OANA GABRIELA, 22 years old

As for the item I’ve chosen, it’s the first camera my dad bought 22 years ago (it’s funny that I’ve been trying to look for the same type on Insta pages and all over the internet , but I can’t find it, it must have been limited edition Pitesti 2001 – he bought it in a bazaar there). All the photos of me since I was little were taken with it and I took the last ones around 2015-2016. I have forgotten it since then. In June last year I came home after the exam session and I remembered I’d had it, started using it again, and since then I’ve been taking it with me everywhere; I started travelling solo too and the first thing I put in my luggage is my camera. On the other hand, the analog camera made the transition from playing and experimenting to the cinema and film, and more than allowing me to try as much as I can in a new creative direction, it helped me to express myself differently too, perhaps easier than through words.

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ALEXANDRA, 29 years old

I would put the yoga mat in a suitcase and travel a lot. On the mountain, at the sea, wherever possible and I would sit on my mat, which would become my carpet towards the temple of connection with nature. I say it is a magic mat, you sit on it in a state of restlessness and in a few minutes you are relaxed.

Mihai, 27 years old

He is Batman or Robo. I’ve had him since I was 2 years old. I vaguely remember playing with him and other robots in the sandbox. He likes having play partners, but most of them break down before he manages to make friends with them. He managed to survive till now. I cared a lot about him. I still care. From the moment we were playing in the sandbox my stories have changed, and I found myself holding it in my hand just to create a true epic full of fighting, adventure, drama, love affairs, new beginnings and endings. During my adolescence I rarely looked at him, but when I did it, he helped me overpass difficult moments, anxieties, tests that seemed to never end. Now, as an adult, I am fascinated by the power he had on my development. Batman represents my creative and playful side that I can turn to just looking at him

Maria Florina, 25 years old

The story of the unknown object

Last year, I was given a wooden object decorated with stars and the sun. I admit that there’s no long since I’ve found out exactly what it was used for or what it represented.

It all started a year ago when I decided to tell the man I’ve been in love with for 5 years how I feel about him. Even if we’ve never been together, we both felt that spending time with each other was at least enjoyable. The fact that I didn’t go with him to Thailand, where he had moved for a period of two years, was a major obstacle. We tried to forget about each other, but every time he came to Bucharest, we met again and no matter the circumstances, we behaved in the same way.

Although we’ve never clearly expressed our feelings, either we or the people around us noticed and understood that it wasn’t a conventional relationship. We stopped talking for a while. We thought it was the best for both of us, but even the Universe was playing a role. So we met a few times, completely by chance, in places where we would not have even expected to see each other. Was it just a coincidence?

Inspired by Hollywood movies and all sentimental novels, I decided to live a “happy ending”. I’ll (the protagonist) take the courage to confess everything to him, directly, the next time we meet. I’ll tell him everything and he’ll love me even more for my courage and we’ll try to be a couple until the end of our days.

But… there’s such a long way from movie to reality. So, one day in May we met and talked about everything else, but not the problem that was bothering me so much. In the last five minutes I had the courage to tell him. He was completely shocked, he started crying, I started crying too, he hugged me, kissed my forehead and told me that there was never more than pure affection and attraction between us. We said a few more things to each other, but my phone was continuously ringing. I had to leave. I hurried downstairs and got into the Uber when I saw him running after me and saying, “I was going to give you this!” and he handed me the wooden object with stars and the sun. I took it and the car left. There were tears and snot, 5 years of strong feelings, the incapacity of  having a functional relationship because I was waiting for him and I’ve just left with a strange object in my hand and a huge gap in my soul.

I got home and placed it on a bookshelf, forgetting it there until a few months ago when a man I was spending the night with lit a scented stick and leant it against my wooden object… to make atmosphere.

Alex, 30 years old

The object I’ve chosen is a cigarette holder case, but for the first 20 years of my life I didn’t know what it was. It was the kind of thing that, as a child, I found around the house, forgotten in the  drawers. All I clearly knew about it for was that it could be opened and that if I let its flips hit each other (the same process as with castanets) it would seem like a monster mouth. I also liked to pull on the elastic band inside, as if it were a guitar string. I remember the release button being serrated and I liked how it felt when I pressed it with the finger tip or when I ran my nail over the serrations. I thought it was an important object because it was golden. And I also liked how it felt when I touched both outer covers.

I grew up and I still liked to pull on the elastic band inside. My father had made business cards for himself, and at 14 I thought it was going to be a business card holder case. I think I still liked hitting its flips, as it was a mouth. But maybe not as much as in my childhood. Well, I’d grown up.

