springing again

Spring is coming to Pitesti. So says the calendar and all the flowers we keep getting--but actually it was mild today, sixty two degrees at the warmest. Cool waking up weather.

Was reading Flannery O'Connor earlier which always makes me want to write. It makes me think of a friend I had in college and a precarious situation I found myself in this summer, one that still recalls yellow light and yellow wine. And anyway this weather reminds me of German summer. Standing between two blocs a few minutes ago looking up could have been the line of sky we followed through the woods and home.

We'd missed the last tram at nearly midnight--I hope I haven't written about this already--and what had already been a full and lively night became an adventure too. Since the tram didn't follow the streets and we weren't sure how to get back to where we were staying, we decided to follow the tracks, half of the twenty minute ride through the woods.

So we were blind for minutes, holding on to each other, walking in a line, singing out in all different languages. And then the tram appeared coming from the other direction and we had to hide in the trees, crouched down while it cut a line of light in the darkness. I don't think you walk away from something like that in East Germany without becoming thoughtful, without suddenly realizing you probably aren't the first to hide there hoping to go unnoticed.

Once it passed we were blind again, the sky the brightest thing by far, floating voices giving the only dimension not on the vertical. In the end we made it out. Wide smiles flung all between us, already remembering.

That's it, really. It was the first weekend and I was trying to pace myself so I went to bed, half the others obschatsya-ing. (I think it is this word in Russian: общаться. We made our own meaning out of the one we learned, and so for us it meant how we spent our evenings: hanging out, talking while drinking beer/wine.)

Anyway, just thinking. Spring number three, Romanian Spring the familiar one now, moderate continental weather. One of those nights miles away in it.