The creek of our childhood Photo: Ileana 2015 |
Romanians
just lost their King Michael to old age, very old age, and their last hope that
a monarchy might somehow right all the wrongs that had plagued the country
politically was dashed and died with him. There won’t be another king. Some
mourned him, most did not even know he existed nor cared. Like here, these
citizens are part of the #resist
movement yet they have no idea what they are resisting.
Yesterday I
met one of my first cousins I adore (I have 27) and his lovely daughter Elena
for lunch in a town nearby in Virginia. It was surreal. If you had told me 39
years ago that someday in the future, in a state far away, thousands of miles
away from my former home in Romania, I would see one of my first cousins again,
I would have been extremely incredulous and would have laughed, a physical
impossibility.
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015
He asked me
about retirement, teaching, accomplishments, life in America, and it almost
seemed like we were talking about someone else. What teaching accomplishments? It
was just a job that paid me well. No teacher of the year for me and certainly
no thanks for a job well done. I was not a Democrat, nor a communist, how could
I possibly succeed in education and thrive? Mediocrity and collectivist
politics ruled around me in academia. My cousin was shocked.
I told him
about all the communists in education in America and he was almost incredulous.
How could any rational human being possibly think that a Marxist ideology that
killed 100 million people around the world can even remotely be considered in
this beautiful country built on free markets, not oppression and tyranny?
My cousin
had to work in difficult places around the world in order to bring home enough
cash to build a beautiful villa for his family. Two of his three beautiful
daughters moved to America, just like I did, in order to find freedom and opportunity
for success that had been denied to many still in Romania, twenty-eight years
after the “fall” of communism. They joined the five million other Romanians who
immigrated around the globe in search of a better life for themselves and their
families.
We talked
about adjustment and assimilation, learning the language, becoming an American
citizen and losing my Romanian citizenship, how it was so much harder for an
older person to learn a new language and how little my mom learned in 37 years.
Cousin Ionel learned Russian in school and found it much easier to learn and
speak than the English language, even with the Cyrillic alphabet. Russian is
very phonetic, it is pronounced the same way it is written, no wild variations
as in the English language, he added.
We reminisced
about fishing and swimming in the crystal clear river in his village, a river
now so shallow that it looks more like a creek. The landscape was more verdant
as more trees grew around it, seeded by the blowing wind. A nicely paved rural
road now runs nearby, no more gravel roads, picking up dust every time the bus
drove through.
Now every
home has a nice car, food on the table, no lines, and a well-stocked country
store, owned by his brother. The store stocks fresh meat and vegetables, frozen
food, fresh bread, wine, sugar, cooking oil, flour, and anything a cook might
need. There is even a gas pump on the side of the road. No gas station around
it, just the pump. Bringing free markets to Romania changed the pastoral and
isolated life for so many.
We talked
about growing up. Cousin Ionel had three brothers and one sister. At meal time
there was never enough to eat, it was a free-for-all. My aunt placed a large
bowl of food in the middle of the table and the meal began after a very brief
mandatory prayer, no portion sizes, whoever ate the fastest, got more to eat
first. Poor Gigi, the runt of the family, was always left behind and hungrier
than the rest. Even so, there was still not enough to nourish five growing
children, we were still hungry and thin when we finished a meal, he said. I
used to watch them eat so fast, wondering why my aunt did not give them each
equal portions. As an only child, I only had to share food with my mom and dad.
We were always hungry ourselves but I did not have to fight siblings at
mealtime.
I looked at
our table laden with food which we did not prepare but we could afford to pay
someone else to prepare for us. Ionel and I never saw restaurant food when we
were children and young adults. If it did not come from mom’s or grandma’s kitchen,
we went hungry. Later in life, as we gained freedom of movement and our
financial fortunes improved, we were able to taste our first restaurant meals
and foods we’ve never known existed. Ionel is so cosmopolitan when compared to
most people that he will eat any food put in front of him. He traveled around
the globe through various jobs and sampled many cuisines and so did I.
It was sad
to see him go, to say good-bye, almost as surreal as getting on a plane and
finding yourself on the other side of the globe in mere hours. We were together
for brief and happy moments, found our common roots, reminisced, but then we
were lost again in the fog of time. A few photographs were the only proof that
we celebrated today the memories from another life, far away from our humble beginnings.
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