Colors and Poppies

When I was a child, my friends and I would walk away from our concrete block apartments to the nearby wheat fields guarded by two scary-looking men armed with axes. The desire to find and pick red poppies in bloom was stronger than any fear these men inspired. As little girls, we did not understand why it was necessary to guard a simple field of wheat with axes.

We eventually made the connection between the seeds of wheat and the ability to turn them into flour from which our mothers would bake bread. Because flour was in short supply and rationed, we had to line up daily to purchase ready-made bread before the communist-owned store ran out. 

Nobody in their right minds would have stolen wheat from the Communist Party that owned the field and all the means of production. They owned all the people too, including us. Our parents trained us all the time to keep our mouths shut and never say anything in public that we heard at home or else we would never see our parents again.

We reached the edge of the wheat field. The purplish-blue butterflies were out in force, flying by in their airy dance. We each caught one for a moment in our cupped palms, felt its velvety wings touching our skin, then released it giggling.

We were not too afraid of the guards with axes because we erroneously thought that they were there to protect us from harm.

We were happy and looking forward to finding the small patch of red poppies we spotted from our fifth-floor balcony the day before.

The intense poppy red was a sharp contrast to the colors that surrounded our lives. Color was often denied in our drab existence. Uniforms and regular street clothes came in basic groups such as brown, black, navy, grey, ink blue. White and ink blue shirts completed our uniform palette.

Beautiful flowers with stunning colors and shapes, often planted on small balconies in clay pots, was our way to escape the sad and grey world of the Bauhaus minimalist existence the Communist Party leaders forced us to survive in.

Grandma and mom’s siblings who lived in the country had a small patch by their homes in which they planted both vegetables and fragrant roses.

Occasionally we would find fabrics with a splash of red or pink and women bought yards to make dresses for little girls. The rest of us wore the basic and depressing colors of communist control – shades of grey, brown, black, and navy blue.

We walked joyfully that day, with a spring in our steps – Milica, Viorica, Dorina, and I. We reached the poppy patch, swimming through dense and tall blades of wheat, oblivious to the micro cuts we got from the plants hitting exposed skin.

As we started to pick a few poppies, the guards appeared out of nowhere, waving their axes and shouting for us to disappear before they hurt us for crushing the wheat.

I am not sure how much wheat we trampled; but we were running for our lives, so we thought, out of breath, and with tears streaming down our faces.

Clutching a few poppies to my chest, we ran in the direction of our apartments, crossing the railroad tracks separating the apartment buildings from the fields. I placed my poppies in a glass of water on the windowsill, a vibrant reminder of God’s beauty.

Our parents had no idea where we had been because we never told them. We were sure to be punished if we did. I never forgot the incident and never went back. My exploration streak would find plenty of wonders in my grandparents’ villages.

Years later I finally understood what the two men with axes were guarding. It was not the wheat harvest; it was the hidden poppies, the opium crop of those who had planted it.

The communist government ignored the illegal activities of its agents.

Symphony of White

Two of the strongest memories from my early childhood are the muddy yards and roads soaked into deep ruts by rivers of steady pouring rain and the pristine whiteness of the winter wonderland stillness when the dirt and mud are covered by a blanket of gleamingly white and fluffy snowflakes, blanketing snow glittering in the bitter and biting cold sunshine, accumulated and piled high above my head.

I could not imagine a prettier color than alpine white in the majestic Carpathian Mountains set in a wild and rocky terrain ringed with blue-green spruce.

Our snow at Christmas in grandpa’s yard was stained red with the splashed blood of the sacrificed pig raised to feed our entire extended family that otherwise would starve.

My memory brings back the red poppies in the fields of green and yellow wheat, guarded by a man armed with an axe; he meant business when he chased kids trampling government wheat in search of the bountiful and beautiful flowers that had more “useful purposes” to the guard’s communist bosses. The bright red was inviting us to pick them and take them to our moms to add a splash of color in the otherwise dreary and utilitarian grey space we called communist apartment homes. Picking wild flowers in a small bouquet was such an innocent delight which flooded my eyes with God’s beauty.

A sea of red hammer and sickle communist flags dominated the landscape when the population was forced out into the streets, rain or shine, to march in praise and glory to the dear leader and his wife.

Yellow and white were the fields of chamomile flowers we picked and dried to make tea, a soothing greenish liquid that relaxed us at night and helped clean infected wounds.

Our uniforms were plain shades of green, grey, brown, and navy. For a proper contrast, our school shirts were blue, freshened in the wash by hand with a cube of blue dye when they faded.  Hands would look blue for a while as we did not have latex gloves to shield the skin while doing laundry.  Girls as young as five were taught how to properly wash clothes.

