My grandfather was born in Ramna, Caras Severin, Romania. His grandad was Roma but was not blood related. He was a farmer and the village's Pentecostal pastor - he started the church right after he came alive and well from fighting in WWII. My grandad kept a big axe by the front door threatening to kill thieves with it. Kept only the most vicious dogs. We had doors and gates locked with keys but on top of that from 10 pm to 6 am we were locked with his extra iron hooks and wiring to be protected from thieves. The whole village was afraid of him - he was constantly threatening. Relatives were not coming to visit because he had no time for visiting, shouting when talking, spitting on the ground or in others face. Before he became a Christian his vices were smoking and swearing (and beating up my grandma but he doesn't say that).
My grandma was white as milk skin, dark blonde hair. She came from the neighboring village Valeapai. Her dad was loving, soft spoken, kind, wealthy, owning the cutting grain machines. My grandma had no head for school and her dad bribed the teachers with sheep cheese to help his daughter pass classes. Her first cousin lived in Chicago where he was a wealthy man owning hotels. While a great cook- she cooked morning, lunch and dinner fresh from scratch, sweets twice per week, and was submissive to my grandfather, she simply refused to work the land. She just couldn't. That made my grandfather disappointed. His dream was a woman like his mother, with character, wise, clean, style in walk, who works the land alongside him. So he called my grandma lazy and dirty every single day. We had chickens, ducks, goats, pigs, turkeys, dogs, cats, pigeons. Every day of their 73 years of marriage you would hear: "feeding animals is a woman's job", he said."feeding animals is a man's job ", she said. "Put God and money first, that's what people with good judgement do ", he said. Put love first, if you love each other you will make money together" she said.
While they liked each other, their marriage happened after he refused to marry the woman from Ramna whom he loved—and who loved him back. He rejected that woman "to punish her and her family for life" because her grandmother had spoken badly about my grandfather's father.
Raised from 3 months by my grandparents in Ramna village. 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.
Inseparable from the cute boy a year older than me who lives across the street who follows me all over with a love smile on his face. I only let him touch my baby doll, and nobody else. We try a few times to have sex. We walk on the streets arms around shoulders. He trips me, laughs of me, slams me gently into the walls, pushes and pulls me but he never hurts me. He plays prank on other kids and on people who pass by. I mostly watch him, scared and ashamed of what he does. Everyone says we will marry when we will be big.
She goes to Bocsa town to sell fruits and veggies and when she comes back always, always brings me something- sweets, toys, clothes. I love my grandma so much, I feel one with her.
My grandad is the Pentecostal pastor; he forces me to sing in church but I'm too shy and I can't memorize the lyrics. I laugh with my boyfriend under table while he preaches to the many brothers and sister to gathered at our house. He puts his hand on my head and pushed me forcefull toeards the floor breaking my nose. There is so much blood on the floor, all people leave right that moment in horror. He throws me in the street and locks me out for stealing my neighbor's baby doll. I don't understand why he's so tough with me forcing me to do things I just can’t do. I go to the bus station. I want to leave his house and the village. I have a feeling that no matter where I will end up I will be alright. I'm afraid of dogs, of cats, I'm afraid of our turkeys and of the neighbors turkeys. I'm afraid of the geese who are allowed to roam freely on the street. No matter how small an animal is, if they bite or scratch I’m afraid. I'm afraid of seeing people. In church my brain blurs out all people leaving me just feeling my breathing. My grandma sends me to stay out of church. Even my loving grandma is too much. I love the most being alone. I can relax only alone. By the time I'm 6 I feel myself, I know who Ih am. I have strong likes and aversions. With my good traits and bad traits, I like myself and feel a drive inside to celebrate every day. The dream of making love and having babies makes me so happy, like food and nature makes me happy. Life is so beautiful When I was 6 , me and my grandparents moved to Timisoara city where my single mother and uncle had been living for a long time. My grandad didn't want to move but he did it for me and he always told me he sacrificed for me "to be able to go to good city f schools". My uncle helps my grandparents buy their city house on a big land at the edge, in the cheapest neighborhood nicknamed "gypsy neighborhood". I went to live with my single mother in her apartment close to the medieval beautiful downtown weekdays. Weekends and holidays I stayed at my grandparent’s city house with a big garden with over sixty mature fruit trees, a long patway in the middle covered by grapewine with stawberies on both sides. My new friends were a family of Christian gypsies. All kids played all instruments. I played at their house Christian music and watched horror movies day in and day out until i started being afraid of my own shadow.
My grandad screams every day that he is the only one working and we don't have money. I want to make him love me more, so I start working the land alongside him. I learn to plant tomatoes and bell peppers exactly as he likes it, I learn to prune the grape wine, I take the weeds out by root not just scrape like my grandma. I go to market alone pulling a cart with fruits and veggies to make money for him. He talks to me more and more. I find him fascinating. I start understanding his mind and I start siding with him. My cousin can't stand him but I love him and I see nothing wrong with him. He says to my cousin to come home only in coffin. He never says a bad word to me.
