Some People Have Quite the LIfe

If you been reading Kristen Lamb's blog lately, you'll know how she believes that to be a successful blogger is to blog about things other than just writing.

She gave the example of one romance writer who also liked cooking and making wine, and that when she started writing about those things, her following increased by quite a bit. Why? Because there are more people out there interested in wine and food and writing than who are just interested in writing.

Basically, blog about all your passions, not just one.

Which is fine if you have a lot of passions. I like to eat good food and drink good wine, but I hate cooking and I'm not interested in the finer points of how or where wine is made. These are not things I could blog about.

It got me to thinking: what are my other passions? And even more importantly, should I blog about them?

I'll have to get back to you on that.

But I do have an interesting reflection to share with you. This is something that happened while I was in Romania, a country I am passionate about, on the third floor of the apartment building my DH and I were staying in.

In the shared hallway, an older man was entering a shared bathroom. (Thankfully we had our own bathroom.) He was old, old, like white hair, rail thin, bent over old.

I couldn't stop thinking about him, what his life must have been like. Chances are good that he's never been out of Romania. Permissible travel for citizens out of Romania is a relatively new thing.

I calculated that if the man was in his late eighties or nineties, he must have been around fifteen years old when the second World War broke out. Brasov at the turn of the century and the first few decades into it was an affluent city. It was actually called Kronstadt, which is German for Crown City. He'd  have childhood and early teen memories of  "the good life".

The apartment building we stayed in would have been a single family home at that time.

Then the war broke out, and all hell broke loose all over Europe. This man would've been recruited to fight at some point, and for sure by the last year or so.

After that, fifty years of communism under the rule of a cruel and ruthless dictator,
Nicolae Ceausescu.  One man destroyed an entire generation of children to aids, with his egotistical plans to fortify "Ceausescu's Children" with blood transfusions.

I went to an orphanage in 1997. I saw the children rocking in lead painted iron beds, six, eight or more to a stuffy, smelly room.

Finally, freedom (sort of) in 1989, after the people of Romania revolted and shot the dictator and his wife to death. Was this man part of that revolution?

It took many years for Romania to recover from the ravages of Communism and dictatorship, and the corruption that lasted beyond the fall of the iron curtain.

But now, there are signs of economic recovery. The downtown core of Brasov looks good, almost as good as the early years. While off the main road the former glory still exists, its just chipped and faded. But there's progress.

I just hope this man is healthy enough to get out and enjoy the restoration of his city. I wonder if he sits on the bench in the park across the street and remembers his life. Or maybe he wants to forget.

So what about you?  What are your passions? Are they something you could blog about?