Category Archives: Memories

You don’t need exact words to make yourself understood

May 20, 2014A mother's diary, Contemplations, Discoveries, Memoriesvica

We often evaluate what we have said, sometimes long after the listeners have forgotten what we were talking about. And we judge ourselves for the word choice.

My son reminded me last week how sweet “the wrong use of words” can be and how much fun playing with words is.

One of the wonderful memories in this respect is connected for me with teaching English to beginners. One of the courses I taught was at a large hotel in the center of Moldovan capital, Chisinau. The staff of the hotel had to learn English, and their abilities to talk English at the end of the course would determine how secure their jobs there would be. More and more foreigners were staying at this hotel and English skills were essential. All of my students were elder than me, some of them close to my age but most of them at least two times my age at that time, which was beginning of my twenties.

One of the assignments I gave to my students was to describe their homes. And one of the students, who was a bit more advanced than others, but wasn’t trusting herself in this, made a wonderful description of her home. She used some beautiful details describing colors and shapes in various rooms. She was truly in the moment and thinking in English. I knew this as soon as she named kitchen “cooking room” without realizing it. It was just a logic thing to say. She didn’t even stop to search for the “right” word. She just said: “cooking room”.

I loved that and pointed this out to her when it was time for me to evaluate her presentation. I was touched how proud she was to realize that she could think in a foreign language and make herself understood even if she didn’t have all the words “at her hand”.

My son reminded me last Friday of this wonderful encounter. He, my husband, my mother, who lives close to us, and I went to an adventure park not far from the city we live in. It was a bank holiday and we enjoyed sunny and warm weather. Shortly before the park closed we re-discovered the airplane carousel, which my son enjoyed last year. So, we hurried to test it again. Moms and Dads were allowed to join in one of the two seats on an airplane. Niklas asked me to fly with him. I agreed.

Immediately after that I got some instructions. Niklas has forbidden me to touch the handle that makes the plane goes up or down as it circles with the merry-go-round. He claimed the handle for himself. I happily agreed and called him captain. He loved this and took on this role immediately.

More instructions followed. Niklas has pointed to his tummy and said: “You must not sit here in front of me,” and pointing to his back he added, “But here in front of me”.

I had a big smile on my face and such a wave of warmth at the sweetness of this sentence. It was perfectly clear that I was supposed to sit behind him.

These sweet encounters and realization, that a “wrong use” of a language could be sometimes more fun, allowed me to dare to write in a language of countries, which I visited only briefly, but which I deeply respect and language of which I love and cherish. Help and support from my friends who are native speakers in English is absolutely inspiring and encouraging.

Just the day after my sweet experience with my son, my writing teacher, dear friend and a wonderful author, Menna van Praag, has praised my fellow students from Germany and me on our English skills. It was at one of her monthly writing seminars, which I immensely enjoy and at which I learn a lot. She liked the way I structured sentences to enhance the emotion and feeling in a scene. And she praised me on my word choice. One example made me smile. I have written the following paragraph searching for reasons of the feelings the main character has for his fellow student at the university:

“One of the reasons may lie in her constant merriness. And carelessness. People around her often appear grim and unhappy in contrast to her smile and lightness. All troubles of the world seem to pearl up and flow off her like heavy raindrops on a windowpane. I forget my worries with her.”

Menna’s comment to this was: “Lovely structure. I don’t know the expression “pearl up” do you mean “peel off” or is it a new one on me? :)”

I tried to figure out where I first heard the expression “pearl up”. I couldn’t come up with the exact source. It might be from my time and interest in semiconductor and material science. I read an article long time ago about so-called lotus effect, which allows the lotus leaves to always appear clean and free of dirt and water stains. A very specific structure of the leaf surface does not allow water to adhere to it. Water gathers in large drops, reminding me of “pearls”, and carries the dirt rolling off the leaves. This inspired some of the car building companies to create similar surface structure on the wind-shields, so that they would remain clean and needed less washing, which in turn would save water consumption.

I don’t know if I will keep the expression “pearl up” in my novel or not, but the smiley from Menna strengthened me in my will to continue writing and playing with words in this language, which doesn’t feel that foreign to me anymore.

And the mother tongue of my son is German, which is theoretically foreign to me, since my mother tongue is Romanian, but not foreign to my heart.

Wishing all, who read this, joy in using whatever language you wish, whether the one you were born into or chose to speak or write in!

Picture: On the way home.