When I became a young adult, I realized in my early 20s that it was a cigarette holder case and that its purpose was to hold cigarettes. It was too small to hold the cigarettes I was smoking and I thought I’d use it when I learned how to roll tobacco. But I learned that late and it was never used for that.

I also know that it has a picture of a peasant woman with a jug of water, but I don’t know if it’s an original creation or a copy after a well-known painting. I didn’t even search obstinately. I like the mystery.

As I was writing these lines I remembered that, as a child, I thought that if women could carry a fold mirror in their bag, this object would be its equivalent for men. It seems to me a nice thought of a child who has just discovered the world.

While writing this text, I thought there’re many unclear memories and some may have happened differently. But I’m sure that it’s the oldest item I own.

CLAUDIA, 34 years old

The dress in the picture was bought in a hurry, as I needed black clothes. My cousin bought it for me. However, it has a special meaning to me. I wore it when I last saw dad and sang Frank Sinatra, My way. I know he’d have loved it. The dress and the song too. He liked to see me wearing dresses and “to change out of those jeans. Don’t I have anything else?”. I used to have. But I like wearing trousers.

Thus I wore a dress on our last meeting. I “got dressed” for him. Some gossipers would say I wore it when he was led to his final resting place to the cemetery. He passed away at this time last year. 3^rd July, 2022. For me it was the last meeting in this life, in these bodies, in this world. We’ll see each other again, for sure. I’ll miss him every day until then. So I look at myself in the mirror and remember him. We looked alike. And I keep the dress as a memory.

ALEXANDRU, 23 years old

A young man called Alex, born and grew up in a traditionalist small village, according to tradition is forced to untie a dried and well-stored piece of his umbilical cord, kept by his mother from birth until the day he turned 13. The ritual is simple: if he manages to untie the piece of thread wrapped around the dead and dry skin, his future will be easy and free of obstacles, if not- his life will be as puzzled as the thread around the umbilical cord.

Alex is gay, but in that conservative community, raised with rigid traditions, he couldn’t openly express his sexual orientation. His mother, Elena, was a woman devoted to tradition and who believed that untying the umbilical cord was an essential step in her boy’s life. Unfortunately for her, Alex failed to successfully fulfill the tradition and life moved on.

Years passed, and Alex went to the city for his university studies. There he found himself and his community, he found a lover who accepted him for who he was. He discovered that there was a vast world full of opportunities for him, despite his sexual orientation.

But he got all these things by completely separating himself from his family. He always felt responsible to make his mother happy and for this reason he lives in two parallel worlds. One in which he is free and another one in which he is constantly lying to his family, trying to live up to their expectations.

Because of he increasing pressure in his life and his desire to get rid of his double life, at the age of 23 Alex decides to return home and tell his mother that he is gay. This is his chance to solve his problems and free himself from the past.

Haunted by the fear of confronting his mother, he tries to reach her soul and soften her heart by sharing memories. The country house, the house where he grew up, is full of the past, photos, boxes of memories that come up together with Alex’s untied umbilical cord he is trying to untie now. In a moment of tension between them, he loses it in a floor crack and Alex’s only goal is to get it back. Could its untying solve all his problems?

His obsession grows more and more as the debate with his mother and the rest of the family intensifies. Will completing the ritual be enough for him to let his past go or will he find the courage to tell his mother that he’s gay?

Irina Maria , 23 years old

THE STORY OF THE LITTLE BRICK

I was part of a very complex Lego set, and I was eagerly waiting for someone to buy the box in which I was lying with my fellows, each sorted into various, smaller or larger bags.

After a few days, my wish came true, taking the shape of a loud noise and a terrible fuss. I guessed that the set I was part of had been taken by a child. That’s because of the experience I got lying on the store shelves; in just a few days I learned how to make the profile of every person who laid hands on my set. The adults slowly lift the box off the shelf with some preciousness and turn it on all sides in order to admire it. On the other hand, the store staff acts quickly and unexpectedly so that I often don’t even realize what is happening to me.

But this time it has happened: the box I was lying in was chosen by a child! Of course, I wasn’t happy at first, because adults always have the last word, but once I heard the cash register’s sound I knew I was about to take part in something great…or rather be a part of something great .

The light that came while opening the box was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Some minutes passed till I got used to my new surroundings. In front of me, on the box there was the complete picture of the set, and I was somewhere in the middle, too! I was an important pawn and I couldn’t wait to fulfill my role.

