Birthday gifts this year include a bruised face in a bike crash

My latest date was a smart and handsome guy and it felt like I was dating the center of the universe. (Yes, this is relevant.) Sure, you can be flattered for one night. But the universe can only have one center and you soon start feeling like the periphery.

But on the first (and probably only?) night, as he accompanies me to the Dhafer Youssef concert I’ve been waiting for, smiling and leaning towards me to whisper stuff into my ear, rubbing his shoulder against mine as we sit and eventually taking my hand into his, only to leave the concert hall hand in hand, like two teenagers, I feel good. “You know, I tell him, I haven’t walked hand in hand with someone for…” “… ages”, he quickly completes my sentence. “It feels weird”, I add giggling.

And there’s an insecure part of me thinking “Ah, if my ex is here and sees me, he’ll notice I’m better off now.” But I know it’s not nice, so I banish the thought and continue smiling, my chin a bit raised as if wanting to build a bridge for my eyes so they can roll directly over the insignificant crowd.

Bear with me, I’m getting there. Haven’t forgotten I promised blood and tears.

The next day I have an early birthday celebration at school with the kids in my class and it feels wonderful. They asked me to make them a cake, so that’s what I was doing the previous night at 2 am, after the concert and date. I take out the cake and everyone is excited. I light the candle on it and they want me to tell them (again) the story of how I came into this world, where, in what family and how my life has been so far. I end the story by telling them that I do what I love and I am grateful for my life and a happy person. They then shower me with gifts and flowers and hugs and warm wishes and all cluster around me as I open the gifts one by one and enjoy the surprises.

Getting closer.

I left the school and picked up my bike from where I’d left it two days before, crammed the front basket with my presents and flower bouquets, took out my phone, took a picture of it and posted it on my Facebook wall with the caption “The happiest bike in the world.” “How beautiful!” a lady exclaimed as I was taking it out into the street. “Yes, it is”, I replied. “I was just thinking it must be the happiest bike in the world.”

happy-bike, cycling around bucharest with birthday gifts
Bike crammed with birthday gifts.

And closer.

I get home and leave the presents and flowers and take the bike out again to shop for party stuff. An early birthday party (or rather gathering) at my place, with close and dear friends. I have my shopping list in my backpack and I am still wearing my dusty pink (princess) birthday girl dress. As I’m riding, an obese guy, struggling to walk, looks at me and says “The bike is good.” “Yes, it is”, I answer and speed up past him.

Here it is.

When I get in front of the supermarket, I attempt to make a right turn and jump over the curb of the sidewalk, right in front of the entrance into the underground parking space, where the curb is lower. The front wheel hits the curb and refuses to mount the damn thing, sliding sideways and throwing me and the bike onto the sidewalk. I’ve never fallen before. That’s the thought that echoes in my mind as my face and knee hit the asphalt. I quickly roll and sit up, my face in my hands, knees bent, legs wide open. There’s this faint thought quickly being swiped by an invisible finger at the back of my mind that I am wearing a dress and should probably put my knees together, but my body ignores the hint.

My eyes are closed (I think), but I can still see (or sense) the crowd gathered in the tram station five meters away. And feet walking past me. No one stops. I feel like I am the center of the universe. Alone. The center is always alone. The whole world is swirling around it like whirling dervishes and no one ever touches the center. Everything and everyone keeps moving and I am finally still and so alone. I don’t know how long I am there, I guess a few minutes. Then someone comes, picks me up and moves me away from the side of the street. Picks up the bike and leans it against a fence, hanging my backpack from the left handlebar.

“Are you ok?” he asks me.
“Yes.” I quickly answer. “Thank you.”
“It looks bad.”

I can see in his eyes I don’t look ok. He’s looking at me, assessing the damages and his upper lip slides upwards, revealing some metal teeth and gaps here and there, where his teeth are missing. He’s in his forties maybe, looks dirty and shabby, wearing a green safety reflective vest.

“Please stop touching your face”, he says. “Should I bring my first aid kit?” he asks me.

“I don’t think that is necessary.” I reply as my left hand reaches my pocket for tissues. I find the pack as my fingers get tangled in my hands free headset and I remember I was thinking of calling my mom when I left home. I congratulate myself for not doing that. I take out a tissue and touch the pain on my face and when I look at it I see blood. It’s ok, it’s not much, I think, I am ok.

