My grandparents
Raised from 3 months by my grandparents in a tiny Romanian village of the beaten path. My granddad was a tough detached workaholic farmer and the village's one man show pastor. While he was a brilliant farmer and great pastor, the whole village was afraid of him. He had a way of constantly threatening and putting down others.
He was in love with a woman from his village who loved him back. They wanted to marry and the girl's parents agreed but her grandma said she doesnt want to be related with my grandad's dad whom she despised. My grandad got hurt and to punish the girl and her family for life refused to maryy the her. He went to nearby village where he found my gradma -wealthy, blonde hair, white as milk skin.
My grandma's father was the wealtheis in his village owning the cutting grain machines. He was loving, softspoken and jokey. He bribed the teachers with sheep cheese to help his daughter plass classes. Her first cousin was a wealthy man living in Chicago and owning hotels. My grandma was sensitive, emphatetic, individualistic, lazy with no sense of morals or limits. She was out of society alltogether. While as submmisive to my grandfather as she possibly could, for her refusal to work the land and for her lack of morals got in trouble with my grandad on a daily basis. they were married 73 years. Both died at 92. he was 4 years older My grandad broke my nose for laughing with my boyfriend under the table while he preached to the many brothers and sisters who gathered at our house. There was so much blood on the floor that all people left right then in horror. He threw me in the street and told me to leave his house for stealing my neighbor's baby doll.
The village
The hilly village had orchards and running creeks. Summers with torrential rain. Colorful Autumns with powerful winds that left the streets covered in walnuts, and branches. Winters were quiet, white, burning wood smoke in the air. Our almost square garden, the wind moving the trees, the strong scent of yellow pears, of black grapes, bees, butterflies. I kept track of flowers, fruits, leaves, their change in color, shape, texture. I tracked the wind, the temperature of the sun on my skin. I saw dark clouds roll over the garden I watched torrential rain from the window I saw sun rays after the storm warming up everything, shining a magic light Storms excite me, inspired me. They made me feel like making love.
With my grandma I roamed on the nearby hills awlays with a big stick becasue on those hills were the vicious dogs tacking care of sheep. We went to the cemetery up the hill where the grass is high, the wind strong and I feel closer to the sky. My grandma told me the story of a young girl, neighbir who died. I get horrified by death. I start seeing on people's walls photos with their dead parents, brothers, sisters even children. Death remains at the back of my mind, like a permanent lense in my eyes I see through.
My first love and babies and myself
1980 Ramna, Romania
I'm inseparable from Adi the cute boy who lives across the street, who follows me with a love smile on his face. He is the only one I let touch my baby doll, he can even scratch it if he wants it. We walk on the street for hours, arms around each other’s shoulders. We went up the hills so far out untill we said " we crossed the border in Serbia". That moment we looked at each other with a smile and scremed "we are lost!" and run back downhill home as fast as we could. We tried to have sex a few times
I'm sensitive and shy. In church my brain tunes out all people. I become blind to seeing them, and deaf to hearing their talk. I sincerly ignore almost all people. I'm left with only me feeling my breathing. We go three times per week to Pentecostal church . My grandma keeps me a bit in church, gives me to eat apple strudel or pumpking strudel wich I love. Gives me paper and pencil to write wich I refuse becasue its too boring, then she sends me to stay outside becasue inside it is too boring. Outside, in the churche's courtyard, there are the cute soft warm babies in their mother's loving arms. I can't have enough of watching them. When a mother is passing me by, my heart starts beating fast. Mothers for me are out of this world, feel the most important. Outside there are the morning glories purple and white climbing the fence. They are beautiful and delicate. They get brused at the slightes touch. They open with the sun. I watch them. I want to catch them when they open. All the other kids were not allowed to stay outside and it was so painful to stay stay outside alone with no one to play
By the time I am six, with the good and the bad I like myself. I feel secure under the sun and feel inside a drive to celebrate every day. The dream of making love with my special person and having babies its what I love, what drives me. Everything else sincerly I don't really care about.
Escaping village kindergarten
1980 Ramna, Romania
When I was five, my grandma, hand in hand with Adi, took me to the village's kindergarten. Once inside, I felt very uncomfortable. There was a dark room with a long table made from little tables and chairs with paper and pencils on each table, many kids and tecahers who told you what to do and supervised you. How boring and confining is that? Home, nobody supervized me and told me what to do ever. Adi set next to me and he seemed he could go with the kindergarten flow. All kids came here did this, then all went there did whatever and Adi joined the crowd's movement. He didn't stay with me, he joined the crowd. Nothing, not only didn't appealed to me but I felt strong fright, and confusion. There was nothing appealing in there for me. Nothing to make me stay. Adi disappeared from the picture. I found myself alone in an scary place I didn't want to be in and I needed to escape. Finally, the lunch break came and I got outside in the sunny courtyard to play. There was a merry-go-round. Kids got on it and somehow, I got on too. The kids spined so fast, for so long, that I got dizzy, my hand slipped, I flew of it and hurt myself. I started crying to bring my grandma to take me out of there. And that was it. Nobody could make me go to that disgusting place again. My grandma asked me "You don't want to be with Adi?" I said "No!"
Heartbreak
One day, when I was six, my mother whom I didn't know, who lived in the city, sent for me to come the city. A day before I left the village my grandma went to town to sell fruits and veggies and like usual, I stayed home alone. I felt the most excited when I was left alone. When the 4pm bus came, as usual, I went at the station to wait for her. She got off the bus and I see both her hands with so many toys she bought for me she straugled to hold and carry them. All for me. A pain stabbed my heart. She did not want me to leave and I didn't want either.
