My grandma, Adi, babies, nature
1980 3 yeras old Ramna, Romania at profesional photographer
1981 4 years old Ramna, Romania at profesional photographer
Nature Born in Timisoara Romania, Dec 1976, raised since I was 3 months old by my grandparents in Ramna, Caras Severin. Ramna is a small hilly village off the beaten path with orchards and running creeks. Steamy summers with torrential rain. Autumns with powerful storms that left the streets covered in walnuts and leaves. Winters were quiet, white, the air thick with wood smoke. Our big beautiful garden, the wind moving the trees, the smell of yellow small pears, black grapes . . . colonies of bees, butterflies. I kept track of flowers, fruits, leaves, of 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 excited me, inspired me, they made me feel like making love. Love I was inseparable from Adi, the cute boy a year older who lived across the street. He followed me everywhere with a love smile on his face. He was the only one I let touch my baby doll. He could even scratch it if he wanted to. We were playing pranks on people who passed by, he was playing, I was too shy and scared. I dreamed of making love with him, and of having babies. we tyried to have sex a few times. We walked arms around each other’s shoulders saying nothing, feeling everything. Adi liked to fight with me, but he never hurt me. We played all day and in the night when I had to go inside, I didn't want to. I wanted to stay out and play more with Adi. Every night my grandma fooled me. She said to Adi "go to your home and come at the window. She will be at her window eating and you can eat seeing each other ". She said to me "Come! Come inside! Adi is coming at the window! Once I got in the room she closed the door behind me, locked it, put the key in her pocket and marched towards the window. I followed at her at the window but Adi was never at the window. He and his grandparents had the kitchen in courtyard like most villagers. We were cooking dinner in the bedroom, in a terrcota oven. Ever night was the same food "bou"(bull). Bou potatos baked mixed with feta, rolled in a cock shape I could keep in my hand and diped in a mixture of oil and garlic. Babies We had to go three times per week to the pentecostal church where my gradfather was the feared pastor. My grandma kept me a bit inside, gave me apple strudel to eat, then sent me to stay outside becasue inside was too boring. Outside were the cute, soft, warm babies in their mothers’ loving arms. I couldn't have enough of watching them. When a mother passed me by, my heart sarted beating fast. I was in awe of mothers. Mothers to me, were out of this world, the most important.
My brain blurres out and tunes out all peopleMy granddad forced me to sing in church. My gradma practiced and practiced the lyrics with me at home but I couldn't memorize a thing. On top of that people scared me so much, that when I'm in an enclosed space, and not only, with people my brain blures everyone out leaving me alone with just my breath. My gradad had Adi sing with me holding my hand. But I still couldn't do it. I left Adi sing alone and ran to my gradma's lap. I couldn't understand why my granddad was so tough with me forcing me do thing I just couldn't do. Death I roamed alone on the hills, in the village, past the village. I was always gone searching for shiny things, for gold, for seeing what turns up. I went to the cemetery on the hill where the grass was tall, the wind strong, where I felt closer to the sky. I heard the story of a young neighbor girl, my cousin's friend, who died. Adi's dad died and I went with my grandma to his wake. Another woman died in the village, I could never forget the smell of some plants they used on her. In every house I went, I started seeing photos of the dead on people’s walls. Death, like sex, like babies, became a lens through which I saw the world every single day. Escaping village kindergarten One day my grandma, hand in hand with Adi took me to the village's kindergarted. Once inside, I hated it. There was a dark room with a long table made from little tables and chairs with paper and pencils on each table. How boring and confining is that looking? 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 but I just couldn't. He didn't stay with me, he joined the crowd. Nothing, not only didn't appealed to me but I felt strong fright, horror and confusion. There was nothing appealing in there for me. Nothing to make me want to 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 " Don't you want to be with Adi?" "No!"
Liking myself By the time I was six, I was my own person. I knew my good traits and my bad traitst and I liked myself. I felt secure under the sun and felt a drive inside to celebrate every day. The dream of and reality of intimacy and babies affected me in a powerful way and is all that ever affected me. Everything else i don't care either way. (In America people seem to so be so heavily geared toward doing and producing that when you strip away someone's title, their role, or their social media presentation, they genuinely don't know who they are without the mask. it is usually because they are looking in the wrong places. They look for a label, but identity isn't a label—it is an internal landscape. Who you are is heavily defined by how you process the world when nobody is watching. The mask is held in place by obligations, schedules, and expectations. The unmasked self is your obsessions, what you want to do when there is no financial return or public applause. The unmasked self isn't a speech or a job description. It is a quiet, steady current of preferences, sensory connections, and a need for autonomy. It’s not about becoming something; it’s about noticing what is already there when you finally stop trying to impress the room.) Heartbreak My grandma was sensitive, gentle, emphaetic, silent. I loved my grandma so much, I felt one with her. One day, when I was six, my single mother whom I didn't know, and 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. When the 4pm bus came, as usual , I went at the station to wait for her. She got off the bus and I see in both her hands, so many toys she bought for me she barely could keep them. A pain stabbed my heart. She did not want me to leave and I so 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 , aboslutely all, were insensitive. I thought when I'll be big, I'll make a rule "no insensitive adults are allowed to interact with small kids ". They had dolls, furniture toys and I never seen toys like that. I wanted to play with them but I didn't know how and that was so painful. My shoe laces were always undone and it bothered me. I had to go around and study faces, to see what kid would have merci and kindness to tie my shoe laces without rejecting to help me, screaming at me and making me feel bad. 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. 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 look determined like 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 she 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.
Nature Born in Timisoara Romania, Dec 1976, raised since I was 3 months old by my grandparents in Ramna, Caras Severin. Ramna is a small hilly village off the beaten path with orchards and running creeks. Steamy summers with torrential rain. Autumns with powerful storms that left the streets covered in walnuts and leaves. Winters were quiet, white, the air thick with wood smoke. Our big beautiful garden, the wind moving the trees, the smell of yellow small pears, black grapes . . . colonies of bees, butterflies. I kept track of flowers, fruits, leaves, of 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 excited me, inspired me, they made me feel like making love. Love I was inseparable from Adi, the cute boy a year older who lived across the street. He followed me everywhere with a love smile on his face. He was the only one I let touch my baby doll. He could even scratch it if he wanted to. We were playing pranks on people who passed by, he was playing, I was too shy and scared. I dreamed of making love with him, and of having babies. we tyried to have sex a few times. We walked arms around each other’s shoulders saying nothing, feeling everything. Adi liked to fight with me, but he never hurt me. We played all day and in the night when I had to go inside, I didn't want to. I wanted to stay out and play more with Adi. Every night my grandma fooled me. She said to Adi "go to your home and come at the window. She will be at her window eating and you can eat seeing each other ". She said to me "Come! Come inside! Adi is coming at the window! Once I got in the room she closed the door behind me, locked it, put the key in her pocket and marched towards the window. I followed at her at the window but Adi was never at the window. He and his grandparents had the kitchen in courtyard like most villagers. We were cooking dinner in the bedroom, in a terrcota oven. Ever night was the same food "bou"(bull). Bou potatos baked mixed with feta, rolled in a cock shape I could keep in my hand and diped in a mixture of oil and garlic. Babies We had to go three times per week to the pentecostal church where my gradfather was the feared pastor. My grandma kept me a bit inside, gave me apple strudel to eat, then sent me to stay outside becasue inside was too boring. Outside were the cute, soft, warm babies in their mothers’ loving arms. I couldn't have enough of watching them. When a mother passed me by, my heart sarted beating fast. I was in awe of mothers. Mothers to me, were out of this world, the most important.
