Darkness and Light Can Dance Together
Lessons I learned growing up in communist Romania
“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.” — Francis Bacon
My husband and I have built a beautiful life in America, our beautiful and new country, which became part of our souls in our early 20s when we decided to leave Romania, our birth country, in search of better and brighter lives.
And when I say brighter lives, I mean it both literally and figuratively, since the most infamous way our communist regime used to cut costs and keep their citizens under control was by doing one hour to two hour-long rotating blackouts.
The irony of the situation nowadays living in Sacramento, CA where summers can be hell on Earth is that my husband is a manager electrical engineer, who lets me know if his company plans on doing rotating blackouts to conserve power during canicular days exceeding 105 degrees. And although this summer has been one of the hottest in the history of Northern California, we had no issues with our electricity, but we were also mindful not to use the washer/dryer in the afternoon, as well as set our thermostat at 78 degrees, which we do anyways because I get chilly, and I am not a big fan of the air conditioner.
The candles that lit the darkness
“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” — Brene Brown
My most memorable time about waiting for darkness to turn into light was in high school. I used to live in the dormitories and shared a small room crammed with five narrow, squeaky beds with four other girls.
The power usually got turned off around 9 p.m. The rush of getting things done before darkness engulfed our hungry bodies and souls was worse than rush hour on the Los Angeles freeway.
Since the communist party liked surprises — unpleasant ones, I might add, we could only guess about our lights going off. Oftentimes, while engrossed in our studying, or simply playing a fun game of charades trying to guess the word, our lights went out suddenly, as if a cave operator abruptly decided to show us how pitch dark the cave really was.
As our lights went out, we first got quiet enough to hear the crickets outside our window, a choir of discontent, after which we burst into laughter at the absurdity of our lives being controlled by a tyrant president.
If we were lucky our flashlights still had batteries, but most of the times, we lit up thick white candles to continue studying, or whatever else we were doing. The candles flickered in our small room — their flames danced flamboyantly making scary ghost-like shapes on the walls.
What can I say? A true cinematographic experience!
As our eyes adjusted to the darkness and our candles made enough light for us to see, we would start talking about freedom and our wildest dreams. We pretended that we studied but talking and plotting against the communist regime in our dimly lit room was the highlight of our day.
Stories sauntered around lighting up our souls and giving us hope, but most importantly, they lit up our darkest nights.
When darkness becomes light
“Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.” — Maya Angelou
It was during those many evenings of rotating blackouts that we learned to appreciate the joys within. It was during those evenings that our conversations sparked up many new ideas of living freely in the world that darkness turned to light and even laughter, for we learned early on that making fun of unfortunate events and deploying jokes as often as needed was one way to turn on towards life’s bright side, while realizing that things could always be worse.
Instead, we chose to see the goodness all around us and trusted that all the light switches of our communist Romania will be turned on one day.
And we were right: On December 16, 1989, the Romanian Revolution had started in Timisoara, where I went to high school.
My refusal to allow darkness to engulf the light within me ended up with my father and I protesting in the streets and being part of the Romanian Revolution for three days in a row when the secret police forces tried to fight back and even shot a few people.
Yet, in the end, freedom was finally ours. Darkness and light danced together and taught my teenage soul to keep searching for that flicker of light wherever I am in the world.
Thank you for reading my story, which will be part of my memoir that I am working on. Also thank you to Christina’s picture that she took on her trail run, which I used above. It inspired me to write this.
And thank you to Reciprocal for publishing my story.
Thank you so much for the new writing topic in your wonderful publication Sahil Patel!
Let’s Celebrate Life At Reciprocal | by Sahil Patel | Reciprocal | Sep, 2022 | Medium
I really enjoyed Yana Bostongirl’s brilliant article, which shows us that interacting with one another is not only fun and inspiring, but it can cure writer’s block. Great read!
3 Ways I Mine the Comments Section To Build My Network | by Yana Bostongirl | Reciprocal | Medium
Another article that I fully enjoyed is written by Michele Maize. My family and I play pickleball, so this story was such a fun read for me.
Pickleball Seems to be All the Rage Right Now | Reciprocal (medium.com)
To buy me a cup of coffee, go to https://ko-fi.com/carmenmicsa. Thanks for reading and your support.
For more poetic musings and short-form philosophy, please check out my new book, Morsels of Love, A Book of Poetry and Short-Form published last year. You can also order directly from my website www.carmenmicsabooks.com to receive an autographed copy.
If you like podcasts, please listen to my new podcast Seeds of Sunshine, a multigenerational podcast that I started together with my daughter.
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