Believe
Don’t get me wrong; I enjoy having written.
My silences breed stories.
I translate my dreams and memories, though I often write for others
making their voice sound good.
At the end of each day, I re-visit my thoughts,
straining them, planting them, feeding them.
When I was a child, I believed anything was possible.
I’m now growing that seed in a flowerpot.
63 words, Adela Galasiu 2016
Eyes / Ochi
In a far away land there is a city with hundreds of wise houses. Each house has a roof, a soul and an attic with two windows. Eyes scrutinize the birds that get back to their nests late at night, the grannies that bake homemade bread, the blatant children playing outside, the flowers raising their heads in the sun, the cats that purr in hidden corners, the dogs hiding their precious bones, the women that dream of the return of their husbands and the husbands dreaming of other women.
Every day opens a new color, a new hope, ends a life and begins others. Every evening sends to sleep all the rippled memories of the day, all the children and cats and birds and wives and husbands. Some of the grannies will sleep longer, other babies will get born out of the dreams of past nights. Some of the flowers will grow seeds, others will bloom, the stars will seem to rotate on the sky awaiting the rays of the same sun that has opened the eyes of all the children and women and cats and husbands and grannies and birds.
When morning comes the smell of coffee invades the streets. It fills up the sky and the staircases of all houses. As eyes open life vibrates, noises clash in the air, birds sing again, cats lick meticulously their paws and wash their furs with slow movements on the edge of wide open windows, dogs inspect every corner of their territory, children moan instead of waking up, wives pack lunch for their husbands, husbands go to work hoping that the day will be better that the other days. And even though life seems the same, it is always different.
In the city where houses have eyes life can still flow in unexpected patterns. 
Houses have eyes in Sibiu, Romania.
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Intr-o tara indepartata exista un oras cu sute de case intelepte. Fiecare casa are un acoperis, un suflet si un pod cu doua ferestre. Ochi privesc cu mare atentie pasarile care se intorc la cuiburile lor noaptea, bunicile care coc paine de casa, copiii galagiosi care se joaca pe afara, florile care isi ridica frumosul cap in soare, pisicile care torc in colturi ascunse, cainii care isi ascund mult iubitele oase, femeile care viseaza cu ochii deschisi la intoarcerea barbatilor lor si barbatii care viseaza la cu totul alte femei.
Fiecare zi deschide o noua culoare, o noua speranta, sfarseste o noua viata si incepe altele. Fiecare seara trimite la culcare toate amintirile ondulate ale zilei, toti copiii si toate pisicile si toate pasarile si toate nevestele si toti barbatii. Unele bunici vor dormi mai mult, alti copii se vor naste din visele noptilor care au trecut. Unele flori vor face seminte, altele vor inflori, stelele vor parea ca se rotesc pe cer asteptand razele aceluiasi soare care a deschis ochii tuturor copiiilor si femeilor si pisicilor si barbatilor si bunicilor si pasarilor.
Cand vine dimineata aroma de cafea napadeste toate strazile. Umple cerul si casele scarilor. In timp ce ochii se deschid, viata vibreaza, zgomote se ciocnesc in aer, pasari canta din nou, pisici isi ling meticulos labele si isi spala blana cu miscari foarte tacticoase pe marginea ferestrelor larg deschise, caini inspecteaza fiecare colt al teritoriului lor, copii gem in loc sa se trezeasca, neveste impacheteaza pranzul pentru barbatii lor, barbati merg la lucru sperand ca ziua va fi mai buna decat alte zile. Si desi viata pare la fel, este mai totdeauna diferita.
In orasul in care casele au ochi viata poate inca sa se scurga in tipare cu totul neasteptate.
Casele au ochi in Sibiu, Romania.
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300 words / 300 de cuvinte,
Story and Translation / Poveste si Traducere : memyselfandela / Adela Galasiu October 2013 / July 2015
Photo- Photobucket
The Return to Innocence
Memory. One of the strongest muscles in our being. It can contract and ruin your life crushing you underneath or it can gently lift your soul in the light, no matter what life throws at you.
