Today my mother turns eighty-five.
When I was a child, we had a photo in the house where she appeared with a boy. She was very young, with her hair braided in two pigtails, wearing her best clothes, as country girls would dress when going to town or on holidays. He was handsome. They were holding hands.
I asked who he was.
She told me he was a boy from the village who was courting her.
Later, she told me they had set off together for Cluj, to audition for the choreography school. They walked the whole way, barefoot.
They were both admitted.
They returned home.
The family didn't have money for her to stay in Cluj and attend classes.
In childhood, this explanation didn't seem tragic to me. In the world I grew up in, the lack of money clarified many things, and rarely were other words needed. A desire could disappear from a person's life for such a simple reason.
She got married and had two children, my sister and me. She worked almost her entire life in a factory, in three shifts. I knew well the early morning departures, the evenings when she prepared for work, sleeping at inconvenient hours for others, and the fatigue.
The girl who had walked barefoot to Cluj seemed like a different person to me.
After the fourth grade, when it was time to think about high school, I was drawn to fine arts, music, and choreography. I took them all seriously. I ultimately chose the Fine Arts High School.
Ms. Zoe, my choir teacher, regretted it greatly. She would have wanted me to go into music.
Mom let me choose.
I don't remember her mentioning the choreography admission incident then. Her story remained somewhere in the past, without influencing my decision.
After 1990, I saw her one evening watching a performance on television.Sylvie Guillem danced in a Mats Ek choreography. My mother watched her with an attention and joy that surprised me.
I looked at her more than at the screen. The woman who woke up for the morning shift and the girl who set off barefoot for Cluj were in the same room.
When I visit her, I often look at her hands. They have been through the factory, through shift work, through food prepared day after day, laundry, shopping bags, winters, illnesses, journeys, and all the chores that are rarely discussed in a family, because the next day they have to be started all over again.
Today my mother is eighty-five years old.
When I look at her, the girl from the photograph is still there.
Rev. Ioan Gînscă
Photograph by Noemia Prada