THE MYSTERY OF "B"

Who would have thought how many meanings may exist in a single letter, how many things begin from it and reflect upon existence. But the secret is seeing when needed, dreaming, wishing, not believing in coincidences... 

Ludwig van Beethoven: “Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine.”

 

Brașov woke me up one morning with a concept and an assiduous desire of seeing it fresh out of print, of feeling the ink scent spread into black words over white pages. It did not offer me much, but a small basic kitchen where I could hide away from any world, imagine and write. I would walk its streets, looking for stories. And when they were no longer enough to complete the memories of „home”, it recoiled upon me.

 

The concept carried me on the alleys of an old Bucharest. Just to spite me. Because it was the city I had never respected. But it, too, had stories to tell under green street lamps in coffee houses that reminded of revolutions. And maybe I rebelled or maybe not, but with every letter added to my words, the concept took shape.

And as the shape would not let itself put in between lines, I headed to Sibiu. Now even „S” can be considered a „B”, deformed by the times, the youth, ideas, Bacchus and who knows whom or what else. Because the shape changes form. There, I always had a basic kitchen just as inspiring, sacredly preserved, like a mystical shrine. And what a marvel, cause there did my inspirations turn to life, in black and white.

Then came the infernal blockage that every writer knows at least once during the persuasion of his dream. But, for me, exists the city of artists of any kind, from any ages. And it is there that the pen knows by itself what to write: Balchik. If someone were to ask me to describe the feelings that surround me when I walk among the white stones, I would answer that I am speechless. I would very much aware lie. As it is there that the coffee with ice concluded its inspiring existence.

Oh... and afterwards I felt an imperious need of absolute pragmatism. I had to contemplate the entire concept from the outside, to understand my readers. It was then that I discovered the street lamps. In Berlin. I am perfectly aware that there are other street lamps as well, all over the world. But here they had something that made me smile, made me finally understand what the obstinate light of existence should mean. Sometime, a bit before a midnight.

 

In the chaos that preceded the “writer’s” title, the paths took me after the stories written. And each place confirmed once again the marvels put down by the pen. Then the print did its humble duty, spreading first in Brasov the scent of fresh ink. And afterwards my book recreated the entire way back of the inspirations. Leaving me for a while at a loss for words, with no pen. Just me and her pages. In the metamorphosed silence of street lamps going down at dead of night.

  

  

Recently, I perused its pages in Bangalore. And it was then that I figured it out: coincidence in its full meaning, remarkably explained for the present days, seems to have taken shape, but without existing. I reckoned that the letter had fully done its job, to guide me towards places tumultuous in significance.

 

Tonight finds me in Berlin. I’m smiling. There is a street lamp at a corner distorted in the moist mirror of the pavement below. It’s raining. Autumn-like. Incessantly. It is still a warm kind of rain leaving room for various meanings. Hands in my pockets I lean on it and gaze at the straight street. It brings me no war, I see no falling walls. Just silence. Still ... the street lamp, mysteriously lighting above me, lets the rain bring from afar a scent of jasmine flowers, decadent, reflected in the world of I. 

I would not have ever thought that a single letter had so much power to change an existence, irrevocably.

Berlin, September 11^th, 2014