When I was a child my grandmother used to have in a corner of her garden a columbine that used to grow again and again every year. I remember how fascinated I used to be as a little girl by the filigree shape and the delicate yet robust structure of this flower. I could study it day after day when it bloomed or when it’s petals were falling. I used to be very caring with the flowers. And when I say flowers, I mean beings, living creatures that I respected deep in my child’s heart. It never ceased to amaze me and make me happy whenever I saw it, because only there, in that corner of the garden, hidden in shadow under a lilac tree one could have found my columbine. There were no others, it was unique and the neighbours had none. It’s incredible how simple things that adults don’t even notice can be such an awesome thing for a child.
Many years I grew up with the beautiful columbines, studying them as they opened their purple-blue flowers. Columbines meant holiday, freedom and childhood. Not in so many words, but with a warm cosy feeling deep within. Words meant nothing then, only the heart was full of feelings and of a light that an adult is losing somewhere on the way.
This year I was contemplating my bare garden, frozen and with no trace of life. Then suddenly an incredible invisible force, a singular touch of grace has awaken the life in the sleeping buds and wrinkled flowers that rose their heads and stretched their beings in the warm sunshine. Then mesmerised I have discovered hundreds of columbines.
Is it God’s message that life is beautiful and full of diversity on a multitude of layers at the same time? Or is it just a cosmic coincidence? No matter what it is, it has brought back to me that warm cosy feeling in the midst of a busy life full of stress. The morning when I saw the columbines bloom I felt how one must feel when they win the lottery. To others this means nothing. To me it means the return to innocence.
400 words, memyselfandela, June 1st 2015
Photo: Adela Galasiu, May 2015
Challenge – PLAY
Dear friends,
Feel free to join the challenge. Write a maximum 100 words as a comment or a ping back to your blog starting from the image below.
I wish you all a fabulous day and you are all welcome to PLAY. 
Ela.
” Mommy, I played with the little bottle with red color, I opened it just to smell it but the color wanted to play with me…
Your toys are so much better than mine!!! ”
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33 words, memyselfandela, 2013
The Innocent
Smiling wonder
lingering in the corner
of little shiny eyes.
As long as they exist
there’s still
hope.
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18 words, memyselfandela, 2013
Thursday Challenge – WRITE
Dear friends,
Feel free to join the challenge. Here is the picture, write what you think, express what it makes you feel. Write a maximum 100 words as a comment or a ping back to your blog starting from the image below.
I wish you all a fabulous day and you are all welcome to WRITE.
Ela.
He was long gone from the room, yet in her deep fear Lucy could still hear him.
His liquid diet fueled anger was screaming at her mom now, her frail voice begging him to stop while he smashed another glass against the kitchen floor. Though Lucy knew that not even calling the police helped, as last time when she called them her mom lied that nothing happened while covering her bruised wrists, just because she still loved him.
He was not her father. No more lullabies in her soul as she prayed God to simply take him away one day.
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100 words, memyselfandela
Smaller Evil, Greatest Pain
Have you ever thought how much power your words, simple words, have? Like asking a question that for us seems to be simple or like telling someone a positive word that can change not only their day, but maybe even their life. Have you ever though of this? If not, let me tell you a story so that you will understand better.
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This is the story of a young woman that has dreamed all her life to have a child. Yet, like in any real life story, what one wishes may end up by not being the same thing with what life brings.
When she was very young, Mary has never thought that having a child might ever be an issue. She grew up among children and she loved them all, and her childhood memories were so very unique and beautiful that she knew she must oneday create that beauty for her baby as well.
Yet as she grew up she witnessed situations of young girls having unwanted pregnancies and she heard people talking with a mean passion about those unhappy situations. So as she matured she was rather stressed by the thought of getting pregnant too soon or unmarried. In her heavily religious environment and judgemental society, among neighbours and people that were more than curious about all the pain and all that anyone around does in the constant hunger for sensational and gossip, Mary knew that this is a very delicate issue. A personal issue it should have been, but the world she was living in made it much more complicated than that.
