Friday 10 January 2003

Pic of the day: Actually, taken a few days ago. I was at home today again.

End of the cold

At least for this time. During the day, gray clouds rode in on mild winds. There was no snow or rain this time, just the warm humid air replacing the icy cold.

Kind of like most of Eastern Europe in 1989. Wasn't it 1989? You young ones out there probably don't even remember that it happened, I only have trouble remembering when. I still remember the newscasts every hour, the people in the streets and in the churches. The end of the cold war, in that case. No thunder, no storm, just the mild winds of freedom. Well, with a few exceptions ... there were a few loud bangs in Romania, as the old dictator and his family were shot. But by and large, it was just like today. The silent coming of something that was bound to happen.

I remember how unreal it all felt for the first years after Mike became Czar of Russia, and decided that there had to be an end for this sad experiment with "communism". (Not that it ever was communism.) There were no nuclear bombs going off, no rain of radioactive ashes, no end of the world as we knew it. And yet, the world that we had known was the world of the Cold War. It had ended indeed. Still, I felt like I were in an episode of "Sliders" and had landed in an alternate timeline. It did feel too good to be true. It was true; but as we know today, it was too good to last. Or more correctly, it was not good enough to last.

***

Meanwhile, back in 2003, I don't know how long the weather will last. It has been a long time now of wearing an extra pullover in the living room and still freezing, not using the washing machine and rationing the hot water. I did not technically need to do all this, but the whole country was short on electricity. It seems fair that I should do my part to keep the system from breaking down.

Sometimes I am amazed that people would live here at all in the centuries past. How did they get through the winter in those small timber homes? Of course, not all did. Children died quite often back then, though I think they almost never froze to death. They just succumbed to all kinds of illnesses. Still, freezing along with your extended family in a cold, dark little house probably made things no better.

Times are better now. Unless we destroy them for ourselves again. But the mild winds give me hope.