I come back to this space again, after a very long time. In the global dystopian atmosphere of this last year, seems strange to me to post here about happy and serene things. But anyway, here we go, these are the drawings I did in 2019 to document the streets of my city, the places I walk by everyday. These drawings are a diary, a compulsion, a daily habit, a way to alleviate anxiety and to keep my hands busy, a place to hide in, a safe space.
My school finally moved to its new location. The kids showed such a contagious excitement! It was built in the seventies, especially to be a school, with large hallways and lots of light. A huge courtyard full of pine trees.
I saw these prints in one of the hallways. A dog has wandered in on the wet cement, sometimes when this school was built. You can tell it was a big dog. I ran my fingers on the marks of the paws of this dog from the past, thinking about him or her, feeling such sadness and such love for all of his/ her species, for all animals…
I found this book on my grandparents’ bookshelf. I never read it as a child and I don’ t remember its cover, probably it used to be in the back rows of the shelves. It was written by Iuri Gagarin and Vladimir Lebedev (a medical doctor and a specialist in space psychology, as it is written on the back cover). A note from the translator tells us that Gagarin finished this book on the 25th of March 1968, a day before his death.
I read this book hoping it will contain all the wonder and hope that was associated with space travel in my childhood. The chapters go through all the things that used to make me daydream: the immensity and silence of the Cosmos, imponderability, time perception, the friendship and trust among the crew that goes out in space, the shining stars that seem closer from up there.
But also the book is a long stream of anecdotes, some historical, about explorers of other unknown and lonely territories like Antarctica, some contemporary about their friends and colleagues, other cosmonauts, these stories being by far more interesting. A long stream of these stories, scientific facts explained very simply, quotes from Kant and Lenin, speculations about the future of time travel, description of the soviet man written in empty propaganda language. A lot of talk about “manliness” that is necessary for conquering the outer space, for winning the ” duel with nature”. A lot of really disheartening and so so sad references to experiments on animals, but I didn’t’ read those passages and pages. One wildly rude mention of some unnamed tribes in Africa and one “Indian” ( was it someone from India? from America?) who irrationally believe in the reality of dreams.
Among all these, the smiling faces of the first cosmonauts, photos of the crafts they made in the isolated rooms where they were practicing the silence and loneliness of Cosmos, pages about imponderability that I used to obsess about as a child, being sure that I will experience it myself someday. And by far the most interesting thing in the book, accounts of cosmonauts who have first seen the blue and violet haze at the curb of the Earth, who have seen the sun in Cosmos with its blinding light, who traveled inside a burning knot while their space craft was entering the atmosphere. The reports the cosmonauts wrote in a clear and simple language shinning with an eerie beauty.
I searched for Tereshkova in the book. She is mentioned a few times. There is a story about her wedding. There is mentioned that, while male cosmonauts were chosen from among pilots, women who didn’t have any former flight experience had to train more. She appears once more towards the end of the book as a kind and motherly colleague, comforting the worried Lebedev before he jumps with a parachute for the first time. He calls her Valia. There is also a photo of her in space.
I read this book together with my child double, trying to imagine what she would have felt or thought reading it. She would have shivered the same way as me at the pages about animals and she would have rushed trough them. She wouldn’t have noticed that all the attributes necessary to be a cosmonaut are written in male form. She would have thought that in the distant future of her adult years space travel will be available to anyone (as a poem in the book titled “We will live to see it” promises). She would have nodded approvingly to the description of the beauty of life in communism.
I tried to read this book with her and remember her hopes now when the world is so bleak. Reading about space travel now is reading about the same issues: going to Mars, sending out long term manned missions to distant places of our star system and beyond, creating the ecosystems inside these ships, dealing with the psychological aspects of such travels, etc. But the hope and the wonder is completely gone now, when people compete to receive a one-way ticket to Mars in order to be in a reality show, when space exploration missions are private ventures based on the commons of knowledge acquired in the sixties and seventies and often funded by public money, when the colonization of space is in direct connection to the necessity of leaving behind our dying planet in order to go somewhere where even the air you breath would be a commodity.
I used to love looking at these kind of photos, at his smiling face while the water from his cup is floating in front of him. 
I have found this chocolate tin at an antique fair. It is Romanian, from 1951 (the factories used to mark the year of production on tins). It’s in such a perfect condition for its age (usually these boxes have rust on the inside or outside). And the characters on the box, even if it was produced 30 years before my childhood, are so familiar, so very much the same as the characters from my own books and toys.
…I would want to be there, in that drawing, instead of being here, in my busy days. This child cotton scarf was brought back from the seaside by my grandmother in 1960. It has written all around names of Romanian seaside resorts. I wasn’t able to clean all of those rust stains, but I like it anyway. 
It’s my blog anniversary today. I still enjoy posting here even if I don’t manage to do it so often.
These weird Christmas cards are from my childhood collection, from the eighties. The faceless Santa is really creepy and I also think the faceless child in the left is nice, too :).
I clearly remember the pink fluffy doll the child holds in the second card. I didn’t have one like it but many of my friends did. I also appreciate the very typical carpet in socialist homes and how the card was badly printed, with a lighter stripe in the left. So funny and also so nostalgic.
We have a peaceful day, it’s snowing outside, we have lots of delicious vegan food and the dogs are really happy that we are all at home.
This Red cross poster belonged to my mother in her childhood. It is marked Popular Republic of Romania and this places it before 1965 (when the name of the country changed to Socialist Republic). It says: “In order for you to grow up healthy, strong and cheerful”. I like how the two kids have the same silhouette, even if the girl has red pajamas and the boy blue ones. But the text is written only in male form. Good intentions, never fully materialized, same as many things in socialism.
Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.
I grew up with a respect for objects that it is long lost now. Objects that were made to resist, that people would buy once to last a lifetime, that were cared for and appreciated for the material costs but also for the work that went into them. Coats that were carefully stored in order to be worn winter after winter after winter. Photo cameras that had lifetime guaranties. Stoves from the seventies that still work today. My grandmother would keep also objects that were slightly broken, without being a hoarder and without our house getting flooded by objects. There were just a few things that people were owing, things that were useful or pretty but not in excess and even when some of them had to be replaced by new things the old ones were still cherished and kept.
I remember playing with these sunglasses that belonged to my mother in the early seventies. I was fascinated by the pink case and all the colors of the lenses. Only the blue ones, that are mounted in the frames are still intact, the other colors were slightly broken already when I was playing with them. They are just some cheap plastic sunglasses with a silly shape, but I take them out sometimes from a drawer and look at them, at the yellowed case, at the broken lenses… 
Linking up with Vintage Bliss Tuesdays.
Happy melancholy, hopeful, nostalgic, full of sadness and potential Mayday!
I have found these this Saturday at the flea market. Usually there are lots of postcards and antique or vintage photos to look through and I love just browsing through them, even if I am rarely buying some lately. I have a large collection of them and I don’t plan to add more to it, as they are so cheap and easy to find and so tempting. I would easily end up with them taking up too much of my limited space. But these four are really special to me.
This one is from Bucharest, Magheru Boulevard and it was sent in 1968. It is such a beautiful image. 
This is a birthday greeting card. On the back, it has a note in Serbian and it is dated 9th of September 1941. 
These seaside ones are from 1957 and 1958. The second one, says on the back “A morning at the seaside”. It’s such a beautiful and evocative photo, I think it’s my favorite from my collection of seaside cards.
stories of objects 