Going back

Walking again on the streets of my youth. Back to Romania, after 2 years. Back to Iasi, after 11. I resisted. I found excuses, I delayed.
And when all my arguments were broken down by the tiny ring on my phone "Are you coming? You have a bus at 3pm", I packed a bag and I went. To Iasi. A whole twenty-four hours and I didn't even have the time to see everything I missed, everyone I thought I'd see. I was simply there, I passed by the Uni, the parks on Copou, the crumbling building in Ralet where I nurtured my dreams for 2 years, the place where I first met my husband, the Students House and Hygeco Pub - a stinky bomb full of cheap vodka. Then back again, home.
A day that has reconciled me with the past decade....

The rear view

I have a soft spot for borders. Borders that exist and no one even remembers they are there (Belgium to Holland), borders that are real but some people ignore their existence (North-South Cyprus), administrative borders (England to Wales) or political borders (Republic of Moldova and Moldova region in Romania).
There are borders ahead of us and behind us and we are stuck in the space in between, with a limited view, trying to piece together a world without borders.

Longing and Belonging

That's the leitmotif of the past few weeks. Granta 114: Aliens (Granta: The Magazine of New Writing), LSE's Space for Thought festival, my previous post.... what do we long for and where do we belong?

Every once in a while I rediscover the Romanian bloggs, newspapers and ever Twitter feeds.... and I fall in love again with a country where I don't belong anymore.
At alternative times I discover English, The Onion and McSweeney's, Granta or The Atlantic and I long to belong. Again.
Occasionally I fell good in my skin and I deny longing and belonging to anything else but my own world. Good times they are... when I can forge ahead to meet the latest version of my self-identity.