My brain blurres out and tunes out all peopleMy granddad forced me to sing in church. My gradma practiced and practiced the lyrics with me at home but I couldn't memorize a thing. On top of that people scared me so much, that when I'm in an enclosed space, and not only, with people my brain blures everyone out leaving me alone with just my breath. My gradad had Adi sing with me holding my hand. But I still couldn't do it. I left Adi sing alone and ran to my gradma's lap. I couldn't understand why my granddad was so tough with me forcing me do thing I just couldn't do. Death I roamed alone on the hills, in the village, past the village. I was always gone searching for shiny things, for gold, for seeing what turns up. I went to the cemetery on the hill where the grass was tall, the wind strong, where I felt closer to the sky. I heard the story of a young neighbor girl, my cousin's friend, who died. Adi's dad died and I went with my grandma to his wake. Another woman died in the village, I could never forget the smell of some plants they used on her. In every house I went, I started seeing photos of the dead on people’s walls. Death, like sex, like babies, became a lens through which I saw the world every single day. Escaping village kindergarten One day my grandma, hand in hand with Adi took me to the village's kindergarted. Once inside, I hated it. There was a dark room with a long table made from little tables and chairs with paper and pencils on each table. How boring and confining is that looking? 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 but I just couldn't. He didn't stay with me, he joined the crowd. Nothing, not only didn't appealed to me but I felt strong fright, horror and confusion. There was nothing appealing in there for me. Nothing to make me want to 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 " Don't you want to be with Adi?" "No!"
Liking myself By the time I was six, I was my own person. I knew my good traits and my bad traitst and I liked myself. I felt secure under the sun and felt a drive inside to celebrate every day. The dream of and reality of intimacy and babies affected me in a powerful way and is all that ever affected me. Everything else i don't care either way. (In America people seem to so be so heavily geared toward doing and producing that when you strip away someone's title, their role, or their social media presentation, they genuinely don't know who they are without the mask. it is usually because they are looking in the wrong places. They look for a label, but identity isn't a label—it is an internal landscape. Who you are is heavily defined by how you process the world when nobody is watching. The mask is held in place by obligations, schedules, and expectations. The unmasked self is your obsessions, what you want to do when there is no financial return or public applause. The unmasked self isn't a speech or a job description. It is a quiet, steady current of preferences, sensory connections, and a need for autonomy. It’s not about becoming something; it’s about noticing what is already there when you finally stop trying to impress the room.) Heartbreak My grandma was sensitive, gentle, emphaetic, silent. I loved my grandma so much, I felt one with her. One day, when I was six, my single mother whom I didn't know, and 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. When the 4pm bus came, as usual , I went at the station to wait for her. She got off the bus and I see in both her hands, so many toys she bought for me she barely could keep them. A pain stabbed my heart. She did not want me to leave and I so 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 , aboslutely all, were insensitive. I thought when I'll be big, I'll make a rule "no insensitive adults are allowed to interact with small kids ". They had dolls, furniture toys and I never seen toys like that. I wanted to play with them but I didn't know how and that was so painful. My shoe laces were always undone and it bothered me. I had to go around and study faces, to see what kid would have merci and kindness to tie my shoe laces without rejecting to help me, screaming at me and making me feel bad. 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. 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 look determined like 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 she 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.
My grandad, city garden, mountains
1985 8 years old Timisoara, RO dresses up my myself: soft white turtleneck and soft red joggers
1985 8 years old Timisoara, ROdressed up forced by the school:nonsense scrachy ugly tjhe same like all the girls
1987 10 years old Timisoara, ROdressed up forced by my mother: scratchy elegant dress
1992 Apuseni Mt, RO 15 years old . In my last camp, the pants I soaked in bluberiess
1992 Apuseni Mt, RO 15 years old . In my last camp, the pants I soaked in bluberiess
City garden- my beautiful peace place
Back to the village my grandparents sudenly decided 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 car free cobblestone squares, fountains, theathers, 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 at their music and watched horror movies day in and day out until I started to be afraid of my own shadow. 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.
Loving my grandad
When I was 8, suddenly, I saw my granddad. He was always around but I didn't see him until then. I liked him a lot. He was so cute, silent, focused, passionate about working in the garden. Every day he complained that we don't have money and nobody helps him. I decided to make him love me more than he loves my grandma. I started working in the garden alongside him. I learnt to plant tomatoes and bell peppers exactly the way he wanted. I learnt to prune the grapevine. I took the weeds out by the root (not scrapedthem like my grandma). I go to the farmers market, pulling a cart full of fruits and veggies to make money. He started talking to me more and more. I listened fascinated to everything he said. I thought he was the smartest man on earth, he became my entire world. All the kids I played with together, were not as cool as my grandad. He said "people who love each other understand each other by looking at each other, they don't need to talk. They even kind of look alike". He would often say "don't follow me, follow your own mind". I thought it was so cool of him to say that. He was allergic to me laughing in church. He threatened me until I was 16 “If I'll catch you laughing in church, I’ll come up at the orchestra, take you by your hand, get you out, and slap you over your face until you see green stars". My mother never in her life had the guts to have the nails painted red even though she wanted to becasue of him saying that is not christian like. But he let me have my nails painted red . He only said "look I know who you are and don't judge you for having the nails painted red but if a boy would like you and see your nails red may not take you thinking you are not christian like". My grandma didn't like that I started loving my grandad more. She loved her son and grandson more than she loved me too, and I understood. I hope she understood me too.
Walking out -Tunig out- walking out again of school
When I started firts grade, the school looked a cross between jail and hospital. I hated it at first sight, it gave me anxiety and confusion. The long hallways lined with classrooms made me feel perplexed and sick. I kept walking out in the middle of the school day and going home half a dozen times until I realized that walking out would not help me escape school. I "settled in" for the moment. I could not believe the world I had woken up into. I though life was intensely alive - emotional, sensual, beautiful, full of kindness, lively perfumed nature, romance, play. But school felt like not like that. School was something I had no connection or understanding of whatsoever. School was a lack of any posibility to do what I feel like from moment top momnet what I did since I was born, and not being able to do what I want drove me crazy. School was 100% unintersting talk that boredom me to deatrh, schedules, threats, emotionally flat people, bully kids and bully adults. They seems to read and enjoy books I found horrifing, horrifying becasue they looked up at something I was more horrible than school. The more I saw of school the more blind and deaf I became and more focused on my dream drwoning in dibelief. I'm not a day draemer I'm an active busie person. I only daydream in school and church where I was being forced to stay against my will. Lucky with my grandma who couldn't do school either, and told me over and over the story of how her wealthy dad had to bribe the teachers with sheep cheese to helpo pass classes. Also lucky with my mother who besidies ignoring school like it doesn't exist also bitched about the nonsense if it, saying how we were all forced etachers and kids aloike to put upo with that and hjow nobody wanted to be part of it. At that time I didn't hear about my first cousin considered genius who went to school and smashed the desks. I read without any comprehension, I felt I can't understand words and I developed a words, books and libraries aversion. Grade 1-4, I could do school without putting in any effort. In grade 2 I discvered I can't memeorize a short sweet poem called "Toamna" All the kids in the class were tested and could memorize the short peome except me. I could not say two lines. The axiety of knowing that I can't memorize becasue i tried and tried for houre home. made me forget even the two line I though I had in mind. By the begining of grade 5 the school became difficult and I gave up on school completely. I was just doing it mindlesly. I would only show up at school horrified of it, that's all I did. Every thing the teachers told me to do I didn't hear. I didn't do any homework, did not prepare for any tests. English class of grade 5 was my first class I was on track to fail if not for the teacher who gave me a passing grade out of thin air in the last moment. That was the begining of countless classes I was not having a passing grade but I got one to get rid of me I guess. The teachers said I had flashes of briliance in math but I didnt believe them - my grades were average even in math. If was criticized or praised it didn't affact me either way. I didn't care what others thought of me at all. My brain was tuning people out since I could remember. For my own heart , health and sanity I should have been let to stop school after 4 years. I disliekd that place to extreme. Nobody can make me like something I don't like not today, not tomorrow and not ever. I only did the easy things , I honestly believed difficult things were for the smart kids not for me. I was not part of the smart crowd. I skipped PE almost my entire school life because I hated exercising. When they were catching me at PE ironically they would make me leader