School looks a cross between jail and hospital. I find most teachers too insensitive if not cruel bullies. I'm thinking "when I'll be big ill make a rule: no insensitive adults are allowed to interact with small kids". I barely find a few boys to like from distance but they don't play with me like in the village. In the city boys play with boys and girls with girls. It hurts. I'm thinking is everybody in so much pain as me to not have somebody to love, touch, push, pull and play with? I keep walking out of school. I try to escape school . I never do my homework, I can't pay any attention, I already know I can't memorize anything so I dont even try. I read with any comprehension. I can't write anything, I have no ideas in my head and my writing is so illegeble i start writing in capital letters. I don't like excercises so I skip PE alltoghther. There are kids behaving like me but I'm off a level oo two. My behaviour is unconventional, I can't help myself so I choose to not think of consequences, I just go ahead and do what I do. Everything the teachers told me to do I didn't do. I honestly didn't hear. I mean I hear but I don't process words, so I don't understand. I’m selectively deaf, mute and blind. I do only simple things. If there is anything difficult I honestly believe is for the smart kids not for me. I just survive every day. I'm so horrified of school I feel sick with my stomach. I get some bullies bothering me. With the first bully I see blood from his nose faalling on his light brown with orange shirt . I have no recolection of hitting him but he is in front of me. The teacher comes and all kids point towards me sayoing I did it. Year by year, I get more bullies botrehing me, mostly boys. I beat them all one by one only after they hit me first. When I hit, I hit so hard the school's director comes to check on me. I feel so bad. Why can't I hit like everybody else without creating damage? The bullies of the school come close to my face to smell me but don't touch me anymore. There are still shy and sensitive loners kids like me beaten on a daily basis but I'm not anymore one of them. The girl behind me has been pushing my chair for months. I told her to stop. I told her to the teachers several times. One break, I get up from my chair, I go to her chair, grab her by her clothes, drag her to the front of the class and pin her to the blackboard. I wait for her to hit me so I can smack her with all my heart. The coward does nothing. Just sits quietly in my grip. I don’t let go of her. The teacher gets in the class and I let go of her. She never bothered me again. Grade 5 english class, first class I'm on the verge of failing. The America movies are so cool, I'd like to speak english but I can't. All the kids progress in english except me. I have a feeling that I will never be able to learn english language or any language. Teachers say I have flashes of brillance in math but I don't belive them nor do I care about math. Don't know who my dad is. My single, cute, stylish, briliant mother, is in survival mode becasue she is on the death bed (sincerely believes she is dying for decades when she is not and goes constantly to doctors and constantly does medical tests). She self-describes as "cold and difficult who doesn’t like kisses and hugs". Slaps me for no reason and tells me that is "for no reason because she is weak with her nerves". And of course she doesn’t work. She worked 10 years the night shitft in factory and 15 selling lotto tickets in abooth then she quit working.. She has money problems all the time, fakes diseases on official papers to not work. When she is not focused on dying she is focused on romance, wich i like becasue i love romance too and she is just as extreme. She tries to find a husband through three husbands and a dozen lovers, mostly artists -opera singers, poets, flute players, ballet dancers, carpenters. She doesnt pick boring or narrow minded men ever. Likes to be lied, goes to opera, and hotels taking me with her. We even go to sreeptease clubs and of course becasue i was minor we were escorted out but all my mother wanted was to have a glips wich we did have. The walk to Opera House from her apartment is a 20 minutes walk. First 10 minutes through a botanical garden and the next 10 through the old cool medieval town. She does that walk in high heels, seamed stockings with her purse under her arm, swinging her big butt in white pencil skirts from side to side. She has an eye for beauty and style above average. There is nobody on the streets looking as good as her. She has purple dresses, green dresses, brown with yellow soft vintage style tops, high heels, boots, belts and clutches that matched which each other all for going to Opera. She has a long afro curly hair but is arranging it, making it even more curly with rollers, pins and hair spray. She gets all dresses up then spins around saying "va va voom" asking me "how do I look? " She looked like a dream. Like she lived for Opera. Had real fur coats, silver fox scarf and many types of hats. She loved hats. Men were attracted to her until she was in her 60s. My boyfriends told me they felt attracted to my mother 36 years older than me. My mother was crazy in her head and crazy attracts. I know crazy attracts me too. She liked the most a tall man, elegant, always wearing suits or in winter long coats and hats. She called him Mr Rusu (Rusu in Romanian mean Russian but he wasn't Russian, that was his family name). Everyone she called by their name but this man she called Mr. He has never been married, never wanted to. Never had kids, never wanted to. Never owned anything and lived all his life in a rented modest room. He was working at the same lotto agency as her. He had big blue eyes, a big nose, a white face a bit red like he was alcoholic but I haven't seen him drinking. He was a bit smiling somehow all the time. He was very respectful, a very different man who kept all to himself. She loved that man the most. I said why? She said because "he lies to me". They two made a very unsual stunning looking couple and they'd been toghther on and off for a long time and in between other lovers. But then, she would criticize him saying "how he didn't care to own even a car in his life". All her men seeing, and Friday and Saturday nights opera going clashed head on with her going on Sunday morning to church and wanting to be a saint. She wanted to pain her nails red but was afraid of her well known dad the village pastor, city preacher and her well known evangelist brother who would say "red nails are not christian like" Wants to make a doctor or somebody important out of me. She can't stand my mesiness, she closes her eyes when i eat becasue i eat by hand. She also doesnt like that i eat with gusto and i'm active. She insists I have no imagination and no foresight and i'm lucky that she has, so she's going to tell me what exactly to do. Insists and insists and inists and insists and insists how to dress me and style my hair. She is so strong, I have no choice but to just go along.She blames me for all my problems. When i have teeth pain she says is my fault becasue i only eat sweets and biscuits. When i have ear paind she blames me for not wearing hats and warm coats in winter. She sends me to go alone to dentis. I'm so scared in dentist chair my knees hit each other. I have often ear pains and I screme "I cant stand you, call my grandma to come stay with me" so my grandma cames to stay with me. My grandma sits in bed with me and only strike my hand or my leg for hours, saying only oh, oh , oh and all my pain disapears. my grandma sleeps in bed with me and is the only one i feel comfortable to sleep in bed with. I get from a kid in my class Hepatits type A and i'm taken by ambulance almost in coma. The doctor scream at my mother scolding her "why did you wait so long to bring her didn'y you see she was sick" My mother advsing me about men. What men want and how to treat them. I love men and i like that. I do exactly what she says. She loves flowers and soulful music and that's all she says she loves in this world. March 8 in Romania is celebrated as International Women’s Day, but it is widely treated as a combination of Women's Day and Mother's Day and is the most painful day for me. I love my mother, I know she only loves flowers. Already dreading, streesed out and sick with my stomach, I go to market to buy her the perfect flowers. I know what she wants