Behind me I could see a big room with a desk on which books and toys were placed. I didn’t even have enough time to look around when, in just a few seconds, everything changed. After a few minutes I woke up in the dark, trying to remember what had happened to me. Was it just a dream and I was still on the store shelves? It was impossible, as there was no other brick around me. In fact, there was nothing around me. I had fallen, judging by the pain throughout my body, but where was I?

The moments spent in the darkness turned into days, and the days into weeks. The feelings of fear and anxiety were replaced by firm resignation. I’d lost all hope and my goal of being part of a magnificent construction had disappeared since the first days. “I’m actually useless.” This thought was already present in my mind and I started to believe it was true. If no one is looking for me, it means they don’t need me. Perhaps the set I had once been part of had been greatly built, brick by brick, and towered up over the big room that I had barely seen for a few seconds. I’d already accepted my fate and I thought I could manage in loneliness and darkness, as the darkness around was weaker than the one within my soul.

It was only a miracle when, one day, I felt the warmth of some tiny hands, slowly grabbing me and lifting me into the light. I had finally been found, and as I was really happy in those moments, I didn’t even care that I was temporarily blinded by the morning rays. It was a big surprise to realize that the rest of the bricks I had shared the same box with before, were lying in a mess around me. The construction had been started, but abandoned later. The same hands lifted me up and firmly placed me where I was supposed to be. The place that was meant for me.

And then I understood. The set couldn’t be completed without me and I was an important brick as all the others in that construction. Each of us has a major role in the great evolution of life, and together we highlight one another’s qualities and support one another in order to achieve something totally special.

Anda – 32 years old

“The Appreciation of Beauty” is learned and practiced. Even if it sounds philosophical, the senses sharpen only when you become aware of what surrounds you.

So every day, even if I don’t leave the house, I arrange, rearrange and use my perfumes. And sometimes, when Eek is naughty (Eek, my kitten), I also spray him and chase him around the house.

The strong, cedar fragrance tempts me every day and awakens my senses. And when I miss dreaming, I choose the right perfume bottle and spray through the half dark room due to the curtains that reject the sun’s rays.

My self-awareness and my personality help me choose the right fragrance at the right time.

ALMA, 34  years old

The baby trinket is ready for an explosive moment and doesn’t even realize it. He is standing with his feet on the book, he relies on the chemistry learned there, but he doesn’t guess the practical side of the experiment. His puppy, on the other hand, is more experienced so that he foresees a “boom!” and covers its ears!

My father had the trinket as a child, he became a chemist by profession, but he didn’t have a dog to warn him when he was going to make a mistake (or not to trust him!). The little boy had been lying safely in the family library for decades, but when I threw my first party without the parents being at home, the little boy lost his head! A (real) boy hurt him when he experimented too much with the chemical solution that was new to him -the alcohol – and the result was the beheading of the baby boy trinket. But dad didn’t find out, because an experiment with glue brought the little boy’s head back on his shoulders 🙂 For 10 years he’s been stable, in the pre-explosion state that the puppy keeps waiting for, in panic.

There are many bored trinkets lying on my childhood bookshelf. Left from other relatives’ childhoods, brought together from my parents’ combined families, I don’t even know why they had to be stored in my room. They were ugly, they didn’t speak to me, they were relevant to them or loyal to memories of more luxurious interwar houses, not to the crowded flat we were living in. Every time I had to dust, I hated picking those trinkets up, running the damp cloth under them and rearranging them back to the spotlight.

It was so good when I had appendicitis in the ninth grade and stayed home for two weeks! After recovering, I felt like “sweeping” through the trinkets that didn’t know what was going to happen. I eagerly chased away all the unimportant objects that blocked my access to a book.

But I couldn’t get rid of one of them: a little boy who is ready for an explosive moment and doesn’t even realize it, standing with his feet on a chemistry book without guessing the practical side of the experiment. He also has a puppy watching over him as if being more experienced it foresees a “boom!” and covers its ears!

I loved imagining the chemical actually pouring out of the beakers and the experiment blackening the two protagonists with thick, suffocating smoke. The puppy would probably react with an expression of “I told you it would turn out bad!” With a hidden charm and story, I kept it in my teenage library, saving it from cynicism and the old stuff bag. When I threw my first party without the parents being at home, the little boy lost his head! A (real) boy hurt him when he experimented too much with the chemical solution that was too strong for him -the alcohol – and the result was the beheading of the baby boy trinket. How did it happen? I had practically created an experiment with consequences that I didn’t expect: taking a dozen of noisy teenagers, mixing them with cheap alcohol that we could afford at the time, placing them in an environment crowded with objects, and a natural reaction, predictable for those with experience, will come out- hands moving lively, glasses flying among classmates, laughter from suddenly turned off lights, even eggs thrown at the window, flashes of photos blinding us. It was difficult to keep everything safely. This little boy was just one of the several victim- objects of the evening, but I really felt sorry for him. His head hung down so tragically! I didn’t even witness his death, I can only guess how he was thrown from the top shelf. He was not very expressive, his eyes were still fixed on the suspended beakers, but his puppy was not covering its ears any longer because of the experiment, but because of our human noise and what had happened to its owner.