Escaping city kindergarten
I arrived in the city and my mother, put me in a city kindergarten to get socialized. When I saw myself in the huge kindergarten I cried every day all day for about three weeks straight. There were two shifts of three teachers each, in total six. All were insensitive. I thought when I'll be big, I'll make a rule "no insensitive adults allowed to interact with small kids !". I refused to eat, to sleep, to play. I stayed all the time by the entrance door waiting for somebody to come through the door and take me from there. They had dolls, furinture for dolls, trains, buiding blocks and many toys. I have never seen in my life toys and I wanted to play with them but had no idea how. The teachers asked me what would you like to play. I said "I want to play outside." All the kids and the teacher got in the backyard all fenced in. They had this organized game with rules I couldn't understand, or that game or another game. All boring games. They asked me which one would you like to play? None. They were not the type of games I wanted to play. I scanned for a hole in the fence to escape. There was no hole. One day, from sitting next to the entrance door I got out and went in the next room that also had a locked door. I slipped through the second door with a person and went to hide under stairs. From there I watched with what person I can get out of the building and I started escaping. If you know where you are going people let you go. One morning, my mother didn't wake me up to take me to kindergarten. She said I was" sleeping like an angel " and was sorry to wake me up. She had the neighbor next door come to take me to her apartment. When I heard that, every morning I slept like an angel with my palms like in a prayer under my face. That didn't work anymore. I started begging my mother to let me stay home with the neighbor and my mother agreed. One day the neighbor took me shopping in downtown, about 25 minutes walking from home. Once in the shop, my neighbor disappeared. I looked all around and she was nowhere, so I decided to go home alone the same way we came. The neighbor freaked out, thinking I was kidnapped called the police, who called my mother. My mother told the police that she knows me and is pretty sure I was home waiting by the door. That's exactly where I was. After that incident, my neighbor didn't want to take care of me, not once. My mother finally decided to let me stay home alone. I couldn't be more happy- home alone doing what I wanted when I wanted. I could find all day what to play. I never got bored. My mother didn't feel good to leave me locked home alone and sent me back to the village.
Moving to the city
Back to the village my grandparents decided sudenly because of me to sell the village house. We all moved to Timisoara where my mother and uncle had been living for a long time. Timisoara is a medieval city with cobblestone squares, fountains, theaters, cathedrals. With parks, rose garden, magnolia trees along the Bega River. We settled at the edge of the city, in a modest old house of clay, on a huge land in the "Gypsy neighborhood". We moved with all the animals - pigs, goats, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, chickens, dog, cats, bees and all their houses. My new play kids were a big Christian musicians Gypsy family with kids my age. All the kids played all the instruments. We played music and watched horror movies at their house day in and day out until I started to be afraid of my own shadow. My grandparents never owned a TV or radio as was not christan like. Like in the village, we heated with wood. In the night the fire was off and was cold. We had duck feathers comforters; those were the warmest. I loved the smell of smoke and the sound of wood beginning to burn in the cold dawn. The garden had more than sixty fruit trees — cherry, peach, apricot, plum, pear, medlar. Had a long pathway in the middle, covered in old grapevine, with strawberries on both sides. The garden was my heaven on earth. The place where I could feel peace and get in touch with myself and dream. Dream of the day I will be only with my lover and babies away from everyone and everything else. I go weekdays to live with my single mother in her one-bedroom apartment shared with two more renters that gave her money because she wasn't working, but weekend and all holidays I stay with my grandparenst eventually moving in with them
City
1985 Timisoara, Romania
At a b-day party. In my favorite white soft top turtle neck with some red hearts or diamonds. And in red joggers. My mother said that's not how people dress for a bday party. But I didn't care. Parties scared the shit of me and I had to feel good at least somehow.
In timisoara I live wekends and all holidays at my grandparents house. Weekdays I go live with my single mother in her one bedroom apartment in downtown shared with two more subrenters who pay us little money. I don't know who my father is. I barely know who my mother is as she didn't come to visit us in the village (she didnt have a car). My grandfather calls her "the devil", my grandma calls her "mean, mean, mean". I don't understand what words mean almost at all. Words don't mean anything to me. I find her beautiful , soft and I like her clothes. I steal some flowers from a neighbors garden and bring to her and tell her she's the most beautiful mother (becasue she truly was) and I want to hug and kiss her. She pushes me aside and says "I don't do kisses and hugs, I'm a cold and difficult person becasue my mother was dificult with me. And I'm weak with my nerves I slap you when I feel like without a reason " I swear to God that's exactly what she said. Well, I wrote her off. I took my love back. Anyway, my mother doesnt work for money but also doesnt do any home cleaning or shopping. She demands I do, wich I do. She started me off with a stepping stool and cleaning the bathroom and kitchen sinks, later I had to vacum and then wash all the floors every week. I go every weekend and my grandparenst house from where I bring cooked food, fruits, veggies, meat, and money becasue my mother never has money. I come from school and neighbors scream at me "tell your mother to pay the utilities!
In Timisoara also lives my mother's brother, my uncle, who is wealthy with many friends including Americans, with a well paid job with raillways, a clothes business, many aparment rentals, a cow for milk. In weekends he is a charismatic evangelist who tells stories, screams and cries going preaching in villages all across the country. For his preaching he gets lots of favores who are brought at my granparents house. Favoreslike tanks of gas, as a whole pork smoked leg, brand new toys donation from America, second hand clothes and expired food, perfumes and cosmetics donation from America. All make me so so happy. He has money and builts a pool on the roof top in wich I spend all my summers from 1 pm to 3 pm. I stay so much in the water that both my grandparents scream at me to get off that is enough and I'm going to catch a cold.
School
1985 Timisoara, Romania
From day one school looked a cross between jail and hospital and I ignored it like it doesn't exits. I kept going home in the middle of school day. Whatever school was about, I had zero interest. I didn't answer teacher's questions. I kept mute in school and out of school. I copied my homewwork and at tests. I only did simple things. Anything complex or difficult I sincerly believed is for the smart kids, the intelctual kids not for me. I couldn't do PE. That was the most torturous and boring thing for me. So I skipped my entire school life with no thoughts of consequences.I had an aversion of books and writers even moren than I had aversion of school. Aversion at a higher level. I would go with my friends at the library for them to take and return books and I would wait at the door. I could not step inside the library. I felt I don't belong there. Maybe somebody told me that without a card I shouldn't be there. I wouldn't have known how to make a card -my brain was stuck becasue of the aversion. The sight and smell of old books made me sick. Whatever was in school felt like horse shit. I can't even look at horse shit, let alone eat. From grade five everything in school became too difficult for me so I completely checked out. My grandma told over and over the story with how she didn't have a head for school and her dad bribed the techers with sheep cheese to help her pass classes. My mother sincerly belived she was the samrtest person alive and constantly beached about the nonsesne of school, the useless facts that you memorize and then forget and how stupid and boring most people are. One of my cousins went to school and smashed the desks, the other cousin and my uncle also couldn't do school. There was not one single person in my family to say a good word about school and I didn't like it either.
City
1985 Timisora, RO Opera House
My mother sincerely believing she was dying of cancer for more than two decades. I was counting how old I will be if she dies in 3 months, how old I'll be if she dies in 6 months, 1 year, 2 years. My grandfather had already started calling me "the orphan" he'd need to raise. My grandma went to neighbors to cry that her young daughter is dying. My mother worked 10 years the night shift in factory, 15 years selling lotto tickets in small booth then when I was 8 she quit working altogether. We only had the money our two subretnters gave us and her first husbund (not my biologoical dad) alocation for me.