Our hands would turn chocolate brown when it came time to pick and shell the green casing of walnuts which had not dried completely on its own. The purple plums we gathered for brandy and the juice we squeezed out of grapes in the fall to make wine stained our hands magenta.  

We cried crocodile tears when the pungent and juicy yellow onions had to be pulled by hand from the ground. We dug potatoes with a hoe and brown became embedded under fingernails for the duration no matter how much we washed our hands. The smell of fresh dirt and the worms we dug up with the potatoes was overwhelming. When it rains and the first drops fall on dry dirt, the smell reminds me of digging up potatoes from the soil which we then spread evenly on the floor of the cellar to dry up.

Grandma’s flower garden blossomed in summer and autumn with fragrant roses, dahlias, narcissus, tulips, chrysanthemums, lilacs, peonies, and lavender.  She was proud of her garden located close to the cast iron water pump that brought fresh ground water from the deep well. I helped by pumping enough water to nourish her precious blooms twice a week. Grandma and mom looked at the plants as God’s colorful gifts that filled the soul and eyes with beauty. The colorful and scented blooms were mom’s treasures.

Grandpa gave me a box of watercolors one year and, without consulting mom, I painted a small red rose on the wall by the couch where I slept. Each morning, when I first opened my eyes, I saw the rose.

We did not have any paintings or pictures on the wall except my parent’s oil portrait from their imaginary wedding. It was a fantasy wedding portrait as they were too poor to have a proper wedding and a formal dress. I wish I had that painting today! It had been long confiscated by God knows who.

Nature’s colors amazed me and I often dreamed that someday, when I could afford to, I would never wear anything else but bright colors, teal, pink, purple, lavender, grass green, magenta, orange, white, and reds.

I often wander in the woods to capture on camera nature’s palette. Fall is a symphony of yellows, browns, greens, and maroons that take my breath away. My husband laughs that I must have photographed the same trees for the last ten years but to me, each autumn brings another shade of color that I have not seen before with my naked eye. And the sun adds that little sparkle, a glint of gold, orange, pink, and cerulean blue streaking from the soft white clouds.

The fragrant green fir trees at Christmas and the tiny real candles we lit, the few glass ornaments, brought a warm glow of yellow light, joy and color to our otherwise drab existence.

One summer mom bought enough material for a new dress. It was not often that I got a new dress. Everything had to be altered, let out, let in, and hemmed to last several seasons. The print was small red roses with green leaves set in a black background. My seamstress aunt‘s masterful fingers created a work of art without a paper pattern. Every time I wore it, the splash of color made me feel special and I rode on a cloud of happiness all day, bathed in the hues of red and green.

My wardrobe today is an eclectic splash of cheerful and sunny colors. It’s not hard to find me in a crowded airport. To me, black is for somber occasions and funerals; navy is ceremonial; and brown is best served in dark chocolate.

The whiteness of snow is still so pristine that no garment can possibly match it. But I wear white long after Labor Day, a bright spot in a crowd of winter.

Plants and Mushrooms

People always ask me about my fascination with plants and mushrooms. When I was a child, I collected beautiful flowers and unusual plants and pressed them between the pages of an old book and made my own herbarium collection. It was difficult to name my finds, aside from the obvious, as I had to trek to the local library and look up plants and flowers in the only botanical encyclopedia within 60 miles.

Grandpa and I hunted for mushrooms; he knew how to discern the poisonous ones from the edible ones. There was no way to photograph my finds as cameras were out of the reach of the proletariat. Few could afford or were able to buy a camera. When they did, then film was hard to find and developing it was equally expensive. It was not a hobby for the poor masses which was most of us.

I loved the red colored poppies which could be found on the edge of the road and, in one particular case, I stumbled upon a wheat field which had a large crop of poppies in the middle. Unbeknownst to me, the crop of poppies and the field of wheat were guarded by a man with an ax. I am not sure if he was placed there by the communist party comrades or he did it on his own. All I remember that, as soon as we waded waist deep through the prickly field of wheat to reach the poppies, the axman appeared out of nowhere, started yelling and shaking his ax menacingly. We did not wait to talk to him, we ran away as fast as we could absolutely frightened to death.

Tuscan poppies

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

 

On our last trip to Italy, I found poppies on the side of the road in Tuscany, wine country. We had to stop for a photo op for the sake of my childhood fascination with the red flowers.

As a child, I never understood Frank Baum’s reference to poppies and sleep in his book, The Wizard of Oz.

To this day, on our walks through the woods, especially after a soaking rain, I stop every time when I find a fascinating mushroom I’ve never seen before and photograph it, to the desperation of my husband who sees them all just as they are - a fungus among us. But they are more to me – they are medicinal cures, potential food, possible poison, botanical beauty, and fragility, waiting to be explored and admired.