Ella

   One day in my childhood after one of the most prolonged family celebrations when parents and I saw aunt Ella off, I had an idea. I wanted to have a talk with her when I grew up. It was the most residential area of the city. There were high-rise flats in every courtyard close to each other but in almost every courtyard was a playground, a table for grandfathers who were playing dominoes and benches under the arches that were enlaced by grape vines. Exactly on those benches grandmothers were sitting with their long talks that in no way interested the children who were running back and forth, playing this and that all summer days until sunset. In such courtyards, there always were fruit trees, but if there weren’t then one of the residents certainly tried to plant trees before the neighbor. Of course, all these courtyards and trees were for everyone, that’s why high poles and clothes lines on which all day long laundry was drying, didn’t surprise anyone. There in the distance in one such courtyard was a stadium, where all from the neighborhood often ran to have some fun and play. So there through that stadium, I was walking with my parents to see her off. Tiny dust columns went up from my sandals when I joyfully stomped along the path holding hands with mom and dad. It was a warm summer evening, but the coolness of the coming autumn was already clearly felt. This time I remembered especially well and clearly. That autumn I would go to school for the first time. Listening to aunt Ella was interesting. But to tell the truth if you ask me now, I will hardly remember what she was talking about. I remember only how she told something about her life. She shone with such inexhaustible warmth and energy that it seemed that particularly this attracted people to her and perhaps this attracted me too. Or perhaps that was my directness and curiosity about everything new and unknown. The sunrays of the setting sun illuminated the glass in the window frames of the nearby buildings and reflected from them with an unusual brilliance.
After several years, Ella and I actually had a talk. I don’t know why but it seems to me more that this talk never happened. No warmth, no color was in it. There was nothing special that could be saved in memories. It seems to me that this day in my childhood neither Ella nor her talks made that walk so unforgettably beautiful but the nature with its incredible features, riot of colors and brightness of its strong character.       


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