Telling Stories

Much as I hate clichés, there is one I learned a lot about lately: it's a wonderful world. It's a terribly different, varied, colorful world. Travelling around Europe was the amplest thing I have ever done, and I didn't even realize it until I was back. I remember my previous trips to different countries of Europe when I was younger. And I remember how I felt when I came back: every time there was this newly-found enthusiasm within myself, I perceived the world around me differently; through the perspective of a cosmopolite individual. I would tell the stories of the places I had visited as if they had been heroic legends in ancient books and my friends would listen as if the places I had visited didn't even exist on this planet. The people I had met in my journeys were these queer creatures who brimmed over with happiness and kindness. Not like the people you know here, I would say. People would smile at me in the street.

The experience I had now, as an (almost) adult, wasn't very different. A guy stopped me in the middle of the street in Paris and told me how 'jolie' I was. Not very different from what I get in my own country, but the feeling was different. I wasn't afraid to look him in the eye and say 'merci'. To spend one week and two days away from one's microuniverse can be awfully disconcerting. But I adapted incredibly fast. It was like I had always lived wherever we decided to spend the night. I found the German language not as impossible as I had thought. I even understood everything a waiter told me; especially after the weissbier I had that night. I discovered that sometimes speaking French is like swimming: you never forget how to do it, but if you don't practice it, you get tired easily. To my surprise, I found myself speaking Italian more fluently than French. Although I wouldn't categorize Italy as the perfect destination for a young, well brought up Romanian, unfortunately. In a time when racism is barely an issue in most countries of Europe, Italians bring it to life again.

"Prejudice – wrote a song about it – wanna hear it?" this was 1992.

I felt as if I were stepping on broken glass with every inch we traveled in Italy. I have never been so scared and appalled by a place and the people around me in my life. And the 500 km that separated us from Romania seemed a longer distance than all the 4500 km we had driven until then. Tracy could sing about a revolution there… she is right about one thing, though:

There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody

It's all a matter of perception and labels. And people are fear driven, no matter what their IQ is. I am sure the Italians were more scared of me than I was of them.

And I remember someone asked me once if I was a gypsy…

And then, I got back to my home country. Now, I could try and explain this syndrome for (p)ages, but I am not sure I'll get around to doing it right. When one gets back to Romania, from any western country, there is a period of a couple of days, depending on how much one spends abroad, when there is a feeling of… hypnosis, hallucination… when you think the people in Romania could be different, they could be nice, and smile at you in the street and unpromptedly offer to help; you think you could change minds and preconceptions, and the direction of a whole generation. And you think: if they can, why can't we? Why can't I?

And then I woke up to the reality of my microcosm.

 

To be continued…