May. Always in May I said: "I hope a time will come when time will allow us, in this month – probably when we call ourselves retirees – to travel, or at least not to lose our heads with work, day in and day out!" It's a month where, wherever you go and wherever you look, at any time of day, everything is superb. Mornings and nights are wondrous, and afternoons, bearable. The light is good anytime, and what it shines on is so fresh and raw (even if it's not grass), that you would want to put time on pause at any cost.
I always told myself this month: "Next year, I'll make sure my schedule allows for more time for contemplation!" This month always took me by surprise, by no means easier... But it's clear that old age is worth waiting for and working towards, at least for May. This year, God didn't rely on me to make a special schedule (nor could I, with a complex range of children from 1 and a half to 22 years old, each wanting something from me, at least every hour). Two trips to Bucovina were prepared for me – one to photograph an event, the other for some children's testing. Wonderful and unmissable opportunities to traverse the Carpathian Mountains on their widest side, through the Tihuța and Mestecăniș passes! Any business that arises beyond the mountains is worth the trip. And just for the sake of the trip, without any business, it would still be worth it! This roughly 7-hour journey never seemed too hard or too long to me. In May, on this route, you can experience the most intense late spring – when at home, in the lowlands, everything is already diluted, pastel, breathless, here you can see the tallest raw grass sprinkled with the largest and bushier dandelions. Here the apple trees are only just blooming... and what apple trees! Old, spectacular like olive trees, solitary like walnut trees, under whose shade children will play and elders will rest on the mild, never too scorching, days of the coming summer. And the lilacs are budding, ready to explode in the most intense violet, the hardest to paint, to capture the exact lilac hue... and probably the most intense perfume, which will be released at the end of the month.
Here the little houses – or big houses! – are not just shelters, but places where life is worth toiling for and savoring in all its seasons. These are places where a child absolutely must want to return, to have someone to return to, to have somewhere to take their own children for some special days, where time revolves differently. Here the mountain air reminds you that there is air, breath, and an entire system in the body that deals with something so invisible, yet so vital. It's the place where it's worth breathing deeply and planning to return for longer. It's a place you pass through... but where you'd like to stop. It's not really possible, like that, on the route, because the roads are too good, demanding speed and forward motion, there's no option to pull over when you wish. How wonderful it must have been when traveling by carriage and you could stop anywhere! Not too often, but unforgettable such a journey must have been then... And if you did it in May, in good weather, it could keep you warm for a lifetime! Now we could afford such a paradisiacal flight somewhat often, but we have nowhere to stop on the route... not even going slower is recommended... and detours are still unknown operations to me, and lead to places that lose out on the panorama.
How can I put slow motion May and the walks through it? If you find a solution, tell me right away!
Simona Andrușcă
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