Why sunnyrain?

Years ago, when our daughter Chloe started to talk and ask questions, I thought about my own childhood and its vast territories. I could pinpoint so many differences between our childhoods, I had to write a book with stories from my childhood for Chloe. The material was in my head, fueled by vivid memories from my native small town in the South East of Romania in the nineteen seventies, under a dictatorship. I grew up with my parents, my sister and my maternal grandparents in the house. My grandmother, Maia, often sat down with me to answer an infinity of questions about how she and my mother grew up, where, what games she played with her friends, who were her friends and my mother’s first friends, how was school in their times, did she ever get in trouble and why, when did she learn to sew, when did she teach my mother to sew, how were her grandparents… I cherished those moments and I recall the stories, often together with Maia’s trembling voice and her soft image looking out the window as if she re-lived the events she was sharing with me. But Chloe was born a world apart from mine, in one of the biggest cities in the world, in a democracy, right after 9/11. With a Romanian mother and an Italian father, she would have to learn two foreign languages before getting to ask her grandparents all those questions Maia answered to me. Chloe’s chances of spending more than a week of vacation with each set of grandparents every year or two were simply thin. So I decided to write my memoir in Chloe’s language, and now mine, about my childhood and the few years she may not remember well from her own childhood. It will be a basket of answers to the questions she never got to ask her grandparents and me about, but I am sure she’d enjoy knowing. The book will be a collage of events and memories pieced together in a bridge between Rodica and Chloe connecting over languages, political systems, continents, and time. I thought “Sunny Rain” would be the appropriate title for this book, as most sunny days often turn grey with heavy rain or become more brilliant with a light summer rain and a rainbow. Just like life throughout childhood and adulthood. My blog is here to help me share my experiences and also to help me write my book, but I will talk about this tomorrow. In the picture there is a passion fruit flower for you!

Let's go on a daily trip!

This is my first blog and the first entry in a diary that will describe little facets of living Down Under after having lived on two other continents, Europe and America, and two other cultures, Romanian and American. Why should I describe and comment on life here? Because all of you, my friends and far-living family members, were curious about life in Australia and asked me many questions about it, but I could never give more than occasional snapshots and incomplete answers. I will now try to fulfill this well justified curiosity. Most of you wonder why we (my family) keep moving or why we don’t settle. You probably think we do not have a home, but we perceive our family of three as the “home”. Not a house, a city, a country or a continent. Our parents have an address in our hearts and we try our best to communicate with them and rush to them as if they were around the corner. It took me more than two years to adapt to life here and only now do I feel capable of writing about my experiences. I will take you onboard my current journey Down Under, but memories and links to the past will accompany us permanently. I invite you to visit my blog every day, because this is how often I would like to share with you my experiences and impressions about Australia. In these two and a half years of driving on the left, calling my friends “mates”, plugging my computer in a 220-Volt outlet, and watching in awe how the mercury in the thermometer hikes up or down 20 centigrades in a matter of hours, I accumulated stories to talk about for the next couple of years, maybe until my next journey to another continent… Why "sunnyrain"? Well, I will let you read about that tomorrow.