Mother’s day now and then, here and there

May 12, 2014Memoriesvica

My husband and I both grew up in socialistic countries. He – in the former German Democratic Republic, and I – in the former Soviet Union, and more precise, in the Moldovan Soviet Socialistic Republic.

We didn’t know of Mother’s day there. Instead, mothers were congratulated with the International Women’s Day, on March 8. As for Mother’s day, women, and especially mothers and wives received flowers and small gifts from their husbands and children. As here, children were drawing pictures and writing cards for their mothers. As my mother moved to Denmark to be closer to us, she brought with her from Moldova a notebook I made for her and my sister on this occasion. It was sweet to see what words, pictures and poems I found, wrote and quoted to honor the two wonderful women, who brought me up after my father’s death.

One 8^th of March remained in my memory. I was a teenager then. I think it was a Saturday, because I was not at school, and the first thing I was sent for that day were groceries. It was my turn. I went for smaller rounds, while my mother and my sister went for bigger rounds, when more things needed to be carried. Sometimes we went together.

On that particular Saturday, March 8, while standing in queue for fresh bread, I noticed something unusual. There were almost no women in the stores except the shop assistants. Only men were there. And most of them looked quite lost. I realized then, that on other 364 days (minus Sundays) mostly women went for groceries. You could see men standing in queue to give back empty bottles, but the rest was done by women.

Especially the picture of the most of men being still half asleep and looking lost, not knowing where to find which product, or what they were supposed to buy, was very amusing to me.

With time this picture changed, but how much different it is today in Moldova from then, I am still yet to find out. I haven’t been in Moldova for more than thirteen years. So, everything will be new for me when I go. And I will definitely go. Just don’t know yet when.

My husband and I tend to forget Mother’s Day as we know it today. I guess partially because it is not a fixed date in the year, as March 8, and partially because we grew up with a different tradition. And old habits, especially those from childhood, do not change, or not so easily anyway.

But I was lucky that my mother spent almost the whole day with us yesterday. And as soon as we remembered that it was Mother’s day, we invited her for dinner. My son was so happy to have his Bunica for a bit longer with him. We all had a lot of fun.

Being a mother myself, I love everything that relates to this day. I am so happy to be a mother. There is nothing that can compare with this feeling. And smiles, hugs and kisses from my son were the best possible gift I could get on this day or any day.

A happy Mother’s day week to all mothers! As I read somewhere yesterday: “Every day is mother’s day!”

Picture: My mother in December 1960, a year before my parents met. I am not surprised my father fell for her.

Follow your heart’s wish, however small; someday it might save your life

May 7, 2014Memories, True Storyvica

When we talk of a heart’s desire, we often talk of big dreams and wishes. Here is a story, how a small desire of heart can turn to have a significant influence on one’s life. My sister taught me this lesson and I hold this story dearly to my heart.

It was the time when I was beginning my PhD course at the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. Svetlana was already done with hers for several years and giving lectures in economy to students at two Universities in Chisinau, the state one and the private one. Before starting at the private University, where she led a department, she worked also as an executive director of an economical association in Moldova. Ever since Soviet Union collapsed and Moldova has proclaimed itself independent, my sister had at least two full time jobs at the same time, which was the main income in our family.

The state salaries and grants were small and paid sporadically. So, while being a PhD student at a state organization, I had to have an additional job, too. After helping out in a marketing study, I had several jobs as English teacher for beginners at various places like hotels and economical organizations with number of people reaching as many as thirty. I was also giving individual lessons to those members of my groups, who wished and needed to learn more. I had a really good time. In fact, my sister helped me also here. She helped me getting the marketing job and my first English course I taught.

My sister, my niece, my mother and I lived together at that time. Since both Svetlana and I were working from early morning to pretty late in the evenings, we often had only nights to prepare for our lectures and lessons.

And this was one of the very best times in my early adult life. We worked together at the kitchen table, made tea and bread with butter for short breaks. And we laughed a lot stifling our giggles. Sometimes our mother would wake up and hush us so that we don’t wake my niece Mihaela, who was a baby at that time. My mother joked that she doubted our efficiency when she caught us laughing and suggested that we went to bed and got some sleep. But we always had good arguments why we still needed to be awake and have breaks with tea, bread and butter. And laughs.

Actually our laughs were often connected to what we were doing. I’ve learned a lot from my sister during those nights. Especially, how to find and see joy and lightness in seemingly hard tasks.