becasue all the previous years critcized the flowers I bought. I spend 2 hours in the market looking carefull at all the flowers to pick the perfect flowers, I come home. She doesn't like them again. Every year one more and one more thing is wrong with the flowers. To open, too unopen, not right color, the right color but not the right shade, too expensive, too cheap, don't smell enough. This woman is a nutcase, is chronicall disatified she drives me crazy and i'm exausted. I'm a sensitive soul. Sensistive peopel are in pain just by being sensitive they cant take that much more unnecesary pain. There are real problems and people make up fictonal problems. She decides to move to America. My uncle from Chicago sends paperwork to bring her and me to USA, she freaks out and changes her mind in the last moment. I feel like she has the gift of getuing you extremly excited followed by extreme disapointment and she does that so oftenEveryone who talks to her ends up in pain - she constantly makes thing up , takes a thing and blows it out of propertion, criticizes, complains, spins, interprets, guilt trips, idealizes, romanticizes, she has a suspicious mind, can't help herself. Either she is grandious thinking she is smarter , unique, better looking, better taste in music and estetics wich is true or she is victimized, mistreaterd by unfair parents , persecuted by boses , cheated my lovers , taken advantage by lovers who want her for her apartment (wich are all not true or the truth is 10%). Her words feel like a painful weapon. All would be good if she just wouldn't talk but she thinks is smartest around and talks the most. She was a briliant and a leader and school and i belive she was. Her “being so sick” i do all the vacuuming, washing floors, shopping, help with cooking. I bring her cooked food, fruits and veggies and money from my grandparents every week but she says she doesn't need any. Fruits and veggies hurt her stomach, my grandma's cooked food is too heavy, sweets also make her sick. Okay, I bring them all for myself. My grandparents keep mute with her, so do I. None of us can tell if my mother is physically ill or not. After years of overworking myself and doing everything for her I discover that when she comes to me with "I have a back pain can you do this for me?" I say I have a bad back pain too, I can't. She imediately turns aound and leaves me alone. In comparison with her and her sensitivity for romance, soulful music, style and beauty, briliant mind, school and almost everyone else seems to be excruciatingly boring- unappealing to me. Living one year with her feels like living five with just myself. The word i use with her is "imposible" . I painfully realize that most kids I know don't crave excitement like i do. I can't wait for them to come out and play. Waiting hurts. I decide to go play and adventure alone. I hope to find exciting people like me on the way. People are either exciting or they drain me. Easier alone in peace, dream and hope. I take buses, trolleybuses and trams and go the end of the lines. I want to see where the city limits are. I never buy a ticket; I don't have money. I'm constantly afraid I’ll be caught. I take trains and go until the first station, then i come back. I don't have a ticket and I’m even more terrified because in trains they do check your ticket. I'm thinking my uncle works for railway and I’m going to tell he is a big boss who lets me ride without a ticket. In the city there was a huge park where every summer they brought a few rides on cool music. I was crazy about those rides. Once I'm on a ride with music I immediately start dreaming and I love everything that makes me dream. 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. It hurt so bad. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how all the best things are disappearing and 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. In the summer vacation I go back to village with my grandma to visit. I meet my village boyfriend we play all day every day and I discover my love for him has died. Still, it felt so good to be with him that my grandma returned to city but I stay one more week with him. Returning to city alone, changing two buses, and that marked my first long distance trip all by myself. At city Pentecostal my uncle is one of the beloved preachers - he was tells stories, screams and cryies. My grandfather also becames soon respected preacher in his own detached style. My mother, the family's black sheep #2 was kept hidden. Not allowed to be seen around my uncle at church. (The black sheep #1 was my cousin, my uncle's alcoholic "vagabond thieve" son who went to school and smashed the desks who dropped out of church at 13). My mother felt hopeless with herself. She wanted to repair her image in the eyes of church and society through me. She forced me to enroll in kids choir where I sang 4 years, then I had to move up to church orchestra where i played mandolin 2 years. 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 cookies and cakes filled with cream. Cream can be apples, pumpkin, cheese, walnuts, poppy seeds, chocolate, vanilla, maple, milk. Anything but not dry. Sometimes was snow and we walked all night in the snow, slipping on ice, having our fingers frozen. We went in neighborhoods I never been to and in the night, some were so beautiful, strange and magical. Singing in the night on empty streets on four voices sounded divine. It felt like we were in a different world. At school we are asked what we want to become in terms of career. I don't want to do any college. College feels like the electric chair. I'm looking around and see my neighbirs, my classmate, my church friends, most looking like walking corpses waiting for death to come, like automatons ticking boxes, going through the motions. Then I see my uncle. He is so cute, passionate, intensely alive, charismatic, wealthy, having a well-paid job with railways from 8 to 4, then after work coming to my grandparent’s house where he set up his clothes business and where he works on his clothes patterns machine until 10 pm singing his heart out along his Christian cassettes. He has three apartment rentals bringing him a shit load of money and he buys more real estate, has a cow for milk, in weekend he goes preaching in villages across the country. He constantly wheeler-dealers everyone including his family and friends. Has the "eat it ALL-take it ALL money and everything you've got"style. Take all the riped fruits and veggied, all the flowers, all the fried chicken, all the pies. Behind him there is nothing left . My grandma says "oh don't worry he's not always with us but you are here all the time, we will cook again, we will soon have new riped fruits", Once, I was watching the very first strawberies for about two weeks. I know the color they need to be to be sweet but here comes my uncle before I was ready to pick up the strawberies. When I see him in courtyard I go in kitchen, grab a bowl, go in the garden and pick a ALL the strawberies from both sides as i go. My uncle comes right behind me and doesnt say anyuthing just follows me. I rush and pick absoulutelly ALL until the end of the garden and the path, he's right behind me until the end still says no word. I don't leave anything behind. I go in kitchen wash and eat them ALL. My uncles doesnt tell me anything but goes to tell my grandad and grandma what just happend. An uncle came by and he tells that uncle too. Instead of being mad with me he keps telling the story again and again, like he cant believe it. Anyway despite his style, he seems a breath of fresh air, a orange warm light in a grey world. He inspires me. I say life is good for him, I want to have a life like his. I want to be overflow with love and passion and businesses, investments and money
When I was 11 my mother forced me to go in my first church mountains camp. Initially I didn’t want to go because I was so shy. Sleeping in tent with others felt impossible. In my first camp I fell in love with mountains. 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 kept enrolling myself every year in all church mountain camps I could go with. Playing in orchestra for two years I'm escorted after one practice by a man who also plays in orchestra who makes me fall madly in love with him. I completely forget about school and I simple don't go to school anymore for the rest of my life. I get in problems and change schools to save myself.