So, because she was a responsible human being and after much thinking, Mary ended up oneday by taking the contraceptive pill. Of course from a religious point of view it was a great sin, and also none of her friends gave her any advice on that . Also her mother was not open minded enough to talk to her about life. And having an unapproachable mother made it not easy for her to take decisions, but she made her choices thinking of choosing the smaller evil.
Years later, after getting married and when she thought it would be time to have a child, Mary gave up on the contraceptive pill. But that day has been only the first day of a life she would have never imagined.
After the time passed she realised that the dream she carried in her soul was slipping away from her, little by little. She understood that something was wrong with her. But at the same time she had to face the mean enquieries and curiosity of a whole cortege of family and friends who were asking her again and again the same idiotic question: “when are you finally going to have a child? Your bloodline will die.” To make things even worst, all her relatives, friends, neigbours and work colleagues were having babies one after another. It seemed like life was making a giant prank on her expense. And every time when she saw other women around holding their children in their arms she felt like dying more and more.
She hoped then that going to a specialist will solve the problem, but that did not happen. Instead she was sent from specialist to specialist and none was good enough to figure out what was wrong with her. Or maybe her dream was not yet meant to come true.
And she gave a serious thought to adoption, but as much as she loved children, not only that adopting was very complicated, but also even without having a child of her own she knew that the bound to a child of her own blood must have been something different and stronger.
After years of battle on her own , as none in her family supported her, Mary ended up by closing in herself and not talking to anyone anymore. She avoided talking to all the people that have hurt her in the past with their lack of sensibility and questions. She left her husband, she kept distance from all the family. She felt like her life was very much doomed and cursed, and so she ended up by burying that loving heart she used to have, to burry it so very deep that she could no longer hear that voice of unspoken pain that she had accumulated over years and years of failing and not being supported in any way.
To Mary this was a wasted life. Little it mattered to her that she helped others or that she cared for people’s pain becuase she knew exactly what pain is.
She used to keep inside long conversations with God and ask for forgiveness for all those years in her life when she used the contraceptive pill, and she asked for forgiveness for what she considered to be the heaviest sin of her life, a sin that nobody could have erased to release her from the endless curse.
She used to sit in the park sometimes watching the children play, with a heavy heart, with a smile on her face but an endless sorrow flooding her being.
One day, talking about her life to someone, a stranger that knew nothing about her life, she was answered: “You are such a special woman that God still needs a lot of time to create a soul for your child. It takes longer for you than for other women because your child will be the most special gifted little soul you have ever seen, and many will envy you.”
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Here is where the story stops. Little matters what happened next. Life is open and Mary could have seen her dream come true, or maybe she ended up by dying alone and still dreaming of her little child and aching for every year when she grew older on her own.
It is often in life that we cannot come close to understanding someone else’s pain and life struggle, as we can only see with our subjective eyes and understand nothing but our problems. Often we have no sensibility towards other people and their pains.
And we often judge other people’s pain as “not as bad as ours”, because “our pain is the greatest”.
Is this a corect way of seeing life? If we are centered only on what we feel and need and experience and don’t think what sort of feelings we give others, what sort of a life are we living and what are we?
memyselfandela, 2013
It’s A New Day
‘
Start your day thinking of positive things.
It’s the first day of the rest of your life.
Be grateful for the beauty and the angels watching over you.
Carry On
Yesterday I packed my luggage, now I’m ready to go.
I have lived so many things in this house, my first steps, my school, games, laughter, loss and sadness that came years after. Nothing changes our life like the loss of our parents.
As I walk down these stairs I can still see myself for a moment sitting there, waiting for mom to come back from work. I can see that smile on my face and that teddy bear I had in my hand… Sweet memories. But how life has changed…
We must raise from ashes and just carries on.
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100 words, Friday Fictioneers
Photo: copyright – Jennifer Pendergast
Dream
I think I want a paper boat. One with no paddle. I think I don’t want any night tables. I think I could perfectly live without drawers, compartments and surfaces on which can be found empty pill boxes and packages without cigarettes that go unnoticed for days and days. I think I could also live without the bed. I think it would be so very healthy if I had nowhere to hide bottles and dirty glasses stained of regrets and pity for my own person.