My mother lived for beautiful clothes, seamed stockings, high heels, the Opera, hotels, strip clubs, coffee bars, Jazz clubs and traveling to interesting places across the country, always taking me with her. We went by train in teh snow in winter, we went to seaside in summer. Once when we returned from seaside a plant grew out of our bathroom sink. She had a long curly-afro hair but it was making it even curlier with rollers and pins. She would dress up, spin around saying "va va voom, how do I look?". She looked like a dream. Nobody on the streets looked as good as her. She looked like living for Opera. She married three times, loved a dozen more men, mostly artists. Not all at once, one after the other, sometimes overlapping. In the end not liking any. One was too boring and narrow-minded, another was a cheating womanizer, another supposedly wanted her for her apartment. Some looked like animals. Others confirmed her belief that men were pigs. She said flowers and music were the only things she truly loved - maybe because they were the only things that never disappointed her back. Every Mother's Day I'd search for the perfect bouquet, and every year she'd find something wrong with it. It had to be something wrong no matter what flowers I brought home.
She liked the most a man who worked with her at lotto. Tall, always wearing suits and hats and in winter long coats. A man who has never been married, never wanted to, never had kids, never wanted to, never owned anything. Living all his life in a modest rented room. Always eating at elegant restaurants. He had blue eye, a big nose, white face and a bit red like he was alcoholic but I never seen him drinking. A diferent man who kept to himself. She was on and off with him for a long time and in between other lovers. She liked him the most. I asked her why?. She said because "he lies to me". But then she criticized him how he couldn't own even a car. Despite being self-described "cold and difficult" my mother is one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to romance and esthetics. All her obsessions and love stories about other people, all her own high-flying romances were better than in movies and headed straight to hell.
City
1987 Timisoara, Romania
At school carnival. Dressed and styled my my mother. By now my mother got full control of how I dress and style my hair. I had no choice but to go along day in and day out, week after week.
I eat everything by hand and make a mess on my clothes. My mother closes her eyes when I eat and looks in the ceiling like praying to God.
I hate to wash myself, I hate how water feels on my skin. I'm afraid of the bath tub drain and in the village we didn't have water in the house. Once , she gets mad and keeps me under water in the bath tube trying to drawn me for refusing to wash.
She keeps a whip above the fridge for me. Once I went with a boy at the end of the bus line and in some under ground pipes. I arrive late at night and tired i throuw myself on the bed. Rust from my hair gets on the white sheet. She find where I have been and beats me with the whip on my naked butt until my skin bleeds . She said she betas me for one and only one thing "for being adventurous, becasue being adventurous is dangerous"
She is the strongest person I have ever seen. Her styling my clothes and hair spills into her styling even my boyfriends. She constantly tells me how they should look and I tell them becasue at this point my thinking has completely stoped. When the boyfriends find out that they dress and style after my mothers desire not mine they get mad with me. Clothes and hair is so incredibly personal, I don't know why people can't just mind their own clothes and hair after their own personal taste.
City
1989 Timisoara, Romania. Filadelfia Pentecostal Church
In the city my mother forced me to join the churche's kids choir where I sang fours years. I loved the Palm Sunday when we sang with lilac, tulips in our hands. Every Christmas we went singing carols two nights all night long until 6 am. We walked on streets, singing carols in exchange for tasty cookies and cakes filled with apples, pumpkin, lemon, cheese, walnuts, poppy seeds, chocolate, vanilla, maple, milk. Sometimes was snowing and we walked all night in the snow, slipping on ice, having our fingers frozen. We went in neighborhoods I never been to and in the night, some were so beautiful, strange and magical. Singing in the night on empty streets on four voices sounded divine. It felt like we were in a different world. When I was 14 I was to big for kids choir and had to move over to church orchestra where I played mandolin two years.
Timisoara
We are always on the red list not able to pay utilites.
Me and my mother have no money. She doesnt care at all and I ask her how comes she doesnt care about money at all . At 13 my mother says "if you are so active (she always said with a smirk on her face that she is the imaginative one and i'm the active one), look at how your uncle started in real estate from zero, renting out first his garage and copy him". I look in newspaper and see how much my mothers apartment is renting for ($185 and how much cheaper others are. I move us in one of my uncle's apartments ($75) and we have $110 per month profit. The apartment is kind of expensive, too small for me ( I need space and privacy and I want more money). I find an apartment with two rooms at the edge of the city ($85) that i can subrent ($45) and I move us there. I raise the rent of her apartment to $200 .Now I have $160 profit. I start to love having money. Part I use for my excesive travel. For trains and cheap rooms. Part I want to buy a studio that costs $4000. My mother in her natural fashion sabbotages everything. Says why I ocupy myself with low level hustles when i should study to become a doctor and demands we move back to her own apartament. I have no choice but do what she says. I have saved only $200 .
Buying back in the village
In the city the land to farm was poor, very hard to work. My uncle payed for a couple of trucks of sand and compost to improve the land. That helped but not that much. On top of that, over thirty rabbits died of some disease. My granddad multiplied them again. Following year, same diseases and almost all died again. A btother from church built for us a smoke house for meat like we had in the village and it didn't work, so my grandad threw that as well. My grandad started bitching that he moved to the city for me, otherwise he wouldn't had moved. I didn't feel bad because I didn't want to move either. I didn't know whose idea was. My uncle went to the village and bought a one-bedroom (two rooms ) modest clay house with a huge black rich land, close to our old house. My grandad, uncle and me got in my uncle's car and went to the village about two hours away from Timisoara to work the land. I loved to ride in my uncle's car. When I'm in a car I immediately start dreaming and love it. We arrived at the house and we planned to stay a week. We had a lot to work but thought being three people will take us about a week. After we arrived at the house, my uncle disappeared. The night came and my uncle still didn't come back. He didn't tell us anything. We had no phone. The second day he didn't show up either. We waited for him and waited. I asked my grandad if he ever seen my uncle touching a gardening tool and working ever in the garden. No. My uncle never worked the land. Neither my mother. Why were we thinking he's going to do it this time? We had to re plan the amount of work. I had a boy waiting for me at the end of the week in the city and I pushed so hard to work harder and faster to finish the work that I got sick. The 5th morning I couldn't get off the bed. I was so weak. I have no idea what happened with me. I couldn't get up all day. At the end of the week my uncle showed up to pick us up singing and whistling, with a smile on his charming face not telling us where he had been all this time. My grandad hated in that moment his own son so much for that and for his style of passionately wheeling and dealing every single day
Apuseni Mountains
1992 Apuseni Mt, Romania
With kids choir I went also in my first mountain camp. In that camp, I fell in love with mountains. With waking up in the mountain's strong fresh air, seeing dew on the grass and mist over the valley, hearing cow bells nearby, hiking for hours at a time, cooking on fire every night under the sky full of stars.