My mother came up with the idea that we should copy my uncle and get into real estate investing to make money. We started by renting out her centrally located apartment and moving into a cheaper one. But the profit still wasn't enough for me, so I found a larger, even cheaper apartment that had subletting potential. Suddenly, we had a good profit margin. This last apartment had a toilet with so much sediment built up that it took me days to chip it away, bit by bit. When my mother saw me doing that toilet job—missing school, showing zero intention of going to college, and actually making money in real estate—she decided to blow the whole thing up. She said, 'What will people think when they find out you clean toilets and occupy yourself with these low-level real estate jobs instead of studying to become a doctor?' I said, 'What people? I don't know anyone.' She meant her neighbors. She quit being my partner right then, terrified of an 'embarrassing' job that required us to move from apartment to apartment like vagabonds. That’s exactly how she rejected every man in her life, too—she’d find one flaw and blow it completely out of proportion. Pretty much everything she says blows up into nine horror movies and one romantic one. She truly can’t help herself. It was late November, me and the man I was with at that time, we took a 2.30 pm bus in Timisoara and had to arrive in Sibiu by 9.40 pm. Sleep at the closest hotel and next morning take a bus to Paltinis, a small ski resort. Around 5 or so pm at the sunset we were driving through some out of this world beautiful mountain villages. The houses, the streets, the people who lived in those villages were different, the architecture was different, the people were white skin blue eyes and blond hair. They were Romanians from Transylvania region and it felt like I was in a different country, in a different world. Romanians from Banat, the region I came from are mostly dark skin, dark color eyes, dark hair. 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 confidently and shouting "this is it, get off, this bus doesn't go any further!". I look through the window and I see nothing, just pitch dark. We got off, the bus closed the doors and drove off so fast. I looked after it like "where is he going driving like a crazy". We found ourselves in a dark street with medieval buildings all around. No phone, no map. In any direction we looked it was the same, dark streets, old charming building, no people, no shops. It looked like we were dropped in the thick of a strange medieval suburb not a central location and at the city's bus terminal location as I expected. We had no idea which direction to go but it was too late, 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 started running that way and that way only lasted that long before we asked ourselves which way is that way again? Any! We lost the direction again. No other people on the streets to ask again. Every corner I turned yet a another dimly lit stunning medieval street with old houses and cobblestone. Narrow streets, underpasses, markets, fountains, old buildings. I was ecstatic, I was completely lost. I started laughing, drunk with joy, thrill and tiredness. Hopeless. We were not going . 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. I always dreamed of making love and making babies but words like marriage or honeymoon , or job or career ladder just don't cross my brain. I don't like words like that. I don't think of things like that. Sick of boyfriends, of falling in love with people i didn't even like, I needed peace, I was so ready to have babies. I dreamed to have babies since I was 4 or 5 Still searching for the one or the ones. A dream I have since i was 4 or 5. I dream I can't escape. Is at the back of my mind always, like food is at the back of my mind always. 2024Graduating IT college wich I attended 2% of the time , copied at all tests. School for me was sureal. Between me and school-job-career is a 100% mismatch. for me school is oppressive, boring, and disconnected from real life and my body is rejecting it entirely. I wanted to do school but my body didn't let me I visit my cousin in California I see her traditional Christian life complete with a house that looks exactly like all the houses on her street. Bareli any grass just concrete and same lawn. Costco sofas, Costco wall art, Costco clothes, Costco countertops. We go to mall, and the kids play happily on a such boring playground it hurts. Seeing her I feel I’m her, living in her house. My house in Portland is unique log beautiful home on an acre land in a unique neighborhood but I’m completely amnesic. I believe I'm my cousin, living in her house, having her life and I get sick. I drive away, I hear adventure’s call I say Yes! I fall in love with an american man i don't even like . I carve romance and new horizons. I don't want to live a boring life. I don't want anything to do with a traditional life like my cousin's. I discover Bob Dylan. I read his chronicles book and I say "this person is like me" . A current of over joy goes through me from top to tow. I feel liberated. I say if he managed to stay himself and make money, I can too. I don't have to change myself to fit the society, not that I even tried yet but I thought I might have to when I enter the society and start work. At this moment I still don't know who Bob Dylan is. I believe is a succesful musician, bum like me, from some region in America. In 2018 I discovered Thich Nhat Hanh another person whose way of seeing life deeply resonates with me. I wanted to absorb everything he said. Later I discovered Jack Kerouac in 2023 and Charles Bukowski in 2024—more people whose experiences and way of seeing the world felt familiar. Since I can remember, paying attention to most people speaking has been extremely difficult. The moment someone takes a breath to begin talking, I often feel my brain shut down, as if an iron gate comes down. I hear sounds, but the words become like "blah blah" noise. It is not that I choose not to listen; it feels like my attention disappears.People have said I broke every rule possible, but that is not exactly true. Often, I simply did not absorb what people were saying or what social expectations required. My attention was elsewhere.Then I found Thich Nhat Hanh. Listening to him feels like listening to music. Every word reaches me effortlessly and beautifully. I reread his words again and again until I know them by heart. Through him, I feel I understand myself and the world clearly. Charles Bukowski is also easy for me to understand. He likes to be a loner content just to live with a lover, eat with them, sleep with them, walk down teh street with them - me too. Has a feeling that most people don't care what is important to them and don't care that their waste your life -me too. He doesnt like other peple's hairdos. shoes, cars, conversation, what others so, where otehsr go and me neither. He doesn't like movies and fantasy, me neither. He barely can care what people think of him - me too. 10. "And nobody finds the one but they keep looking crawling in and out of beds." Charles Bukowski “Anything is a waste of time unless you are fucking well or creating well or getting well or looming toward a kind of phantom-love-happiness.”Charles Bukowski With Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, I sometimes struggle to understand what is it they say, but I feel the emotion clearly. For the first time, I felt: finally, there are people who experience life in a way that feels close to mine. They are not just analyzing life or following social conventions—they are feeling it directlyWhen communication feels only analytical, performative, or disconnected from real experience, my mind struggles to stay present. But when someone speaks from a place of authenticity, I become deeply interested. I want to understand that person.