of the group wich I hated also. I don't want to be a leader and as a leader I was supposed to tell the kids the instructions the techers told me only that I could not rember a thing the teacher said. Composition class horrified me even more. Once the teacher told me to “write something,” but I had nothing school wanted to hear. I had no ideas in my head and no way to fabricate any. When I finally handed something in, she wrote across the page: “illegible writing." and refused to grade my writing. Once I wrote on a small paper "Is penis a country?" I passed the note to a neighbor who was sitted in a different raw. The teachers usually did not catche our notes but she caught exactly that one. She read it, and her face, her neck , her ears, all turned a deep pink-red like a lobster. She did not believe I was the type of person to write that and I didnt belive I was either. I tried to be as quiet and ias nvisible as could and jept mute at all times. Even when asked question I would not respond because I didn't know what they were talking about and I was not even tryingh to think. What they were talking sounded horrible and I couldnt care less. I knew I will never ever in my life be interested in such things. I just knew. In elementary school I treid to fit in. In breaks, I tagged along my neighbor friends but I didn't like them. It was so painful, so difficult to be with people I didn't like and do things I didn't like. I dreamed to teh joy of being alone able to do what my heart wants, but that meant looking like a weird person, like a lone wolve and in elementary school I was not ready for that but I promised myself that once I move over to high school with completely new colleagues I would not accept anymore the torture of having friends I didn't like. So in grade 9 I moved to this new high school with completely new classmates. I felt ready to walk in breaks all alone like a lone wolf. Just freedom and hope. I always found the lone wolves the coolest and the most sexually appealing to me and I started looking for one. In breaks, I walked on all the school's hallways and around the school checking out all the boys in the entire school and see who likes me back, or I went straight as fast I could in downtown to do window shopping. I went especially to two shops. One shop was a new clothes shop with unique clothes. I was always looking for dresses or skirts. No item of clothing was in multiple sizes. The other shop was an old books shop in the cool stylish fortress Maria Theresia Bastion that had occasionally old maps with Romanian mountain ranges I needed badly becasue they were not printing new ones anymore. I wanted to find and buy ALL the maps with ALL the Romanian mountains ranges becasue I planned to explore them all. The school break was 10 minutes and it took me 6 minutes to get to this shops, 3 minutes too look around and check out what new came in, and 5 minutes to come back, becasue back I was running. I had this thing with maps that when I opened the map and saw all the lines that were tracing the valleys, the crests, the mountain peaks my heart started beating fast, my entire body would start shaking with excitement. In my mind I was already right up in those mountains I knew how they feel so well. The time I spent looking for maps and clothes felt so good that it got longer and longer to the point that I realized I had no chance to make it back to school on time and I started skipping classes. I started skipping one hour, then two hours, then four hours, then one whole day then two whole days, then half a week, then half a week every week. I was very stressed out about being out of school roaming on the downtown streets when the entire earth population was in school or at work but I couldn't make myself go to school and walking on the streets felt so good. I went past underground Jazz clubs where in the night had live music and in the morning people were smoking and drinking coffee. I went past Intercontinental Hotel where foreigners in suits with languages were eating Romanian grill with fries and profiterol a Romanian cake with whipped cream so good. In the summer vacation between grade 10 and 11 I fell madly in love and the school got completly erased from my brain. I could not rember about school at all. At the beginning of grade 11, one sunny morning in the class a thought came to me "what the school has to do with me? "...."Nothing" So after the class ended, I walked out of school for good with no thoughts of consequences. I could not take it one more minute. I stopped going to school about 75 % of the time and I got in trouble. I could hear the etachetrs talking in etachers room about me , lsayinf "what happend with her". I was sent to the school's psychologist who asked me what I liked most. I answered, “nature and making love.” She prescribed me a week in nature, excused from school. One week excused was not helping me with the over three hundreds I had.From third week of grade 9 the chemistry teacher wanted to make me memorize the Periodic Table wich I wanted to but couldn't do. She also wanted me to memorize theory and that I didn't want to. I got blocked in my head and I completely refused to cooperate with her. I wish I could pretend to learn theory but at that time I just couldnt. I couldn't understand why she picked on me out of 35 kids. There were lots of kids who didn't want to learn theory but she just picked on me.Couldn't get bored of me. She kept me standing two years at all her classe when everyone else sat down. She exausted me. In the same time at physics I was the only one who knew to solve physics problem. It happened that the physics teachers was a blonde beautiful with long curly hair frindly chill woman who would smiled and liked to talk with us before class, but also one of the teachers I ever had who didn't want to deal with theory, she would just test us on problems, gave us as homework only solving problems, doing in class only problem solving and she would say "you have time to look over theory at home, we don't do theory in class". I loved that teacher, she fit me so much and she liked me too. I was so bad at theory that I would do the theory to come up with formula I needed from scratch becasue I could not memorize any formulas. Home I did hundreds of physics problems and doing them it focused my brain and gave my a sense of peace that felt so good that I kept doing physics problems. After 6 month of doing hundreds of physics problems without understanding what i was doing , things fell into place and sudenly I could do any physics problem and that became a problem becasue i started to get the highest grades and the xpecation of me shifted. The phyics teachers said "you should become physics researcher". When I heard that I cringed. Besides not feeling comfortable to be told who to be and what to do. I felt deep inside that I could not have any job in between 4 walls. I didn't know what job I could have but I knew had to be something that moves from place to place. Romanian language, biology, georgraphy, history, math all I was on track to fail but they all gave me a passing grade out of thin air. I really failed anatomy after the tecaher, an old elegant man always wearing suitd with tghin stripes jumped with both his kneews ona alb hight level table to try to catch me copying. I had to go retake the anatomy tests in autum when I didn't learn or know anything more. Then grade 12 came and the literature teacher promised to not let me graduate. His literary analises textbook was like a foreign language. All the words were Romanian but put toghther I could not make sene of half a sentece. How can I learn or memorize something i can't even understand. I had no chance to pass that literature class and i did not want to risk. Also with my 300 + absences wich were only part of all i skipped, at the begining of grade 12, I moved myself to the worst HS in the city. This worst school in town was still located like my first school in the beautiful downtown in one of those medieval buildings. I thought this worst HS was with mentally challenged kids but I was surprised to discover it was actually full of kids who lived in the nearby villages. Even that worst HS in town was way too difficult for me and made me sick with my stomach just looking at it and at everyone in it. Its hard to keep up with anything in school when you are missing school all the time and pretend that school doesn't exist. I was so addicted to walking on the bautiful streets, with spending days up in the mountains, with spending mornings in my boyfriends bedrooms, with roaming around Romania that nothing could have made me give up my addictions and make me start going to school again. It was impossible. To graduate HS I had to pass 7 tests called Baccalaureate. I was scared to death and sick about those 7 tests but the fear didn't make me study at all for any. Not that I didn't want to do school, I wanted, but I couldn't. I would open a school book, look at first page and close it. It put me to sleep instantly. The dislike was too big. It was like somebody forced me to eat shit. I could never. I learnt in that HS out of necesity the art of bull shit. Don't give a blank page, don't keep your mouth shut, write and talk with confidence bull shit. They can't give you a passing grade on nothing. One of the seven tests I had to pass was called Logic. I will never forget the morning I went for "logic" test, sitting at my desk looking around to see from whom Im going to copy, knowing I have no chance to pass if I can't copy, knowing that I didn't even manage to get my hands on that text book called Logic, let alone look through it. I was not at school when they gave out the Logic text books and when I went to library they said is a new subject and dont have any extra to give me. I can not forget how I felt. I felt like I fell from a diferent planet. I could not feel more shocked, horrified, sick with my stomach with no ability to even remotely understranding how comes is me on one side of the fence and school -desk-test , others doing school-desk- tests- textbook on the other side. I can't express the feeling but I know I feel so bad that my brain just blurs out the school and the most peiople. How I survive ? I dont even know is sureal and sort of always want to escape and I also trust that I will survive.For me, school — like church — was only about seeing boys I liked, dreaming to make love to them, and waiting for life to begin somewhere else. I preserved myself: keeping my heart warm, my world beautiful, and everything ugly out. Like a good gardener carefully protecting the seeds she wanted to grow.Attention problems before age 6.
Grandma describing me as someone who didn't listen.
My mother said my number 1 defcet is impulsivity, i want it and want it now.
Intense difficulty waiting.
Inability to sustain attention in school.
Trouble reading even half a page.
Forgetting spoken instructions.
Mind drifting during conversations.
