photo of Denise by Deb Schwedhelm.
Growing up, my family and I didn’t travel very far for our getaways. We did a lot of camping near the coast of Northern California about an hour away from where we lived, which infused a deep love of nature within my soul. I think the farthest we went was Los Angeles to go to Disneyland. I was perfectly happy about this. It taught me to find my pleasures in what surrounded me rather than wishing to be somewhere else. Well, that didn’t last forever for me. In my early twenties, I watched a film on orphanages in Romania at my church and something tugged at my inner. My heart and mind opened up so much further than the sweet town I grew up in. It was as if for the first time I truly realized that there were cultures out there far different than my own and sitting still didn’t feel like enough any longer.
With the help of loved ones, I gathered the funds and I went all alone to meet up with a group in Texas that would train us in the language and culture and a few weeks later we were headed to Cluj-Napoca in Romania. On the way we stopped in Germany. We then spent a few days in Vienna, Austria and some time in Hungary. I felt so bold and brave to be stepping into these foreign spaces without being surrounded by the people in my life that I was most familiar with. It shifted so much of what I thought was possible for my life. I entered Romania as a girl content with being still and I left a young gypsy woman unable to fully stay in one place for too long without longing to spread my wings and drink in different worlds. The idea of moving and starting a new life, meeting new people and experiencing a culture different than my own does not frighten me. What frightens me is if I get too comfortable and forget the massive world that lives and breathes beyond the country I live in.
I remember one night in Romania in particular. It was raining and me and a few Romanian boys were outside on the steps of an apartment building. It began to rain harder. I called one of the girls I bunked with outside and the four of us ran and skipped down streets and ally ways. Getting soaked to the bone, we were laughing so hard our tummy’s ached. We could hardly communicate with one another. I could barely get by on my Romanian. But the language of laughter and dance and twirling in the rain brought us so close that night. I felt such a oneness in those moments with them.
It left me with a longing to travel, to experience that oneness with other people from different walks of life and cultures. Not only across the globe, but even next door with other traveling souls. Would love to hear moments of oneness you felt in a land far, far away or with someone near.
Denise Andrade is the writer of the widely read blog, Boho Girl where she has chronicled her journey of leaving the corporate world to start a creative career, as well as her path of fertility, adoption, motherhood and the raw, honest layers of emotion that come with it all. She is a photographer of artists and will soon be teaching a course online. Denise is currently living in Southern California with her husband and son but in the process of manifesting a juicy new life in the Pacific Northwest.
Beautiful, Denise. I too visited a Romanian orphanage as a teenager. But the moment of oneness that comes to mind for me took place in Zambia. While camping in the bush, one night my American group and the locals we traveled with all gathered around our campfire, singing, talking and laughing together, and I felt that they were all my brothers and sisters. The feeling was so intense, and truly ignited my gypsy spirit.
Ah Denise, how lovely and inspiring and timely as I am packing to leave to chase joy in rural France (quit my job, sold everything, wise or wacky remains to be seen). I remember standing with a street performer in Florence, a fantastic living statue who slowly took my hand and pressed it to his/her heart. We stayed that way for a long time and I knew at that moment that my life was changing.
In the same trip I spent an entire day with a beautiful Italian family, there was little language but a lot of gesturing and somehow understanding. The children asked to ride with us in our car and we spent the whole time naming body parts in our respective languages. It was magic.
So now I am a Gypsy too. thank you for this lovely post and wish me luck as I step to the edge…
Peace,
Bobbi
beautiful post love…xoxoxo
what a fantastic post (and beautiful photo!) xx
It’s wonderful to know about Denise, whose blog I have been reading for a while, that she had such a meaningful Romanian experience. I am Romanian, so it is particularly special to me. Experiences of oneness can be so very powerful and transforming. Some belief systems consider them to be the ultimate experience, don’t they?
I love that photo so much it is beautiful AND Denise’s story is great. There is a big, bold and gorgeous world out there. xoxo
So special to have you here! Xo
read this and cried. i loved every word. a dear beautiful free soul, you are. xo
Gypsy Girl – Scott Shamblin – An Original by Scott
I wrote this song and dedicate this to a Gypsy Girl I met once. She was so beautiful. Another man took her away before I had a chance to get to know her and make her mine. This recording is from a friend’s cellular phone, so it is not studio quality, but if you listen, it is from the heart. I will never get to see her again, but she lives on forever in my dreams. Peace and love. Scott