Tired Eyes

Icicles hang form the eves and a light intermittent rain falls. The sky is low and gray keeping the cold air down and the sun away. I have never seen the air so calm, so placid. Never a breeze blows and the smoke from chimneys wafts up in a lazy vertical line to meld with the low haze over the village.

Tedium in the studio added to the dreary day outside; the repetition of line after line of steel in tight little spaces. But forms are becoming solid, negative spaces solid with line.

Food Wars

Yesterday was a welcomed relief as the sun broke free and began the pre-spring melt. But today the grey has returned along with the cold, and the food wars continue.

Sunday is a day of rest and no one works. The town itself is quiet and little moves along its streets except the faithful on their way to church. I have had a lazy morning as I rest and prepare for the work ahead. With little energy lost in my activities there is need for little energy gained. Breakfast was bread with my last reserve of peanut butter, Nutella and jam. I ventured into the kitchen a little later for a cheese pie and another baked good. This however did not go over well.

Around 1pm she ventured into my room telling me to come, eat! When I wasn't in her kitchen promptly she came back within minutes and demanded that I come, eat and didn't leave until I was following her out the door.

When I got to the kitchen she had laid out a bowl of mushroom soup (the same mushroom soup that has been sitting out since yesterday), a bowl of dumplings with a yogurt like cheese to go with it and bread, of course. She left me to eat as she went into the bedroom. I quickly dumped the soup back into the pot. When she came back out only after a minute or so I acted like I was spooning down the last bit of it and mopping up the leftovers with a piece of bread. She asked if I wanted more and I politely declined. It went over well. I guess in Romania it is pretty common for people to down an entire bowl of soup in mere seconds. I tried to convey that I really like the dumplings but had to insist on no cheese. She wasn't happy. I was, the dumplings are too good to cover up with anything. She did insist on me eating and eating so I did; three servings of dumplings then half a jar of home preserved peaches for desert. The peaches are very tasty, just halved and pitted then thrown in a jar with whatever preserving juice, skin included. All of which comes from what they've grown and what she has made. And none of which is made with any meat, especially rooster.

Forecast

I was told that there would be a break in the weather and that maybe Winter would relinquish its grip here. It is nice to know that no matter where you go and no matter what the cultural or language barriers are some things will always be the same, weather forecasts are rarely right. I woke up to six inches of snow on the ground and it continued to snow the rest of the day. It was fun watching the mothers come to pick their kids up from school and the mom who brought a sleigh; her son flopped down, belly first, and she pulled him home. I've yet to see any snowmen, or snowwomen for that matter, but I have seen evidence of many a snowball thrown.

Excerpt from Letter

The notion of home is interesting during this trip. If home is where the heart is than home is with you. I have packed up my life into two backpacks and headed to a foreign land. I accepted the invitation and honor to come but it was not my choice of destination. I came to do what I know and adapt what I do. I came blind in the ways of customs and came with almost no knowledge of this place. But I am resigned to lay my head wherever it may rest and make the unknown my home.

I walk the same path to work everyday, turn left out of the front gate, right across the bridge, then left after the bridge to the studio. I retrace those same steps home for lunch and then back again to the studio. Once I close shop for the day I make a small detour and turn right after the bridge to get on-line at the mayor's office. I take in the same sights and sounds, say hello to the same people I pass. I visit the same tiny market. I have a place to rest, a place to work and a few places to play. There are no trails to hike or bike, no theater, no store to rent DVD's, no TV for that matter. A certain amount of personal freedom has been lost as I have been tethered to others.

It is strange to up root and plant in a place so off my personal radar, to call home something so unfamiliar. To try and let go of everything I am accustomed to and yet still try to find myself in my work and keep a sense of myself so that I may live.

Reasource

The snow continues to fall, slowly gaining ground and covering everything with white and consuming the air with cold. The sky is heavy and gray and the nearby hills are obscured by the ever present haze.

Breakfast was a treat this morning. Fresh scrambled eggs and cooked bacon. Yes, cooked bacon and that annoying cocks spawn will not live on. I have discovered that not only do I not eat enough but also I do not eat fast enough. I think the fact that I use a fork is unfathomable each mouthful is too small. I wonder if I am being cleverly deceived. I rarely see my hosts eat and when they do it is a mere snack ( I wonder if I am getting the best of the food while they eat the dregs). But if not I think I have found an untapped resource. Romanians need to be introduced to the competitive world of competition eating; loads of food in big mouthfuls eaten as fast as possible before it spoils. I think they'd climb to the top in mere minutes, just as fast as it would take them to eat fifty hotdogs.

I have become accustomed to my time here. I have been asked to travel and see other cities and places I always decline. My time is short and precious. As I need as much time as I have available to work I also wonder if it is fear that keeps me here, fear of breaking out of my pattern and losing more time trying to step back into it. But I also take the example of my hosts. They have no car, no horse and wagon, no tractor. They head to church on the Sabbath and I see them at the front door of neighbors. I assume that they leave during the summer months to harvest. But they seem content to keep their circle of travel to as far as they wish to walk. I know that they are only one illustration of the people here but I will live by their lead.

Fine Line

A fine layer of wind blown snow coats my jacket as I walk the dark street home, flakes are big enough to make out their pattern. Dinner is a bowl of fresh bean soup. As I sit on my usual stool at the small kitchen table I watch my hosts attend to their task at hand. They are taking the milk from their cow and skimming the thick layer off the top to be stored in a familiar container for cream. Then pouring the milk through cheesecloth into various containers for later uses. I watch all of this earnestly and with a certain curiosity as I enjoy dinner. Then I realize the very beans that I am eating I had seen this morning. Only then they were in my hostess's apron and then being sorted on the kitchen table. Beans grown in their garden, picked by hand, shucked and dried.

Their communion with the land is so different and foreign to me. Land is worked; sued and reaped. It sustains life and will forgive us our trespasses. But the land sustains my soul and for that I cherish, preserve and try to protect what is given to the people.