“Wait here”, he says and disappears behind me.

When he comes back, a minute later, he’s holding his first aid kit and his dirty fingers are quickly shuffling through the stuff in it, looking for something that might help.

“I am so sorry, he says, I just have these bandages, no disinfectant. You should use some disinfectant there, clean the bruise so you don’t get an infection. Here, take this”, he says. And his black fingers hand me this white thing. “It’s a sterile pad” he says. I take it and softly press it against my face and then slowly wipe my bruises.

“Stop it”, he says, “Don’t do that anymore, it’s not good.” So I stop. He then takes the pad from my hand.

“What happened?” he asks.
“I fell.” I feel like I am submitting and answering like a child who doesn’t even consider the option of not answering.
“These drivers… They’re always driving so close to you, aren’t they?”
“It was not that.”
“Did your wheel get stuck in the tram line? Cause that’s what happened to me once and I fell.”
“No.”
“Did you lose balance?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know. I simply fell. I’d ridden my bike here hundreds of times, did the same thing over and over again. I’ve never fallen before.”
“It happens…” he says in a deeply compassionate tone.
“Where did you come from?” I finally remember I can ask questions and pull myself out of the submissive role.
“Across the street”, he replies. “I saw you and I saw no one was stopping to help you. These people, they just walk by, like you don’t even exist.”
“What is your name?” I ask him as tears start rolling from my right eye only.
“Alexandru. I am a bike courier.”
“I am Daniela.” I smile and it hurts and the tears in my right eye force my left eye to take in the whole picture on its own.

He smiles back and blushes and I can sense he’s not used to the friendliness; it makes him uncomfortable because he has no idea how to react. I take a step towards him and hug him. He’s not used to this either and, like people who cannot stay in a hug, he pats my back as if wanting to encourage me it is time to move away now and put that safety distance between us again.

“Thank you so much.” I tell him.
“You are welcome. I am so sorry I didn’t really have what you need. You should put some ice on your face. Or no, meat. Yes, put some meat on it.”
“Ok, I will” I reply and realize telling him I haven’t bought meat for years because I am a vegetarian makes absolutely no sense. I have ice, I am thinking.
“You shouldn’t go now. You should sit a little”, he says.
“No, it’s ok, I’m fine, I’ll go.” I answer and I am still thinking of doing the shopping.

I say goodbye and after I leave him I realise people are staring, so I figure I must look bad. I check my face in a car window and see the damage. Ok, I think, I’m going home. So I start heading back to the house and as I am walking I start trembling again and it takes me a while before I get to the house and upstairs to my room.

I send a text message to a friend who I know cannot talk. “I had a bad fall with my bike.” Then, as I start crying uncontrollably, I realize I need help, so I call another friend. She answers. She helps.

“Who hates you so much?” the first friend later asks.

It takes me a few hours talking to my friends at my birthday party to realize what the whole idea with the fall is all about. As I am talking to them, telling them the story of the fall and stories of my travels and of the kids in my class and of friends and what not, opening gifts, opening the door, pouring drinks that they brought (because my shopping trip got interrupted by the fall), there’s this part of me observing everything – the tone of my voice, my choice of words, my gestures, my secret thoughts, my feelings, desires, criticisms etc. It’s the first time I do not ask myself what I did wrong to attract the accident.

And I remember my date and how it all went, step by step. And I remember precisely what I was thinking of the moment before I fell: I don’t have patience and don’t want to waste time and energy and I decide to tell him that I like him and ask him if he’s only into one time stuff, 100% sure he is emotionally unavailable and I am not even going to get a reply.

And the whole picture comes together and it dawns on me. I am smug. I have exceeded the safety limit of self confidence. I am proud. I got my right knee all bloody and bruised, my face looks like I got punched by a jealous alcoholic spouse. A damage to my image. Ok, haters gonna hate. True. Still, this is my Achilles heel: pride. Got it, God, thanks!

 

What a bad date taught me

Sure, it was just one of the many lessons teaching me the same thing. When it comes to life lessons, I am stubborn, I insist, I try again and again and again. But that is just me, don’t mind me.

I have had the precious revelation that we always want to experience our deepest pain passionately, with blood and tears and cuts and bruises. We will never go for the soft version and we never run away from it.

 Unconsciously we are looking for a solution to the ‘problem’. So we create contexts in which we can repeat the same experience with a different setting and different actors, every time hoping we would get out of it chin up and with smooth, unruffled feathers. 

