London - Part 1

Moving from a quiet village near Wales to London caused, not unexpectedly, some shock to my system. In St. Owens Cross, this little village in Herefordshire, the nearest bus stop was 30 minutes away if you decided to face the lonely countryside and walk to reach it. In London, the bus stop is 2 minutes from your doorstep. And before you get out of your house, the anticipation of the noise produced by drills and buses and horns from impatient drivers takes all your serenity away.

I only lived in London for a few months, I've had varied experiences there but I still have mixed feelings about it. The crowds, the multitude of faces and smells, all almost at the same time, I found them overwhelming. The constant racket seemed to seep deep into my brain and linger there long after I got inside and left it behind. With so much going on around, one would have the feeling of being in a place where things happen. And they do. But the gap between one's daily activity and one's inner life is getting wider.

There was a girl one day somewhere near Victoria Station. The reason why I remember her was because of the thought that I had as I was looking at her. Headphones in her ears, reading a book. All on her own, in a place where there was lots of traffic and therefore lots of noise. Now: I associate reading with finding a quiet place, where comforting takes place. This girl was looking for that in chaos. And that's what London does to you: it opens your eyes to the fact that life is more than rushing and doing, it's also about breathing and recovering, about taking time out to reconnect with yourself and with God. London can rob you of the meaning you knew you had in life.

The tube is a monotone worm creeping through the insides of the city, always with a purpose, gorging people and deepening the sense of solitude in the middle of masses of anonymous faces. We all have a story to tell. We all travel with our stories on our backs wherever the tube takes us. To a destination we've set out for ourselves before buying the ticket, to a place where our face is identifiable with that of someone that's loved and that has a name and a personality, and yearnings and regrets...

Moving

I have moved a lot throughout the years and that has become a little bit of a trauma in my life. The lack of stability, of roots, as they say, has impacted the way I think and my efforts to integrate into new groups. There was a time when moving became as normal as going to the loo :) Well, not as often, but you get the picture. Having to let go and to start anew became routinely almost but the sorrow, the discomfort and insecurity seemed to take larger proportions and to get increasingly numbing at the same time.

My greatest worries were: how long am I going to be in this place for? will I afford to keep paying for it? where will I shelve all my books? what clothes can I get rid of before the move? how many times will I have to repeat the story of who I am, why and how I got there and what are my plans for the future? will it be cold in winter? how will I get along with the people I live with? how far is the library from where I live?

Now: it's a little bit different when you move to and within a foreign country. I guess one of the big differences is that moving has been a little less stressful in England rather than within Romania. For some reason, England equals freedom to me. I am as "bereft of material possessions" in Blighty as I was back home but I feel more... carefree, for lack of a better way of expressing the feeling. I guess it's because Romania still bears some dark associations in my head - with persistent feelings of inadequacy that I wasn't aware of and not knowing or not being aware of something makes everything worse. The UK, with its politically correct culture, has offered access to understanding and thus to knowing why I feel the way I feel.

Sometimes I'd wake up and not remember exactly where I was. I'd try desperately to make the place where I'd "landed" feel like "home". The feeling of not belonging anywhere, of not finding your place is daunting.

When I was 18, I moved into a room right across from the high school building into one of those old and cold houses with tall walls and very little light that Brasov is heaving with (the view that I had from my window was of a very narrow road leading to a cemetery and a mental health hospital). I laid in bed for a nap after tidying all up and started crying. The thought that this is not a punishment came into my mind and I calmed down. I had moved on my own and was resenting my parents for not being there for me. (Little did I know that they were struggling at home...)

The time when I really got "fed up" with moving was in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. I had left a very unhappy situation and came into the life of a family of 8 that taught me that home, well, you take it with you wherever you go. Home is not necessarily a physical place. It's a state of mind rather. If home is security, then if I feel secure I can feel at home. Feeling at home depends on me really. It's accepting and letting go of the past, mourning for a while for what was lost but then tidying yourself up to look the Future squarely in the face. Home is accepting that mistakes and sadness are part of the natural course of life and that dreading them will make experiencing them even more intense than they really are.

Remembering

Autumn seems to have the same savour as it had in the past. Back in the time when I was in high school and then at university. The light of the sun changes its feel and the air gets a bit less caressing. I often think of the time when I was in Brasov, living in one of those post-WWII houses with tall walls and very little light seeping through the windows because of their awkward positioning and architecture. I see and feel the same things that I did then. A bit shy, anxious about the future but eager to get on with it and do my best. 

Walking through the streets of that old medieval city has always made me feel like I lived in a different time period. Walking to school or to university was never a boring process as there were so many building to see and analyse and so many potential stories to imagine about the lives of the people who lived in them throughout the years. About their dreams and lifestyle, about their way of perceiving life and people they came into contact with. There were other times when the buildings almost vanished as my mind was clouded with worries about the future, about not being good enough or about failing to meet expectations I had set for myself and that I thought my parents had set for me. 

I am so different now. I have learned more about how to live in the present, about how to stay afloat when things get tough and about how to take responsibility for my own actions and even for my own feelings. I have stopped blaming my parents for “faulty" behaviour patterns and for things that “they did to me”. I guess that this is part of entering the world of adults and really getting on with it. Determinism plays only a limited part in my life now. I am more in control of my emotions and of what makes me me. I can’t say that I’ve reached a stage where nothing touches me. If anything, my sensitivity has increased but I am no longer a victim to it. I am still human and that feels like it’s the way it is supposed to be.