“Stay here with me. We’ll start a jazz band.”

 * when I think of winter. 

So we went to the seaside. In December. What was supposed to be a photo-shooting trip near Bucharest became a couple of hours journey to the Southern watery end. Happy b-day to me.

Constanţa is a deserted and passive city in winter. It’s a snapshot of desolation, a perpetuum floating in an environment of silence and non-gravity.  The version most of us know is the summerish one, with sparks and laughter, with hoards of people pouring on streets and beaches and colourful lack of worries. In summer, it’s a carousel. In winter, a slow giroscope.

The sea was calm that day. The occasional passer-by that walked his dog on the beach or slow-motionly picked up seashells would only deepen the sensation of solitude. Water-slides wrapped up in celophane and forgotten shops, with commercials months old would talk the silent language of a distant past. An empty lifeguard’s baraque or the abandoned huts felt like the unsignificant things one would leave behind. The layer of empty seashells cracked under our feet like snow .

We felt small. Small was good. We went quiet as in a sacred church and felt as if we had a whole world inside us, a noisy intricate world. Our thoughts condensed and a bizzare yet sanitary tranquility filled us up to the top. We dipped our toes in the water and gave one last glance to the port.

***

* Tori Amos - Winter