A world without a face

Between my 3 years old son, my day job as an assistant professor at University, my evening job as a software developer, and my night job writing my Ph.D. dissertation, life is quite busy, and I don’t have too much time for existential questions.

I read the “Capital” newspaper while having my strong first coffee of the day. There is an ad “Nokia is looking for software engineers, specialized in distributed systems and object-oriented programming. Interviews in Bucharest in March”.  I am studying distributed systems for my Ph.D. thesis, teaching object-oriented programming courses during the day, and coding in C++ during the evenings.

I turn to my husband and say, “hey, these guys are looking for me.” He quickly looks at the ad and answers, “you need to apply immediately.”

I joked. It was a joke.

But he was serious.

1^st of October that year, 10 days after I turned 30, I was standing in the airport in Helsinki. I am waiting for my luggage to arrive.

The belt is moving slowly, empty. I like the airport’s buzz, and hearing the people’s voices surrounding me, it’s lively. Then I notice something that feels odd. There is no buzzing. I look around, and all the people are still there. I do not understand what is happening. Are they talking, and I can’t hear? Am I having a stroke or something? 

And then I know. 

This is Finland, the country I am just moving in, the world I don't recognize, the world without a face. Life with the sounds and all I knew before is gone. I’ll need to learn to listen to silence. 

Will I ever find home?

The phone rings. It’s on the table, screen down, and I can’t see who’s calling.

We are having lunch on a terrace in Crete. Petteri booked this vacation for us to celebrate my new job. My company announced a few weeks ago that the branch in Finland is closing and all the thousands of employees have been laid off. Given the job market situation in Finland, it was quite unexpected that I landed a new job in two weeks, and not any kind of job, but a VP position at a tech company.

“Don’t you want to see who’s calling?” Petteri asks.

I picked up the phone. My heart jumps. The caller is my former manager.  I move away from the terrace to answer. They are offering me a job at the US headquarters. I will need to relocate by the end of the summer.

“You said what??” Petteri seems to be upset.

“I said I will think it over.”

“What do you have to think over? You’ve got a great job waiting for you at home. It’s not like you need a job.”

“I know.”

“How about your kids? Mihai is supposed to start college in the fall. Antonia, she is just about to end middle school, and she will not want to move away from Finland and her friends.”

“I know.”

“You love your life. You are happy. Aren’t you? You can't be serious about considering the offer? Let’s forget about this, enjoy the last few days of vacation and when we get back home, you call them and say thank you, but no.”

I’m trying to concentrate. He is right. I know he is right. I still don’t understand why I didn’t decline the offer on the spot. There is no way I will move, so why leave this theoretical possibility open. It’s just pride. Why is Petteri so anxious? We should order a bottle of champagne and celebrate how lucky we are.

Instead, I hear myself saying, “I’m not feeling at home in Finland.”  Where did this come from?

“What do you mean? Do you still think of Romania as your home? And what does this have to do with anything? Wouldn’t moving to the US mean you move even further away from home? Pause. “And how about us?”

I can’t answer that. 

I can’t just decline the offer. I need to give it fair consideration. Maybe Antonia will not want to move, maybe we can’t figure out a way for Mihai’s college education, maybe this job in the US doesn’t make any sense, maybe I don’t want to live so far away, there are so many maybes and so many fears. The only certain thing is that Finland is not home. Romania is not home anymore, either. What difference then it makes if I’ll move to the US? 

Solo travel and the book

When I turned 49, I decided it was time to gift myself a trip to Hawaii.

At that point, I’ve been a “divorced woman,” “single mom,” and “household head” for a while. I was used to being “solo” at home. I have been traveling around the globe by myself on business trips. I liked the freedom of traveling alone. I have traveled on vacations with only the kids to new places across different countries for many years now and enjoyed it. I never felt out of place because I was not with a man by my side.

Still, until the age of 49, I have never traveled solo for pleasure. 

--

I love Honolulu. The hotel has a lovely terrace restaurant next to the pool. I put on the turquoise dress I bought in Greece a few years ago and took my book.

-          A table for how many, mam?

-          Table for one. 

     I smile. I feel so free and happy.  

-          Just for one?

     The young hostess looks confused.