Exploring city's limits
In the city I searched and searched, but couldn't find a boy to love, to play with and dream to make love to, and that hurt so bad. I thought "is everyone in so much pain as me? Almost nobody seemed to have somebody to love and be with. Finally I found a boy three years older than me whom I didn't love but found exciting. We took the buses, the troleybuses and trams and went to the end of the line to see where the end of the city is. We never had ticits. We explored abandoned houses, went through underground rusted pipes on big construction sites. He didn't fit me so well and I quit playing with him but I didn't quit exploring. I started to look at communal garbage sites for chocolate shiny foils. I collected them and made xmas tree decorations from them. I went to the railways station where my uncle was working. I took the train until the next station, I got off, then I came back scared out of my mind because I never ever had a ticket.
Rides on music
In the city there was a huge park where every summer they brought a few rides on cool music. Once I'm on a ride with music, I immediately start dreaming. I went on one ride I loved again and again. Everyone was going once; I had to go so many times I thought people will think I'm crazy. Then one summer the rides didn't come. Next year the same. I started asking all around, where are the rides, did they move them? I searched for them the whole city asking around. Nobody knew about any rides. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how all the best things are disappearing. Why other people don't feel like me, don't love what I love, don't crave same things like me because for me they were the best.
Not waiting
In the city I craved thrill, excitement and play every day. I was available to play at any time but the other kids were all busy with excuses. They all were doing "important things". Chores, chess club, swim classes, horse ride classes. Taking care of their little brothers or sisters. Waiting for their parents to come home from work to check their finished homework. I've never did my homework and the parents saw me as a bad example. They forbid me to come at their doors to call their kids out to play. By the time I was 10, I realized that most kids don't live for thrill like me . That was disappointing and hurt so bad because I need to share but I understood. You can't make anybody crave thrill if they just don't. At that moment, out of my too long wait for them to finish work , I decided I won't ever wait for anyone, I won't ask twice, I won't beg again. It's too painful. Easier, to be alone in peace, and hope. If no one comes, I go. If one day I meet someone with the same fire, hungry for same thing as me, I'll be happy and I'll take them. If not, it is what it is and it's how it goes. I just go.
First long-distance trip all by myself.
When I was 11, in the summer vacation, I went with my grandma back to the village to visit. I met my boyfriend, we play all day every day, and I discover that my love for him was dead. Still, it felt so good to be with him that my grandma returned to the city but I stayed in the village one more week. I did not stay at Adi, I stayed at the neighbor whoe's daugher died young. I slept in their guest room on a matress filled with straws but I liked it. I came back to the city alone, changing two buses and that marked my first long distance trip all by myself.
Church choir/orchestra
In the city we joined the Pentecostal church. Despite my mother saying"what other peopel think of you" and "God will be upset with you", I still stayed outsid of church becasue inside was to boring. To get me in line my mother forced me to joined the kids’ choir where I sang four years and the conductor didnt let me stay outside. Then I had to move up to orchestra where I played mandolin two years right in front of the church and from there I aslo couldn't get out. My 3 times divorced motrher wanted me to be somebody important, a doctor, a director, the president, a leader in school, a singer in church. Anything just to wash her shame of 3 times divorced person, a poor person, a nobody in the world. But I just couldn't care less. My mother was the strongest person I have ever met and I had to go along with a whole lot. I had no choice. In kids choir I loved the Palm Sunday when we sang with lilac, tulips and other spring flowers in our hands and the whole church smelled so good. Every Christmas I went singing carols with kids choir two nights all night long until 6 am. We walked on streets, singing carols in exchange for tasty cookies and cakes filled with cream. Cream can be 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 4 voices sounded divine. It felt like we were in a different world. The lady, the conductor, her name was Sister Barbu, was rather severe. Her gentle smiley soft spoken husband, was on accordion. My mother said these people knew to do life and is good for me to be around them. Both were musicinas by profesion. We had brother Radu (my uncles dark skin friend) on contrabass who made the whole church, the balcony where we were at, and the windows, shake with the bit. Sister Barbu and her husband were passionate about music and passionate about mountains. They were poor, but building slowly over many years their mountain cabin. While they were building it, we were camping right next to it. My first few camps in the mountains were with them and the kids from choir. The camps with them were just singing, playing, cooking, eating, picking berries and free time to play on our own every afternoon with an occasional praying out loud which I dreaded.
Falling in love with mountains
In the same summer vacation, my mother forced me to go in my first mountain camp organized by kids church choir. And I initially didn’t want to go because I was so shy. The thought of sleeping in tent with others horrified me so much that I couldn't see myself able to do it. In that camp, I fell in love with mountains, with the way they make me feel. With the feeling of 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. I enrolled myself every year in all the mountains camp I could, until I was 15.
Blubbery Hill Thrill
In one of the camps we were about 100 kids coming back to tents from a long hike, still had about 2 hours of walk. All kids were walking on the path in the forest but I see that on the left side there is this meadow full of some long very thick slippery green shiny grass. I started to slide on that grass on my butt because it was a good slope. Two more kids came after me and was thrilling! We got some good speed and it was such a long way down. I thought I want to do this for the rest of my life. Then the two kids quit and went back in the forest to walk in line with the rest but I continued like a mad person my slide down on my butt thrilled out of my mind and faster. I couldn't understand why nobody came after me and why the other two quit. I arrived down way ahead of everybody else and I was waiting for the rest proud of myself. When they finally caught up with me, I see from the distance their faces looking at me and smiling in a weird way. They asked me if I feel anything with my butt. I said no. They asked me to look at my butt. When I looked, my baby blue pants were soaked with smashed blueberries. Underneath all that long green grass were small bushes of blueberries I hadn't seen. I loved those pants, they were soft, cute and you could make them two lengths but I could never get the blueberries out of them and had to throw. The slide though was thrilling, was unique and maybe I will never get that experience in my life. I love when an opportunity comes and I freely take it and nobody stops me. I live for moments like that. My uncle the light Until around 13, for me, all people were beautiful. When I was 13 something changed in me because I looked around and hardly anyone was beautiful. Hardly anyone was happy. Almost all adults I knew looked like walking corpses waiting for the death to come, except my uncle. My uncle was different. He was like a bright warm light in a grey world. Like a breath of fresh air. He was cute, passionate, charming, charismatic, energetic, full of life. He had a job with the railways he loved and worked on from 8 am to 4 pm. After work came straight at my grandparent's house where he worked on his clothes business until 10 pm. While making clothes on this machine with patterns, he was singing his heart out alongside his Christian cassettes. At the end of the month he collected rents, lots of money, from his three apartment rentals. While my grandad worked the land so hard for so little money, my uncle seemed to work little for the amount of money. He became richer by the year. I liked that. I thought that collecting rents job would fit me perfectly. I can go skiing then come home at the end of the month to collect rents. I always hated to go skiing on schedule like people with school and jobs do, because the best skiing is on fresh powder. Skiing on fresh powder doesn't compare with any other type of skiing. Skiing on fresh powder is fun, is like dancing. Good powder makes you feel a good skier. Fresh powder comes when it comes, it doesn't come on schedule. I felt life was good for my uncle. I said I want a life like his. My uncle showed me a path in life when it was so grey I couldn't see any. He was my inspiration. My nose makes me feel like a monster When I was 13 many things changed in me including my nose which suddenly became so ugly it made me feel like a monster. I didn't even want to walk on the street for people to see me. My boobs suddenly got a size C facing upwards and no other girl in my class had boobs yet. Then I got way too much hair for a girl on my legs above my knees. It's not that I couldn't shave, it's that you could see where you shave and it made me feel so bad. In summer at PE everyone was having a good time in shorts and t-shirt, only I was hot sweating in long joggers and zipped up top, to hide my hairy legs and my boobs all the boys were staring at. Boys were passing by and were saying "aren't you too hot? unzip your top!". Then my hair got curlier and curlier and I didn't like to have curly hair. It made me feel like a sheep. I exhausted myself searching for products that made my hair straighter. I slept with a hat on my head. If in the morning I woke up still with a curly hair I was devasted, unable to function. Lucky one of my colleague's dad was the best plastic surgeon around. I had three nose surgeries with him - one at 15, one at 17 and one at 18 years old. My mother said "you can't change how God made you, if you do that, that's a sin". So yeah, I'm a sinner. The boys liked me from before I had any surgeries. They made a top of the most beautiful girls in the class and I got on 3rd place with the mention "she's not beautiful, her nose is wavy, but there is something about her". My mullet type of hair that I have in may photos is my own creation. I cut my own hair. I never really know what I’m doing. I just follow what feels good to me. Scared of some boys When I was 14 , I started having about four guys in church obsessed with me like I was "the one". I didn't like any, and I was running from them and they were running after me. There was one who was so into me that I felt I will never escape him as long as I live. Another one forced me to say why I don't like him and I said "because I can't stand you". It was my first lesson in blurting things out straight. It's when I learnt that truth sets me free. I liked some other guys but they didn't even look at me. That's how it goes. It's hard to find someone you like who likes you back in the same time. Hearing the mountain's call 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 bible study, more word games and only bible study and word games. And I can't stand at all bible study and word games. No hiking, no exploring the mountains around, no nothing exciting at all. Singing from 10 pm to 12 am around campfire, I would have loved to do if I only could. When 9 pm comes my body starts closing my body function one by one. By the time 10 pm comes I’m 75% asleep. In the mountain's strong fresh air, I felt like falling off the log I was sitting on so I stood up, turned my back and whent to my tent to sleep while everyone else was around the campfire. Behind my back I heared them screaming "don't dare wake up before 8!" When I was 15 I found myself skipping the bible study hours that were part of the camp. To escape those, I hid in the forest. 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. Day after day I hid in the forest and nobody realized I was missing. I want to be invisible and it seems that I AM invisible. 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 eat what I want when I want, sleep when I want as much as I want. That camp was my last camp. Love cured me When I was 16, a guy from the church orchestra made me fall madly in love with him. Until then I thought maybe I should become somebody as my mother wanted me. After him, I stopped caring about becoming somebody. I only cared about love.
