Pausing to reflect – by Estrella Azul

Pausing for a second, reflecting.

On being herself. Being real. 

Sharing, feeling, connecting.

Enjoying without a void.

Living life without hiding.

Being different yet still accepted.

Silent yet heard, louder than words.

Being angry yet positively joyful.

Ordinary yet inconspicuously special.

Musings

The lovely Amanda’s email, in which she invited me to answer a question for the Seven Souls One Musing interview series she runs on Kind Over Matter, has found me smiling last Friday.

I’m honored to be among the beautiful souls who answered the question “When you look back over the past month, what single moment stands out?” which is now up on the website.

Are you wondering what my answer is? Come see what I said.

I love each and every musing from the interview so be sure to check out the whole post even if you’re not interested in mine.
And make sure you include your musing in a comment while you’re over there, I’d love to read about your single moment that stands out from this past month

Between Lost and Found

When I was about four years old, my uncle lived in Budapest, Hungary. One summer we visited him.
I remember a very long car drive and an even longer queue we had to wait in to get across the border.
I remember the playground, and begging my mom to let me ask for the ice-cream we were about to buy. I always asked for the ice-cream in Kolozsvár, so when presented with the opportunity, I asked for it alright – in Romanian instead of Hungarian.
You should’ve seen the confused look the vendor gave me as before my request I spoke Hungarian perfectly.

What I really wanted to share with you though is the time we went shopping there. I don’t know what the name of it was, but we went to this humongous shopping center. It had everything one could imagine and I had so much fun picking things off the shelf that were interesting enough to catch my attention and which my mom struggled to put back on the shelves as I walked ahead of her.
In one part of the shopping center there was a huge clown in very brightly colored clothes which was making soap bubbles.
I remember that clown as clear as day.

For some reason, the adults (all five of them!) decided to go check something out a few isles down and I was instructed to stay put for a second and watch the clown.
I quickly agreed, I was mesmerized by the sight. I started playing around, jumping from soap bubble to soap bubble, trying to burst as many as I possibly could.
I was having the time of my life!

But, given that I was only four years old, I also had the attention span of a four year old. After a while of staring at that clown and playing, I decided to go after my family. I’ve seen where they were headed when they left, which isle they turned right on and I headed that way.
Three guesses what happened next?
I actually have no recollection of anything past heading towards where I’ve last seen my family. So I don’t exactly recall the extent of it, but I got lost.
I was told someone working there found me and announced over the microphone that X needed to pick up their kid.

~

As I was sitting here, typing out this memory, I thought of how something like this can apply to my day to day life right now. 
Something I’ve noticed is that there’s not much of a distance between safe and sound.
There’s only a coin toss of a difference between lost and found.
Being left alone happens in a heart beat.
Getting lost is easy.
And I’ve never met anyone who was lost but didn’t want to be found.
The good news is that being found can happen just as quickly and as easily.

And that’s where fear comes in – between lost and found.

The fear we feel while being lost is something that might scare us to no end.
Yet, we fear it even more before taking a chance, before we leap, forgetting to be confident that the net will appear.
I think we just need to remember that feeling of having the time of our life from before we got lost. Then let ourselves feel the fear and leap before we look anyway.
Because as scary as things inevitably are between lost and found, leaping is a risk well worth taking. And that fear is something we’re most likely to forget almost immediately when we’re found.

And so, something else I’ve noticed is more of a realization.

I wasn’t afraid to be by myself back then, between lost and found, four years old, in a shopping center full of strangers.
There’s no reason in the world why it shouldn’t be like that today.

Happy Bunny Day!

Wishing everyone a wonderful, sunny day filled with joy and lots of happy moments!

Happy Easter!

Moments – by Estrella Azul

A few moments

overcast with black clouds

of every days.

A few glimpses

of stars here and there

on the ever so dark sky.

Just a few moments

which were filled

with pure happiness.

Through the lenses

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about having the courage to behave like a tourist in the city I live in (in more ways than one). And over a few weekends, I decided to do exactly that, even though I’m still on a mission to block out the sound of traffic around me by listening to my favorite music while I’m out and about.

The weather was gorgeous, I borrowed a camera and went for looong walks – taking in all the beauty and treasures Kolozsvár has to offer. I have to do this staycation thingy more often!

Have look at some gems I’ve taken the time to notice and rediscover

St. Peter’s Church

Downtown Reformed Church, Dragon slayer St. George’s statue and the Reformed High School of Kolozsvár on Farkas street

King Mátyás (Michael’s) Statue

St. Michael’s Church

Franciscan Church and monastery

Fishermen’s Bastillion, Karolina-column, Kétágú Church, Martin Aaron’s statue, King Michael’s birthplace and a couple of other gems you see walking down the streets

Neolog Synagogue and the Hidelve Church

Fountain in Central Park

On Fellegvár Hill

View from the top of Fellegvár Hill

Kolozsvár from above
(taken from the plane as I was arriving back from Paris last month)

Growing roots

 

Yesterday, I somehow noticed a cement flower pot in a corner of the yard.
I had to get it out of there right in that moment, I could already picture one of the flowers from the yard in it. So I did, after a bit of struggling I got it out; and while managing to sprinkle water all over myself I washed it, then placed it next to the entrance and added the flower pot.
It looks perfect, and is in the perfect spot

It got me thinking though.

All the dozens of plants, flowers and seeds I’ve planted over time, although they are very beautiful and cheer me up beyond measure, are also somewhat temporary.
No matter how many flowers you plant, potted plants are in a way like a life that’s suspended, unnatural, broken from reality.
Because reality is in the ground beneath our feet, not so much in the ground that’s only touched by our fingers and water from a bottle.

While initially I looked at all the work with the pots of plants as a chore on Saturday when I couldn’t avoid Spring cleaning any longer, kneading earth in my hands began to turn into a small ritual.
Into therapy, meditation and connecting with life and with nature. It’s a wonderful feeling.
There’s a whole world woven within the roots, white and fluffy like thousands of feet of cotton.

It made me think of how much I want to grow roots somewhere, even if I’m not yet entirely sure where the perfect spot for me is.