer when anyone calls me, the only reason I don't pick up is when I can't hear it ring or when obviously I can't pick up because I'm in the middle of a class and the phone is set on silent mode. I always turn my phones off during the night, bad past experience taught me that too...So I answer the phone, especially because an unknown number could mean a payphone or even a call from abroad...Sometimes I don't even take the time to check who's calling on the phone screen...

So I can't remember when the calls started because they didn't really bother me. They were coming once a month, maybe sometimes every two weeks...First I thought they might be that type of silent phone calls automatically generated by some companies that don't have enough personnel to deal with all the calls...That's because there was no noise in the background, no anything whatsoever...Yesterday I got one of those calls the minute I got to the countryside where I spent most of the day. I had just gotten out of my car and entered my aunt's yard when the phone rang....I felt annoyed because my phone does not ring very often, especially during school breaks, the people I usually talk to are just a few...So I was annoyed, thinking "I surely hope it's not work related!" Then I saw the number was a private one and thought "Come on, maybe this time you'll have the guts to speak!"...I said hello twice or three times, no one spoke as usually...My aunt's dog started barking though, he must have felt there was a stranger on the phone!;)

So  getting that phone call didn't bother me. Instead I was thinking...whoever that is, I trust one of these days they'll come out clear and state their name...or at least use articulated sounds put together in words like "Hello"...I know, what planet do I come from? I wouldn't know, I can't remember...

Today I was pissed though. Where in God's name are those two weeks break between the calls? All the other calls came during the day, I remember one time I was on the school corridor during the break and when the phone rang I was wondering how was I going to hear what the other person was saying? Not a problem, it was just the silent caller. Boy, he had  the unique chance to hear the kind of mayhem children make during breaks...ha, that is sweet revenge!;)

So no speaking today, but a definite background noise, it might have been a train, tram or even underground...Constanta doesn't have trams anymore, not to mention we don't have subway. Whatever, I hung up. It called back the next second, I picked up and asked in Romanian "Who is on the phone?" thinking "yeah, sure, and pigs fly, they won't tell ya, silly!" And then wow, like in the bad horror/thriller movies I heard THE breathing! bwahahahahahahha! For Christ's sake! Duh! So yeah, after several months, they finally got to my proverbial calm, I'm slightly pissed, hence this entry. Now I need to find someone to show me how to set both my mobile phones to reject these calls...Oh yeah, the weird thing was that the last calls came on my other mobile phone...and not many people know that one!

Anyway, if my silent caller gets to read this (which I really doubt) I would like to say that there are so many wonderful hobbies he could choose from....bird watching, for instance!;) It's a beautiful world out there. Get out of your box and enjoy it. Seriously.

Healing Spring

The first Friday after Easter we celebrate here the Healing Spring day, a very important religious festivity. It reminds Christians of a healing spring in Constantinopolis the waters of which used to heal people, with at least one documented healing. The Healing Spring started being celebrated the second half of the first christian millenium and people go to churches and especially monasteries that have a spring nearby to take away water on this day and drink it so they can be/stay healthy...The significance of the celebration is deeper though, it comes within the week after Easter when Christians have eaten and drunk too much to remind them that the spirit is more important than matter represented by their stuffed bodies...

Anyway, part of my family chose to spend today outside Constanta, at an aunt's house who lives near a small new monastery which has a spring nearby:

Then we had a nice barbecue and talked and laughed...It was sunny and they had a swing and I swang in it looking at the bright sky and imagining I was touching it, just like when I was a kid...It was a rare occasion to see all four sisters (my mother and her three sisters) together...It's a long story, maybe I'll tell it some other time...here are some snapshots of flowers, cows and geese I took today...I really enjoyed a day in the countryside...:)

people here call these easter bells

short irises

wax cherry tree flowers

the most peaceful cow

we went to buy some flower seeds from an old lady and she was leaving on this dusty lane, it seems a photo taken a century ago...

neighbour's geese

Happy Easter everyone!

Guess who's hop, hop, hopping your way?

To wish you a hap, hap, happy Holiday.

Loaded with goodies made just for you.

