A stranger in my own land

As my husband drove on Republic Boulevard, I was scanning the landscape for sights that looked familiar. After 25 years, everything looked so transformed yet not much different from my childhood years. Newer construction and overgrown trees made everything impossible to recognize, so I thought. As we neared our block A6, I spotted the small shopping complex where we bought our bread, milk, oil, and the occasional sweet treats. Mom sent me many afternoons to buy fresh bread, knowing that I would come back with half of the crust eaten as if some hungry rodent had gnawed the best part. Often I would lose the change which I held tightly in my fist – I was six years old.

My elementary school was obscured by vegetation behind the shopping complex. Most of the private homes in the area had been demolished and the residents forcefully moved into high-rise tenements. This made it harder to identify my formerly familiar surroundings. I recognized our tenement A6 apartment by the concrete bar that was missing from the bathroom window – it fell in the 1977 earthquake and hung by steel wires like a loose tooth for a couple of years before they cut it off. I marveled at the 40-foot oak tree, which I had planted in middle school as the red pioneer’s volunteer project. The red pioneers were the youth indoctrination brigades of the communist party. The height of the tree dwarfed the five-story building.

---

The entrance looked the same, the metal rails had a more garish coat of paint, over the many applied over the years. The top of the handrail was still the same yellow plastic. I do not know how this plastic had survived so many years; I used to slide down the banister on it. The window frames were the same; the wall paint design was identical but fresher, and the familiar smells in the stairwell assaulted my senses. The basement was still the dank storage place for potatoes, onions, and rows of jars with pickles and jams. Old banister with yellow plastic covers I used to slide on; the ceiling trap door led to the rooftop where we sunburned on the tar roof. We did not have tanning lotions, oils, and had no idea about the Sun Protection Factor. Some doors had been replaced by the new occupants. Many remained the same. My former neighbors still lived the truly simple life; it was not by their choice; it took a long time to overcome the limits placed on them by a past communist repressive government. It is still a painful and frustrating journey for some. Freedom is not free and it is difficult to regain once lost for such a long time. Our apartment door I did not expect to see anyone I recognized. As I was climbing the stairs, my heart was beating faster not from the effort but the mixed feelings of being there, joy, anxiety, and emotion. On the third floor, I rang at number 23 and a mustached man opened the door. It was my childhood friend Emilia’s husband. He invited us in while dialing his cell phone to tell his wife. I spoke to her and she recognized my voice immediately. She was in unbelievable shock! My hands were trembling, almost dropping the tiny phone. The apartment looked very familiar, the same furniture and scent, spotless clean; we girls spent many years playing in this tiny apartment, made even smaller by the presence of my tall husband. He was silently watching everything; he did not understand a word of our conversation but he was witnessing my trembling excitement, trying to read our facial expressions. He insisted that I make this long-overdue journey – I needed closure between past and present. I met Emilia at our old high school, about ten minutes walk from her apartment. She left work to meet us halfway. It felt strange strolling past the cemetery I used to fear every day on my way back from school. It seemed smaller and less threatening. There was now a huge church across the street, a park, and a tiny gas station nestled against the cemetery fence. I wondered which city planner decided that it was a good idea to have a gas station almost in a cemetery. The familiar stray dogs were everywhere, some of them crossing the street at pedestrian crosswalks. The reunion was incredible, and the time we spent talking, back at her apartment, was not long enough – we had 25 years of catching up to do. Time is such a precious commodity but I thanked God that I was able to find Emilia and rekindle our childhood memories. She is a loving caretaker of her mom who was paralyzed a year and half ago by a stroke. Mrs.C recognized me. Unable to speak, she squeezed my hand with her healthy hand and touched my face. I kissed her cheek and saw the glint of joy in her lively and intelligent eyes. If my trip would have ended then, I knew it would have been worth it. She mothered us with love, care, and whatever food she had for years; I gave her a few moments of joy, remembrance of good times; we were happy in her tiny kitchen, playing and listening to her stories. Lovely Emilia, my childhood friend, on the left. We climbed to the fifth floor and knocked on the door of apartment 28. My friend Dee’s family had lived there. A toothless man answered the door – it was Dee’s younger brother, still living there after forty years! It saddened me to see my handsome friend in such a state. I knew it was the result of lack of dental care under the European socialized medicine. I had seen many young and middle-aged people along the way with missing teeth. Rationing of care neglects many people. Fortunately, losing one’s teeth is not deadly. We hugged and took more photos. I glanced at number 30, my old apartment, but did not dare to ring the doorbell. What was I going to say? That I am a stranger who flew 14 hours in a cramped airplane and drove another hour from the airport to see the apartment where I had spent twenty years of my life, hunting people who no longer existed but in my memory. Most of them passed away or moved to better places. As we went down the stairs, we ran into a slim Mrs. Georgescu who recognized me, no longer the waif of years ago when food was scarce and nutrition lacking. Now that food is plentiful, even Romanians are obsessed with weight gain and dieting. To suppress appetite, many smoke. Once outside, I found the metal bars where we used to beat the dust out of rugs with a wooden paddle since vacuum cleaners were unknown. Between carpet dustings, we used to do gymnastics. I was surprised that the bars were still there after all this time! The metal bars for carpet dustings and our occasional gymnastics The open market, often empty, where we bought produce, is now bursting with food – plums, apples, grapes, tomatoes, lettuce, veggies, and other fresh produce. We were unable to visit the old high school; it was off-limits and looked like a bombed out shelter. Workers were completely gutting it out for remodeling. Construction, in line with the planning mismanagement, had started one week before the new school year. Legal parking is hard to find but then we saw no one giving tickets. The annoying police who had controlled every facet of our lives was gone. People were parked everywhere in the neighborhood for lack of space. The roads were so blocked, there was hardly any room to maneuver in between cars on both sides of the narrow streets. The “green movement” brought out the recycling bins in many cities. A novelty that did not exist before was the public trash bin, even in rural areas. People were slowly becoming more conscientious about keeping their environment and streets clean. I wanted to walk alone, to capture the feelings I missed, or the soul of the place that we all go back to our birth town to rediscover. Whatever I was looking for, was not there, I did not find it. There was a familiarity about the city but life had moved on without me and all I had left now were my memories triggered by sudden smells or sights of something tangible from my youth. I had become a stranger in my own land. Ploiesti was no longer my home; my home was far away, across the Atlantic.