But it doesn’t happen. Not as long as we are still under the illusion that there is a problem to solve, a battle to fight, a war to win, honor to defend, appearances to keep up etc.

When that changes and we feel we are enough, no image to work on, just moving on, heart and eyes open, that is when things can actually change. I hope, at least… 

I am just going to say it could’ve been the perfect couchsurfing hang out. Only it wasn’t. I felt it was not what I wanted, but I thought there is nothing bad about the experience itself. Well, I was right. There was nothing good about it, either. Except for the lesson. It is a precious one. 

PS Oh, and just like with my student, I do not play the ‘victim’ role in this story, either, but rather that of the ‘aggressor’.

Morning ride

Our dreams still floating about us, under layers of fabric and lies, we make our daily way to work. As if our lives depended on it. We make enemies, we fight battles, we lose wars.

Sometimes, when Tinder is down, we look up. And we keep swiping. We match and unmatch, set up dates only to check if we can and then we cancel them for lack of time. It is only 10 minutes or half and hour or an hour before the shift starts. All that our morning ride can afford.

And yet how easily we fool ourselves into believing in yet another day that’s just beginning, promising something new each time. Such a feeling of possibility being born under our warm clothes, a feeling of yes, I know it, I can do it, I got it. And we only allow ourselves the freedom we get in those minutes of awakenness before the light turns green again and it is time to move on.

I am a teacher. I am always a passing episode in my students’ lives.

Never there to stay. Always temporary. A traveler. A couch surfer in their lives. Or a soul surfer. Whether for some months or some years, I know I am not a friend, not family, not a peer. “I am a passenger, and I ride and I ride…” Sometimes when my part is over I feel a bit sad, but I never forget that I should not get too attached and that I need to keep a healthy balance between a warm heart and a clear head. That gives me ease in allowing my students their space and respecting their choice of taking their own path, no matter their age. And I always give myself the same gift, too. Freedom.

And I know I will not be forgotten, no matter how fleeting the encounter. I have not forgotten any of my teachers. Not even the most boring ones. And I may be many things, but boring I am not. Sometimes knowing you won’t be forgotten can feel flattering, but more often it is quite demanding. Everything I do, everything I say, my body language, my look, my choices, my reactions, my feelings, my preferences, everything is perceived more or less subtly, more or less consciously, depending on how old and awake my students are. And it all makes a more or less lasting impact.

So when I break this little girl’s heart, I know it’s not something she’ll easily forget. I am teaching my weekly creative writing workshop in the after school program and I’ve just finished a brainstorming activity, passed the second step and I am getting ready to give out paper and start the first stage of writing when I notice her. She’s a tall, slim, long haired nine year old, quiet and shy. She’s in my class. I see her every day. And I have just noticed her now in my workshop today. Now. When I’ve already finished the warm-up, the lead-in and the preparatory activities and we are all ready to get down to writing.

Her right arm is raised, propped up by her left hand, she’s trembling and tears are running down her red face. She’s raised her arm as high as she possibly can in an effort to make herself noticed so she could contribute. And I didn’t see her. I drop the piece of chalk in my hand and rush across the classroom to her, calling her name. I sit down next to her and I take her in my arms, all the time kissing her hair between sentences.

The moment I see her, I remember looking up to my father trying to get him to notice me, looking at my mother going about her chores, always so busy, hoping she’d come and take me in her arms, I remember that time in my childhood when I thought people could not see your eyes if you look at them unless you also point your head to them, I remember how much I wanted my father to love me, I remember how invisible I was feeling in my former relationship. It all comes back to me in a flood of images, at the same time.

“Please forgive me”, I tell her. “It is my fault. I am sorry I didn’t see you. I think I cannot see well anymore. I should wear glasses. It is my fault. Can you forgive me. I am so sorry, my dear. So sorry. It’s all my fault. I know how you feel. I know I have hurt you. And I am so sorry. So, so sorry.”

Her warm tears have melted on her sweatshirt and are now popping against the skin on my neck and my arm. I can feel her heart pounding, like a wounded bird’s against my chest. I feel her entire body trembling and I can feel her pain. I want to take her in my lap and never let her go again. I know exactly how she feels. I feel her pain. I have felt her pain so many times. My childhood was about the same kind of pain. Not being seen, not being found, not being valued, being forgotten, passed by, skipped, ignored. My life is still about that same pain, only to a much smaller degree and much more consciously.