I was more ashamed of it. And of dad. He had the trinket since childhood and I don’t know if it inspired his passion for chemistry or he got it because he was known to like experiments. It’s certain that it had been part of his life for decades, and in one careless evening I allowed it to be destroyed weirdly. It was a greater loss than an object without a story.

Fortunately, my classmates were used to covering their tracks, like little deliquents, after such illegitimate nights and each little accident had a clear solution. The experiments with glue had a quick result and our naive little boy had his head on his shoulders again! Only those with eyes to see flaws could notice his teenage war scar. 🙂

Today it has been sitting quietly in my attic for more than a decade, somewhere I hope it won’t fall. He’s waiting in that pre-explosion state, which the puppy keeps waiting for, in panic, forgetting that he has gone through worse experiences.

DUMITRIȚA, 31 years old, visual artist

When I got space for the workshop from one of my friends, in an apartment on Victoriei, the block was under renovation. A communist building from the 70s, surrounded by old scaffolding, which seemed to have no trace of individuality. It went back to the state of mind it had had when it was built…of course, adapted to the contemporary atmosphere of post-communist countries. That meant wrapping it in polystyrene, replacing the wooden windows with the ever-present plastic hermetic ones, and painting the block two shades of gray.

Shortly after I moved my workshop, I brought the rest of my life into the same apartment and isolated myself in the belly of this block in a changing process. Sometimes I went shopping in the evening. I was trying as much as possible not to meet any neighbors. I was constantly playing “Hide and Seek”. I was getting better and better at playing it.

The only ephemeral things I met were the old wooden windows and doors that the workers left every evening at the block’s entrance in order to be carried to the dumpster early in the morning. The portals that connected the inside and the outside were of all kinds, dusty, freshly-painted white, sprinkled with cooking oil or turned into pale straw as wheat when it’s ready to be reaped. I couldn’t leave them there, so I started going downstairs to pick them up every night and carry them, one by one, into the apartment.

For two years I’ve been living in a small window warehouse located in a newly rehabilitated building. Gray. Uniform. Well insulated.

SIDONIA, 27 years old

YANA

I find it funny that there is only one thing in this world that if I lose, I somehow lose my identity too. A small and square thing that basically defines me and is always with me, but actually it has nothing to do with what I mean. Maybe only if we trace the places we reached with its help. But it is certain that without it I can also sing Smiley’s song with “pierdut buletin”/ lost iD card. And no, I’m not talking about my ID card, but about every ID card that’s in my passport case, which actually takes the place of a wallet. It’s such a cute little thing with lots of flowers on it and which smells more like a leather bag, but somehow not in a good way.

More than that, people are horrified by it and no, not because of the smell or because it’s washed out and faded, but because they see my passport there. I guess they think I might lose it very easily, although in the last seven- eight years since I’ve had it, it has never happened. I have more lost cards from it, which was quite sad, but nothing else. So I really don’t see any stress about it. It’s like saying my life is what’s inside that passport cover. A little ridiculous.

And yet, I’d be a hypocrite to say I wouldn’t suffer after it and everything inside it. I mean it travelled a lot with me. It was and is my number one companion. Really easy to use, practical and friendly with every person it interacted with. Now it is a little more ridiculed because its colors faded, but it was greatly appreciated in its good days. And I can’t help appreciating my friend with English origins, actually from New Look, although I believe their products are made in India.

Anyway, it travelled with me to England, Spain, Scotland, Bulgaria, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Italy and France. The next one is Serbia and I’m sure it can’t wait. I think it would travel even more if it could. It would like to travel outside the continent at least once, if not twice. Okay, I keep telling it that it’ll happen at some point, but I don’t know if it believes me. It would probably swear at me a lot if it could talk, as I’d promised a lot of locations. I think I most told it about Budapest and Morocco. But we’ll get there too.