In 2024 I went for a month to Europe. I couldn't believe how good I felt. Where I stayed, in the middle of nowhere, just peaceful nature all around, at this charming inspirational beautiful old Tuscany house with red brick floors, stone walls inside and out (more like a small castle), with tasteful exciting art, with an old usable piano, its grounds with red and pink geraniums, roses, plum, fig and pear trees, olive grove, grapevine, cypress trees, umbrella pine trees, no other house around, with 360 degree views of the surrounding fields, hills, valleys and old towns (inspiring Montepulciano town with very few people ), with it's location in Val D'Orcia. It had a covered outdoor area you can stay or eat when is raining. It also has fireplaces with wood and I think would make a romantic getaway in colder months. In this house I immediately got in touch completely with myself became one with nature and my dream and the whole world, any sense of time completely disappeared. I thought I want to live and feel like this for the rest of my life. I could see myself living in that in nature with my lover through springs, summers, autumns, winters forever. It s my deep longing for that deeply satisfing life wich is my dream I want to experience and live. A dream that sound like ""I have finally arrived in the world where I feel like myself." Many people have an inner picture of a "good life." For some people it is achievement, status, adventure, intellectual discovery, wealth, recognition For me is not first and foremost about chasing thrill(wich i also love and need to not get bored and to stay healthy and happy) but about a desire for a place where my whole self can settle. About harmony and peace: love and physical closeness, a beautiful place, nature around me, a home with character and history, family, creativity,
Cri ShackJuly 20, 2026
My grandad is the Pentecostal pastor; he forces me to sing in church but I'm too shy and I can't memorize the lyrics. I laugh with my boyfriend under table while he preaches to the many brothers and sister to gathered at our house. He puts his hand on my head and pushed me forcefull toeards the floor breaking my nose. There is so much blood on the floor, all people leave right that moment in horror. He throws me in the street and locks me out for stealing my neighbor's baby doll. I don't understand why he's so tough with me forcing me to do things I just can’t do. I go to the bus station. I want to leave his house and the village. I have a feeling that no matter where I will end up I will be alright. I'm afraid of dogs, of cats, I'm afraid of our turkeys and of the neighbors turkeys. I'm afraid of the geese who are allowed to roam freely on the street. No matter how small an animal is, if they bite or scratch I’m afraid. I'm afraid of seeing people. In church my brain blurs out all people leaving me just feeling my breathing. My grandma sends me to stay out of church. Even my loving grandma is too much. I love the most being alone. I can relax only alone. By the time I'm 6 I feel myself, I know who Ih am. I have strong likes and aversions. With my good traits and bad traits, I like myself and feel a drive inside to celebrate every day. The dream of making love and having babies makes me so happy, like food and nature makes me happy. Life is so beautiful When I was 6 , me and my grandparents moved to Timisoara city where my single mother and uncle had been living for a long time. My grandad didn't want to move but he did it for me and he always told me he sacrificed for me "to be able to go to good city f schools". My uncle helps my grandparents buy their city house on a big land at the edge, in the cheapest neighborhood nicknamed "gypsy neighborhood". I went to live with my single mother in her apartment close to the medieval beautiful downtown weekdays. Weekends and holidays I stayed at my grandparent’s city house with a big garden with over sixty mature fruit trees, a long patway in the middle covered by grapewine with stawberies on both sides. My new friends were a family of Christian gypsies. All kids played all instruments. I played at their house Christian music and watched horror movies day in and day out until i started being afraid of my own shadow.
My grandad screams every day that he is the only one working and we don't have money. I want to make him love me more, so I start working the land alongside him. I learn to plant tomatoes and bell peppers exactly as he likes it, I learn to prune the grape wine, I take the weeds out by root not just scrape like my grandma. I go to market alone pulling a cart with fruits and veggies to make money for him. He talks to me more and more. I find him fascinating. I start understanding his mind and I start siding with him. My cousin can't stand him but I love him and I see nothing wrong with him. He says to my cousin to come home only in coffin. He never says a bad word to me.
School looks a cross between jail and hospital. I find most teachers too insensitive if not cruel bullies. I'm thinking "when I'll be big ill make a rule: no insensitive adults are allowed to interact with small kids". I barely find a few boys to like from distance but they don't play with me like in the village. In the city boys play with boys and girls with girls. It hurts. I'm thinking is everybody in so much pain as me to not have somebody to love, touch, push, pull and play with? I keep walking out of school. I try to escape school . I never do my homework, I can't pay any attention, I already know I can't memorize anything so I dont even try. I read with any comprehension. I can't write anything, I have no ideas in my head and my writing is so illegeble i start writing in capital letters. I don't like excercises so I skip PE alltoghther. There are kids behaving like me but I'm off a level oo two. My behaviour is unconventional, I can't help myself so I choose to not think of consequences, I just go ahead and do what I do. Everything the teachers told me to do I didn't do. I honestly didn't hear. I mean I hear but I don't process words, so I don't understand. I’m selectively deaf, mute and blind. I do only simple things. If there is anything difficult I honestly believe is for the smart kids not for me. I just survive every day. I'm so horrified of school I feel sick with my stomach. I get some bullies bothering me. With the first bully I see blood from his nose faalling on his light brown with orange shirt . I have no recolection of hitting him but he is in front of me. The teacher comes and all kids point towards me sayoing I did it. Year by year, I get more bullies botrehing me, mostly boys. I beat them all one by one only after they hit me first. When I hit, I hit so hard the school's director comes to check on me. I feel so bad. Why can't I hit like everybody else without creating damage? The bullies of the school come close to my face to smell me but don't touch me anymore. There are still shy and sensitive loners kids like me beaten on a daily basis but I'm not anymore one of them. The girl behind me has been pushing my chair for months. I told her to stop. I told her to the teachers several times. One break, I get up from my chair, I go to her chair, grab her by her clothes, drag her to the front of the class and