MIRCEA ELIADE
That last night I was in Romania, a few of us went out to a late-night club, an Italian one, where my wife admired as well the youngsters, their skill and energy, on this occasion exotic dancers from Russia, young women.
She stated candidly she prized their perfect little bottoms, which were showing fully from the cut of their clothing. Costumes were not enough to entice Cornel however who kept his back to the show the entire evening. He uttered that he had seen it all before.
I am sure this is true. His clients and customers from Belgium, France and England would hav enjoyed these sorts of shows.
I had picked this place for the Italian menu, not that easy to come by in Romania just then. We had eaten there before, she and I, a year, a full year prior. So I knew it could be an interesting place for our final evening together.
The floor show went on until four a.m. and we stayed past three. Cornel had to have an earnest discussion with the owners about the details of the bill during the last hour. A couple of gratuitous items were removed, as was the custom; including one bottle of Bulgarian wine we thought tasted funny.
When I had left for Bucharest from Montreal, even I recognize how much I was in need of some major shift. I had gone travelling, ten time zones on little more than a dare of love. Me, who had a hard time getting out of be, and certainly my apartment, each day.
But it was this person who dwelt within that was giving me the trouble.
It could prove to be a period when I needed rescuing, yet I did not quite see it that way. But I did leave everything as it sat, and went half way-around the world.
Such a surrealistic adventure but then after the Gulf War, earlier that first spring, everything in my life seemed enveloped in a soupy surrealistic fog anyway.
What I witnessed in eastern Europe is still with me every time I close my eyes. I have developed this self-protective theory that I was forced to come back early both times simply to preserve my fragile psyche from such unaccustomed stimulation.
When you make a voyage like that – and then return – of course you have gone in effect all the way around the globe.
As with many excellent adventures, this one started with a dream.
It was one of those late dreams, that is one just before waking. I was looking after this baby boy in a house, a home. I had set up house, it seems, in anticipation of the arrival of my Romanian wife and her seven-year-old daughter from her previous marriage to Cornel Comanescu.
This little fellow, Sam, just months old, threatened to roll down the stairs, carpeted as they were; or off the four-drawer bureau I was using as a change table.
I had accepted the innocence of the dream during the darkest days of Advent in December. Nothing extraordinary was taking place. I was preparing to travel east, very far east in April; leaving Vancouver Island for Ottawa and Montreal. I was to depart for my ultimate destinations on the date that corresponded to Holy Saturday of the Church calendar.
This little fellow, Sam, in the dream, was a handful, I can tell you. I was wonderng how I could manage since I had just taken on these additional responsibilities in the anticipated arrival of my true loves from Bucharest. It was an April afternoon.
For some reason I was worried about the fact we did not have a small black-and -white television set for the little girl, whose name is Mihaela Cristiana. At least I could audibly imagine the ensuing conversation about it with her mom.
This trip to eastern Canada was simply a three week prelude visit with my sisters prior to flying via Air France to Bucaresti; with a two day stopover in Paris out of Charles De Gaulle.
My reading habits during this time including a topic which in my experience, could not be called un-extraordinary; except that it was plentiful, absorptive and escapist in the fullest sense.
I was reading about the mystery of the lost continent of Atlantis, for the first time with any credulity.
DECEMBER 2008 ICN: BACK COVER PAGE 12: PATRICK JAMIESON:
INVISIBLE CHARACTER, VOLUME ONE:
MUTE AND MUTANT ALIENS
DECEMBER 2008 ISLAND CATHOLIC NEWS
MADONNA AND CHILD BY ‘GOYO DE LA ROSA’
LA ROSA No. 25: PAGE 23: PATRICK JAMIESON
REVIEW OF MIRCEA ELIADE AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 1994
LA ROSA NO. 25: FRONT COVER PAGE ONE: SAINT CLARE OF ASSISI
CCC – SAMARHANOR – LA ROSA TRANSCULTURAL ARTS PROPAGANDA 2009
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