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. Somebody built for us a smoke house for meat like we had in the village. That man didn't build it well 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 2 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. Why were we thinking he's going to do it this time? We had to re plan the amount of work. I had somebody 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. I could have died of too much work I guess. At the end of the week my uncle showed up singing and whistling, with a smile on his charming face not telling us where he was. My grandad hated in that moment his own son so much
My grandparentsFrom 3 month until 7 years I stayed only with my grandparents. From 7 until 17 I stayed weekdays with my mother but all weekend and vacations I stayed at my grandparents house. When I was 17 I walked out of my mothers house. I lived alone for couple of month but not having money I moved in with my grandparents with whom I stayed until I married at 23. My grandma had no sense of limits or morality, she was out of society completely. She came from one of the welthiest familys from the neighboring village. Her dad owned the cutting grain machines, her first cousin moved to Chicago where he became a wealthy American owning hotels. My grandma said "my dad was loving, smily, gentle, joky, kind, he bribed my teachers with sheep cheese to help me pass classes. He was not mean like your grandfather ". My grandma said "put love first, if you love each other you can do money toghether after". My gradfather loved a woman in his Ramna village who loved him back. The girl's parents agreed for them to marry but the girl's grandma said over her dead body they will mix with my gradfather's dad" . My gradfather got hurt becasue he loved his dad and said "to punish for life the girl and her family for talking bad about my dad I will not marry the girl". I lift all this details from my gradfathers journal he wrote before he died but doesnt say anything about his dad. I know that his grandad was of Roma origing but I'm told was not biological. I can see for myself in the photo that his mothers brother is of Roma origin but I was also told that was half brother. My gradfather said "put God and money first, that's what people with good judgement do " . He said "my mother was hard working, with character, wisdom , she had a nice walk and style, not like your lazy messy grandma". None of my grandparenst were social. My grandma had no concept of friends or society. My grandad had frinds as a child who dispapoonted him and sweard to not get friends ever again. They never owned a TV, got a radio in their eighties, they didn't read news. They wwho I can see in the photo is of Roma oroigin, ere silent never talking about anything and anybody. He was pecking on her every day with "lazy", "messy ""nobody in the world". She didn't like his talk but never said anything except laughing. I was looking at out chickens and saw that the rooster all day long was going around pecking on one hen or another. My gradfather and my gardmother were beahaving pretty much the same like a rooster and a hen. While they were doing that with each other I could not be more happy and peaceful to be with them. I loved and liked them both so much. He was producing the best organic food, talking with me, solving my problems without making me feel bad and she was cooking the most delicious food. They fit me so perfectly. As much as I tried to be the hard working with character woman he liked, like his mother, I failed at it. It turned out I hate to work the land, its so hard. Even bending to pick up the fruits is too hard for me. I'm messy. 9 out of 10 when I eat something falls on my dress.I don't know what the word morals means. What I had is ability to understand him and love him. He got attached to me too and we became the closest in the family. I was tryin to work the land alongside him but it was so hard and he would say "don't worry is too hard for you, I'll do it". He was working and I was looking and walking around, being around when he took a break and wanted to talk .I listened to him for so long that I understood him and his behaviour. Nothing he did seemed wrong to me. One of my cousins was afraid of him and couldnt stand him. He told that cousin to come home only in coffin. He would swear and spit people in their face. He theratend my uncle' wife with taking her by the hand and throwing her in the street hundreds of times. When we had relatives visiting he was not showing up "he was busy working". They hated him also, they thought he was too rude and self important not having time ever for anyone. He kept all his life a bix axe by the front door and was threatening to kill theives with it. My grandma asked me "do you hear what he says that will kill, is it okay that he talks like that?" We were locked on the property from 10 pm to 6 am becasue on top of the locked doors he had a wiring system that onle he could undo. I didn't even want to get out of the house in the night becasue the dogs were let run free and he only kept the bigest and most vicious. If a dog was not vicious he would open the door and let the dog on the street become strai. He broke my nose once in the village when I laught with Adi under the table while he was preching to the many brothers and sisters who gatherd weekly at our house. There was so much blood on the floor that all people left right then in horror. He took me by my hand and threw me in the street, again in the village, when I stole my neighbor;s baby doll telling me "go wherever you see with your eyes I don't rasie theieves under my roof." He locked me out. I went to the bus station. I wanted to leave . I had a feeling that nomatter where I'll end up , I'll be alright.