I kept saying that I’ve never lost it, and that’s true. But it doesn’t mean that I’ve never forgotten it somewhere. It only happened once, it was a bit tragic, even if it had a rather happy ending. It was sometime in the second year, after the Easter holidays, which happened to be at the same time for both Orthodox and Catholics. So I had been at home for a week and at the end of the holiday I had to go back to London, where I was studying. But what do you think? I think you can very easily imagine that I forgot my case with all the documents at home and that I realized it the moment I arrived at the airport. I had nothing. I had already driven all the way there… And why do I say it had a rather happy ending? Because I had the flight cancelled. So I returned home, Timișoara-Uricani, while I hated my life a little bit, but at the same time I told to myself either that the stars were on my side, or that my lovely cover, Yana, is pretty lucky.

Somehow Yana is part of me, it carries my memories, somehow I depend on it more than I’ve been on any boyfriend I’ve had and I can’t be free and independent without it. A bit paradoxical.

Yesterday I promised I would wash and perfume it.

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DUMITRIANA, 28 years old

The phone – The portal to the world.

A thought. A sound. A look.

What time is it? I look at the phone.

How is mom? I pick up the phone and call her.

How is that secondary school classmate? I pick up the phone and open Facebook…Facebook… or is she on Insta?

Ah.. how simple life is since telephones have appeared. And how sweet and pleasant.

I can be smart, educated, with a perfect body and no one will notice the difference between the profile created and the reality. I can talk if I feel like doing it. I can express myself anytime, anywhere…offend (just for fun).. and with its help I can still have the courage to say that I like you. If I really do. 🙂

It’s always with me and tells me everything I want to know about who I want to know. And though…

What would I do if this portal disappeared?

I daily realize how much it changes me, how much I lose myself… how controlled I let myself be and how lazy and apathetic I became…

Do I still think…hear…see?

All in all, I still wake up alone… In fact, what a bummer! Even in the morning it still wakes me up :). Yes. The alarm rings in the morning. I press snooze. Ahhh! I can sleep a little more. I don’t even close my eyes properly that I hear it again. Ready! I take the phone in my hand and switch any possibility of yelling at me. Who can stand the noise in the morning? And… I’m still sleepy, but I have to wake up. And if I don’t let it wake me up, I’ll fall back asleep and there’s no one to wake me up.

Well, I can at least put off getting out of bed. I take the phone that a few minutes ago I wanted to smash. What else can I do? I scroll on Facebook. Hmm… the horoscope! Um… “you’re going to have a hard day at work and marital problems”. I hate it. Ok, I’m single, I can’t have marital problems but…what about work? Hm.. it was already difficult to find this place. “Go to hell, horoscope!”. I scroll on another page.. “No, they didn’t post it right”. Scroll.. scroll.. It’s more decent on another page. “You’ll be lucky in love and you’ll have a surprise from the family in the evening” :)). I’m having fun, but I like it more. OK. This is it!

I ‘ve fixed it with the horoscope. I remember being nervous about waking up so early. Let me find something to cheer me up. I can’t find anything but I don’t give up hope yet. I’m still searching. I get bored after 15 minutes and realize that I have to get up to make my coffee as it’s getting late and I’ll be late for work.

I put the phone down for two minutes.

Morning routine. I get up. I go to the kitchen. I take the kettle. I put it on. I go to the bathroom to wash my face. I go back to the kitchen and put the coffee in the kettle. I wait for it not to boil over because I hate wiping the cooker. The coffee is ready. I pet the cat a little bit (if it meows to remind me that it exists) then… I take the phone and go to the toilet. There’s no way to sit there without your phone. After I finish here, I go to get my coffee from the kitchen. Of course I have my phone in my hand with some video playing in the background. I used to smoke and work with my hands. Now I can just distract myself and enjoy the flavor of the morning with the posts of my Facebook “friends”, the news, I can only drink my coffee through the portal.

I finish my coffee. It’s 9 o’clock and with disorganized interest… I get to work.

By 5 pm I keep my hands off. Phew… I get rid of the phone a bit!

And.. believe it or not?! Now it has a substitute: the laptop. But that’s work and it doesn’t make me feel guilty about losing touch with reality. No, it really annoys me and I may say it’s not fair. Why keeping my eyes only on the laptop? It’s immoral and unhealthy. I hurt my eyes! Which eyes? And now what do we have eyes for? Pictures? News? Videos and tik toks… useless live sessions?

Hey !We’ve evolved! And technology has evolved too…

Really ? What for?

“Have you seen what a beautiful sunrise was there in the morning? Have you?”

Let me take my phone. There is, for sure, someone who’s posted it.