Hello Timisoara!

And so once again, Petru Marginanu worked his magic, made some calls, and set me up with a ten day pass to the Romanian Playwriting Festival in Timisoara, northwestern Romania. Because my classes have not "officially" started in Craiova, and because both the university and the Fulbright commission recognized this as a great opportunity, they gave their blessings and on Saturday morning Petru and his wife Ana picked me up in Craiova and we drove seven hours to Timisoara. As we drove north, the day became cold and dark and wet. The highway was under all sorts of construction, and my hosts chain smoked the whole way, one window always cracked. Outside, the autumn hills looked a lot like West Virginia, and for awhile we drove parallel to the Danube. Across the river, the tall brown hills of Serbia. Along the way, Petru and Ana taught me words and some phrases in Romanian. My favorite curse, and supposedly the most popular here, is "Du-te-n pizda ma-tu," or, "Go back inside your mother!"
We arrived late in Timosara, but even in the dark I could make out the changes. No more communist-era gray bloc buildings, Timosoara is a university city filled with parks, a beautiful river, Gothic churches, a wide open plaza, and progressive, vibrant people. It's fall here, the leaves are yellow and they carpet the sidewalks. The festival has put me up in in a clean hotel, provided me with the ten day pass to all plays and workshops, two meals a day, plus my train ride back to Craiova. Petru's sister Ana, a playwright who splits her time between NYC and Bucharest, has a play premiering this evening. Tomorrow, my new friends will drive back to Bucharest; I will remain here for another week.
Last night, we saw two plays. The first, Hans' Wife or What Would An Angel Look for In This City, was presented at the National Theatre, a beautifully ornate proscenium space. The set, costumes, and staging were bright, surrealist, and imaginative. Because it was performed in Romanian, I could understand very little, but from what I could discern, it was about a guy on his deathbed, traveling back over his life, exploring what he missed the first time around. A two-act play with a cast of 20, it was the only play I've ever seen with a live chicken wandering around onstage. I was given a great seat, right beside Christina Mordreanu, the artistic director for the Romanian National Theatre Festival in Bucharest that takes place November 1-10. So far, everyone in Romania has treated me like royalty; they are all so very kind and gracious. Christina invited me to come to Bucharest as her guest to the festival there, and I am going to try my best to do so. At lunch today, I met a Greek fellow getting his PhD in Cluj, northeast of here in the mountains. He told me about an experimental theatre fest happening there mid-October, and has offered to introduce me to the organizers tonight. And best of all so far, the event here, which would not have been possible without the help of Petru, and the event's organizer, Ciprian Marinescu. The second play we saw last night, Chat, took place on a boat on the river. A long narrow space so filled with cigarette smoke that it seemed like a ritualistic immersion, we sat at tables, separated by an aisle that the three actors used in addition to the end of the space where there was a tiny stage set up. It was a comedy from the town of Iasi, in the far northeastern corner of Romania. Simple props, great physical humor. Afterwards, we all moved to a late night banquet at a club on the river.
Occasionally, if I think about my future, about being so rootless, I get a slight panic, a shortness of breath, and I find myself grasping at anything that resembles permanence. This is my journey, to learn to let go, to trust that the river of life will always continue to flow, and though the scenery and water changes, the river itself will always remain. Sometimes, I am so elated that I want to sing out in the middle of a crowded park. Sometimes, it's all I can do not to put my arm around the shoulder of a stranger sitting beside me. And though I am occasionally so blue that my eyes ache with tears, I have never, ever ceased to be amazed by the exceptional beauty of life, and the indomitable human spirit. I am reborn; everything is new.