Blubbery Hill Thrill
In one of the camps we were about 100 kids coming back to tents from a long hike, still had about 2 hours of walk. All kids were walking on the path in the forest but I see that on the left side there is this meadow full of some long very thick slippery green shiny grass. I started to slide on that grass on my butt because it was a good slope. Two more kids came after me and was thrilling! We got some good speed and it was such a long way down. I thought I want to do this for the rest of my life. Then the two kids quit and went back in the forest to walk in line with the rest but I continued like a mad person my slide down on my butt thrilled out of my mind and faster. I couldn't understand why nobody came after me and why the other two quit. I arrived down way ahead of everybody else and I was waiting for the rest proud of myself. When they finally caught up with me, I see from the distance their faces looking at me and smiling in a weird way. They asked me if I feel anything with my butt. I said no. They asked me to look at my butt. When I looked, my baby blue pants were soaked with smashed blueberries. Underneath all that long green grass were small bushes of blueberries I hadn't seen. I loved those pants, they were soft, cute and you could make them two lengths but I could never get the blueberries out of them and had to throw. The slide though was thrilling, was unique and maybe I will never get that experience in my life. I love when an opportunity comes and I freely take it and nobody stops me. I live for moments like that. My uncle the light Until around 13, for me, all people were beautiful. When I was 13 something changed in me because I looked around and hardly anyone was beautiful. Hardly anyone was happy. Almost all adults I knew looked like walking corpses waiting for the death to come, except my uncle. My uncle was different. He was like a bright warm light in a grey world. Like a breath of fresh air. He was cute, passionate, charming, charismatic, energetic, full of life. He had a job with the railways he loved and worked on from 8 am to 4 pm. After work came straight at my grandparent's house where he worked on his clothes business until 10 pm. While making clothes on this machine with patterns, he was singing his heart out alongside his Christian cassettes. At the end of the month he collected rents, lots of money, from his three apartment rentals. While my grandad worked the land so hard for so little money, my uncle seemed to work little for the amount of money. He became richer by the year. I liked that. I thought that collecting rents job would fit me perfectly. I can go skiing then come home at the end of the month to collect rents. I always hated to go skiing on schedule like people with school and jobs do, because the best skiing is on fresh powder. Skiing on fresh powder doesn't compare with any other type of skiing. Skiing on fresh powder is fun, is like dancing. Good powder makes you feel a good skier. Fresh powder comes when it comes, it doesn't come on schedule. I felt life was good for my uncle. I said I want a life like his. My uncle showed me a path in life when it was so grey I couldn't see any. He was my inspiration. My nose makes me feel like a monster When I was 13 many things changed in me including my nose which suddenly became so ugly it made me feel like a monster. I didn't even want to walk on the street for people to see me. My boobs suddenly got a size C facing upwards and no other girl in my class had boobs yet. Then I got way too much hair for a girl on my legs above my knees. It's not that I couldn't shave, it's that you could see where you shave and it made me feel so bad. In summer at PE everyone was having a good time in shorts and t-shirt, only I was hot sweating in long joggers and zipped up top, to hide my hairy legs and my boobs all the boys were staring at. Boys were passing by and were saying "aren't you too hot? unzip your top!". Then my hair got curlier and curlier and I didn't like to have curly hair. It made me feel like a sheep. I exhausted myself searching for products that made my hair straighter. I slept with a hat on my head. If in the morning I woke up still with a curly hair I was devasted, unable to function. Lucky one of my colleague's dad was the best plastic surgeon around. I had three nose surgeries with him - one at 15, one at 17 and one at 18 years old. My mother said "you can't change how God made you, if you do that, that's a sin". So yeah, I'm a sinner. The boys liked me from before I had any surgeries. They made a top of the most beautiful girls in the class and I got on 3rd place with the mention "she's not beautiful, her nose is wavy, but there is something about her". My mullet type of hair that I have in may photos is my own creation. I cut my own hair. I never really know what I’m doing. I just follow what feels good to me. Scared of some boys When I was 14 , I started having about four guys in church obsessed with me like I was "the one". I didn't like any, and I was running from them and they were running after me. There was one who was so into me that I felt I will never escape him as long as I live. Another one forced me to say why I don't like him and I said "because I can't stand you". It was my first lesson in blurting things out straight. It's when I learnt that truth sets me free. I liked some other guys but they didn't even look at me. That's how it goes. It's hard to find someone you like who likes you back in the same time. Hearing the mountain's call 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 bible study, more word games and only bible study and word games. And I can't stand at all bible study and word games. No hiking, no exploring the mountains around, no nothing exciting at all. Singing from 10 pm to 12 am around campfire, I would have loved to do if I only could. When 9 pm comes my body starts closing my body function one by one. By the time 10 pm comes I’m 75% asleep. In the mountain's strong fresh air, I felt like falling off the log I was sitting on so I stood up, turned my back and whent to my tent to sleep while everyone else was around the campfire. Behind my back I heared them screaming "don't dare wake up before 8!" When I was 15 I found myself skipping the bible study hours that were part of the camp. To escape those, I hid in the forest. 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. Day after day I hid in the forest and nobody realized I was missing. I want to be invisible and it seems that I AM invisible. 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 eat what I want when I want, sleep when I want as much as I want. That camp was my last camp. Love cured me When I was 16, a guy from the church orchestra made me fall madly in love with him. Until then I thought maybe I should become somebody as my mother wanted me. After him, I stopped caring about becoming somebody. I only cared about love.
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. Somebody built for us a smoke house for meat like we had in the village. That man didn't build it well 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 2 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. Why were we thinking he's going to do it this time? We had to re plan the amount of work. I had somebody 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. I could have died of too much work I guess. At the end of the week my uncle showed up singing and whistling, with a smile on his charming face not telling us where he was. My grandad hated in that moment his own son so much
My grandparentsFrom 3 month until 7 years I stayed only with my grandparents. From 7 until 17 I stayed weekdays with my mother but all weekend and vacations I stayed at my grandparents house. When I was 17 I walked out of my mothers house. I lived alone for couple of month but not having money I moved in with my grandparents with whom I stayed until I married at 23. My grandma had no sense of limits or morality, she was out of society completely. She came from one of the welthiest familys from the neighboring village. Her dad owned the cutting grain machines, her first cousin moved to Chicago where he became a wealthy American owning hotels. My grandma said "my dad was loving, smily, gentle, joky, kind, he bribed my teachers with sheep cheese to help me pass classes. He was not mean like your grandfather ". My grandma said "put love first, if you love each other you can do money toghether after". My gradfather loved a woman in his Ramna village who loved him back. The girl's parents agreed for them to marry but the girl's grandma said over her dead body they will mix with my gradfather's dad" . My gradfather got hurt becasue he loved his dad and said "to punish for life the girl and her family for talking bad about my dad I will not marry the girl". I lift all this details from my gradfathers journal he wrote before he died but doesnt say anything about his dad. I know that his grandad was of Roma origing but I'm told was not biological. I can see for myself in the photo that his mothers brother is of Roma origin but I was also told that was half brother. My gradfather said "put God and money first, that's what people with good judgement do " . He said "my mother was hard working, with character, wisdom , she had a nice walk and style, not like your lazy messy grandma". None of my grandparenst were social. My grandma had no concept of friends or society. My grandad had frinds as a child who dispapoonted him and sweard to not get friends ever again. They never owned a TV, got a radio in their eighties, they didn't read news. They wwho I can see in the photo is of Roma oroigin, ere silent never talking about anything and anybody. He was pecking on her every day with "lazy", "messy ""nobody in the world". She didn't like his talk but never said anything except laughing. I was looking at out chickens and saw that the rooster all day long was going around pecking on one hen or another. My gradfather and my gardmother were beahaving pretty much the same like a rooster and a hen. While they were doing that with each other I could not be more happy and peaceful to be with them. I loved and liked them both so much. He was producing the best organic food, talking with me, solving my problems without making me feel bad and she was cooking the most delicious food. They fit me so perfectly. As much as I tried to be the hard working with character woman he liked, like his mother, I failed at it. It turned out I hate to work the land, its so hard. Even bending to pick up the fruits is too hard for me. I'm messy. 9 out of 10 when I eat something falls on my dress.I don't know what the word morals means. What I had is ability to understand him and love him. He got attached to me too and we became the closest in the family. I was tryin to work the land alongside him but it was so hard and he would say "don't worry is too hard for you, I'll do it". He was working and I was looking and walking around, being around when he took a break and wanted to talk .I listened to him for so long that I understood him and his behaviour. Nothing he did seemed wrong to me. One of my cousins was afraid of him and couldnt stand him. He told that cousin to come home only in coffin. He would swear and spit people in their face. He theratend my uncle' wife with taking her by the hand and throwing her in the street hundreds of times. When we had relatives visiting he was not showing up "he was busy working". They hated him also, they thought he was too rude and self important not having time ever for anyone. He kept all his life a bix axe by the front door and was threatening to kill theives with it. My grandma asked me "do you hear what he says that will kill, is it okay that he talks like that?" We were locked on the property from 10 pm to 6 am becasue on top of the locked doors he had a wiring system that onle he could undo. I didn't even want to get out of the house in the night becasue the dogs were let run free and he only kept the bigest and most vicious. If a dog was not vicious he would open the door and let the dog on the street become strai. He broke my nose once in the village when I laught with Adi under the table while he was preching to the many brothers and sisters who gatherd weekly at our house. There was so much blood on the floor that all people left right then in horror. He took me by my hand and threw me in the street, again in the village, when I stole my neighbor;s baby doll telling me "go wherever you see with your eyes I don't rasie theieves under my roof." He locked me out. I went to the bus station. I wanted to leave . I had a feeling that nomatter where I'll end up , I'll be alright.