And so now I am feeling so grateful to her for the lesson. And to whoever is orchestrating this whole shebang. It is me who has done this. Me. I love her so much. My intentions have never been even remotely close to this. And I have opened her most painful wound. Unintentionally. I was just going about my work. To the best of my abilities in that moment. And I realize this is what everyone does all the time. The best they can, the best we can. Right then and there. And that, truly, we cannot do otherwise. If we could, we definitely would. And that the reality is that we are all most precious helpers for one another.

When her mother comes to pick her up, I approach her, pull her in the  classroom next door and I confess everything. “I think this was for you, actually. It is you who needed to have this experience.”, she says smiling and hugs me before we say goodbye.

There’s a party in the white house, opposite the bamboo forest on the corner of my favorite street.

It’s 10.30 pm. I got home an hour earlier and tomorrow I am working from 8 am to 9 pm. My place is a complete mess – bed not made, dust bunnies creeping up in corners, sink full of dirty dishes, piles of clothes thrown on chair backs, cat desperate and me dead tired. I send some messages to keep up the illusion of a social life and I just leave everything as it is, put on my running clothes and go out. I don’t have patience for warming up, so I start running. I check up on the hookers and nothing interesting is happening. I’m writing in my head as I am running, so I pay little attention to the surroundings. The guardian at the embassy of Jordan doesn’t come out of his kiosk to greet me. It’s cold. The lack of respect offends her majesty, who speeds up, perking up her butt. It’s midnight when I finish writing, so I disappear before the spell breaks.

It’s that season again

I smile to the woman who crosses the intersection in front of me, riding her bike, her long, wheaty hair mounting the wind. She notices me and, for a fraction of a second, we make eye contact as she smiles back and disappears into the noisy traffic flow as if swept away in a flash flood. Waiting for the light to turn green, my bike seat firmly squeezed between my thighs, one foot pushing against the curb of the sidewalk, I am thinking about death.

 

Do you know that hollow space?

That triangle that forms in the space bordered by your collar bone, neck and the upper part of the trapezius muscle when you lift your shoulders and push them forward at the same time?

It can hold rain water for your kittens or parrots.

It can collect only a limited number of kisses before it collapses and faints.

It can serve a sip of red wine to your lover.

It can warm up two fingertips before they slowly draw a path up the neck line or down the chest line.

It can offer the eyes a place to rest for a while and recover their strength.

It can host the title for a poem.

It can learn new things.

 

Rituals

Shuffling dead leaves and crushing cigarette butts with their high heels, all wrapped up in their thick black clothes, the hookers are pensive tonight. Clients are few and far between. Turning tricks is getting more and more demanding. Every other day someone offers to pay in meal vouchers instead of cash. Since winter is coming, men hardly ever shower anymore. Why stick around? Why not move to Barbados? It’s not like the country cannot do without them. No one is irreplaceable. If the situation becomes desperate, there’s always the option to import.

Checking up on the hookers every night I go running gives me comfort. Just like hearing the church bells ring every Sunday morning. Or the muezzin performing the adhan when I’m in Turkey. It gives me something I can rely on. No matter how crazy life gets, no matter what happens to me or to the world, the hookers are always there every night, opposite the church, the church bells ring every Sunday morning and the muezzin performs the adhan five times a day from the minaret. Rituals. It’s one of the first things I learnt when I started working in Waldorf education – children need rituals; they give them a feeling of safety, something they can relate to, structure.

And all this time, up there, the moon is quietly filling up again, just like it does every month. Life can get as crazy as it wants, heart can be broken, hopes crashed, dreams postponed, days filled with work, week after week can pass with light speed, wrinkles can deepen, hair can whiten, earthquakes can shake, lies can be told, illusions can be created and destroyed, love can be fallen into and out of and so on.

So, as I’m heading back home, sweaty and tired, I’m counting my rituals: the hookers opposite the church every night I go jogging, the church bells on Sunday morning, he muezzin’s call to prayer five times a day (no matter how far I am from it), the moon filling up and becoming new again. Oh, and jogging itself. But that’s more personal, it depends on me, so it doesn’t feel safe enough. More about that another time. So go on, life, bring it on. I’m good. Ready for anything.

PS Photos taken last night, as I was riding my bike on my way home.