It was early time of Moldovan radio stations, which played only music. “Wonderful World” from the band “Black” was a big hit. Svetlana and I were huge fans and four of us, including our mother and my niece, would stop any talk or activity when this song has been aired. And we would listen until it finished. And as it ended we expressed longing for the next time.

One day a friend of mine recorded this very song on a tape for me.

On the evening of that day, my sister and I were again late home and just in time to give my niece a bath and put her to bed.

Svetlana and I worked at the kitchen table after that for a while.

At some point, my sister suggested going to the living room and listen to the tape on our big music center, which my father bought before he died.

We didn’t have headphones back then, and the small table recorder, we had also from my father, didn’t allow fine tuning of the volume so that we could listen to it quietly in the middle of the night.

After some doubt and fear on my side that we could wake up my niece and Mom, and even our neighbors, through the “paper-thin” walls, I agreed.

My sister was always the driving force in her and our daring adventures. Here is a small account of some of her adventures and the counterpart on my side.

Svetlana was using her school bag as a sleigh. That led to the need for a new bag every spring in the least. I changed my first schoolbag for another in the seventh or eighth grade only because it was too small and looked too childish. But it was as good as new because I was always careful, or rather afraid, not to scratch or damage it somehow.

In winter as an adult in her late twenties, mind you, Svetlana used to skate on her high-heeled boots on the slippery sidewalks, while I made small steps in my flat boots being afraid to fall down. Sometimes my sister would catch my arm and say: “Hold me!” and skate further, so that I would have to run beside her and make sure that none of us fell down. And if it happened, if one of us fell, she always had a good laugh, while I was confirmed in my fears and was more careful the following time.

So, also with the song “Wonderful Life” from “Black”, my sister was the driving force.

We went to the living room, took our work with us and listened to the song many times, rewinding again and again to listen to it from the beginning.

About twenty minutes after moving to the living room, there was a terrible crash sound of breaking glass in the kitchen. It was like someone has thrown a big stone into our window, which was rather unlikely in the middle of the night and the flat being on the fourth floor.

Our mother woke up and came with quick steps to us worried what happened. Together, we switched on the light in the kitchen and the bulb was still hanging above the kitchen table. When we looked down, the table and the kitchen floor were full of small glass pieces from the shattered lampshade. It somehow loosened from its holding and fell. We were shocked seeing the damage, especially when we realized that less than half an hour before this happened Svetlana and I were sitting with our heads right underneath it.

Since then we often tell the tale how a song saved us from serious injuries. But actually it was Svetlana’s drive and her listening to her heart’s desire, however small, that saved us.

Pictures: Me and my sister as children. And a calendar sheet from May 4, 1964 saying: “at 18:15 our Svetlana was born”. My father made this note and one for me in his calendar and kept these two little pieces of paper in his notebook up to the day he died.

Happy birthday week and month, my dear, sweet sister Svetlana!
You are the best sister one could wish for!

What is it about being understood?

April 28, 2014Contemplations, Discoveries, Memories, True Storyvica

My father made once the following note:

Translated it says:

“What is happiness?
What does it mean to be happy?
Happiness it is when you are understood!”

I don’t know, whether this was said by someone else or whether these were his own words. But one way or another, this note reveals what my father thought about meaning of happiness.

In connection to the novel I write about my father, I read, re-read and research books and material that bring me closer to the world he lived in, when he was looking for his family.

He and my mother gave us a wonderful family and I feel closer to them when I do the research and try to “time travel” into the early sixties and before that, and imagine the streets he walked, the books he read and the radio programs he listened to.

We listened a lot to the radio when I was small. To the music and different radio programs. I will always remember, as when I was with my mother and my father in Algeria, I eagerly waited and then listened excitedly to a greeting from my sister transmitted in a radio show from Moscow, where my sister stayed at a boarding school.

One radio program my father listened to, when he was young, was “Find a Person” hosted by the radio station “Mayak” (meaning Lighthouse). This program was moderated by the famous Russian children poet Agniya Barto, who used to work at an orphanage during 1960s.

She wrote a book with the same title, “Find a Person”. This book is based on the experiences she made during the World War II, in her work at the orphanage, as a poet and during the work on the radio program. My father gave this book to my sister as a gift.

I read this book as a teenager, and today, I discover it anew. In contrast to the first read, I don’t read the book at once. I read one story at a time, savor the story by reminiscing it and by thinking about all those families, who were separated during the World War II and who could find each other thanks to this program.

