Background Check

Is our past indicative of who we are now?

I think it is. If I’m right, I’d like to share something I wrote twenty years ago with you.

A college essay for an English class I was taking in Los Angeles. It is called Along Came a Rabbit. It is about a rabbit and a friend who used to bring food to my family during the food shortages in Romania when I was eight years old. About what that rabbit came to mean: food, when there was none; safety, in a country that was not safe.

I read it again the other night. I barely recognized the girl who wrote it, and yet I recognized her completely. Because everything I am now was already there. Back then, we ran toward the truck because we had to. Now Liam and I run toward the world because we get to. Same girl. Different direction.

Along Came a Rabbit

Before giving the definition of what a rabbit is, it is important to think of it for what it is: a rabbit. See how difficult this can be? It is so because our mind does not stop analyzing every word without personal input, thus creating a misleading communication system. The short definition of a rabbit is exactly what people would expect: a four-legged, furry animal that is cute and lovable. My own definition of it is quite different. I never got to play with one or even own one. The first time I saw a rabbit, I got to taste it, too. Do not get me wrong; a rabbit represents more than food for me. It holds so many symbols that it is hard to keep track of them. The first significant symbol is famine, the second one is security, and the third one is family. How can a rabbit be just a rabbit and mean so many things? The interesting thing here is that a rabbit is something we can all touch, smell, and eat, yet it can also symbolize things we cannot touch, smell, or eat. What a paradox, right? How could this be? The answer is very simple. The rabbit is a symbol rather than a random word or a rabbit per se. This is where our language runs into problems, despite being very clear about its purpose: to communicate. Words no longer mean what they are supposed to mean; on the contrary, words as symbols hold a whole entire world, a world in which people have trouble understanding each other because of each other's complexity. Were we not only talking about a rabbit, you ask? I am afraid we were; yet, at the same time, I was talking about security, poverty, and family. The language reveals itself as a tool that is imprecise and imperfect because people, in general, do not understand language the way they think they do. In this case, the phrase “I totally understand what you mean” becomes an understatement, or something more than what was actually meant.

I have associated poverty with the word rabbit since I was eight years old. I was still living in Romania at the time with my parents, and it was 1988. The eighties were a tough time in Eastern Europe, no matter which country one lived in. Everything that one thought one was entitled to was in fact a luxury, from electricity to water to gas. Even though it was expected that the electricity would be cut off in the evenings, I never got used to it. The fear of being in the dark, even for a few seconds, felt like a snake crawling up my spine; therefore, my parents kept all the candles within arm's reach. Despite the lack of electricity for a few hours, it was not as bad as the lack of heat. You see, there were two remedies for the lack of electricity: one was to have the candles lit, and the other was to go to bed really early. However, winter was the hardest of times because of the heating situation. Winters were very harsh in Romania, and there was only so much my parents could do with a few blankets. I guess it was just the way life was meant to be for us. We could not compare our lives to anyone else's because we knew no one with a life different from ours. Unfortunately, the lack of proper food was even worse because one really needs it to survive. There were no supermarkets in Romania; we usually got our food by having a big truck come to the same place every time to distribute rationed food to people. That scene was amazing because I could see all my neighbors running toward the truck as if there were a fire somewhere. They knew they had to be quick because every bite was rationed; even though they each had a food coupon, they knew they could leave without getting any basic products like milk or eggs.

At one point, meat was impossible to find for months. Luckily, my parents had a friend whose passion in life was hunting. When he would come to see us, which was pretty often, he would bring us dead rabbits as gifts. It was a delight to have something other than potatoes to eat. The only downside was that the rabbits he would bring were very small. I remember thinking there was not much to eat on them, and that they had a distinguished taste I needed to acquire, yet it did not matter. My grandmother was in charge of the cooking; therefore, everyone had to do exactly what they were told. I was in charge of setting the table. Because the rabbit had to feed six people at a time, my grandmother treated it like a precious stone rather than a dead animal. There is no need for me to say that the portions were rather small; therefore, my parents were almost always sacrificing their portions for my sister and me. Despite having six people to feed in that family, I was the youngest, and, of course, I felt privileged to eat that rabbit because I knew how much sacrifice it represented. Nowadays, when I hear the word rabbit or see one, I think of that time when I did not have a lot to eat. It is funny because in France, for example, it is a gourmet dish that people enjoy enormously.

Having that piece of rabbit for dinner brought me the security of knowing that I would not go without food. That piece of rabbit my parents were sacrificing themselves for was my security blanket, one most needed in a country that did not feel so secure after all. We, as Romanian citizens, were given the false impression that we were completely secure in that country, which we were not. The communist party was oppressing its people. I was too young to understand how it really worked, but I knew that something was not right about the way we were living; I just did not know what. My parents tried as much as they could to avoid involving my sister and me in a life of misery, but I would feel it at school. My schoolteacher was allowed to hit us whenever she saw fit. It was part of the way children were brought up in Romania. I was living in constant fear at school because getting hit by the teacher, in front of the whole class, was very humiliating. My only light at the end of my tunnel, on a weekday, was getting home and eating that rabbit. Every day, I knew that I could come home after school, and that that rabbit was going to be there, on my plate, ready to be eaten. That moment was all mine. Even though meat was hard to find, we would always have something to eat, for the most popular food was potatoes. Even today, I still love them.

The word rabbit symbolizes family because my family would get together for those meals. Having that rabbit meant throwing a mini celebration. Every member of the family played a part in this ritual. Usually, my grandmother would be preparing it in the kitchen while everyone was getting ready. After we got ready, we would come and help with setting the table. Next, we would gather around the oven in order to talk about our day. It was a time made for catching up on everyone's business. A time when my sick aunt would get out of bed and be with us, for my aunt had Down syndrome and could not do or say much. But she would come eat the rabbit and the potatoes with us. Unfortunately, my aunt was not at all independent. Some people with the same illness were much more independent than she was; however, she was not in that same position, so my grandmother had to feed her every time. These were times that I would never live again, and that small, dead rabbit had that much of a meaning for me.

I realize and acknowledge that our language has problems in our everyday lives. I have come to understand why that is. The reason is very simple: we are humans. What this means is the very thing that distinguishes us from animals: we analyze each word that is said from a very personal point of view. If asked, in a French restaurant, whether I want to try their delicious rabbit à la crème, my answer would be no. It would be no, not because I do not like it, but because it intensely reminds me of that challenging period in my life. The person asking that question might not understand why and might interpret it negatively. He or she might think that I am being difficult, and might also give my “No, thank you” too much meaning, or not enough. Why is that, I wonder? The response lies right here.

When I talk to someone, I talk from my past, my present, and, believe it or not, my future. This is why language is not a sufficient tool to communicate. Language fails us because sometimes it is given far more meaning and emphasis than it should, and sometimes it is not given any at all. Language, as a communication skill, reveals itself to be both too much and not enough.