Why I write

My story began in black and white. Colour was not a defining feature of life in 1980s Romania, which was, for all intents and purposes, a third-world country at the edge of Europe. Not long after our move to Canada, my father took my brother and I grocery shopping. We walked from aisle to aisle, unable to understand that there could be so much food in a single store, both of us convinced that there were toys somewhere inside this vast place, so bright and full of colour.

Twenty years later I moved back to the country of my birth, finding a nation undergoing rapid changes and a vibrant town to call home. I wrote about many of my experiences with Romanian-ness on the expatro blog, but that eventually lost its spark (ie. I lost my spark); I was never exactly an expat and even less so over the past several years.

The reality is I had simply moved back home. A place that, in my mind, presents itself in every shade, from the monochrome and faded pastels of ancient memories to the vivid colours found on a trip to the grocery store . So this is a blog about coming home to Romania, but it's also about leaving it, about exploring, and about writing anything I feel like. I live here now.