Searchin for true love (my priority) and trying to emigrate
1993 16 years old Timisoara, ROw a painting houses lover who cured me of my ego and inspired me to emigrate
1994 17 years Timsioara, RO with a photographer lover
1994 17 years old Apuseni Mt, RO with a photographer lover
1994 17 years old Alba Iulia, ROwith a photographer lover I think
1994 17 y old , on the way to Paltinis, RO with a photographer lover
1994 17 y old , Paltinis, RO with a photographer lover
1995 18 y old, Timsioara, RO with a photographer lover
1995 18 y old, Timsioara, ROwith a photographer lover
1995 18 y old, Timsioara, ROat a profesional photographer
1996 19 y old Timisoara, RO with an entrepreneur lover who wanted to kill me
1997 20 y old Valiug Lake, ROwith my cousin's friends
1998 Vatra Dorney, RO with a no work/thieve lover
1998 Aug 21 y old Blacksea going to see in concert an entrepreneur turned musician old friend/potentia lover who became overnight superstar
1999 Jan 22 y old Semenic Mt with an American Romanian factory worker lover
2000 Jan 23 Y old with a programmer lover
2000 Aug 23 y old with a programmer lover in a church retreat
(When I was 16 I was fired from orchestra, wich made me realize I can walk out of going to church Then I fell in love and forgot completly aboit teh school and didn't go to school . Then when I was 17 I walked out of my mothers house. Finnaly free like a bird)
Thrill - getting lost in the night in new breathtaking beautiful medieval city
It was late November, I was 17. Me and the man I was with at that time, took the 2.30 pm bus from Timisoara to Sibiu. We were supposed to arrive around 9.40 at night, sleep at the closest hotel then catch the morning bus to Paltinis, the little mountain ski resort. Around sunset the bus started passing through mountain villages so beautiful they felt unreal. The houses were different from anything I knew. The streets, the architecture, the people — everything looked different. Whiet as milk faces, blond hair, blue eyes. Transylvania felt like another country entirely. 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 seeing new different 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 doesnt 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 sooo 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 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. I didn't want to say anything. 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.
Adi
Adi did come at my grandparemnts house in Timisoara when he was 18 and I was 17 looking for me but I was not home. My grandparents talked to him and at that point being in the city for some time I evolved in a way he, who remained in the village, didn't.
Babies & emigrating
2000 Sep 23 y old Timisoara, RO
2000 Sep 23 y old Timisoara, RO
2000 Sep 23 y old Timisoara, RO
2000 Sep 23 y old Timisoara, RO
2000 Sep 23 y old Timisoara, RO
2000 Sep 23 y old Timisoara, RO
2000 Sep 23 y old Venice, IT
2000 Sep 23 y old Venice, IT
2000 Sep 23 y old Chiavari, IT
2000 Sep 23 y old Cinque Terre, IT
2001 Sep 24 y old Timisoara, RO pregnant with my first baby
2002 Aug 25 y old Retezat MT , RO
2002 Aug 25 y old Retezat MT , RO
2003 26 y old Fagaras Mt, RO
2003 26 y old Arieseni Mt, RO with my girl
2004 June 27 y old - last day of IT college I neither attended nor ever learnt to write a lnesof code
2005 Jan 28 y old Melbourne Australia
2005 Dec 29 y old Melbourne, AU pregnant with my second baby
2006 Jan 29 y old Melbourne , Au with my two kids
2006 with my baby boy. My vison of my babies was with dummy, I think is cute. In reality they did not want a dummy in their mouth not for a second.
2006 July Mt Beauty Vic, AU first time in my life I feel dead inside and depresed.
2007 breasfeeding my kids until they were 15 months
2008 Feb Melbourne, Australia with my kids
2008 Aug 31 y old Portland OR
Making babies for real
Always in love since forever, dating since sixteen, falling in and out of love with people I didn’t even like, I became exhausted of love. I did not find true love and haven’t come even close. I needed peace. I was twenty-two so ready to have babies. I was ready to have babies since I was 4 or 5. I always dreamed of making love and having babies but word like" marriage”, “wedding”, “honeymoon” never crossed my mind. Marriage felt like a cage, a coffin. Wedding, a circus for other people not for me. I didn’t even know what is “honeymoon”. All this words scared me. All the societal rules , regulation and expectation scare me. I am not aware of them. People expect me to behave or say this or that and I don’t know and I can’t anyway so I want to skip all this expectations. I can’t have peace until I’m rid of these expectations and I shock, upset and destabilize lots of people I love. I try, but I get bored and exhausted. I love Christmas , I love Easter, I love birthdays but then I get so bored . I can do all twice or three times. Then I’m thinking I don’t want to waste my life doing same thing over and over. Things that never meant anything to me. My mother wanted me to become a doctor, my uncle wanted me to do economics or IT and I wanted to emigrate to a wealthy country to escape college. When I tried to emigrate I found it very difficult. Information Technology started to already be a big thing in Romania. I observed all people who moved oversease were programmers. I enrolled in an IT private colllege that took me for my money becasue head or more correct heart for school I didn't have. Anyway, I needed to both have babies and emigrate and didnt want to do any alone. In one of the churches I visted I found a man cute, stylish. he was fidgety like me, in and out of church all the time. I felt from a mile a way, he was easy, like a white serene cloud above the crowd. He liked mountains like me. He was a programmer like me. He was a top programmer unlike me who I was not able to write two lines of code. I told him, I liked him. He said “he liked me too, because all men liked me” . Not what I wanted to hear, but all was good if he liked me too . Rumors spread about me sleeping around. He asked if I would stop sleeping around. I said ”no, take me as I am or leave me ”. I love life to much to limit myself, I don’t want to limit myself. He accepted. We married because that’s what people did in those days and we were boith from church. I became pregnant and I gave birt fast and easy to a sweet girl and a boy. I breastfed 15 month each. I loved them so so much, I was so focused on only them, I stayed home with them, never took my eyes of them. For ten years I was so focused only on my two babies that the world disappeared for me.
Emigrating In 2004 I moved from Romania to Australia and in 2008 I moved from Austalia to America. Romanians are probably the most emotionally intense people on the planet into love,ses, dance, music and cgod food , also the most alcholics, laid back with zest fior life. I can't imagine me doing school in America. Entering Americans who are emotionally flat into cheapest, learning, transactional with every interecation was very hard. The moment i moved to America I lost my capacity to sleep. My entire life i slept frop 10 pm to 7 am and love it .That ended wen i moved to America. Now I sleep from 10 pm to 4 or 5 am . Thanks God I have money in America made from my own businesses, that's whay I came here so I'm so satisfied money and freedome wise
Emigrating In 2004 I moved from Romania to Australia and in 2008 I moved from Austalia to America. Romanians are probably the most emotionally intense people on the planet into love,ses, dance, music and cgod food , also the most alcholics, laid back with zest fior life. I can't imagine me doing school in America. Entering Americans who are emotionally flat into cheapest, learning, transactional with every interecation was very hard. The moment i moved to America I lost my capacity to sleep. My entire life i slept frop 10 pm to 7 am and love it .That ended wen i moved to America. Now I sleep from 10 pm to 4 or 5 am . Thanks God I have money in America made from my own businesses, that's whay I came here so I'm so satisfied money and freedome wise
Searching for true love(s), for my home(s) and for thrill until the end of earth
2010 Aug 33 y old on The way to Mt Rainier, WA for the 2nd time. If I'll go one more time I'll get bored
2010 Aug 33 y old The way to MT rainier, WA for the 2nd time. I now if i'll go one more time I'll get bored
2012 June 35 y old Timisoara, RO going back to visit
2013 April 36 y old Mt Hood bored to death of skiing I learn to snowboard but that is boring too
2013 June 36 y old bored to death with seeing places, travel. My kid's school with their teachers and the suburban people are unbearable to see. I'm drowning. Drawining in red wine
2014 Aug 37 y old Portland OR photo I took in my own phioto studio for dating apps
2014 Aug 37 y old Portland OR photo I took in my own phioto studio for dating apps
2016 Dec 40 y old Portland OR I need emotion, soul, beauty, thrill, love, romance, adventure, novelty or I'm going crazy in my head. Emotional flatness is not healthy for me
Hearing adventures call
When my youngest was 6 I fell in love with an American man. I heard adventures call and I said Yes! I was ready to start roaming, searching until the end of earth for true love and thrill. I got myself an apartment for only myself and I spent half the time with my kids and their dad half the time at my own home doing what I want or roaming the earth. I need solitude. I can not be myself, feel and think like myself unless I'm alone. I can not relax except alone. After I saty alone 2 or 3 days I feel fully charged and so ready to be with people who feeel so good or at least who are useful to me. I'm full of love and full of goodness until I get confused and sad and then I run and stay alone again.