pin her to the blackboard. I wait for her to hit me so I can smack her with all my heart. The coward does nothing. Just sits quietly in my grip. I don’t let go of her. The teacher gets in the class and I let go of her. She never bothered me again. Grade 5 english class, first class I'm on the verge of failing. The America movies are so cool, I'd like to speak english but I can't. All the kids progress in english except me. I have a feeling that I will never be able to learn english language or any language. Teachers say I have flashes of brillance in math but I don't belive them nor do I care about math. Don't know who my dad is. My single, cute, stylish, briliant mother, is in survival mode becasue she is on the death bed (sincerely believes she is dying for decades when she is not and goes constantly to doctors and constantly does medical tests). She self-describes as "cold and difficult who doesn’t like kisses and hugs". Slaps me for no reason and tells me that is "for no reason because she is weak with her nerves". And of course she doesn’t work. She worked 10 years the night shitft in factory and 15 selling lotto tickets in abooth then she quit working.. She has money problems all the time, fakes diseases on official papers to not work. When she is not focused on dying she is focused on romance, wich i like becasue i love romance too and she is just as extreme. She tries to find a husband through three husbands and a dozen lovers, mostly artists -opera singers, poets, flute players, ballet dancers, carpenters. She doesnt pick boring or narrow minded men ever. Likes to be lied, goes to opera, and hotels taking me with her. We even go to sreeptease clubs and of course becasue i was minor we were escorted out but all my mother wanted was to have a glips wich we did have. The walk to Opera House from her apartment is a 20 minutes walk. First 10 minutes through a botanical garden and the next 10 through the old cool medieval town. She does that walk in high heels, seamed stockings with her purse under her arm, swinging her big butt in white pencil skirts from side to side. She has an eye for beauty and style above average. There is nobody on the streets looking as good as her. She has purple dresses, green dresses, brown with yellow soft vintage style tops, high heels, boots, belts and clutches that matched which each other all for going to Opera. She has a long afro curly hair but is arranging it, making it even more curly with rollers, pins and hair spray. She gets all dresses up then spins around saying "va va voom" asking me "how do I look? " She looked like a dream. Like she lived for Opera. Had real fur coats, silver fox scarf and many types of hats. She loved hats. Men were attracted to her until she was in her 60s. My boyfriends told me they felt attracted to my mother 36 years older than me. My mother was crazy in her head and crazy attracts. I know crazy attracts me too. She liked the most a tall man, elegant, always wearing suits or in winter long coats and hats. She called him Mr Rusu (Rusu in Romanian mean Russian but he wasn't Russian, that was his family name). Everyone she called by their name but this man she called Mr. He has never been married, never wanted to. Never had kids, never wanted to. Never owned anything and lived all his life in a rented modest room. He was working at the same lotto agency as her. He had big blue eyes, a big nose, a white face a bit red like he was alcoholic but I haven't seen him drinking. He was a bit smiling somehow all the time. He was very respectful, a very different man who kept all to himself. She loved that man the most. I said why? She said because "he lies to me". They two made a very unsual stunning looking couple and they'd been toghther on and off for a long time and in between other lovers. But then, she would criticize him saying "how he didn't care to own even a car in his life". All her men seeing, and Friday and Saturday nights opera going clashed head on with her going on Sunday morning to church and wanting to be a saint. She wanted to pain her nails red but was afraid of her well known dad the village pastor, city preacher and her well known evangelist brother who would say "red nails are not christian like" Wants to make a doctor or somebody important out of me. She can't stand my mesiness, she closes her eyes when i eat becasue i eat by hand. She also doesnt like that i eat with gusto and i'm active. She insists I have no imagination and no foresight and i'm lucky that she has, so she's going to tell me what exactly to do. Insists and insists and inists and insists and insists how to dress me and style my hair. She is so strong, I have no choice but to just go along.She blames me for all my problems. When i have teeth pain she says is my fault becasue i only eat sweets and biscuits. When i have ear paind she blames me for not wearing hats and warm coats in winter. She sends me to go alone to dentis. I'm so scared in dentist chair my knees hit each other. I have often ear pains and I screme "I cant stand you, call my grandma to come stay with me" so my grandma cames to stay with me. My grandma sits in bed with me and only strike my hand or my leg for hours, saying only oh, oh , oh and all my pain disapears. my grandma sleeps in bed with me and is the only one i feel comfortable to sleep in bed with. I get from a kid in my class Hepatits type A and i'm taken by ambulance almost in coma. The doctor scream at my mother scolding her "why did you wait so long to bring her didn'y you see she was sick" My mother advsing me about men. What men want and how to treat them. I love men and i like that. I do exactly what she says. She loves flowers and soulful music and that's all she says she loves in this world. March 8 in Romania is celebrated as International Women’s Day, but it is widely treated as a combination of Women's Day and Mother's Day and is the most painful day for me. I love my mother, I know she only loves flowers. Already dreading, streesed out and sick with my stomach, I go to market to buy her the perfect flowers. I know what she wants becasue all the previous years critcized the flowers I bought. I spend 2 hours in the market looking carefull at all the flowers to pick the perfect flowers, I come home. She doesn't like them again. Every year one more and one more thing is wrong with the flowers. To open, too unopen, not right color, the right color but not the right shade, too expensive, too cheap, don't smell enough. This woman is a nutcase, is chronicall disatified she drives me crazy and i'm exausted. I'm a sensitive soul. Sensistive peopel are in pain just by being sensitive they cant take that much more unnecesary pain. There are real problems and people make up fictonal problems. She decides to move to America. My uncle from Chicago sends paperwork to bring her and me to USA, she freaks out and changes her mind in the last moment. I feel like she has the gift of getuing you extremly excited followed by extreme disapointment and she does that so oftenEveryone who talks to her ends up in pain - she constantly makes thing up , takes a thing and blows it out of propertion, criticizes, complains, spins, interprets, guilt trips, idealizes, romanticizes, she has a suspicious mind, can't help