by Iolanda Scripca
San Diego, CA
Two weeks ago I had to put on wings of courage and fly from San Diego to Bucharest, Romania.
A stage of my life has ended abruptly, not once but twice within a very short period of time: My Parents.
The entire innocence of the snowdrops flowers from my childhood Cismigiu Park was crushed under the feet of a woman with dark hair, so dark that the sunrise dies at the beginning of each day for all the beautiful souls.
I went back to Cismigiu Park after twenty years and looked up and down the alleys to see my Dad walking back home from work at the National Radio Station. He caressed my hair and I started giggling. I turn quickly so I can hug him…but my Dad had hands of winter storm.
In a shocking pirouette I turned towards the building of my high school so I can ask my Mom why Dad had hands of wind. I ran between the students who were leaving for the day and wanted to ask them if they’ve seen the teacher and Principal Viorica Scripca. They passed through me like an echo of a totally new generation barely born in the 1980’s.
I entered the teachers’ lounge of my childhood and adolescence, a room mostly occupied by a long and imposing table of solid oak, so long that hundreds of lives and careers of all the teachers of this high school could be stretched open and immortalized in the scroll of this “modest” profession.
I sat down on my Mom’s chair at the meeting table with the unrealistic hope of hearing her voice again, at least for a moment. A moment cut short by the paradox of a carefree blond little girl hiding under the oak table at the end of Mom’s work day and the black of the mourning depth of the cruel reality.
Time had slapped me repeatedly and mercilessly so I could stand up on my own two feet once again. I whispered “Farewell” to the new generation of teachers of my high school “Gheorghe Lazar”, the high school of the intellectuals and professional from Romania, USA, Canada and of the entire world.
I exited the building so I can meet with my parents, on their payday, and go to the restaurant so we could celebrate the joy of simply being together. Dad was messing up my hair with the mild breeze of the fatherly love while Mom was covering my face with kisses unusually warm for that cold season. I was back but I was not at home, I was the daughter of my parents but I did not have parents any longer.
It was my turn to go back to my Christopher and make each moment of his childhood an unforgettable memory for when I, his mother, would become a wave of the Pacific Ocean pushing him back to shore to safety.
I flew together with my parents above the clouds, above Germany, Northern Sea, Iceland, Canada, and America. I told them that I had to land and to get ready to meet again in the flames of the two candles lit forever back to my place.
“Welcome back, Ms. Scripca!”
“Thank you. Glad to be back!”
My ocean is calm, with its eternal waves that come and go, go and come…rhythmically, more often and faster, with the unexpressed tears of hail, with the potential of a Tsunami of my soul…
“Mom, I’m so happy you came back home. What did you bring me from Romania?”
My Ocean is finally Pacific and…I smiled.
~
From the Window of My Hotel
A heavy darkness opened my eyes. I didn’t know where I was but for sure I was not at home. My mouth and my soul were dry and the fear of the recent flight gave me waves of chills continuously.
I stood up touching the coolness and the warmth: the floor tile and my husband’s chest.
I felt secure and decided to head towards … the window of my hotel.
Seconds seemed an eternity…voices from the past were sending me back to bed to lay down, quietly, with my hands on my chest. Life’s curiosity was pushing me forward, giggling playfully as the corners of my mouth had the tendency of forming upright arches.
“Dusa, what time is it?”
…and I opened the curtains of the window of my hotel: The Caribbean Sea!
The turquoise of the water flooded my lungs, the sky of a pale violet played tricks on my imagination while the white of the sand rinsed my retina.
So that’s what Heaven On Earth looks like!
Infinity messed up my hair while hot kisses overwhelmed me with the evaporated humidity of the sea lips. For sure my Dad and Mom were there, with me, embodied in those superb forms of Nature.
The Caribbean Sea was holding me in its palms, like a spoiled little kid, protected from all the Evil in the world.
“Let’s go snorkeling, Dusa!”
We left together—my husband and I—to become one with the innocence of the sea waves, to say “Hello” to the rainbows of fishes and, for the very first time, to have the illusion of breathing through my own gills. Today, yesterday and tomorrow ceased to exist, eardrums became grandfather clocks of the underwater eternity while the violet clouds were bullfighting with swords of fire above The Heaven on Earth.
“ Please take off your shoes! Excuse me!?! Take off your shoes!”
I took off my shoes and gave them to be checked for hazardous materials in the airport.
“ You know, Madam, we need to do that. It’s a safety issue…after 9/11”
I grabbed my sandals off the conveyor belt of the X-Ray machine but it was too late…I already had fins…
I put the white sand back in the pocket of my soul, I placed the shells of the past echoes safely, among my clothes so they wouldn’t break and, I admit, stole a little turquoise from the Caribbean Sea so I can flood my memory with a little Eternity.
“ Hurry, it’s time to get in!”
I closed my luggage sighing deeply and proceeded through the tunnel back to Reality.
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