-          Yes, just for myself.

-          Okay, don’t worry, I will find you a good one.

I was not worried. Should I have been?

She takes me to a table somehow in the corner with a splendid view. Gets the sit for me.

-          Here, she says. We will take good care of you.

     This is nice. I have never had such a kind hostess. But somehow, she acts like she is taking care of an invalid. Or am  I imagining it?  

-          What would you like to order? A cocktail or a glass of wine to start?

     Ok, it starts to feel normal.

-          A glass of Pinot Gris, please.

I relax on the chair and start to look around. The restaurant is not very busy yet. Some couples and families with kids. A pleasant atmosphere. Soon will be sunset, and I will have a perfect view from my table to enjoy. I am not taking my book out yet.

    In just a quick moment, the waitress comes with the Pinot Gris. Wow, this is fast service!

-          Here is your wine, mam.  

    The waitress is closer to my age. She smiles. I smile back.

 -          Are you all right, mam? Is there something we can do for you to help you be comfortable?

It’s my turn to be confused. I am very comfortable. Don’t I look relaxed?

 -          I am just fine, thank you for asking. I can order now.

When she comes over with the food, the feeling that there is something I don’t quite understand becomes stronger. She puts her hand on my shoulder. I’m getting uneasy.

-          If there is anything we can do for you, anything at all, just let me know. I’ll be coming to check on you often.

-          Thank you, you are very kind indeed. I am perfectly fine; it is a wonderful evening, and the food looks delicious.

As she leaves, I open my book on the table. I can see her looking back at me. She notices my book, smiles back, and nods approvingly.

I figured it out by the end of the trip. A single woman (my age??) having dinner in a restaurant in Hawaii is unusual. With the book by my side, I became socially acceptable.

Back in Seattle, I’m still wondering if I somehow missed the clues all these years. I chose an Italian restaurant close to home to go out for dinner. Nobody cared if I had a book or not. Thank God!

How to remove obstacles with a newspaper

When I was in kindergarten, my mother would read me stories every evening before I went to sleep. And while I was happy that I could hear the story, I would have liked to be able to read it myself. There were times I didn’t like the stories mom was choosing. Other times I would love one story so much that I would have liked to hear it again and again, every night, and she would get tired of it and say, “no more.” 

I wanted to be able to read. Choose the stories, and re-read the ones I loved for days in weeks. I asked my mom to teach me to read. She was a teacher, after all. But she told me that the time to learn to write and read is when I will go to school. There is no need for you to learn before it, she said.

One early spring afternoon,  I was about 4 years old, I took a blank sheet of paper and put it on top of a newspaper. I copied every letter from the newspaper onto the blank paper sheet. A full page. It took me a very long time. I don’t know if it was one hour or many hours, time seems to pass at a different speed when you are 4 years old, but I felt like it took me forever.

When I finished the entire page, I went to my mom and said – look, mom, I know how to write. Would you now please teach me to read.  

She got angry. To this day, I don’t understand why she got angry, but she did. She told me that it is called rubbish, not writing. She said you should not waste your time with this “pretending” writing but wait to learn it properly in school. Learn to do it properly.

I started to cry. I so much want to read, mom, I said. You didn’t want to help, so I tried to do it alone, but this is all I could do. Why are you angry?

Her voice calmer now, she asked – you wouldn’t give up, would you? I looked back at her with tears in my eyes - I can’t wait, mom; I need to read now.

So, she taught me to read.

When summer came, and we visited my grandparents, I could already read short stories.  It took me a long time to finish one story (and be able to find out what happened in the end)  - but the whole process brought me a kind of joy I had never experienced before. And when I would find a story I really liked, I would hide with the book in the cornfield near my grandparent’s house and read it again and again until I heard my grandma’s voice calling me to dinner.

To this day, when I find a book I like, I look for the cornfield kind of place, a gate to the imaginary world.

What is lost will be found

"Pieces of Me" 
You don't know this new me; I put back my pieces differently. 

I’ve been opening my laptop today, thinking of writing my first assessment for the course I’ve just started. The course is "A year of writing to uncover the authentic self."  Each week, a new theme. The first week’s theme is roadblocks.

