The wood of childhood memories

I always tell with great pleasure about the holidays I spent in the countryside as a child, with my grandmother on my mother's side - mamaia as they say in Muntenia - whom, although she was a real "jandarmier", I loved very much. The other day I was on a visit and I was telling again about my "country", about the summer kitchen with the peasant oven made of burnt bricks, where they baked cozonaci and apple pies and where corn was boiled on the pyros in front of the oven. I went home wrapped in these memories and continued to think about that country life, where everything was done with effort, water did not come from the tap but from the well, heat did not come from the pipe but was made in time, chopping wood, removing ashes from the stove, building the wood pile in the stove so that it burned well and waiting until the stove was warm. But how beautiful that heat smelled.

The beautiful wooden objects of childhood

As wood is always in my thoughts, I started to search my memories for my grandmother's wooden objects. I remembered how she used to wash clothes with rainwater and household soap in the wooden tree (the sapwood), sitting slanted on a special stand also made of wood. I can't describe the whiteness of those clothes that were finally cleared with water in which she put a bit of sinew (natural blue dye). It was perfect!

I remember the well where the granny used to beat the butter. Of the big wooden box with short legs, which she called a barn and where she kept the flour in one compartment and the flour in another. Of the wooden washbasin next to the water pump where the dishes were washed and drained. The table under the apple tree, made of unfrosted boards, where we ate lunch in the summer. Of all the wooden spoons, teaspoons and twisters, of the bottoms that had been melted from so much use, of the little cup (the little cup) in which she kneaded the bread, the hull for the pies or the cake.

I also remember the spindles with which my mother used to spin wool in the evening, in the little room, by the light of the gas lamp and how I fell asleep in the sizzling of the spindle. Of the loom where she wove rugs, quilts, pillows and rugs, of the war soaps, of the hemp heap where she beat the hemp after it had soaked for a month in the puddle. Of the barrels, the shredder and the corn threshing machine in the storeroom.

I marveled at the wooden beds with high boards at the ends, the wardrobe that had glass doors at the top, painted and repainted over time, a real exhibit shabby chic; of the simple shelf, with three poles resting on turned elements, on which my uncle's books stood; of the painted chest of drawers in the "big house", where my mother kept her dead things that she had carefully collected over the years and which she always showed me so that I wouldn't forget; of the little three-legged table on which she used to turn the mămagliga and the little chairs around it; of the old icon, painted on wood, which had stood vigil for generations, with the cloth on top sewn in peasant patterns.

These are fond memories and fortunately, they are not the only ones. They represent a part of my life, of our past lives and I think it's good to reminisce about them from time to time. We can build on it, we can and should improve country life but I think we should not cut the roots. And if possible, let's keep things from the past and integrate them into our present life. And above all, let's not forget.