Fragrance (novel) [18]

Pr. Dr. Dorin Octavian Picioruș

Fragrance

(novel)

*

I liked this experience of solitude, of walking the streets to see details. What does Coconița’s house look like, what green tree was at Porumbița’s gate, if Etuța still has that peach, from which I struggled to eat, without being seen, and how I waited to eat from Goddaughter Rița’s july apple, which I would climb and see from the roof level her vineyard and ours, and only from there, from above, would I eat, although they would fall, some, wormy to the ground. But from there, from up there, you could choose, you could see their freshness. I was looking at houses, trees, flowers, people, various details, which I now photograph, but which I kept within me at the time. I remembered phrases, conversations, faces, details of all kinds, until I started to forget them, because I understood that I find the same things everywhere. I learned to forget, to forget selectively, forgetting did me a lot of good, I read and forget, reread, revisit places, and only what remains means it has to do with me. The trips to the field for sunflower leaves, which the ducks ate insatiably, mixed with cornmeal and bread, or those to the forest, for spring flowers, where the snow is the cold now in my bones, when I went to edge of the forest for mushrooms or to eat blackberries growing in the weeds on the railway, were solitudes of a writer, of a discoverer of lands. I didn’t put myself the problem, just as I don’t put myself now, that others have been there, that others have seen those places. Until I see them, they are not discovered. They are not mine. Only after they enter me do they become topics of discussion, do they become personal truths, for I can now speak of them as of any other creature I have encountered.

And this is very important! It is very important that other people’s images do not dull my encounter with places unseen by me. I go too, I see them, they become mine too, and I see them from my perspective, they become a part of me, I start to think of them as my realities, just as I think that all the books I have written are mine and my clothes are mine and my years are mine. But without considering their presence in me a selfish property. Because I want to talk about my experiences, about how I lived each one. And through this, the space of my poeticity is constantly expanding, I can talk about anything, like in my novels. And what is the purpose of my talking to the personages, if the personages were not states of consciousness, gazes directed at my eyes and waiting for answers from me?

In procust’s bed, with his legs longer than the length of the bed, the yellow sheet helped him sleep through his illness. After 3 days of blowing his nose and cold sweats and sleeping for two hours at a time, the feeling that he was feeling better immediately put him to the writing table. The writer deprived of his keyboard is a horse running across the plain after freedom. Freedom to think is freedom to enjoy. Because before you think, to sediment things, you take them all in your arms, you embrace them, you kiss them, you don’t assault them, but you leave them there, in their place, be it a mountain, a sea, a castle, a house, a cell, a Church, a Monastery, a Library, a School, a blade of grass. Being a pilgrim or a traveler means leaving things in their place. You take only joy with you. Only the imprint of things on you. Only their peace, only the trail of light, only the significance of meeting them. To break the crown of wonders of the world is to be unhappy. For the unhappiness of despair does not enjoy any beauty that stands on its own feet.

In big cities, the streets are archaeology lessons. If you’re not dealing with parallel lines, but with all sorts of geometric shapes, exhaustion is tantamount the loss in context. And the most annoying thing is when I suppose I’ll find the building there, in front of me, but being in front of me means a kilometer or two through all kinds of thickets. Going through the urban formicary makes it difficult the soaring of sight. I see the building, but it’s sweaty all the way to the building. And I enter the Museum sweaty, I must look for the toilet first, as if it were an unavoidable hygiene, and then I discover the worlds that help my inner worlds to rejoice. Translating Google Maps into reality is a matter of practical geometry. A centimeter from it are my steps. On the spot I see how many there are and how I can do them. I get in and out of cars, go up and down stairs, cross streets looking at speeds, at their personal speeds, attentive to everyone around me. So that when I return to the Hotel, with the vivid experience of the road, I can ignore the steps of the phone, I don’t care anymore how many minutes and which streets are there, because the road has become mine.

I have my landmarks, I know where I’ve been, the photos taken on the way help me, the road has become mine. And personal victories are not the journeys, but the understandings during them. It’s not because I’ve been that’s important, but what the understandings are.  And the data from my excavations are the inestimable thesaurus that gives birth to books, that gives birth to art, that gives birth to dialogue. For the encounter with the life of people is the encounter with God, with the One who speaks to us through the life of all people. The great literature of the world is important precisely because it is an enlightenment on the mystery of the world. And the mystery of the world is that God is with us and fills us with His joy, peace and holiness.