When I started going camps, I loved them. It was only hiking, berry picking, cooking, singing, with an occasional praying out loud which I dreaded. As I grew up the camps became, more and more bible study. When I was 15 I found myself hiding in the forest to skip the bible study hours. In the forest was shade, was cool and quiet, there you could see magic sun rays hitting trees, you could feel a light breeze and hear the hypnotizing sound of wind through the leaves. In the forest I heard the mountain's call. An overwhelming feeling inside to go explore all the mountains after my heart's desire, and I said Yes! I felt ready and confident I could backpack alone with some boy I could sleep with. A boy who looked appealing and wanted to come with me. Free to do what I want, go where I want, eat what I want when I want. That camp was my last camp.
Timisoara
1993 Timisoara, Romania
When I was 16 I started dating and got back my love life. One man invited me to up the mountains to show me the mountains he grew up on and I sayed yes! He tought me what food to buy, we borrowed two backpacks and a tent. We took a train, then hitchiked our way up the montains as far as we could. Then we hiked up to the top. In the night we cooked polenta over an open fire and made love under the black sky full the stars. We never met again. never expected too. We both wanted that experience, we had it and it stays alive with me. The other lover was a city movie going sensitive, emotional who played in church orchestra with me, I played mandolin and he flute. He worked for a while in Germany painting houses and making lots of money. Wiping the sweat from beneath his curly hair said "I was not born to live in Romania; Romania is a dead end". The way he said it, touched me. I was desperate to escape college which by now felt like the electric chair. I had no heart, strenght to deal with "school', "homework", "college", "career", "9 to 5 job", "profesional status", "becoming somebody". Words like this don't exist in my vocabulary. I can't even think of such things. I needed badly money. I failed to align with school-career-job, to escape I thought that wiping tables overseas would make me more money than a professional can make in Romania. I decided to emigrate. I'm not sure I had an ego but I was about to try to get an ego, try to become a somebody. My collision with this lover cured me of any ego for forever. After him, such thoughts as becoming somebody never crosed my brain. I only cared about love, babies and hustling for bread
Transilvania
1993 Transilvania
I'm determined to continue real estate. My uncle gives me $2k loan with no interest, my grandparents give me $2k gift and at 17 my mother signes the papers for our first rental . The cheapest studio in town we bought for $4200 and rented out to such bad renters. I struggled to get my monthy money. They played dead. No answering at the door, not answering the phone. A few years later I sell the stuidio for $7200. I get a lover with job, borrow 3k from my uncle , this time with interest and we buy a $10500k one bedroom apartment .
After grade ten I didn't go to school for weeks and months. One sunny morning in class a thought cross my brain "what school has nothing to do with me?nothing" after that thoght I walked out of school simply didn't fo to school for weeks and months. I was busy being in love and roaming Romania mostly staying for weeks in tent up in the mountains. But also walking on the streets , passing jazz clubs were people were drinking coffe, passing Intercontinetal Hotel wheer foreigner with suitcases were eating grill with fries. They counted me 335 absences. I had to change schools to save myself. It was sureal
Alba Iulia
1994 Alba Iulia, Romania
I keep falling for men who are cute and have style. I realize is a weakness of mine. I decide to smarten up. Next thing I know, I'm falling for another guy who is cute and has style. I stop trying to fight with myself and accept that I fall for cute men with style. Anyway, I started noticing something else. Some of the most psychologically unusual lovers I experienced were also unusually expressive about their appearance and style. It's easier to agree on what cute looks like. It's more of a visual thing. But when it comes to style, it's much more emotional, psychological, personal, coming from inside. There are people who are visually pleasing, put together from head to toe, or people who obviously have emotional sensitivity to aesthetics, uniqueness, and sophistication. They have style, but I don't like it. I like my own style the most. Then I get sick and tired of myself.
Sibiu
1994 Paltinis, Romania
It was late November. The man I was with at the time and I took the 2:30 p.m. bus from Timisoara to Sibiu. We were supposed to arrive around 9:40 at night, sleep at the nearest hotel, and then catch the morning bus to Păltiniș, the small mountain ski resort. As the sun began to set, the bus started winding through mountain villages so beautiful they felt unreal. The houses were unlike anything I had ever seen. The streets, the architecture, the way people looked — everything felt different, almost like we had crossed into another country. Faces white as milk, blond hair, blue eyes. Transylvania seemed like a completely different world. Back in Banat, where I came from, people were mostly darker - dark eyes, dark hair, darker skin. Seeing those places inspired and excited me to extreme. I felt like wanting to see new faces and places at sunset my entire life. I felt I was going crazy overjoyed. A bit past 9.30 pm, we were driving through the night and I barely saw anything. It was only me and my boyfriend left in the bus, when the driver stopped and said "this is it, this bus doesn’t go any further". I look through the window and I see nothing, just pitch dark. We got off, the bus closed the doors and drove off so fast. I looked after it like "where is he going driving like a crazy". We found ourselves in a dark street with medieval buildings all around. No phone, no map. In any direction we looked it was the same, dark streets, old charming building, no people, no shops. We were dropped in the thick of a strange medieval suburb, or in a dream, not in a central location, not at the
Sibiu
city's bus terminal as I expected. We had no idea which direction to go but it was dark, cold and we didn't have time. We started running straight ahead until the first corner. Then we had to pick a direction. We started to run towards more lit streets. For the next 2 hours that was all we knew " the next corner". We found a person and asked " Is this place Sibiu? Do you know a hotel close by? Yes was Sibiu! No hotel around. Which direction is the city center? That way! " So we ran that way until we lost direction again. Every corner I turned yet a another dimly lit stunning medieval street with old houses and cobblestone, underpasses, empty squares, old fountains, dark church walls, silent windows glowing faintly yellow behind curtains. I started laughing, drunk with joy, thrill and tiredness. Hopeless. We were not going anywhere. It was 11.30 pm, we stopped, I was sleepy and cold. Then a tiny woman opened a big door and got out from one of those old medieval houses. We asked if she knows a room for us to rent for the night. She said "come with me!". We followed her in another medieval house, went upstairs. The apartment had high ceilings and was so poorly lit I barely saw anything and I knew they were really poor. In the kitchen around the table there were three man and two women who looked at us suspiciously. The woman showed us a room on the left with old white big doors with glass and see through curtains. We asked when to pay now or in the morning? she said in the morning. We got in the room and I usually lock the door or put something heavy at the door but this time I didn't. I thought what does it matter, we are at their mercy. Went straight to sleep. In the morning I opened my eyes and thought first thing "I'm alive". We paid and left. Once in the street I felt good and safe, it was daylight and we had options. We found the bus terminal and caught the next bus to Paltinis on time
Timisoara
1994 Timisoara, Romania
Taking a late-night train going somewhere far away with a lover. Drinking from a baby bottle I just bought in the train station because in that picture perfect moment only a baby was missing.
