How do you explain the unexplainable? How do you find words for that which there are none? Transylvania was not a trip, a place, an experience, a journey, a pilgrimage, or a thousand other little nouns I could pick out of a thesaurus. It is all its own, in every sense of the word, and I was blessed to become, for some brief time, a part of it. Everything else is just words.
I never expected it to change everything. I never expected to be changed. But now I look out the window at the flat stretches of rice fields and something within me cries out to go home. And I'm surprise for a second, because I AM home, home in Beaumont, Texas, with all my family and friends. Yet this feeling that follows me around, leaping at every picture of gentle hills or mention of doves or sound of church bells, is one I can only call homesickness.
The green lawns, the glistening SUVs, everything here seems so shallow. We are a country without roots. We are Americans, but for being American to mean something has become harder and harder. Thanksgiving has become a time to get off from school. Holidays like President's Day and Independence Day are excuses for department stores to have sales. And even if it's still great to be an American, there is no sense of identity to the world, no sense of depth and meaning. A few idealized stories about the American Revolution during elementary school and after that? Nothing. We don't know from where we came. Families emigrate to America and shed their past. That may be good for them, but where does that leave us, their grandchildren or great-grandchildren?
We have lost where we have come from and thus who we are. To be American is simply not enough. It means nothing. A sense of belonging is lost when we lose our past. How can we understand where we need to go if we don't know where we have been? We're encouraged to move out, not be too dependent, assimilate into a great mass of conformity, be "American". But if anything makes us human, it is our individual differences, our separate roots and pasts which all ultimately are one. To quote F. Forrester Church, "We were immortal, until we became interesting."
On the trip, Kat said, "I came because I am a Unitarian Universalist. Its history is my history." The only real identity, the only one that means anything to me, is my religion. Kat's words are mine, as well. I have lost whatever history my family held, so it is to my religion which I must look for a sense of connection to the past. Who I am is so interconnected with Unitarian Universalism that its history truly is mine.
One of the Unitarians in Transylvania told us, "You keep talking about your history. It's admirable you're here looking for your roots, but you have to understand that Transylvania isn't really where they are." Then another Transylvanian spoke up and replied, "Well, maybe not, but this is where the roots all come together. Every tree must have a base."
What I found in Transylvania was depth and meaning that I have never found here. Where I want to go, who I want to be, how I look at the world...it's all changed. So, so much. I think IÕm beginning to know what I want to be, or rather, who I want to be.
It was not just the land or the history, but the people as well. A couple nights before we left, we all received bumper stickers which said, "The most radical thing we can do is introduce people to one another." And I thought how true that is, how amazingly true it is. I don't think Sanyi or Emese or Laci can ever know how important they were, or what a difference they made to me, to all of us.
And, just as important as the past, is the present Unitarian church. It is so powerful to know that we have brothers and sisters there, that we are not alone. It is so hard for me, living in southeast Texas, to be a Unitarian Universalist. It is so unacceptable here, and it is such a comfort to know that I am not alone, that even thousands of miles away, there are people who share my faith. Even if the people here don't understand, I am not alone. Not alone.
I was amazed by how similar we are. It was so moving to see a chalice hanging side by side with the dove and serpent shield. I found a peace there, a peace with Christianity, that I have always struggled with. For me, Christianity has always meant people telling me I'm going to Hell, that they can't be friends with me, that I'm an awful person who only cares for money and getting rich, without pausing to listen to who I am or what I have to say. It has always been difficult for me to respect Christianity as I can respect Islam or Hinduism or any of the other religions. But for me, being in Transylvania, with the Unitarians there, has let me reclaim something that the Christians here had no right to take away from me in the first place.
I've been able to truly accept that the Bible may hold as much merit as the Tao Te Ching or the writings of Thoreau and, furthermore, that I have as much right to it as they do. They don't own sole rights to Jesus or the Bible or God.
We were in Marosv‡s‡rhely, looking at the famous painting of the Edict of Torda that was on the wall, and Greg was joking about how D‡vid Ferenc looked in it. Laci jokingly said, "Hey! Stop making fun of the founder of my religion!" And Greg stopped joking and became very serious and said, "He's my founder, too." We all just looked at the picture for a few seconds, and then Laci said quietly, "You're right." And we moved on to other topics.
Lately, I keep looking at things and either 1) they are NOTHING like Transylvania, so I miss Transylvania or 2) they REMIND me of Transylvania, so I miss Transylvania.
I'm afraid it will slip away - that everything that happened will slowly over time be turned into "just a trip" - I can't let that happen. So I have to keep it in front of me all the time...and that means that everything reminds me of Transylvania just that much more. "Beyond Belief" has become one of my favorite books just because it reminds me of sitting around that last night with everyone and Laci and reading the Gospel of Thomas. How do you explain that to someone who wasn't there? I don't think you really can, not really.
I miss the land and the people. I miss everything. And everything here seems to remind me of something there. Like, there's a huge field of grass in front of my high school, and I saw it and could just HEAR Laci asking "Why do you have such a big field? Why do you mow your lawns?" I keep imagining Laci questions everywhere. And I keep looking at things and wondering what Laci would say about them. It's really made me look at everything in a different way all the time.
I miss how beautiful Transylvania was. There really is no place quite like it. I miss it so much, I miss looking out and it being just breath-takingly lovely and, just, I don't know. Gentle and special. So very, very, very special. Amazing special. I miss it so much.
It's hard, how I want to remember, but remembering hurts. The saying is "Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened", but that's so unrealistic. It is sad and denying that doesn't do anything. I prefer Gandalf's words, "Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." It's as if you can not have the joy and wonder without having to face the sadness and grief.
I'm reading "Our Chosen Faith: An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism" right now and one quote just struck me. F. Forrester Church is talking about death, but I think it goes for any ending, is true for any parting or ending.
"Religion is the human response to the dual reality of being alive and having to die. Knowing that we are going to die not only places an acknowledged limit upon our lives, it also gives a special intensity and poignancy to the time we are given to live and love. The fact that death is inevitable gives meaning to our love, for the more we love the more we risk losing. Love's power comes in part from the courage required to give ourselves to that which is not ours to keep: our spouses, children, parents, dear and cherished friends, even life itself."
Even Transylvania, even Laci. It hurts and is sad because we loved the land and the people and the experience so deeply. Anything that touches us in that way cannot leave us unchanged and, because we cannot be there and because no one else understands what it was like, it stays with us in the only way it can.
I am glad everything reminds me about the trip, because that means I will not forget. That means that it was real, that it happened, and that it will stay with me. Yet the very remembering entails recognizing that it is over and I am not there. Remembering Laci means remembering that I may never see him again. Remembering Deva means remembering that I may never go there again.
Perhaps that is the value of remembering. Not in the pleasure of recalling the past, so much as in the necessity not to let those "never"s become the future.
In Marosv‡s‡rhely, Giszi told me, "Do not say good bye. Say 'See you later'."
I may not have found all the answers, but perhaps what I found is more important than that. After all, there will always be more questions (if you don't believe that, you've never met Laci). I found a sense that there is something more, that what is here is not all we have to have.
I found a home.
- Erin Westgate