But as I open my file, I see a title I wrote down some time ago “ What is lost will be found.” 

Nothing else, just a title. And no matter how much I have tried to focus on the roadblocks, my mind constantly slips toward “what is lost will be found.”

Maybe it’s a better theme for the first day of the New Year, anyways!

 -

So, what have I lost over the years? What have I found?

I’ve found and lost love. Two marriages, two divorces, and three good men who shaped my life. 

I’ve lost my faith and found it again several times. I seem to lose it, it just slips away when life gets easy, and I find it again with a gasp when the going gets tough. How predictable. And how disappointing that after so many cycles, when I finally became aware of the phenomenon, I still can't hold on to it forever. 

I started life without too much confidence in myself, built it, lost it, and found it again many times. I've always been clumsy, no good at sports, and not capable of building anything with my hands. These traits are the ones essential in early childhood. The lack of them meant I was a failure. And then school started, and I discovered that if my body is not good, my mind can work. Math was my favorite class. Sports class was still the most dreaded one. But I have gained confidence and learned that there are some things I can do better than others. The teenage years came, and while I was already at peace with my lack of competence in sports, parties were the thing of the day, and dancing became a critical skill. My body's lack of coordination triggered another cycle of confidence drip. And then, after a while, it became apparent that most of the boys didn't care about my dancing skills; the 'ne sai quoi' in my eyes (?) was enough. The cycle kept continuing; there was always something I couldn't do as good as others, only to discover after a while that it didn't matter anyway. 

I've lost my home and found it again. Moving away from Romania and leaving behind family and friends hasn't been easy. I've been homesick for years. It took a long time to start feeling at home in Finland. And then I moved again, leaving behind again family and friends. The second time though, I knew we keep home in our hearts. Romania is still home. Finland is home. And now Seattle is also home. 

I’ve lost and found my desire to write, to create. Throughout my years in school, since I learned to read, I knew I wanted to be a writer. There was simply nothing better in my mind than being able to write stories that people will read when they want to escape into a more beautiful world. I chose to go into computer engineering instead. As a career choice, it made sense, but I was convinced I would still write stories and publish them. Years passed, kids were raised, and careers were changed. Finally, I had to admit that lists are the only thing I have been writing for a long while (and possibly the only thing I can write anymore). Hence I started to paint. What a wonderful surprise to be still able to express myself, even if in a very unexpected way. Interestingly enough, after a couple of years of painting, I found the desire to use words to complement the images. 

--

What is lost will be found - it is cyclic. Nothing is ever lost forever or stays forever within us once found.

The thought of this cycle is both sad and hopeful at the same time.

Never lose hope that you are going to find what you’ve lost. Never think you are going to keep it forever. Be prepared to overcome the obstacles again and again. Learn, and improve yourself, but mostly – know that at the next turn of the road, some obstacles will be the same, and some will be completely new, but as long as you don’t give up – what is lost will be found. Always.

In the end, it looks like I’ve found what I needed to finish my “roadblocks” assessment.  

New Challenge for the New Year

I'm taking on a new challenge for the new year.  "A year of writing to uncover the authentic self" course.

I’ll allow myself not only to write but to be vulnerable and share with you, my writing journey.

Wish me luck 😊

The happy dance

 

“I looked at Antonia and I saw that she is beautiful” - said my son.

He was five years old, and his sister, Antonia, was born a few weeks ago.

In the weeks and months that followed, he became utterly protective of her. Worried that flies would hurt her while she was sleeping outside. Angry of the neighbor kids when they were playing in the yard, they were too loud and would wake her up. Sad when she was crying, getting more and more irritated by my apparent lack of capability to comfort her properly. “Is she hungry mom? I think she is hungry! Maybe she wants something else than milk? Can we please give her something better to eat?”

Not surprising. She was still inside of me when he started to become concerned. Watching cartoons one night, he suddenly declared. “Mom, you should eat the TV! The baby is all alone inside your belly, and she is probably so bored, has nothing to do! If you eat the TV, she could at least watch cartoons!”

But then, Antonia learned to stand. Holding on to the furniture she liked to “dance”, moving her butt up and down and making happy sounds.

