{"id":5060,"date":"2015-06-17T12:06:55","date_gmt":"2015-06-17T09:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/?p=5060"},"modified":"2021-12-13T15:26:30","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T13:26:30","slug":"5060","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/?p=5060","title":{"rendered":"The candles’ light"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"candle\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The candles\u2019 light<\/p>\n

It is a rainy evening and her thoughts as always are running wild. Dark outside, dark inside (she left the lights off in purpose), only the candles\u2019 light makes Chinese shadows on the walls. She spread candles everywhere, even on the balcony. It\u2019s beautiful. It feels warm, peaceful. Funny thing the candles\u2019 light; she smiles while remembering how the candles and she went hand in hand her whole life but in totally different contexts than now. Back in her childhood and youth she used to write her home works, or she conceived her master thesis using candles\u2019 light, because there was no light.\u00a0 No electricity, no water, cold or hot, limited amount of milk, bread, oil. She used to hate candles. Their light reminded her strongly of the darkness in her life. Because of the candle light she had to wear eyeglasses and lost her sight. Candles meant death or darkness. They were every family\u2019s nightmare, smelly, intoxicating, not enough, necessary.
\nShe never thought that one blessed day she’d surround herself by candles, listening to Chopin. She never imagined that there might be another part of the world where candles really meant light, the light of Christmas Eve, the light of Easter, just Light.
\nIn her new country for the first time she saw people offering each other candles as presents, scented, colorful, healthy. Her first thought when she received a candle present on her birthday was that: \u201cHeavens, am I about to die?\u201d. That was the only thing she felt in her heart when she received the candle.
\nOf course, now, after so many years, she herself enjoys the light of candles. She buys them. She offers them. And yet, her mother did not fully understand it: \u201cwhat is the deal with these candles, anyway\u201d.
\nThey still live in the Middle Ages there, back in her humble country. Another thought coming with a smile is about food. She likes to eat soy and tofu products very much.
\nTo eat soy products then, in her childhood or her youth was the only way of living for average people.\u00a0 Now she is joking about this, telling everyone that actually the dictator wanted to keep them as a healthy nation, not to raise their cholesterol by allowing them to use fat products in excess, or drugs like coffee and cigarettes.
\nAnd also now, when herself eats only soy food because it is really healthy and keeps her in good shape physically and mentally, she thinks that her metabolism does not recognize any other kind of food but soy. If somebody asks: \u201chow do you preserve yourself so well? What\u2019s your secret?\u201d, then one single answer comes to her mind: \u201ctry communism for a change, see how it feels!\u201d
\nOr \u201cI am fashionably thin due to the lack of food in my country, in my youth\u201d.
\nThoughts. Will she ever be free of comparing the past against the present? Every moment of this present life feels like it was lived before, with the same intensity but with other meanings, other fights.
\nThe candles are getting tired slowly. Their light now makes known shadows, shadows of her past. The dogs of her childhood, the linden-trees,\u00a0 the clouds she watched for hours, laying on the ground, imagining stories in heaven.
\nThe rain stays still: tip-tip-top, tip-tip-top. She wonders if there are people like she out there.
\nSomebody? Anybody who has the same obsessions? Same memories? One candle died. Scented. Time to let the song of the rain drive her to her nightly sleep.<\/p>\n

Maria Magdalena Biela<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5060"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10538,"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060\/revisions\/10538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.magdalenabiela.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}