Transylvania 

It was my trip to Romania in April 2005. It shows what city I was in an any given day. An 8-day trip. To Romania. From the Czech Republic. Solo. 

The train ride there was the scariest part. The sketchy / threatening Romanian train conductor. The fear of sleeping alone on an overnight train. The Roma beggars clawing at me; yelling at me because I had unknowingly given her begging daughter moldy bread. Feeling lonely and unsure. Cracking up while having a chance to steer a horse-drawn cart down a country road. Relief at finding English speaking tourists with whom I could relax. 

Those are the memories that have stuck with me. Less prominent are my feelings as I wandered through the old castle where Vlad the Impaler walked. Less prominent are the images at which I stared in the painted monasteries of Bucovina. 

This old calendar has been sitting in a slot on my desk for 10 years. Even that, more than one year after I returned to the US. I must have taken it out at some point after I moved in to this home. Why?

Was I going to write about it and ended up procrastinating for 11 1/2 years? Yikes. I shouldn’t say that out loud.

Is it there to serve as my reminder of the adventurous soul I used to be and the risks I used to take? 

Is it meant to tell myself that although, no, I’m not taking any grand trips any time soon, I sure did live, didn’t I? Jeez, what am I, 90 years old! 

None of these sound like the right excuse. But here I sit with a paper monthly calendar folded open to the April 2005 page. Its always been folded back this way. 

There are a few events on the March 2005 page. Even fewer on May 2005. 

We don’t often know where we are going. But we sure know where we’ve been. (Yes, if you’re paying attention, I just dropped a Whitesnake lyric.)