Spinning Words

Spring has finally come to Hogwarts Stockholm… not! But we sure got a nice preview of it and what is happening right now can’t really be called Winter either. Enough weather forecast for now though. These past two months I’ve been doing enough reading for school to compensate for all the BA years when I didn’t bother much with going through course literature. That’s probably because the system was a bit different at home. However, another exam is long gone, one is just around the corner but I have some time to tell you what I’ve been up to. Well, not much, as I’ve been studying, but as a good friend says, I should also try to enjoy. Actually I do enjoy school quite a lot but the friendly sun made me get out of my burrow and enjoy a few walks through the forest and through town. There is nothing that gives the world a better perspective than a little sunshine. It also gave me a bit of guts to go to the seashore and enjoy the swings, sand and the sea. From this point of view Sweden is a little wonder. I also enjoyed a short walk through Gamla Stan today, too bad the wind made it shorter than I would have liked it to be, but it was just perfect to sit a bit in the sun with a hot cup of coffee to warm my hands. Otherwise, the Swedish blue skies remind me of home and of how lucky one is to live in a capital from where you can actually see them instead of living in a cloud of smog. I am also working on collecting memories and one of them consists of a great party I’ve been to recently. I am very happy for having had the chance to be around some really cool people.

Over and out for now, back to studying.

One of the biggest pleasures growing up and one of the most pleasant days in school has always been March 1st. That is because on March first you offer and you receive little Spring talismans that we call “marţişoare”. Each year on the previous day to March 1st I would get all of them out and pick some for every teacher, classmate and friend on the block. The “marţişor” is a beautiful Romanian tradition made out of a red and white thread and a small charm in various shapes: flowers, animals and the very classic four-leaf clover, ladybug and chimney sweep. “Marţişor” is also the traditional name of the month of March and can be translated by “Little March”. The little talisman is considered a symbol of Spring and is associated with the idea of a new beginning, of life and fertility. Usually the ladies are the ones that receive them but I used to give this kind of charms to all my friends. It’s a beautiful tradition and I used to wear one pinned on my jacket next to my heart all month long. Now I usually wear the red and white thread around my wrist and at the end of the month I break it and tie it to a branch in a tree. It is said that if the tree blooms beautifully your year will be prosperous. Some people wear it only until March 8th (Mother’s/Women’s day in Romania) others for two weeks, some wear it all month.

Another joy this celebration brought to me was getting all the charms my parents received from the children in school. It was so fun looking at them and analyzing each, sorting and putting them away for next year.

As I said above March 8 is also very important in Romania. It’s mother’s and women’s day. This is the day when all women receive flowers, it is so beautiful. Our male classmates/work mates were always spoiling us with flowers and chocolate on this day and we always gave them something in return: something sweet or pizza. It was a celebration in its full right.

And to finish it off in style: don’t forget to pick an “old lady” or as it is said in Romanian “o babă”. The first 9 days of March are called like that, you have to pick one and, if the weather is sunny your year will be joyful, if it is cloudy it will be a bit more difficult. With me being in Sweden I have all the chances of picking a snowy one, rain and snow are bad omen, or so they say. If it is raining in the morning you have a gloomy start of the year but by sunset it can become clear so your year will end in a cheerful way, or the other way around. It is said that these old ladies are taking off their 9 coats after Winter and if it snows it is because they are shaking them and the last traces of snow are falling off before they put the coats away. This tradition takes us back to the time of the Dacians so it is very old and extremely beautiful.

So now you know a bit about Romanian Spring traditions. I hope you like them, they’re very simple but have a lot of meaning. I am sure that in other parts of the country there are more and some are a bit different but these come from where I grew up. And I respect them. It’s folklore.

If there is one thing I regret about this movie is that there weren’t many Swedes in the audience when it was shown in Biograf Sture last evening. Maybe the discussions in the beginning were a bit too long but they made some sense to me, part of them at least but the moment the movie starts, reality hits you. It is, in a way, something like seeing your life on screen just as you witnessed it watching, maybe not your family, but neighbors, not by living the story yourself but by hearing it so many times from people standing right in front of you. Maybe some things are exaggerated in the movie, though I must say that they didn’t do this to a great extent. I think that for some people they didn’t do this at all. I am not going to expose the plot over here, instead I am going to recommend this movie to anyone who is interested in watching it.  The story itself, though sprinkled with some humor every now and then, is as sad as it is real but it is the details that hit me the most when I watched it.

It is also strange to see The Magician and Arlechino playing in something else rather than children shows, or to put it correctly, two actors that brightened my childhood are performing serious parts.

Also, because apparently I can’t do anything without running into it, and how I love this, you have no idea, and I wish it happens as often as possible, everyday even,  at a certain moment in the movie in a news bulletin from the radio you can clearly hear the lady presenting the news saying: “The tennis player Horia Tecau is the last Romanian standing in the run for Wimbledon”. That made me happy.

Watch the trailer below and give it a shot.