My father, encouraged by my mother, also wrote to Agniya Barto and her colleagues at the radio. The radio program and my father’s search are prominently featured in the book, I am writing.

One of the stories in the book “Find a Person” is about being understood.

Along with other writers and poets, Agniya Barto was invited to participate at a literary festival taking place in the capital of the former Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, today Armenia.

During this trip to Erevan, Agniya Barto was asked to give a speech at a train station. This speech was going to be transmitted on the radio. She had only one night for preparations and when they arrived, she discovered that she had to perform in front of hundreds of people.

After the speech, she asked Alexander Fadeev, who asked her to do the speech, whether he thought that the audience liked what she said. She hoped they did, because they clapped and cheered when she finished.

The answer was surprising and rather shocking for her. Alexander Fadeev said: “They did like it a lot, but they probably didn’t understand a thing. Because most of them don’t speak any Russian!”

With hurt feelings, Agniya asked Alexander why he didn’t warn her about this before the speech.

With a hearty laugh, he said: “Because, if you wouldn’t believe in having been understood, then you wouldn’t be able to speak from the heart.”

Wow, what a beautiful amendment to my father’s note!

All we need to do to be happy is to believe, be present and do whatever we do by putting our whole heart and soul into it. And by this, we can inspire others and make them happy, whether they understand our language or not.

The way to understanding goes through our hearts.

Every year on April the 12th

April 15, 2014Memories, Portraits, True Storyvica

I love languages. I think they are like various sides of a diamond, all letting very special light and glitter to shine through them. But I always wondered what my favorite was. My father was in love with French. My mother is devoted to our mother tongue, Romanian. My sister, my niece and I grew up with Romanian and Russian. Nowadays, I poke my nose in about thirteen languages, of which in five I can understand and be understood.

A few weeks ago, I finally admitted to myself: English is my favorite. My wish to write in it makes it pretty obvious. And I guess, one of the reasons for the love of it was my English teacher. Valentin Ignatievich Jeleapov was my all times favorite teacher. He was a good friend of my father and after my father died, he became a father figure to me.

He used to give me his salami sandwiches. He engaged me into the work on our school museum. I gave guided tours in this museum. It was my first school of speech. I spent a lot of afternoons at school after the lessons and remember fondly those days.

The teachers in Soviet schools didn’t have much possibility to improvise, because the school program and material were prescribed. The text books were not very exciting. Foreign languages were not an exception. Most of us thought we wouldn’t have a chance to use them.

Only after finishing school and after Perestroika years, I learned how much passion Valentin Ignatievich had for English. I started teaching English to adult beginners, and upon advice from my mother, I brought him all the material I gathered and received at the University and from English friends I was lucky to make in Moldova during my years of study.

But there was one special “English” lesson we had with Valentin Ignatievich, and which I will never forget. It happened every year on April 12. It was done in Russian. We were not asked to read our assignments during those 45 minutes, although we were always told to prepare diligently, also for April 12.

On that day, Valentin Ignatievich told us how he and his fellow students experienced the day when Yuri Gagarin went to space as the first human being. He told us how his professors called off all of the courses and seminars, and how hundreds of students were extremely quiet listening to the report on the radio of the Gagarin’s flight and his landing. He shared with us the emotions he and his friends were living through on that historic day.

I loved those English lessons on April 12. I asked my sister, who is eight years elder than me and who learned her English with Valentin Ignatievich, too. She reported of the same experience. My friends from other classes said the same. This was an unofficial tradition at our school. And it was way out of program and rules.

In the seven years of learning English with Valentin Ignatievich, two times a week, I had several occasions, on which an English lesson for me and my school friends fell on April 12. And I was always glad to experience it again and again.

Valentin Ignatievich told us the same story every time, but the way he told it to us was always new. New sparkle, new detail came every time. I will never forget those special lessons. Every year, on April 12, I remember them with a smile. That is why I write this post. And that is why I created a scene in the novel I write about my father, inspired by my teacher’s story.

I was also glad to learn and experience two other things, occasions, connected to April 12. My mother told me that my father, if he would ever have a son, wanted to name him Yuri, after Yuri Gagarin. And my PhD exam was on April 12, 1999. When I learned that my exam was put on this particular day, I knew that everything would be all right. I was still nervous. But the memory of my father, of my English teacher, and the fact that I defended it in English, made this day very special, festive and unforgettable.

Picture: my father at his PhD defense in 1971. One year before I was born.