Category Archives: Memories

On superstitions

Contemplations, Memories

I was born and grew up in a country full of superstitions. Almost every aspect of life is featured by a superstition. You could say it is a tradition to follow all kinds of superstitions in Moldova. Earlier I thought these were the rules you had to follow. Now I rather think that they show the sense of humor of the nation or the person they were invented by. The crazier the superstition sounds the funnier and the more intelligent the inventor is; especially because he or she knows that there will be at least one soul following it.

Here are some examples of superstitions we used to adhere to in my family:

“Don’t put knives with sharp edge up; otherwise you will have trouble or argument with your boss.”

“Don’t give things to another person, and especially don’t kiss another person, over a doorsill, otherwise you will have a bad and maybe even irreparable fight with that person.”

Or the international one is also cared for in my motherland: a cat cutting your way. Once going to school many years ago I watched a colonel, I knew was living in the block of flats next to ours, spitting over his left shoulder after he saw a cat – not being black,  by the way – cross the road in front of him. The spitting was supposedly protecting you from trouble or bad day that you could get because of this cat.

While the “cat-caused” superstition might seem quite irrational, there is certain logic to many superstitions practices in the culture I grew in, and in my family in particular. For example,  the one with knives makes sense, since if a knife is stored with it sharp edge up, then you might injure yourself while taking it out. As consequence you hurt yourself and you cannot work as good as you did before the accident. And because of this, your boss might be angry because you are not doing your job as you were supposed to. Well, I agree, today bosses have more understanding than in old days, but still …

Also the one with kissing or giving things over a threshold makes or rather made sense to me. I guess in ancient times the authors of this wisdom thought of a doorsill symbolizing a line separating two humans and that you had to step over this line in order to interact with the person you meant to. On the other hand thinking of today, it is always a sign of being in a hurry when you give something or kiss someone over a doorsill. And when you are in a hurry, you are not paying enough attention to the person you interact with in the current moment. And when being neglected, people do tend to get angry. From here you can easily see how this can lead to a fight.

Ok, ok, I agree with you and confess that it does not have to happen and I can see that you might have given a lot of things over a doorsill without getting into a fight. But I adhered fiercely to this for a long time. And the solution to this is that you step on the doorsill before giving something over it. By this, you are almost in the same room with the person you interact. So, my husband, my friends or anyone leaving after a visit and saying “Oh sorry, I forgot that one thing lying over there. Could you throw it to me, please?” were not getting this thing right away but had to wait until I reached the threshold and put my foot onto it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t get this d… thing. Today, I don’t follow this superstition anymore, but I notice every time when I give something over a doorsill. I guess this is my spell.

My grandmother is told to have invented some superstitions of her own. I know of at least one invented by her. She died when I was two and a half years old, so all I know of her comes from stories about her. And these do sound fascinating. I am really proud of being told that I resemble her a little. So here is the superstition invented by her. In order to make her children, my mother and my uncle, to help her cleaning around the house, she claimed that you had to wipe the kitchen table with a wet cloth as many times as high the school grade you wished to get on that day or for that test or exam. Now, before you start thinking whether this is logical or not, depending what country you come from and what grade system you might have grown up with (in case one is the best, then the whole thing does not make sense, I agree) I must say that the highest grade in Soviet Union, where my parents, my sister and I went to school, was five and the worst was one. So, before each test or exam, having inherited this tradition from my mother, I was wiping our kitchen table five times after breakfast and before going to school. I did the same when I was going later to the University.

I was seriously appalled when, after Republic of Moldova proclaimed itself as independent, which I greeted very much, the Moldovan Government has changed the grade system from “five-to-one” to “ten” being the best and “one” for the worst. TEN! After counseling my mother, I found out that I didn’t have a choice: if I wanted to get a “ten” then I had to clean the table TEN times before each exam. And even when my mom told me that her advice was a joke and revealed that this superstition was invented by her own mother, and even the fact that this whole grading system change happened when I was in my late teens going to the University, this still didn’t convince me to stop wiping the kitchen table ten times before each exam. And please note that the superstition dictated that you had to rinse the cloth between each wiping! Fortunately for me and unfortunately for the table (or vice versa, I don’t know), I grew tired of this wiping after some time and for my graduation exams I wiped the table just once, but thoroughly and I insisted that I do it. I was still afraid that I could get a bad grade if I didn’t wipe it at all.

And then there are superstitions or beliefs supposing that when you witness something and make a wish while witnessing this something, then your wish comes true. Like a falling star, seeing a bride and a groom in their wedding robes or watching cranes heading to warmer countries in fall or coming back in spring. The latter one has definitely worked for the most special wish in my life. But more about it in another story.