Looking for "the one", for true love
I'm always looking for “the one", or for "the ones" . Even if I don’t believe in one, the feeling is still at the back of my mind, a dream since I was 4 or 5, a dream I can't escape. A life driving pleasure, desire, force, lifes greatest prize. True Love for me is a fucking experience that feels the best can be. Maybe a kiss on your pussy but you love the person. Maybe sex and love at once. Maybe true love is, feeling the best can be. 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. I think I'm looking for myself in a masculine form. I will always live for "the one" and for love, I don't really like anything else. Everything else feels "okay". "okay " doesn't appeal to me. I don't want to live an "Okay" life.
Bob DylanIn 2012 I discovered Bob Dylan. I knew instantly—"this person is like me". A current of overjoy ran through my body, from top to toe-I felt liberated. I didn't have to change myself to fit the society anymore, not that I even tried yet. If he could be himself and make money, I can too, as different from society as I am myself. Over the years, I kept returning to him. His words, his songs, his interviews, his photos. I read his books over and over. I watched him remain- so cute all across his life. He's first of all exciting. He feels like the sun. Looks cunty, inspiring, gutsy, intensly alive, with fire (passion), with light (wisdom), extra energy, soulful, unconventional, led by his heart, not by the crowd, sensitive, with personal style, with feeling for what looks best, sounds best, productive, succeful, wealthy, cares to live the best life can be. He is so wise, says things better than anyone. I don't want to miss a thing he says. Romania is a beautiful country, but I found a beautiful man in America. I went to a few of his concerts. Being in the same room it feelt sooo good to be a with him, he gave me energy. I'd like to feel like that every day. He feels like "my man", like something of myself, like he id best since this Universe. Before, I said—I’ll recognize him when I see him. Now I know the type of man I like. What can be better in this life than a fine, fine person.
Thich Nhat Hanh I spent my entire life deaf to what anybody says and here comes another person besides Bob Dylan, I want to know everything he says. I discover Thich Nhat Hanh in 2018. A person who feels peaceful and he is so well read, understands life and can explain simply and deeply everything I needed and wanted to know. He sees and functions in the world through his own feelings not through social norms and I do too. When I was 5 in the village I had this clarity, of my feelings sorted and organized , of understanding myself and the world around me, of knowing what I like and what I don't, of feeling secure and peaceful, feeling not only that I like myself and can deal with the world with the good and the bad but that I love the world as it is so so much. Once I left the village everything got scary and confusing and I felt I was holding only onto myself and my dream not willing to look at the world around me at all. Thich Nhat Hanh could explain everything becasue he's master of feelings and has words to explain and the entire world became to me like the village. The whole world is ordered and clear to me now via Thich Nhat Hanh becasue. I can like this type of people, this places, this things, this work and I don't like this , don't like that, I don't like all the rest. I tune out all the rest. Its like he gave me permison and confidence to be selective, wich I am anyway. I have to becasue I get overwhelmed and then paralized. I feel an ability to deal with the world becasue is finite, has limits, is ordered now, and I keep my life small and simple. The feeling that the world is ordered and limited makes me feel secure in the world again. Everything is the same as in the village now but takes somebody else who knows the world, who is well read to show you. Its scary to look at the world alone. He has no kids, no lovers and his job was only to study so he became so good not only at understanding himself and the others, but good at putting feelings into words , good at expresing himself. I'm crazy about this person. He contributed so so much to me. I feel so lucky and blessed that I discover Thich Nhat Hanh . I don't know how my life would have been without discovering him. I read him and read him and I can't stop myself from reading him. People and quotes I likeOther people I like, love, understand, resonate and found myself through them: Charles Buckowsi, Jack Kerouac. People I don't know who they are but I like some of their quotes Erich Fromm, David Hawkins, Kahlil Gibran. Favorite places My favorite places are where my favorite people are. Places and travel mean nothing to me. Places feel flat for me. Everything and everyone that has no emotion gets boring very fast and boredom drains the soul out of me. Only emotions, don't bore me. Only alivness makes me feel like I'm not wasting my life. I get bored if I go to a place no matter how beautiful more than two times. I do like beautiful snowcapped mountains, blue-green lakes, soulful beautiful architecture. While I love rain and storms, I prefer more sunny over overly cloudy places
“A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.” ― Charlie Chaplin intimacy, food, living a good lifeLove, Cri ShackJune 28, 2026
Bob DylanIn 2012 I discovered Bob Dylan. I knew instantly—"this person is like me". A current of overjoy ran through my body, from top to toe-I felt liberated. I didn't have to change myself to fit the society anymore, not that I even tried yet. If he could be himself and make money, I can too, as different from society as I am myself. Over the years, I kept returning to him. His words, his songs, his interviews, his photos. I read his books over and over. I watched him remain- so cute all across his life. He's first of all exciting. He feels like the sun. Looks cunty, inspiring, gutsy, intensly alive, with fire (passion), with light (wisdom), extra energy, soulful, unconventional, led by his heart, not by the crowd, sensitive, with personal style, with feeling for what looks best, sounds best, productive, succeful, wealthy, cares to live the best life can be. He is so wise, says things better than anyone. I don't want to miss a thing he says. Romania is a beautiful country, but I found a beautiful man in America. I went to a few of his concerts. Being in the same room it feelt sooo good to be a with him, he gave me energy. I'd like to feel like that every day. He feels like "my man", like something of myself, like he id best since this Universe. Before, I said—I’ll recognize him when I see him. Now I know the type of man I like. What can be better in this life than a fine, fine person.
Thich Nhat Hanh I spent my entire life deaf to what anybody says and here comes another person besides Bob Dylan, I want to know everything he says. I discover Thich Nhat Hanh in 2018. A person who feels peaceful and he is so well read, understands life and can explain simply and deeply everything I needed and wanted to know. He sees and functions in the world through his own feelings not through social norms and I do too. When I was 5 in the village I had this clarity, of my feelings sorted and organized , of understanding myself and the world around me, of knowing what I like and what I don't, of feeling secure and peaceful, feeling not only that I like myself and can deal with the world with the good and the bad but that I love the world as it is so so much. Once I left the village everything got scary and confusing and I felt I was holding only onto myself and my dream not willing to look at the world around me at all. Thich Nhat Hanh could explain everything becasue he's master of feelings and has words to explain and the entire world became to me like the village. The whole world is ordered and clear to me now via Thich Nhat Hanh becasue. I can like this type of people, this places, this things, this work and I don't like this , don't like that, I don't like all the rest. I tune out all the rest. Its like he gave me permison and confidence to be selective, wich I am anyway. I have to becasue I get overwhelmed and then paralized. I feel an ability to deal with the world becasue is finite, has limits, is ordered now, and I keep my life small and simple. The feeling that the world is ordered and limited makes me feel secure in the world again. Everything is the same as in the village now but takes somebody else who knows the world, who is well read to show you. Its scary to look at the world alone. He has no kids, no lovers and his job was only to study so he became so good not only at understanding himself and the others, but good at putting feelings into words , good at expresing himself. I'm crazy about this person. He contributed so so much to me. I feel so lucky and blessed that I discover Thich Nhat Hanh . I don't know how my life would have been without discovering him. I read him and read him and I can't stop myself from reading him. People and quotes I likeOther people I like, love, understand, resonate and found myself through them: Charles Buckowsi, Jack Kerouac. People I don't know who they are but I like some of their quotes Erich Fromm, David Hawkins, Kahlil Gibran. Favorite places My favorite places are where my favorite people are. Places and travel mean nothing to me. Places feel flat for me. Everything and everyone that has no emotion gets boring very fast and boredom drains the soul out of me. Only emotions, don't bore me. Only alivness makes me feel like I'm not wasting my life. I get bored if I go to a place no matter how beautiful more than two times. I do like beautiful snowcapped mountains, blue-green lakes, soulful beautiful architecture. While I love rain and storms, I prefer more sunny over overly cloudy places
“A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.” ― Charlie Chaplin intimacy, food, living a good lifeLove, Cri ShackJune 28, 2026