Timisoara
1995. Timisoara, Romania
For my turning 18 I say maybe I should spend some money I don't have on a profesional photo
Vatra Dornei
1998 Vatra Dornei, Romania
The slopes were not open becasue it was not enough snow but it was enough for me. The boyfrind I was with is breaking his leg right skiing right before he has set to fly and emigrate to USA
Black Sea
1998 Black Sea, Romania
Went to see in concert a friend I wanted to marry even before he became super star overnight. He said that when he liked me I didn't like him, then when I liked him he didn't like me anymore. BS . I think he just didn't like me. He said i didn't do anything important in my life (my life of 17 years). Wich is fine. Too bad we didn't at least make love. I could have made it happen the way I did with so many others but he was kind of intimidating.
In the same time I had an intense beyond charming and brilliant boyfriend who looked at the world from an angle almost nobody does, for two years. who Eventually he becam gelous and paranoid and constantly threathened to kill me in a way nobody will ever find out. At least we had a great sex and love life for two years before he's threats started.
Timisoara
2000 Timisoara, Romania
I'd been dating since sixteen and was tired of falling in and out of love with people I didn't even like. I hadn't found true love, hadn't come close. I decided that if a man wasn't true love, he at least had to be cute and useful. I needed peace, I needed help, and I'd wanted babies since I was four or five. Words like marriage, honeymoon, cheating, social expectation simply weren't in my vocabulary; I think that comes from only ever looking at what I feel, and staying busy doing what I want instead of watching what other people do. I need to be free, moment to moment, to do what I need to do - with all the risks, it's where my joy comes from. I can't live any other way and don't know to live any other way and don't want to live any other way.
At twenty-one I went looking for a father for my future children and found one quickly. From a distance he looked cute, easy, stylish like a cloud drifting above the crowd. He had the nicest voice I have ever heard and a cute appealing butt. He didn't want marriage; his dream was to keep moving, never own a home - the idea of owning property horrified
Timisoara
2000 Timisoara, Romania
him. I can feel a person from a mile away, and I only feel comfortable with the ones I feel comfortable with; I can pass through a thousand people and like none of them. When I actually like someone, it means something. He just knew that when I say lets go it's always now. He turned out to be more intellectual than me, which unsettled me, since I already knew school wasn't my strength. I didn't think I was beautiful, but I knew I was sensual, and I was sick with worry that he wouldn't want me.
I told him I liked him. He said he liked me too because all men he knew liked me. Not exactly what I wanted to hear but at the end of the day all was good if he liked me too. People went to warn him about me not only that I was sexually free and a perceived danger to some women but that I was also a dumb talking nothing but clothes and hair. Never talking politics. Unable to support a conversation. You can be intelligent in many ways. I feel deeply - that is a form of intelligence. Sensitive people understand differently. "All can hear, but only the sensitive can understand.” Kahlil Gibran. He knew I was sexually free and asked whether I
Timisoara
2000 Timisoara, Romaniawould stop sleeping with other people, I said no. I loved myself too much, I loved my way of living too much, to give it up. I can be both loyal and free. I really can't stand the thought of being imprisoned and limited. I like myself exactly the way I am and don't want to change myself. People who are sensitive, sensual, sexual and free at 16 or 18 will be the same at 85, 95, 105. I said “Take me as I am, or leave me to find someone who likes me as I am” He chose to take me as I was.
I became the young mother of a sweet girl and a sweet boy, exactly as I had dreamed. We married becasue it was what people did and we were both from church.
I was never afraid of being alone. Even when I am 105 years old, I believe I can still find someone who wants to make love with an old, wrinkled woman like me. He will probably be old and wrinkled too. As long as we are alive, we are not ugly. A person can still feel so good even if ugly.
For me a wedding feels like a circus staged for everybody but me. I never wanted to have a wedding. I'm a shy, more solitray than social. I tried to wiggle myself out of it but I
Timisoara
2000 Timisoara, Romania
also can't say 'no'. We rented an over 100 years old beautiful church, kept the church service unusally short. Then I disappeared from the restaurant reception. I didn't mean to or planned to, it just happened. A cousin "stole" me and we went to her house and stayed there. She said the tradition (I never heard of) is that the bride is stolen and the groom needs to find her. We stayed and stayed at her house and the groom never came. We finally called him to see if he is still searching and he ordered me back to restaurant angered to no ends, where the guests were still there.
By the end of reception I felt a deep pain in my heart for not having found "true love" , whatever that feeling-experience even means. That feeling was still at the back of my mind, still a dream since I was 4 or 5. It's a dream I can't escape. It drives me. I hold tide to my dream because it's all I have. But then I don't believe my dream. I don't think I believe dreams at all. I don't know where dreams come from. And then I think is foolish
2000 Venice, Italy
to wait, to waste your time and life for something that may not exist, something maybe idealistic, something you may never find. I think it's good to keep the dreams at the back of your mind for your mental sanity but to also to get your hands as you go on anything you can, anyone that feels so good, anybody apealing, exciting, anybody who is comfortable, helpful. Generally to keep a good feeling and outlook in life. I know that the best time to prepare for the future is living your life today. This moment. People who cant seize the moment frustrate me because the feeling and energy of the moment dies. Most people seem to me live in a fear induced blindness or halfdeathness. "True love" in my mind is a fucking experience that feels in a certain way. Feels the best can be. Maybe feels like somebody gives you a kiss on your pussy but you love the person. Maybe sex + love= true love. A dream of person who's in tune with me and I'm in tune with him. We don't need to talk because we both deeply feel and completely understand each other. A person who likes me the most and I like him the most. A person with whom I feel like the whole world had disappeared and I'm only me and him living on earth surrounded by beautiful nature, rain, storms, snow, seasons and
2000 Venice, Italy
nothing else. I may be looking for myself in a masculine form. There is an anonymous saying that true love is like a pair of socks: you need two, and they have to match.