Are you lost, kid? Your parents are over there

Memories

This happened on the way from Clearwater Beach to Tampa Airport while being on the way home after an international conference. Ian and Mildred, an English-Irish couple, offered to take me with them from the conference hotel to the airport since our flights were almost at the same time. We started early from Clearwater Beach, in the car they rented for their stay, so that we had some time to spend in one of the big malls in Tampa. We watched some skaters skating gracefully with music and later decided to go and do some shopping. But we thought that we were looking for different things, so we decided to split and meet later at some point. Mildred and Ian went in the direction they’ve chosen and I wondered about thinking where I should go next. I must have looked quite lost because a shop assistant approached me and said: “If you are looking for your parents, they are over there”, pointing towards Mildred and Ian. We all three loved this very much and didn’t separate anymore until we said our goodbyes at the airport. Since that day Ian and Mildred are my surrogate parents and our friendship received a special and sweet parents-daughter flavor to it.

Special gifts

Memories

I don’t remember my father’s voice anymore. Sometimes, I remember the words he told or might have told me. But the voice is gone. It was thirty years ago that I last heard his voice. Also the look of him is gone from my memory. I know how he looked like and his pictures scattered in my apartment and hidden in my wallet remind me of the very handsome man he used to be. But these pictures are static and two-dimensional. Sometimes, after waking up I know I saw him and maybe even talked to him in my dreams but I don’t remember anymore when I am awake. Other time, taking a tram in my home city I thought I caught his sight walking down the street, but I didn’t need to jump out of the tram to follow him, since I knew that he was somewhere unreachable to the living.

Once, when I was visiting in Lyon with my professor and fellow assistants from the University I worked at that time, some of us went to a brasserie for breakfast. And then I heard it. I heard my father’s voice coming from a man standing about five meters in front of me. He was standing with his back to me, being almost of my stature and even seeming to be a couple of centimeters smaller than me now, as I know my father was. This man was chatting merrily in French with his friends or colleagues, just as my father often did when I, aged from six to nine years, was with him and my mother in Algeria. These were the truest and sharpest memories saved somewhere very, very deep, that this complete stranger unbeknownst to him dug out and presented to me. For a moment, I was tempted by my curiosity to walk and look into that man’s face. But I decided against it. You are right to assume that I didn’t want the disappointment of this man not being my father to spoil that magic moment of hearing his voice.

I still don’t remember his voice and neither his looks when I try to recall them. When they come, then they come unexpectedly and they are given to me by the living. It is as if my father is pouring magical rain drops of his looks and sounds on various people. And these drops glitter in the sun of his love to me and my love to him making me recognize these little drops of his being.

And now there is a very special person in my life who brings me three-dimensional memories of my father that no pictures, I have, have ever captured. These visual memories are so true and so vivid and they fill me with endless love and happiness of being my father’s daughter.

This special person giving me such enormous gifts of memories of my father is my son. And when I think that I passed this to my son, I realize that through all my life I bear the gifts from my parents, from my father, both in my looks and in my soul.

Special help

Memories

I remember a rainy day in Annaba, when my father picked me up from school and protected me from rain with his big military rain cloak. It had no sleeves, only openings for hands and my little seven-year-old face fitted one of them perfectly.

I worried about a bad school grade I got that day. I was afraid that my mom would be angry with me about that. My dad never was, and therefore he was the first to know about my failures. He actually never saw them as failures but as achievements, since my regret wouldn’t let me stay where I was but would push me forward. And he was always sure that I could achieve more if I only wanted it. And he trusted in this wish of mine. But as in any family, there had to be a policeman to declare the rules and indicate the limits. In our family it was a “policewoman” to do this job, my mom: a very kind “guard of family law and order”, but from my seven-year-old point of view, also a very strict one.

So, on that day I was contemplating to hide that bad grade from my mom, since in that term it was not final anyway.

But my father gently insisted that I tell her the truth. “You are right to think that your Mama will be disappointed”, he said, “but when she finds out you lied, and you know that she is very good at that,” he smiled, “then she will be really angry”. After a short silence interrupted only by sound of rain and our feet stamping onto the wet pavement, he added: “Tell her the truth. I’ll help you”. And he did, in a very special, for me unexpected way.

As my mom’s disappointment lingered a bit longer than I would think I could suffer before bursting into tears, which was actually less than thirty seconds after I told her the truth, my Papa sent me to my room and set up to talk to my mom. While going sadly to my room I suddenly heard my mother giggling and I turned to see why. My father held her in his arms and teased her with kisses. Although being a bit jealous and being too little to grasp and understand the situation, I realized that my father made all of us three happy with just one small but sweet gesture.