That summer day, Mihai was in his “happy” place, playing Crash Bandicoot on the PlayStation. Completely immersed in the game, life outside Crash was irrelevant.

Antonia managed to crawl next to the TV, got herself up and started her happy dance to Crash Bandicoot’s music, her little body covering the whole TV screen.

The brotherly over-concerned and protective phase ended in that exact moment.

It took another ten, maybe fifteen years for him to look at her again as the little sister that needs care and protection, and not the annoying little loud thing, looking for attention, interfering with his life.

Mom and the happiness lesson

I’m reading “The Antidote. Happiness for people that can’t stand positive thinking”. 

Thought of my mom while reading it. 

My mom has a very particular philosophy of life. In a nutshell, it comes to three main points. 

    Duty comes before anything else. 

    It’s better to expect less so you are not disappointed. 

    People are not to be trusted until they prove themselves to be trustworthy.

Today, she gave me a lesson in happiness, and it surprised me. 

-       I think I found the right book for you, mom! The one that describes your life philosophy, you might like to read it.  

-     Hmm, are you implying that I don’t support positive thinking? I don’t support self-delusions! I consider it idiotic; it means to look at a donkey and say, “what a beautiful horse”!

-    Well, I still think you will like the book. For example, the author is saying that the rush after happiness is what makes us unhappy.

-    Nobody can be continually happy, and nobody can be continually unhappy.  All the religions are talking about a balance, one that you find through love, sacrifice and acceptance. Psychology, psychiatry, they are slippery. There is no such thing as soul dissection. The same outside conditions can build very different characters – serial criminals and saints can both be born out of similar trauma. The oldest drug in the world, alcohol, cannot solve this problem either – some drunks are sad, others are funny, or boring, or annoying, or aggressive. They are all trying the same thing, to escape their feelings, but there is no universal recipe on how to manage your feelings. Books and art are also a form of escaping from an imperfect world. Beauty is born out of suffering, but ugliness also is born out of suffering. The survivors are not the ones analyzing their feelings, but the doers. Like you."

---

It took a lifetime, but maybe I am finally starting to understand my mother, as she is finally starting to understand me.

A list with all the things ....

It is March in Finland.  I’m at work, in a meeting. My ten-year-old son is calling. It is after school, and he should be at home, alone and probably bored. Or hungry. I considered if I should answer, but I decided to step out of the meeting and deal with it.

-          Mom, I’m a little bit wet.

-          Why, what’s happened? What do you mean you are wet?

-          Well, I went to the lake on the bicycles with the boys. And I got a little bit wet.

The lake is frozen. Almost. It has been sunny the last few days, and the ice is starting to fade away at the shores, but it the temperature is still mainly under 0 Celsius degrees.  I am not yet worried

-            How wet is a little bit wet? What did you do?

-          Well, I went into the lake a little bit. I am a little bit wet and cold, and I don’t know what to do.

Antti, one of his best friends, is with him. His house is a few mins' walk from the lake.

- Go to Antti’s home, I will call his mom, and I’ll be there shortly!

In a half-hour, when Antti’s mom opens the door, and I see her eyes, I know something is awfully wrong.  Then she says, “He is okay. He is okay. Don’t be scared.”

I see him by the fireplace, with no clothes, just a blanket around him. His hair is wet.

He was not “a little bit wet” – but thoroughly wet.

Walking in the middle of the lake, the ice broke, and he fell, getting entirely underwater. The other boys have been brave enough (or not fully aware of the danger) to walk to the hole in the ice and pull him out from under.

The avalanche of emotions, it is hard to describe. Gratefulness, horror, anger, horror, gratefulness, joy, horror, and gratefulness again. I can’t talk.

He is scared. Not of what happened, but of me, on how I will react. 

I hug him, and I kiss him. I say, “It’s okay. I am happy you are safe. It’s okay now. Let’s go home.”

Later in the evening, when we both managed to recover, I got to ask him, “Do you know how dangerous this was? Haven’t we talked about the iced lakes?”

He looks me in the eyes. “I’m sorry, mom. But can you please make me a list of all the things in the world that are dangerous?”

I want to. I want to make a list and then ensure that he will never get close to any danger. Never ever again. 