I think that instead of soul we have each one of us a huge library with shelves from top to bottom, big locked cabinets, boxes filled with paperwork, doors on which signs like “Access denied” or “Come later” or “Do not disturb” hang. Locks, dusty books, new books, books without covers, scratched or cut, with no sheets, yellowed by time, old travel journals, books with old or shiny pictures, a hanging plant in the corner that no one ever has time to water, the old man with black fingers from ink printing, the 60 years old maid working in the loans department, dozens and dozens of compartments with book descriptions and files.
I think I’d like to believe in something. I think today is a good day, like a good decision that is not canceling those other many, good or bad, decisions left behind. I think that it will never be better than this and that I should thank the Divine Power that I exist, I know that the chances for life to change are minimal. I thought that I repressed my childhood pretty well. I think you pressed the wrong button and my head is full of mud again. Well, more than usual.
I think there’s no point in hiding. You have all the keys.
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300 words, memyselfandela, 2013
Tribute to Beatrix
One of these days I remembered wonderful Beatrix with her fantastic books and amazing characters. In our modern world we tend to completely forget the delicacy, tenderness and beauty of nature and small creatures or the innocence of childhood. It takes an incredible talent to create all this beauty , but not only talent. It takes passion to develop such artistic skill. And only a pure heart can love and see these tiny creatures and their beauty and absolutely love them.
Beatrix Potter (28 July 1866 – 22 December 1943) was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.
Born into a privileged Unitarian family she grew up with few friends outside her large, extended family. Her parents were artistic, interested in nature and enjoyed the countryside. As children, Beatrix and Bertram had numerous small animals as pets which they observed closely and drew endlessly. Summer holidays were spent in Scotland and in the English Lake District where Beatrix developed a love of the natural world which was the subject of her painting from an early age.
She was educated by private governesses until she was eighteen. Her study of languages, literature, science and history was broad and she was an eager student. Her artistic talents were recognized early. She had private art lessons, and developed her own style, favouring watercolour. Along with her drawings of her animals, real and imagined, she illustrated insects, fossils, archaeological artefacts, and fungi. In the 1890s her mycological illustrations and research on the reproduction of fungi spores generated interest from the scientific establishment. Following some success illustrating cards and booklets, Potter wrote and illustrated The Tale of Peter Rabbit publishing it first privately in 1901, and a year later as a small, three-colour illustrated book with Frederick Warne & Co. She became unofficially engaged to her editor Norman Warne in 1905 despite the disapproval of her parents, but he died suddenly a month later, of leukemia.
Potter bought Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey, a tiny village in the English Lake District near Ambleside in 1905, then purchased additional farms to preserve the unique hill country landscape. In 1913, at the age of 47, she married William Heelis, a respected local solicitor from Hawkshead. Potter was also a prosperous farmer keenly interested in land preservation. She continued to write, illustrate and design spin-off merchandise based on her children’s books for Warne until the duties of land management and diminishing eyesight made it difficult to continue. Potter published over twenty-three books; the best known are those written between 1902 and 1922. She died on 22 December 1943 at her home in Near Sawrey at age 77, leaving almost all her property to the National Trust after preserving much of the land that now comprises the Lake District National Park.
Potter’s books continue to sell throughout the world, in multiple languages. Her stories have been retold in song, film and animation.
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500 words, memyselfandela 2013
after the nightmare
Relief,
The blanket over the inner blankness
Sensation arriving beneath ribbs
Of stopped seagulls, hidden white starflowers
And white lilies of the valley…
Never mind corporeality,
The relief wrapped on his child mind.
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33 words
memyselfandela, 2013
This is my entry for Trifecta
The Eyes Of Truth
when we will have tried
all the limits of this life
we turn to silence
when we exhaust all the paths
we become quiet and wise
when we have lived all
the pains and sorrows of life
we become stronger
and we look deep inside us
to see through the eyes of truth
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memyselfandela, 2013
This is my entry for the Trifecta Challenge.
memyselfandela 