My city, my body

“Look, mom, the lady is going on holiday!” a little girl exclaims when she sees me riding my overloaded bike, moving the last pieces of my luggage to my new life.

Last year, as I was moving house, I decided I would live my life as a traveler. I mean every day, even when I am in the city I live in, all caught up in my daily routine. More often than not, I forget about my decision and spend too many of my days wanting to be somewhere else, waiting for the next trip, the next adventure and forgetting to be curious about where I am now, to be an explorer, a discoverer of beauty and of stories.

Yesterday was a rainy day, but I put my camera in my backpack along with the stuff I usually take with me to school and I took it out on my walk back home. As I was shooting photos (not yet on manual mode, unfortunately), I started thinking that we tend to treat our town the way we treat our bodies.

Let me explain. We’ve lived with our own body for a while now. We were born with it. The time of wonder, exploration, discovery and awe has passed for many of us. We have got used to it. We know its secrets, we know its flaws and we know its best parts. We have seen it all, pretty much. So we just carry it around, we are no longer curious about it, it’s become purely functional.

We do the same with our city. We know everything we need to know about it. We know what we like, what we don’t like, we know the shortest route to work, that restaurant where we used to go on anniversaries, the park where we broke that heart, the street where we lost our earrings, the shop where we bought those great shoes, the pub where we took control of the playlist and danced like we owned the place, that cozy bookshop. We know how the streets are flooded when it rains, the traffic jams, the sound of leaves cracking under our feet, the unbearable heat in the summer and everything else there is to know. It just cannot surprise us anymore. So we switch over to auto pilot, we mind our own thoughts, we make plans, remember things, chant mantras and what not as we’re walking down these familiar streets.

On the other hand, when we are in a new place, all senses awaken. Just like when we are exploring another body. The auto pilot is suddenly switched off and we become alive and curious and involved. We look, we search, we taste, we feel, we take risks, ask for directions, talk to the locals, learn words in the new language etc. That’s how I want to live in my own town. I want to feel alive in it. Offer it my attention, my respect and my love. And do the same for my body. Especially since I do not have permanent residency in either.

Take a walk with me around Harmony Street:

There’s this island in the ocean

I don’t know which ocean, it’s not like I can check my flight details. I just get here. And I land on this wet pebble road. I can see my dark brown leather boots, my feet taking hesitant steps up the hill.

It’s so foggy, but I can still see the ocean all around the small island through the white floating veils. It feels as if the island, like a round bellied woman, is shy and has shrouded herself in these white silk veils, barely covering her, hiding and revealing at the same time.

I can see stone houses in the distance, wet and slippery, streams of fog sliding down their rooftops. No light, no candles burning at the windows, not a soul. I keep walking up that hill. As I’m squinting, trying to catch sight of a living soul, I’m starting to wonder what made me come here in the first place. Why in the world would I leave the comfort of my home country for this deserted place in the middle of the ocean?

Because you wanted to leave the past behind, I hear my own voice in my head. You want a new life. You said goodbye to all your attachments, another reminder pops up. You no longer wanted the dark cave of the lost. You set them all free. It’s ok, I’ll only be here for a short while, I say to myself in an unconvincing tone.

Everything hurts. As if everything has been pulled and stretched when cords were cut. So my eyes are heavy, my head is tied in a plastic bag, my throat is befriending the cactus stuck in there, my kidneys carry the burden of exhaustion and all my muscles are sore as if I’ve swum and walked all the way here.

Suddenly, I’m back at the school again, feeding the children black grapes.
“Are you all right?” a colleague asks me.
“I think so”, I reply. “I just need to get some fruit.”
“You know, Daniela, I’ve always admired how you are always in charge, always so strong and authoritarian and loving at the same time.”
“Really? I’m just tired, I don’t think there’s anything to admire there.”
And as he’s helping me give out the grapes, I’m popping grape berries in my mouth and suddenly realize I’m dreaming and I’m thinking grapes, no matter how sweet and juicy, are not good in your dreams. So I wake up.

It’s noon when I get out of bed. There’s this pressure in my ears as if I’m underwater. I take off everything, including the bed sheets, put everything in the washing machine and get in the shower. When I get out, I light a candle at my window, one at the bathroom mirror, another one on the kitchen countertop and two more on the table. Time for a new life.

PS Photos taken in Porto, Portugal, in 3-5 September 2016.