I realize horrified that protecting the ones we love and keeping them safe and secure it's just something we imagine we do in order not to deal with the truth. We have no control. 

Lists are not the answer. 

Angels are. 

 Sanda / www.sandaberar.com

The distance of dreams

The distance between how I thought my life would be and how it came to be, I don't know to calculate it. 

I was born and lived my teenage years in communism. Money didn’t matter, friends did, and I believed it will always be the same. 

I am living across the ocean now in a country that made vows against communism. Money matter. Friends, I’ve lost plenty. 

I've dreamed of becoming a writer, of having just a little bit of talent for that. It turned out my mind was more tuned towards logic and math, rather than creativity. 

I became a software engineer and a teacher of algorithms. I am not teaching anymore. I can barely read a rudimentary code. But I paint. Creativity came later in life and in a very unexpected form. 

In my teens years I used to have a dream of myself living alone in a cozy little apartment downtown. Full of books, some paintings. I remember imagining how I would come back from work, dressed in a very elegant, usually black suit, high heels. Something similar to how a lawyer woman, partner at some big NY firm is dressed in Hollywood movies. 

I don’t think I have ever got to wear the elegant black suit with high heels at work. Jeans, t-shirt and sneakers have been my garderobe for work most of the days while working in software industry. I have enjoyed the comfort of it. 

There was no man and no kids in my teenage dreams. Only my cozy apartment in which I would relax in the evenings with a book and maybe a glass of martini. 

I have been married, twice, I've raised two kids and for many years I barely had any time to relax in the evenings, with or without the book. 

It has been a road with many unexpected turns, but I have finally got to my house, with all the books and the paintings. I am getting the itch of writing again. And it turns out, even in a world where money matter, friends matter even more. 

I am happy I didn’t choose the road I was planning to in my fantasy teenage world. I got the chance to learn how it feels to hold my babies, I got the chance to learn what complete love is. I got the chance to learn so much more than I have ever dreamed of. Sometimes following our dreams means limiting ourselves. 

Sanda / www.sandaberar.com

Sunrise in the forest

I always thought I am going to be a writer, if not now, at some point in my life. I never thought I am going to start painting. Life is full of surprises, they say. Some of the better ones come from inside us. 

When I'll get to be a writer, I thought, I am going to write about the light inside us and how we become alive. 

I started to paint, and my brushes want to tell the story of light in the forest and how the trees become alive.

Sanda / www.sandaberar.com 

 

The story of my life in clip stories

 

The 5s without breathing.

He is asleep in my arms. I know I should put him in his crib, but I so need to feel him close. It’s my son’s first night at home. I lean and lay him down in the crib and go to my bed. My eyes are closing when my son’s breath stops: one second, two seconds. I’m on my feet. Three seconds, four seconds. This panic is something I have never experienced before. Five seconds. He is breathing again. And in that very second I realize that I will forever worry for him. There is no going back.  

The airport

I am waiting for my luggage to arrive. The belt is moving slowly, empty. I like the airport’s buzz, hearing the people’s voices surrounding me, it’s lively. Then I notice something feels odd. There is no buzzing. I look around, all the people are still there. I do not understand what is happening, are they talking, and I can’t hear, am I having a stroke or something? And then I know. This is Finland, the country I am just moving in. Life with the sounds and all I knew before is gone. I’ll need to learn to listen to silence.

I want to be happy now

My five years old daughter, she is a stubborn little one.  “Why you are not buying us a dog now” She is at the kitchen table and looks particularly decisive tonight. “We have had this conversation; we are going to have a dog when you will be old enough to be responsible for him”. “I don’t want to live my whole life wishing for something to happen in the future. I want to be happy today.”  I gasp. She is going to be the one raising me, not the other way around. 

Jump

I am sitting on the beach terrace in Crete. Phone rings, it’s from work. I can barely hear; reception is so bad. I am considering saying ‘sorry, let’s talk soon when I am in Finland’.  Instead, I move away from the terrace. I hear now. The Finnish branch is closing. We are being shut down. I have been offered a job at the headquarters in US. Can I consider moving to US?  I have been dreading a moment like this forever. Something comes around and I feel too scared to take a risk. Yes, I said. I can consider that.