The old cello

     At dusk, when no one was around anymore, I went back to a place that casted some of the most intriguing events over the last two hundred years, a place that once taught generations, yet now abandoned to dust, ironically, due to the lack of use of knowledge and wisdom of those who leaved it.
    I didn't know what was I doing there, perhaps it was my wish to visit again this place. I wandered around the enormous hallways, my eyes drifting from one shadow to another that would creep in when windows would stop lightening my path.
    Strange light, it would pass through me like through air.
    When I looked back, I noticed I had no shadow extending from my feet.
    'You go, your shadow stays...'  I wonder who was gone and who remained behind then.
     At the end of the west wing hallway I opened a door to a chamber where light would wash over a chair and the wooden floor around it.
    Looking in the background there was an old cello. So old that I had to rip the cobwebs off of it.
    I took a second look at the instrument. So beautiful, yet so silent...
    I fixed the strings back from the cello's bridge to its tuning pegs. Done, now was the time to try it. Although I had no song in my mind, I tried a few notes. To my surprise, I could not stop. A sorrowful ballad filled the darkness, forcing it to shuffle from one corner to the other of the room.
    Thoughtless, I took the cello with me.
    On my way back, I met one of my former professors wandering around. Strange how the history repeated itself. Could this place gather our consciences and guide them to their appointed chambers?
    He stopped merely surprised when he saw me.
    'Isn't it strange? Is anyone else around here?' he asked me.
    Something inside me decided not to tell him. I just shrugged, then stirred my feet further to the exit.
    'Keep walking,'I told myself. 'I want to sing again.'
   
    ***
    Note: truth be told, I never ever touched a cello, though I love its sound. But this dream I had was so real that I actually felt everything, and that wouldn't happen too often. I could literally feel the instrument's strings, how I ripped those cobwebs off of it, and how I tried to sing those few notes. Everything felt so vivid.
   Among other strange dreams, this one was one of the most powerful ones. And I had to share it with you.

Three months escape

   

  No matter what ideas would kick in during the last two weeks, my hands would go limp and my mind blank. This is a real problem, because that means a bigger pain in the ass later. No, it's not lazyness, it's ... something. 

  Okay, back to the main idea: holyday. The holy three months of peace, good music, incognito walks and wonderful evenings in my hometown.

  It's not that I would not like Bucharest at all. I do, I really do, the city has its own fascinating places, blooming with history, fancyness, stories, that's the spot for new experiences. 

  But, after a year of studies, clamor, many things done, such as projects, volunteering, meeting new people and getting to know them (some of them way too much), a year of full-speed living, I needed to come back home. 

  Home. Because some links created in the last few years are stronger than myself, and even from the very beginning you know that the feelings you get when you think about these links are burried way deep in your being, so they stay there. 

  Long story short, it's like I would shut myself down and let the old recorgnize me after all this time. One year can be a long time if it's marked by some things that you weren't expecting. 

  I have to say, living almost 300 miles away from your home and handling things on your own the best you can it's somehow not that easy. 

  So, here I am, with my vacation time almost spent on meditation, rediscovering myself and getting back to my passions. 

  

   Basically, I spent most of the time with myself. I got rid of useless feelings, I somehow stonehearted and mind-powered myself, I learned more about myself, I faced some of my deepest fears and beliefs, I developed some of my skills and of course, got prepared for my return to the agitated city of Bucharest. It changed me, that I have to give it to the place, I learned what means to be all on my own. And I also learned that I needed free time with myself only too. 

  Speaking of, yes, I really had some fun this summer in my hometown. I searched for the history of some places, I even got stuck in it (literally), I found and have been found by unusual things (it's no more a secret that I am quite aquainted with unseen things, 'Caspers' for starters), and I really learned from the pro's (and from a good friend a few countries away) how to do some unconventional investigating on this occasion. 

   On the 'good music' chapter, well, we all wander on the unlimited internet resources and discover even the strangest tastes for songs that would sound like nothing we've ever heard before. Me, for example, I discovered that I can sleep soundly on Native American mixed incantation-like songs, I love to write or plan my ideas on chillout music, I dream and wonder how would it be like to live as an American country or smalltown girl on country or indie music, but what I love the most is the music that pumps up the adrenaline in me (epic, trance, dubstep, glitch hop, rock, whatever), because it keeps me moving further. Yes, music is helpful, wonderful, it's almost otherworldly, inspirational (credits for the word to my friend), it rises you up from the ground and opens your eyes to the worldwide (or just closes them, LOL). 

   Oh, I almost forgot the 'incognito' walks. Being away for a year and returning right in the middle of the summer season, among hundred of tourists, gave me the benefit of the foreigner. 

   It was really funny seeing the troubled look of the store sellers when they were asking me 'Sorry, you're not from the town, right?'. Most of the people would ask me that because many places around here have changed. And it seems that new people came in town too. 

 Also, I've been given the chance to make an experiment. Back in Bucharest I really had that awkward feeling of being watched and judged by the other strangers. I don't know, it's like they would evaluate you too see if you fit in their comfort zone. Back home, being 'the stranger' once again, I took long town-tour walks, observing people, places. It was almost like I would move along a wall with a movie developing on it, with the perfect music in the background (...or just in my headphones). 

  And over all of these, the sunset...

Tulcea's harbor

    No matter what ideas would kick in during the last time, my hands would go limp and my mind would run back to its memories. 

    It's time to pack them up and move on to the future.