It's the Easter Bunny

That's who!:)

Online Friendship

When I woke up this morning I had a friend request on my Facebook account that filled me with joy and actually made my whole day. I felt so happy that I forgot about everything that is not going really well in my life right now. I'm sure you are so familiar with the feeling...It's that kind of joy children feel, when nothing else matters but that particular thing, that special state of mind and soul that makes you smile the widest smile and lights up your whole persona, when your own identity is somehow lost to leave place to the "unbearable lightness of being", as Milan Kundera so beautifully expressed it...

It wasn't one of those "usual" invites I always ignore, from people whom you don't know and who have the personal ambition of adding up friends to their list as a sort of personal prove of "popularity"...
It was an invite from an old friend I had met while blogging on Yahoo 360, and then on Multiply...I had always admired his entries, his beautiful literary writings which were flying on fantasy wings like leaves so naturally float in the air and that were so similar to my own fruit of imagination...So I felt happy he had found me and dignified me with an invite...

And this brings me to the title of this entry...I've been so fortunate to find special people while blogging on Yahoo, who were there for me when I needed them, maybe more than friends in my real life, which is quite understandable...In writing I think we've got the opportunity to be far more open and frank about many things in our lives, and it's more likely to find keens while writing than we'd have the opportunity in our real lives, limited by space, time and routine, as we are...And reality can be so demanding that maybe we can't find the time to hold someone's hand, laugh with them, enjoy the good times and find simpathy during the bad times...and even though we part for a while, we continue carrying each other in our minds and souls and when we find each other again it's like we had never been apart...While browsing through my previous blog in order to look for the San Gimignano one, I had the chance to read some of my old entries and the comments left by friends there and I realised how much those helped when I was most in need. Even on the "routine" blogs, I found comments of encouragement and simpathy and I remember how that made me feel...

Maybe it all sounds so...idealistic, naive and a bit pathetic, but this is how i feel and I've always felt privileged to be able to find amanzingly beautiful people in this seemingly chaotic Universe...:) I love you all!

Fairytale land - San Gimignano, Tuscany

This is a repost for my new friends here on Blogger who love Italy...I think I've got one or two more on my old blog and I'll gladly repost them...I was watching some little videos I posted on Youtube and found one from San Gimignano, one of my favourite places on Earth, this little Medieval jewel hidden among Tuscan hills...That year (2007) I had lost significant weight and was going through a bad time so a friend in London had the idea of me visiting there. I said yes, especially I hadn't visited England before...And my friend Erca and my cousins Dana and Dan wanted to visit Tuscany so I did that too at the end of August...It was a great year for travelling and that worked miracles for me...Anyway, here's the repost, it's more like a note with photos and videos. I think my post about Florence was better...I think...ha ha ha!:

"VIAGGIATORE DI PACE

e' qualcosa che sei

che costruisci

che dai agli altri

anche qui

ora"

TRAVELLER OF PEACE

is something that you are

that you build

that you give to the others

even here

now

These are the words that welcome you when you go up the Rock of San Gimignano, one of the most wonderful little medieval towns that have survived history...I had been here a few years ago, on a beautiful afternoon, right at sunset and the image I had of it was that only fairy-tales can give you...So I went back there this year to see if the time passed over me will make me change my mind...And no, it didn't...It's all there...the towers, the little streets, the magic...Not even the too many tourists could distract me from my thoughts and constant wonder...

We witnessed two weddings too...the first couple was British...:)

We discovered there are lots of British and American visiting this place, as they do with the whole Tuscany and when we entered the church of Sant'Agostino we saw an add saying they celebrate mass every Sunday at 11 in English...:)

I would go back and stay only there ...definitely so...Oh, I loved a jeweller's shop...all hand made...so beautiful!
Here's a little video I took at the Rock there...forget about my voice...(actually it's kind of funny cause I say at some point "we've arrived here...pause...pause...pause...by bus...ha ha ha!)...I took the video because of the lady playing the harp. Sorry for the quality of the video...:(



After one year, in august 2008 I returned to Italy because my mother hadn't been there in like 15 years...and I found the same lady....I did have the chance to make a short video out of her playing...and I bought one of her CDs...