herself. Either she is grandious thinking she is smarter , unique, better looking, better taste in music and estetics wich is true or she is victimized, mistreaterd by unfair parents , persecuted by boses , cheated my lovers , taken advantage by lovers who want her for her apartment (wich are all not true or the truth is 10%). Her words feel like a painful weapon. All would be good if she just wouldn't talk but she thinks is smartest around and talks the most. She was a briliant and a leader and school and i belive she was. Her “being so sick” i do all the vacuuming, washing floors, shopping, help with cooking. I bring her cooked food, fruits and veggies and money from my grandparents every week but she says she doesn't need any. Fruits and veggies hurt her stomach, my grandma's cooked food is too heavy, sweets also make her sick. Okay, I bring them all for myself. My grandparents keep mute with her, so do I. None of us can tell if my mother is physically ill or not. After years of overworking myself and doing everything for her I discover that when she comes to me with "I have a back pain can you do this for me?" I say I have a bad back pain too, I can't. She imediately turns aound and leaves me alone. In comparison with her and her sensitivity for romance, soulful music, style and beauty, briliant mind, school and almost everyone else seems to be excruciatingly boring- unappealing to me. Living one year with her feels like living five with just myself. The word i use with her is "imposible" . I painfully realize that most kids I know don't crave excitement like i do. I can't wait for them to come out and play. Waiting hurts. I decide to go play and adventure alone. I hope to find exciting people like me on the way. People are either exciting or they drain me. Easier alone in peace, dream and hope. I take buses, trolleybuses and trams and go the end of the lines. I want to see where the city limits are. I never buy a ticket; I don't have money. I'm constantly afraid I’ll be caught. I take trains and go until the first station, then i come back. I don't have a ticket and I’m even more terrified because in trains they do check your ticket. I'm thinking my uncle works for railway and I’m going to tell he is a big boss who lets me ride without a ticket. In the city there was a huge park where every summer they brought a few rides on cool music. I was crazy about those rides. Once I'm on a ride with music I immediately start dreaming and I love everything that makes me dream. 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. It hurt so bad. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how all the best things are disappearing and 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. In the summer vacation I go back to village with my grandma to visit. I meet my village boyfriend we play all day every day and I discover my love for him has died. Still, it felt so good to be with him that my grandma returned to city but I stay one more week with him. Returning to city alone, changing two buses, and that marked my first long distance trip all by myself. At city Pentecostal my uncle is one of the beloved preachers - he was tells stories, screams and cryies. My grandfather also becames soon respected preacher in his own detached style. My mother, the family's black sheep #2 was kept hidden. Not allowed to be seen around my uncle at church. (The black sheep #1 was my cousin, my uncle's alcoholic "vagabond thieve" son who went to school and smashed the desks who dropped out of church at 13). My mother felt hopeless with herself. She wanted to repair her image in the eyes of church and society through me. She forced me to enroll in kids choir where I sang 4 years, then I had to move up to church orchestra where i played mandolin 2 years. 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 cookies and cakes filled with cream. Cream can be apples, pumpkin, cheese, walnuts, poppy seeds, chocolate, vanilla, maple, milk. Anything but not dry. Sometimes was snow and we walked all night in the snow, slipping on ice, having our fingers frozen. We went in neighborhoods I never been to and in the night, some were so beautiful, strange and magical. Singing in the night on empty streets on four voices sounded divine. It felt like we were in a different world. At school we are asked what we want to become in terms of career. I don't want to do any college. College feels like the electric chair. I'm looking around and see my neighbirs, my classmate, my church friends, most looking like walking corpses waiting for death to come, like automatons ticking boxes, going through the motions. Then I see my uncle. He is so cute, passionate, intensely alive, charismatic, wealthy, having a well-paid job with railways from 8 to 4, then after work coming to my grandparent’s house where he set up his clothes business and where he works on his clothes patterns machine until 10 pm singing his heart out along his Christian cassettes. He has three apartment rentals bringing him a shit load of money and he buys more real estate, has a cow for milk, in weekend he goes preaching in villages across the country. He constantly wheeler-dealers everyone including his family and friends. Has the "eat it ALL-take it ALL money and everything you've got"style. Take all the riped fruits and veggied, all the flowers, all the fried chicken, all the pies. Behind him there is nothing left . My grandma says "oh don't worry he's not always with us but you are here all the time, we will cook again, we will soon have new riped fruits", Once, I was watching the very first strawberies for about two weeks. I know the color they need to be to be sweet but here comes my uncle before I was ready to pick up the strawberies. When I see him in courtyard I go in kitchen, grab a bowl, go in the garden and pick a ALL the strawberies from both sides as i go. My uncle comes right behind me and doesnt say anyuthing just follows me. I rush and pick absoulutelly ALL until the end of the garden and the path, he's right behind me until the end still says no word. I don't leave anything behind. I go in kitchen wash and eat them ALL. My uncles doesnt tell me anything but goes to tell my grandad and grandma what just happend. An uncle came by and he tells that uncle too. Instead of being mad with me he keps telling the story again and again, like he cant believe it. Anyway despite his style, he seems a breath of fresh air, a orange warm light in a grey world. He inspires me. I say life is good for him, I want to have a life like his. I want to be overflow with love and passion and businesses, investments and money
When I was 11 my mother forced me to go in my first church mountains camp. Initially I didn’t want to go because I was so shy. Sleeping in tent with others felt impossible. In my first camp I fell in love with mountains. 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 kept enrolling myself every year in all church mountain camps I could go with. Playing in orchestra for two years I'm escorted after one practice by a man who also plays in orchestra who makes me fall madly in love with him. I completely forget about school and I simple don't go to school anymore for the rest of my life. I get in problems and change schools to save myself.
