Mentalities

Most people talk about history end see it as a nothing more and nothing less than a book; something that happened once upon a time to other people. I had the great fortune and misfortune to actually witness history in the making.

I was eleven when the Romanian revolution was “broadcasted live” on our only National radio and TV station. They even called it that: “The revolution - LIVE”.  It was supposed to be the end of communism. I say “supposed to be” because that wave never really died.

Mentalities, they say, are the hardest things to change. If you look at the biggest mansions in Romania today, they are probably owned by ex communists or people who had good relationships with one or another of them – because most money comes from old connections and “secrets” well kept. “One hand washes another”.

This was Romania during communism. Some, the lucky few, had the best things you could find anywhere in the world and lived in homes literally dressed in gold. And it wasn’t about the money really; everyone had money. It was about who was allowed to leave the country and go to places where you could actually find something to buy with that money.

All the shelves in our grocery shops where filled only with Chinese shrimp pallets – if anything. Ceausescu had a special contract with China (since it was a communist country as well).

I still recall this image as if it happened yesterday: my dad dropping the pallets in hot oil where they would blossom in something that looked like chips. As kids, we loved them because they stuck to our tongues; we even had contests to see who could hold one stuck to the tongue the longest…

The stores were only stocked with regular food (bread, milk and eggs) once, maybe twice a week (if we were very, very lucky). As you can imagine, everything was gone by mid-day.

Gosh, how many times I had to wake up at three or four in the morning and run grab a spot in the line that would start forming next to the store sometimes not long after midnight. The doors usually opened at 9.30 AM.

Getting groceries really was I family thing! Since I had to be in school at 8 AM, my dad would call in sick or late for work and come replace me. On occasion the food delivery for that store wouldn’t get there until noon or later; so mom would have to leave work early to take dad’s place.

Some people couldn’t stay there the whole time; the habit was to leave an empty milk bottle behind so they could prove they were there. Often times you could see this long, sad, pathetic row of bags, each a different material or color, each with an empty bottle of milk in there.

Now and then people would get angry and start fighting about their bag being moved or allegedly “appearing” in the line later than the ones around it. But nobody ever got hurt. After all… we were all in the same “wagon”. The older ladies who had all the time in the world to hang out there would always solve the mystery of any bag and bottle.

The most disappointing were the days when after all this waiting some employee dared to finally come out of the store and confirm the rumor that the food delivery was rescheduled for the next morning. We would have to repeat the whole process again.

I swear I’m not just telling you stories…; wish I was.

Living through such an experience probably explains best my willingness to break all restrictions and my need for variety in what I eat today. I do my best to at least try as many food items as I can whenever I get the chance now.  Many people think I’m greedy or unsatious for sampling everything. They haven’t been where I’ve been. They don’t know what is like to hold on to a small cube of chocolate for two weeks, eating the tiniest bits at the time each day.

After the revolution, it didn’t take long before the shelves started filling up. It was then that the problems changed. As we started having everything from everywhere it all become a matter of having the money to buy it. Everything was imported from somewhere and the prices had the level of their home country. Meanwhile, the Romanian transition was leaving the Romanians behind and falling short of catching up in salary with the rest of Europe.

…………….

There are two more habits that I “blame” communism for. They are as good as they are bad and they just about always end up getting me in trouble.

First one is my traveling bug.

As I said earlier in my writings, during Ceausescu traveling was a privilege reserved to very few in his inner circles. Most of us… could barely go visit the neighboring countries (Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria or Russia); in the last years of the regime it was close to impossible to even do that.

Breaking the rules would be the second “habit”. Do you think I still need to explain why I feel all rules and restrictions are there to be stretched and busted? Let me put it this way: I would’ve made a really bad communist girl.

Being able to travel anywhere I want in the world is worth breaking all the stupid rules different governments put in front of me. I saw every restriction as a challenge. The more I “can’t go there”, the more I try to find “gates” and ways around it. And I’ll get there! All I need is a tiny bit of wisdom and time. Luckily, these are two things I’ve got.

I remember seeing an image of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York at the beginning of a foreign movie. This was back in the times when I couldn’t even imagine dreaming about going there. Ten years later I was sitting in front of the bridge and I couldn’t stop screaming: “I’m in New York!”.

I still have tears in my eyes sometimes when I cross that bridge. It’s not something I can explain to one who never lived through it all.

For me that alone spelled: ”I made it! Everything can be done.”