how I know

so I’m on an excuse to walk around the other day, admittedly availing myself of a few clouds which certainly softened the footfalls, because of the recent happening wherein I had the honor of being in a magazine based in and for Bucharest, my incredible wife adding the killer topping in the translation of my English into Romanian.

What makes it all so odd is that as I walked along the thought surfaced that made me consider it and it concerned the fact that where we are is actually quite nice. So many would die to be able to live where we are presently living.

And if I aspire to being a decent writer-poet, all the natural splendors around here should possess powers to absolutely conquer all memories of a recent history; should be completely taken in and where we were should cease to exist. Blog posts should be all about or inspired by where we are now.

Because as I walked I could not help but admit: there is very little that can be said is actually bad about where we are. The climate is not harsh. The layout is comfortable. It is hilly so all one needs is a dose of gumption and a daily walk or two could move a body closer to decent fitness. The people are generally really friendly. We’ve got great neighbors. I can’t say anything actually bad about anything or anyone.

But I then realized that might be what partly composes the withdrawal pains. Each time I encounter or experience something around here – say it’s food, like we’ve been out to eat a few times, and not just fast food, but decent restaurant food, and it’s so far been impossible to say the dishes were bad. Because they were not bad. But neither were they great.

And I can’t help but remember, or my taste buds reminded me of the afternoon we entered what they called a ‘push-the-tray’ establishment and to this day I can say that it was the absolute worst food I’ve ever eaten. And it looked like it wouldn’t. To this day we remember staring at the spread of plates and dishes we could not get halfway through, not because we were not hungry but because the food tasted so bad, and we wondered at this: how could such a thing be, how much work had to go into making food that was so uneatable.

Then again I recall some of those tomatoes we could grab from a little store so near our apartment – Romanian-grown, sometimes very locally-grown, tomatoes…. to this day I’ve not tasted better tomatoes. I’ve tasted tomatoes here, even tomatoes grown by loved ones, organically, and they only reminded me that I’ve never tasted a better tomato than the tomatoes I tasted in Bucharest that the shortest excursion could bring to pass.