My mother came up with the idea that we should copy my uncle and get into real estate investing to make money. We started by renting out her centrally located apartment and moving into a cheaper one. But the profit still wasn't enough for me, so I found a larger, even cheaper apartment that had subletting potential. Suddenly, we had a good profit margin. This last apartment had a toilet with so much sediment built up that it took me days to chip it away, bit by bit. When my mother saw me doing that toilet job—missing school, showing zero intention of going to college, and actually making money in real estate—she decided to blow the whole thing up. She said, 'What will people think when they find out you clean toilets and occupy yourself with these low-level real estate jobs instead of studying to become a doctor?' I said, 'What people? I don't know anyone.' She meant her neighbors. She quit being my partner right then, terrified of an 'embarrassing' job that required us to move from apartment to apartment like vagabonds. That’s exactly how she rejected every man in her life, too—she’d find one flaw and blow it completely out of proportion. Pretty much everything she says blows up into nine horror movies and one romantic one. She truly can’t help herself. It was late November, me and the man I was with at that time, we took a 2.30 pm bus in Timisoara and had to arrive in Sibiu by 9.40 pm. Sleep at the closest hotel and next morning take a bus to Paltinis, a small ski resort. Around 5 or so pm at the sunset we were driving through some out of this world beautiful mountain villages. The houses, the streets, the people who lived in those villages were different, the architecture was different, the people were white skin blue eyes and blond hair. They were Romanians from Transylvania region and it felt like I was in a different country, in a different world. Romanians from Banat, the region I came from are mostly dark skin, dark color eyes, dark hair. 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 confidently and shouting "this is it, get off, this bus doesn't go any further!". I look through the window and I see nothing, just pitch dark. We got off, the bus closed the doors and drove off so fast. I looked after it like "where is he going driving like a crazy". We found ourselves in a dark street with medieval buildings all around. No phone, no map. In any direction we looked it was the same, dark streets, old charming building, no people, no shops. It looked like we were dropped in the thick of a strange medieval suburb not a central location and at the city's bus terminal location as I expected. We had no idea which direction to go but it was too late, 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 started running that way and that way only lasted that long before we asked ourselves which way is that way again? Any! We lost the direction again. No other people on the streets to ask again. Every corner I turned yet a another dimly lit stunning medieval street with old houses and cobblestone. Narrow streets, underpasses, markets, fountains, old buildings. I was ecstatic, I was completely lost. I started laughing, drunk with joy, thrill and tiredness. Hopeless. We were not going . 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. I always dreamed of making love and making babies but words like marriage or honeymoon , or job or career ladder just don't cross my brain. I don't like words like that. I don't think of things like that. Sick of boyfriends, of falling in love with people i didn't even like, I needed peace, I was so ready to have babies. I dreamed to have babies since I was 4 or 5 Still searching for the one or the ones. A dream I have since i was 4 or 5. I dream I can't escape. Is at the back of my mind always, like food is at the back of my mind always. 2024Graduating IT college wich I attended 2% of the time , copied at all tests. School for me was sureal. Between me and school-job-career is a 100% mismatch. for me school is oppressive, boring, and disconnected from real life and my body is rejecting it entirely. I wanted to do school but my body didn't let me I visit my cousin in California I see her traditional Christian life complete with a house that looks exactly like all the houses on her street. Bareli any grass just concrete and same lawn. Costco sofas, Costco wall art, Costco clothes, Costco countertops. We go to mall, and the kids play happily on a such boring playground it hurts. Seeing her I feel I’m her, living in her house. My house in Portland is unique log beautiful home on an acre land in a unique neighborhood but I’m completely amnesic. I believe I'm my cousin, living in her house, having her life and I get sick. I drive away, I hear adventure’s call I say Yes! I fall in love with an american man i don't even like . I carve romance and new horizons. I don't want to live a boring life. I don't want anything to do with a traditional life like my cousin's. I discover Bob Dylan. I read his chronicles book and I say "this person is like me" . A current of over joy goes through me from top to tow. I feel liberated. I say if he managed to stay himself and make money, I can too. I don't have to change myself to fit the society, not that I even tried yet but I thought I might have to when I enter the society and start work. At this moment I still don't know who Bob Dylan is. I believe is a succesful musician, bum like me, from some region in America. In 2018 I discovered Thich Nhat Hanh another person whose way of seeing life deeply resonates with me. I wanted to absorb everything he said. Later I discovered Jack Kerouac in 2023 and Charles Bukowski in 2024—more people whose experiences and way of seeing the world felt familiar. Since I can remember, paying attention to most people speaking has been extremely difficult. The moment someone takes a breath to begin talking, I often feel my brain shut down, as if an iron gate comes down. I hear sounds, but the words become like "blah blah" noise. It is not that I choose not to listen; it feels like my attention disappears.People have said I broke every rule possible, but that is not exactly true. Often, I simply did not absorb what people were saying or what social expectations required. My attention was elsewhere.Then I found Thich Nhat Hanh. Listening to him feels like listening to music. Every word reaches me effortlessly and beautifully. I reread his words again and again until I know them by heart. Through him, I feel I understand myself and the world clearly. Charles Bukowski is also easy for me to understand. He likes to be a loner content just to live with a lover, eat with them, sleep with them, walk down teh street with them - me too. Has a feeling that most people don't care what is important to them and don't care that their waste your life -me too. He doesnt like other peple's hairdos. shoes, cars, conversation, what others so, where otehsr go and me neither. He doesn't like movies and fantasy, me neither. He barely can care what people think of him - me too. 10. "And nobody finds the one but they keep looking crawling in and out of beds." Charles Bukowski “Anything is a waste of time unless you are fucking well or creating well or getting well or looming toward a kind of phantom-love-happiness.”Charles Bukowski With Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, I sometimes struggle to understand what is it they say, but I feel the emotion clearly. For the first time, I felt: finally, there are people who experience life in a way that feels close to mine. They are not just analyzing life or following social conventions—they are feeling it directlyWhen communication feels only analytical, performative, or disconnected from real experience, my mind struggles to stay present. But when someone speaks from a place of authenticity, I become deeply interested. I want to understand that person.
In 2024 I went for a month to Europe. I couldn't believe how good I felt. Where I stayed, in the middle of nowhere, just peaceful nature all around, at this charming inspirational beautiful old Tuscany house with red brick floors, stone walls inside and out (more like a small castle), with tasteful exciting art, with an old usable piano, its grounds with red and pink geraniums, roses, plum, fig and pear trees, olive grove, grapevine, cypress trees, umbrella pine trees, no other house around, with 360 degree views of the surrounding fields, hills, valleys and old towns (inspiring Montepulciano town with very few people ), with it's location in Val D'Orcia. It had a covered outdoor area you can stay or eat when is raining. It also has fireplaces with wood and I think would make a romantic getaway in colder months. In this house I immediately got in touch completely with myself became one with nature and my dream and the whole world, any sense of time completely disappeared. I thought I want to live and feel like this for the rest of my life. I could see myself living in that in nature with my lover through springs, summers, autumns, winters forever. It s my deep longing for that deeply satisfing life wich is my dream I want to experience and live. A dream that sound like ""I have finally arrived in the world where I feel like myself." Many people have an inner picture of a "good life." For some people it is achievement, status, adventure, intellectual discovery, wealth, recognition For me is not first and foremost about chasing thrill(wich i also love and need to not get bored and to stay healthy and happy) but about a desire for a place where my whole self can settle. About harmony and peace: love and physical closeness, a beautiful place, nature around me, a home with character and history, family, creativity,
Cri ShackJuly 20, 2026