Sex alone is easy enough to find. It can be exciting, intoxicating, even extraordinary for a while. But without emotion, it can eventually become repetitive, mechanical, boring. The excitement burns brightly, but there isn't necessarily anything underneath it to keep the fire alive. The body is there, but the heart isn't fully there with it. Sex without emotional attachment feels empty to me.
And love without sex, or with pretend sex (words, stories), doesn't attract me either. Its like school - words, abstract, ideas, with no life to it. All empty, all dead. Cold, exausting, makes you feel like you waste time and life.
The hardest thing to find is the perfect situation when you really love and want a person who really loves and wants you back and you make love and you make it work. It doesn't soumds as difficult as it really is in reality for some reason.
2000 Chiavari, Italy
Sounds beautiful and idealistic. Do I belive I will find? Yes. No, I don't. I don't even trust tomorrow comes. I trust today and now, that is for sure. Reality is that everyone has something you have to put up with, you keep your head down and put the other first or you can't really be with anybody.
Love-bombing and falling in love feel much more alive to me than simply passing time with family, friends, pets, or television wich for me has always been too boring and empty. I've been all my life pulled by love and is all I love besides my babies. One way or another I spent my whole life practicing the art o f love . I think the best ther is, is one extraordinary fine fine person . Second best is a lover in every town. Its also hard to be satisfied by only one lover and its even too much to ask one single person to satisfy you. I know most people are not as free as me but some are. Follwing your own heart+keeping your mouth shut + doing what you want gave me peace, ease, freedom and beauty. I may have learnt this formula from my grandma.
2000 Chiavari, Italy
2000 Cinque Terre, Italy
Timisoara
2001 Timisoara, RO
Giving birth super fast (barely made it to hospital) to my sweet girl who I breasfed 15 months and kept in my bed until 3 years 1/2 becasue small kids are afraid to sleep alone
Retezan Mountains
2002 Retezan MT, Romania
Climbing 1000 m in one day
Apuseni Mountains
2003 Apuseni Mt, Romania
With my girl, in my favorite soft navy blue second hand Ralph Lauren top 2000 m in one day while skipping almost all PE in school
2003 Valea Cerbului, RO
2003 Valea Cerbului, RO
Timisoara
2004 Timisoara, RO
In my last day of IT college , graduation day.
Graduating IT college wich I attended 2% of time and learnt nothing. I did college becasue my mother forced me. She begged me to wash her embarsmnet with me as a person with no "college diploma". A type of toilet paper.
After barely graduating HS (the way I did school and graduate only I know and I cross myself) I did not go to any school for four years. I tried to emigrate in many ways. One of the ways was to get a scholarship at a American university. IFor that I had to go to speak with a beautiful face, hair texture, skin American woman with the ugliest hair cut , clothes and shoes and the toughest personality and voice . She screames rudeky "so where have you been for the last four years since you finished HS? no American unversities are not for people like you, now go away". After four years I went back to do Romanian college not only becasue my mothers insistence but also becasue I didn't know what to do. All my coelgues were in colege even married and I felt I hit some rock bottom. Just follwoing my heart, I neither found love nor a way to make money. I saw all people who emigrate are programmers.
Great Barrier Reef
2004 Great Barrier Reef, Australia
in 2004 I sold my apartmenmt for $18000. Gave to my mother 8 k, I took 10 k and I emigrate from Romania to Australia. First thing when I landed in Melbourne I feel the air so fresh like I landed in a resort. On the freeway from airport I see this big billboard on the side of the road with a young woman lying dead on thr gound. I guess was saying don't drink and drive but seeeing that I get sick and horrified. I don't think my sick feeling ever turned off since I saw that or since I left Romania. I'm not sure. The smell of Australia bushes with yellow and pink flowers made me sick. Seeing how the beaches looked made me sick. The sight of some bushes of grass made me sick. Only love can take away this sick feeling I have of everything I look at.
Bought the cheapest house at the edge of a publiuc forest 3 beds + one bath with 220K. Put down 10 k after I cried and cried becasue my partener didn't want to buy any house anywhere but I dreamed my kids to play in their own backyard with neighbors the way I did. A very weird house I loved at the base of a steep hill surrounded by nature unable to see people. That is my way of surviving peacefully in this world. It was so weird that when we had to sell it nobody wanted to buy it.
Melbourne
2006 Melbourne, AustraliaGiving birth even faster to my sweet boy who I breasfed 15 months and kept in my bed 3 1/1 years
Melbourne
2007 Melbourne, Australia
With my boy.
I gave birth to my second child and when he was 6 month a depresion hit me. I never in my life been depresed. I realized I was depresed becasue for about 3 months i didn't listen to music and I listen every day. Becasue I was not living for dreaming to go anywhere. And I always dream. I didn't know what was post partum depression (I never heard of that). I belived I was depresed becasue I didn't like how the nature looked. I blamed my depresion on nature, on lack of places to spontanoulsy go to. I used all my negative energy to move us to Pacific NW wich was extremly difficult to do.
One Sunday morning I sit in bed watching TV (people who know me, know I don't watch neither TV nor movies -too boring for me and seeing more people scare me, doesnt do me good). If I watch is usually natural disasters documentaries. I love blizards, storms. So this Sunday I sit in bed and look at a documentary about Mt St Helen's eruption. I see this winding roads through breathtaking beautiful conifer forests shot from above and I fall in love with Pacific NW.
My partner doesnt want to move. I cry and I cry and insist for two years and he doesn't care that I cry. There is this loterry visa you apply for free. I apllied for free for a decade or more. I take photos for me and the kids and can't apply becasue he doesnt want to sit to take his photo. He says only foolish dreamers apply to lottery. I tell him my first cousin who lives in CA has kids our kids age and how good is for kids to be raised toghther. He doesn't give a shit abut that either. I said why don't you want to go to America? he said becasue Americans live to work and he doesnt want to work. He likes La dolce vita ! and he gesticulates like Italians. He says his dream is living in Italy! This is a guy who I'm waking up in the middle of the night scared that I hear big noises and he says "the exercise bike is making noise now go back to sleep". One day I show him how much chepear my cousions' new house is in CA than our old house in a bad neighborhood in Australiua. How much the price of her house came down even. He likes that. He likes the money and agrees to try life in USA only if I deliver to him better paid job, better neighborhood, cheaper house. I deliver all he asks but only I know how difficult that was
Melbourne
2008 Melbourne, Australia
In Romania we didnt have credit cards. In Australia I learnt to use credit card for the very first time. Every month I payed a fee that seemed to change every month. It was becasue I had no idea I had to pay my credit card in full. Mark Conner the pastor of the Australia Pentecostal church I was part of taught us finance. He also gave a list of ten must read books for people who never read a book in their life. I felt he was speaking to me . I did not read one single book in my life. I thought books were for the intelelctual and/or rich and I was neither. From his ten books list I read only "Please understand me II" "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", "What color is your parachute" and I stopped at the parachute. He also told us to read an american's blog named Seth Godin. On that blog I later found about Bob Dylan
Portland
2008 Portland, OR
I emigrated from Australia to Portland, OR
In 2008 , In USA the stocks are falling, house prices are falling. We can not sell the Australia house so we can not buy any stocks or any house until we managed to sell the house a year later. Sill I'm looking to buy a house for my kids to play in dirt with the neighbors.
