About 2018

If I should consider what people say around me, the truth would be that once you get older time seems to become slippery. In the sense that it goes so fast that one cannot realize it.
I am not ready yet to make resolutions for 2019, but I know one thing - I have what to thank 2018 for. And not only regarding my writing achievements. 
And since a promise is a promise, I could not end this year without my dear Vlad. A kind of spur to action is what I feel while reading the following fragment from Vlad Musatescu's 'Approximate adventures':

" 'I will miss you! You can be sure of that... So there's no point in letting our goodbye making you sad... It's only temporally; listen to me for I know what I'm saying! We will never die. You, because you will become a writer, just like my brother, and I, because my surname is Vlahuta... And I have lived my life like a Vlahuta. To the fullest! By singing, loving, drinking a glass, like people should! To put it bluntly, to hell with life because that's what it was made for... Live it to the fullest, just like I have, and you will never forget me!”

I never got the chance to see uncle Vlahuta once more. But I have never forgotten him. Never, just like he had asked me. And still, there are some things I learned from him. For he had stressed upon the fact that we would see each other again, sometime. Where? Because on earth we weren't given another chance. Still, we will see! Just like the saying of Stephane Roll (alias), also-known under the name of Gheorghe Dinu: ‘We will die and we will see!’"

Happy new year, good people! May you rejoice!

Family traditions

One truly understands the meaning of family connection only then when one sees their nephew applying the same tactics that one uses for so many years. Namely, to ask one's mother (in this case, Bui a.k.a. grandma) to tell you a story about an event that one had heard so many times before, but one likes it so much that wants to hear it once more. One knits one's eyebrows and gives slightly false details about the event so that the need of clarification appears within Bui. One tilts one's head back. Easily, so that Bui cannot see one's victorious smirk, even though Bui is more than glad to tell that story. One listens, and on one's face tension can be seen albeit Bui hasn't reached the climax of the story. One laughs. And laughs hard and loud because Bui has come to the part that one so much loves.
There are stories that don't become boring over the years, and this is because of their narrators. And there are family traditions that seem to go on regardless of our merit. And for me, these are the most important and more blood-related ones.

When it's cold...

When it's cold outisde, I am smothered by longings of reading books. I feather my nest into the couch, bring on a cup of tea and plummet into reading. But not totally. I remain in a somewhat state of alert. And that is because I always sit facing the window. It is it that I glance through when lines from a book make me wonder. Glacing through the window, my racing feelings smooth over and settle down like woven on an embroidery frame. And this is how I am not totally loose from the world and I can find the strength to let go of the book.