We’re on our way to the seaside, and I’m struck by how perfectly the lyrics we’re listening to fit the moment we’re in. After a few crazy weeks in Bucharest, with another one already on the horizon, I feel like singing along with Tudor Chirilă: “The city has ruined me!” We put on songs about the sea, and I have no idea how Vienna waits for you found its way into a playlist that should be called “Getaway.” Yet it fits our mood perfectly. Billy Joel’s Vienna becomes a metaphor reminding us that not everything important has to be conquered today.

The road stretches out before us, and I look out the window at the red poppies scattered across the green fields, realizing that their season is not over yet. How wonderful that some things do not disappear so quickly…! There is still time. Vienna is waiting for me.

We stop on the seafront, where the old Constanța Casino rises above the shore. Soap bubbles and the music of street performers float through the air. I feel a pure joy mixed with anticipation. It is my first time seeing the Casino from the inside. I want to lose myself among its freshly restored Art Nouveau forms, rest my eyes on powder pink and pastel green, and take in the beauty of its multicoloured stained-glass windows. 

Once we step out of the Casino, I can’t help noticing the contrast between the building’s elegance and the spontaneity of life outside.

I ask our friends whether they have noticed something of an island mentality among the people of Constanța. They say they have. People here do not plan far ahead, yet they somehow always seem to be available. 

They say an island mentality is shaped by the physical boundary of the sea, bringing with it a certain freedom from mainland habits—like the need to set an exact time for every meeting. Constanța is not an island, but people here sometimes live as though it were.

We decide to borrow this way of life for a few hours and savour the quiet of an ordinary beach.

We don’t feel the need to fill the silence with conversation. For a while, each of us settles into a private quiet, and the murmur of the crowded beach is enough. Perhaps there is something of an island in all of us, and being alone does not have to mean being cut off from the world. You can be surrounded by water or lost in your own thoughts without drifting away from it.

The sound of the sea clears my mind, but it does nothing to quiet my urge to keep moving. These pauses are good for me, yet I am still drawn to life’s stronger currents. I love those periods when challenging projects, new people, ideas, and opportunities all come your way—the kind you do not want to let pass you by.

And as I gaze into the endless distance, I realise that I do not believe in the meaning people sometimes attach to the word “insular.” How could anyone think that being surrounded by water makes you narrow-minded? I listen to the waves and think that the long line of the horizon could never limit you. Quite the opposite—it makes you dream of what lies beyond. And I dream of what I will conquer tomorrow.