In 2010 we finally find a house with 220K the chepest nonfinancible becasue the roof was caving in but in an expenisve neighborhood. In mean time I'm forced by my partner to read a real estate investing book by Kiosaky and to attended some real esate investing groups wich I hate but we learn tips and tricks. So we fix the roof and finace the house. We move in and both my kids get beatten up by the neighbors boy. I tell the boy's dad his boy is not allowed in my house. My kids find other friends in the neighborhood to play with
Mount Rainier
2010 Mt Rainier, WA
Mount Hood
2013 Mt Hood, OR
Portland
2014 Portland, OR Enrolling in dating apps
I have zero interest in friends, TV, movies, pets, politics, causes, sports, travel. I'm exactly like Dean from Jack Keroack story -eager from bread and love and don't care either way about anything else. Its a joy to find people or characters like me. It gives me permison to be myself and makes me feel relaxed about being myself. So I enroll in dating apps. I discover what type of Americans want to sleep with me or want to marry me or ignore me. I got more inisght into my own self as well as into American culture wich is quite diferent from European culture. For me sex is the most important and has no importance. With the right person is the most important, with hookers or watching porn is just thrill. I always liked people who are fun. People who are not fun are a bit too difficult for me to deal with, I guess becasue of the lack of stimulation
Portland
2014 Portland, OR My first Bob Dylan concert
In 2012 I discover Bob Dylan and I say: this person is like me. Like sort of looks, feels, thinks, behaves somehow familiar. A current of overjoy goes through me from top to toe. I feel liberated. I don't need to change myself to fit society, not that I even tried yet but I thought I might have to once I start work. If he managed to make serious money being himself, so different from society, I can too. Over the years I went back to him again and back to him again and got to know more and more about him. I watched him remain- so cute all across his life. He's first of all exciting. He feels like the sun. Looks inspiring, cunty, gutsy, intensely alive, with fire (passion), with light (wisdom), extra energy, soulful, unconventional, led by his heart not by the crowd, sensitive, shy, vulnerable, with personal style, with feeling for what looks best, sounds best, productive, with outlaw free spirit style . Cares to live the best life can be like me. He is so wise, says things better than anyone. I don't want to miss a thing he says. He and his music will be with me all my life - I can’t imagine a day without. He made my life alive again, beautiful again, and warmer again. He beautified my life. Romania is a beautiful country, but I found a beautiful man in America. His music gives me a feeling about him that is the best feeling I have ever experienced - a feeling nobody else has ever given me.He feels like "my man" (I felt twice before "this is my man" with two other men I knew close to nothing when I met them, I just liked them a lot and turned out to not work or last but it still felt the best ), like something of myself.He feels the best since this Universe. Before, I said- I’ll recognize him when I see him. Now I know the type of men I like. What can be better in this life than a fine, fine lover. I like his face, it feels familiar to me. The way he moves feels so good to me. I've been to seven of his concerts, and simply sharing the room with him fills me with energy. His presence feels so good to be around. I want to feel every day this way. I would love to find someone who feels so exciting to sleep besides, eat with, walk down the street with.
Lake Louise
2015 Lake Louise, Canada
Lake Louise
2015 Lake Louise, Canada
Banff
2015 Fairmont Banff Springs, Canada
Maybe my favorite hotel but I like many hotels and motels
Banff
2015 Fairmont Banff Springs, Canada
Maybe my favorite hotel but I like many hotels and motels
Greenwich Village
2015 Greenwich Village, NY
On Bob Dylans steps to see how it feels. By now I'm crazy about Bob Dylan, I find him the only inspirational person. I read somewhere that you should consider yourself lucky if you find at least one person to inspire you. I feel lucky for sure.
Portland, OR
2016 Greenwich Village, NY
If you are not obsesed with your life change it. There is no time and energy for everything, its only for what feelis the best every moment every day
Portland, OR
2016 Portland, ORI change my hair color, I change my life.
Seattle, WA
2017 Seattle, WAI had no plans to go anywhere, its a week before Thanksgiving, I'm hoping for the first blizard of the year to come and I'm just browsing and I see this Airbnb place that looks appealing to me. It's in Seattle. It's something historical because has red brick in rooms and I love that type of interior wall. Maybe its weird to say that I fell in love with the apartment and i needed it to experience it right then. So I book this apartment for a night just because I love how it looks and I go by train to Seattle. I never traveled by train in States and wanted to try. I arrive at Portland train old station and I love how it looks. I see lots of people, like country side people with bags, sacks, musical instruments waiting to get on the train to Seattle. I thought "oh in States only country people travel by train". I get to Seattle and it seemed that cool place I booked on Airbnb was an apartment owned by the same person who owned the Merchants Cafe (Seattle’s oldest restaurant) that was located right under the apartment. It was an old stylish hotel form 1890. The owner, when I arrived, was decorating the place for Christmas and I got so happy to see that. She showed me to my apartment and said "You'll sleep alone tonight; no other room was rented". I get in the apartment and after I get in, the kitchen tap faucet starts on it's own. I go and close it. In a few hours it turns on again by itself. I said "what the fuck, never seen anything like it". I go to it and I close it yet again tighter. Anyway, in the WAevening I go down to their restaurant I get a beer and something to eat. There is no one in restaurant but they have nice music, outside is raining and I see many of homeless people walking by taking to themselves. I was not used with seeing homeless people at all. After they closed the restaurant, I decide I want more wine and I go to a shop around the block. I get in there and there is no customer but soon a man comes next to me. I reach out to pick up a product and he reaches out to pick up the product right next and his hand is parallel with mine and is touching mine. I don't get scared, and I don't pull my hand, I just linger as much as I need. Then I go to the next isle and find a bottle of wine and I go to pay. I try to pay with the card and right next to the card machine there is a dog sitting and his mouth is next to the card reader. I don't get scared and just pay. When I try to get out of the shop I can't because there are 5 homeless young people blocking me and not letting me out. I looked at them with no fear and they seem so much like me, dressed in the exactly same type of hand me down jackets with hoods and shoes I had in Romania. I feel a kinship and I linger since I can't see a way out. I let them look at me and smell me then I just showed that I need to go and push gently through going about my way. I go up to my apartment I knock myself out with drinking then I have a shower and fall asleep. In the morning I start researching where I got myself into. That's kind of how I do things. I see that the places I'm at, is a haunted place with scary stories. Oh well, I had absolutely no idea. I checked out and left the place excited. The Settle train station looked really beautiful but oddly enough all the people who were waiting to get in the train to Portland looked Intellectuals, professionals and students. It was not the country crowd I came from Portland with.
