At the Institute of Rheumatology, in the waiting room, there is a television on mute. When I was last there for the periodic review it was on ProTV, where there was non-stop news of demolished buildings, bombs and calamities. I don’t know who chooses the channel, but I didn’t watch, while I waited for the doctor to call me I read and studied the people around me. At my house the TV is for Netflix and Youtube. The world doesn’t get better if I watch catastrophes.
But the next day, while I waited to receive the results of the tests and the treatment plan, that TV was on National Television. When I arrived, there was still news, patients were rushing around, a nurse came out to call someone, people came and went… Typical hospital activity. But at some point the news ended and a mini show started, like a powerpoint, with pictures and text, with the biography of Mrs. Elvira Popescu. How she was born in Bucharest, as the daughter of a merchant from Colentina, what schools she went to, how she arrived in France, what famous people she met, how she always electrified the crowd, no matter how good or bad the piece she played in was. A real Woman, an Artist who changed the world through her art. In those 3-4 minutes that the video lasted, it was as if time stood still in that waiting room. No one entered, no one left, no one spoke, we all watched hypnotized, as if Elvira Popescu, from beyond the grave, had once again managed to electrify the auditorium. After the video ended, the world began to breathe again. It was a magical moment.
I have hope. That people will once again be united around beauty. That we will listen to our heart sometimes. That we will again be impressed by Art, that Art will be created, and the world will notice it. That people will get out of the daily whirlwind and take time again to follow the floating of a leaf, an apricot bud that has just opened, a playful cloud in the sky, the murmur of a spring. That we will perceive life as a butterfly wing that carries us on the most beautiful flowers. That we will stop listening to the noise around and start hearing our inner silence.