Green

“Taking things for granted” ; “That bad thing will never happen to me”

If you are like me you’ve dodged these thoughts, among others, every time they were coming to your mind. And we never realize how important it is to spend some quality time with them.

Why I’m talking about this instead of sharing travel adventures with you? Because wandering around this world and seeing places that are totally different from yours has a way of bringing these thoughts to your attention.

In my case, the spark appeared with San Pedro de Atacama and continued with Salta, Jujuy and Mendoza provinces. What do these places have in common? They are extremely beautiful places … but they are sooo hot and dry.

And only when you find yourself in these places, sweating, drinking a lot of water and looking after every bit of shadow that you can find, the thought comes. Like a revelation.

“I’ve been taking for granted the green, beautiful and shadowy place that I’m calling home”. 

It is said that Romania is one of the last places to have virgin forests in Europe. 

Do you know what this means? These forests were here when we, humans, were playing with sticks and discovering the fire. These trees have been maintaining functional this blue-pale dot since the dawn of time.

And what do we do in Romania? We follow the example of the consumerist countries. Of cutting down, legally and illegally, as much as possible. 

As a mountain enthusiast, I had more than one chance to see the slaughter. And it’s beyond sad. But I never stopped to consider the implications … I just took it for granted that there are many more trees out there.

But there aren’t more trees out there. Because no one is taking care in a systematic way of this aspect. There might be, from time to time, small forestation projects … but it’s like extinguishing a fire with spoons of water.

There are a lot of things that I am, unconsciously, taking for granted. One more step has been made into fixing this and little by little I hope to become aware of all these things and to treasure them … before they are gone.