2018 Astoria, OR
2018 Astoria, OR
After spending most of my life deaf and blind to most people, here cames Thích Nhất Hạnh- the only person who seems to get completely through to me. I want to know everything everything he says. What I learned from him helped me more than I can say. So much of what I had always wanted to know, I found in his words—but deeper.
I discoverd him in 2018 and I read him so much that I kwo his words by heart.
It's funny that I feel sensuality in my body and in my life, and then I'm paying such close attention to a monk. But Thích Nhất Hạnh had a practice of living in the present moment, of touching life deeply. That was exactly what I craved too.
Joseph, OR
2019 Joseph, OR
Oregon to Washington to Idaho to Montana to Wyoming to Colorado to Utah, back through Idaho and home to Oregon. I came back from that trip energized. In love with the land, feeling American for the first time.
Government Camp, OR
2022 Government Camp, OR
I bought a brand-new Jeep - I'd always wanted one and never seriously considered anything else. I love a stylish car, but nothing comes close to the Jeep for me; there's no second-best. It's not an easy car to drive, essentially a truck, but I've gotten used to it, and people always ask how I manage it every day. I love it, and that's simply how. Getting on the road resets something in me every time — I feel like myself again, like the world just opened back up into a playground. Being on the road every week makes me happy; it keeps alive the hope of real love, of people who've followed their hearts, of vagabonds and adventure and new faces. Going is the medicine that keeps me free, sane, and loving. Whenever I feel low, I get moving, and it helps almost instantly. With the Jeep, I never compared it to other cars — once it fit, the question of alternatives just stopped mattering. It's the same with Bob Dylan: it isn't that I ran a contest and he won. He simply hit something exact, and "second best" stopped being a category that applied.
Portland, OR
2022 Portland, OR
Roaming constantly gets expensive and exhausting, so I bought a tiny two-room condo - the cheapest I could find - a place that belongs only to me, somewhere to retreat, recharge, and stay true to myself. I can only really relax alone. Owning things, having possessions, starts to feel like a drag; the possessions start to own you. I'm moving to LA now, chasing sun and work, and I'm not sure I want to own anything else. Renting suits me better — I just need enough money to keep doing it.Camping in nature, living off-grid in a small cabin, driving my Jeep, staying alone in my condo, moving my home from place to place—all of it inspires me and makes me dream. It makes me want to write poetry or make love.
Valdez, Alaska
2023 Valdez, Alaska
I'm landing in Anchorage, Alaska. I drive to Talkeetna where I see all the neighbors going and coming home by little airplains. I drive to Cantwell , next day I drive to visit Denaly Mountains wich can be visited only by bus. I take a bus and the bus driver points to a moose resting on a piece of unmelted snow and says "the moose is conserving energy". I thought I'm a lot like that moose. I try to get next to Valdez but the car breaks down so I go back for a night to Anchorage to get another car. With a new car I drive all the way to Valdez barely making it before the dark becasue there was al lot of puring rain, rivers and melted snow washing roads and many roads were in construction. The nature is very peaceful and wild. I get to Valdez and I get inspired and I fall in love with it. There are no traffic signs becasue there is barely any car. I said I want to live exactly here. While in Valdeze there is an earthquake I feel. It was only one jolt. From Valdez I need to get to Girdwood but I refuse to drive the same road I just came on. I want to go all around by ferry even though I know the online ferry
tickes got sold out months ago. I go to the ferry station and there are no tickets but they
said the day of departure to come at 5 am to get a walk in ticket wich won't gurantee that my car will have a place but to try. I wake at 4
Kenai Fjords, Alaska
2023 Kenai Fjords, Alaska
am and try to be at 4:40 am before others to get a ticket but I was late. In front of me there were already some kayakars and two other cars. By 8 am they manged to fit all the cars on the ship except my car and a motorcycle. Finally they signal to drive the car and I see that the only place left was barely to fit my car and the motorcicle. They fit all the cars so tight and with such precison that there was barely any space left all around my car on the ship. I aboultely love the ferry ride. Is bumpy, is cold, is splashy, is scary, is rainy, I love the ship food, I love it all. I get off at Whittier and drive to Girdwood, a ski resort I want to check out. I love the ski resort and I say I want to come to ski maybe I will even see the northlights. From Girdwood I drive to Seaward and from there I do Kenai Fjords National Park Cruise wich was exciting and inspirational. The boat captain, was one of the most passionate about nature, fun, exciting and cool persons I have ever seen and he was actually from Tillamook, Oregon where I live some times. Tillammok is a bit like in a diferent world. Mountain people and cruise captains are some of the most appealing and exciting people on earth. There is something about wilderness and people who live in wildernesss that make life feel so real and exciting.
Tuscany, Italy
2024 Tuscany, Italy
Peaceful countryside all around, an old stone house with red brick floors, beautiful art, an old piano, and wood-burning fireplaces. In this place I immediately got in touch completely with myself, became one with nature and my dream and the whole world, and any sense of time completely disappeared. I thought: this is how I want to live and feel for the rest of my life. I could see myself living in nature with my lover through spring blossoms, summer heat and rain, autumn winds, and quiet winters forever.
Naxos, Greece
2024 Naxos, Greece
Naxos, Greece
2024 Mammoth Lakes, CA
Las vegas, NV
2026 Las vegas, NV
love the heat of Las Vegas—the late-night street music, the warm air against my skin,
the feeling that anything could happen. I imagine sitting at a gambling table, dreaming of winning everything, with my lover beside me.
San Francisco, CA
2026 San Francisco, CA
Second time in SF. Pretty cool architecture but still the port that promises romance and adventure excites me more
Portland, OR
2026 Portland, OR