#warau

Nevertheless, I have taken up new hobbies to fill my time. While at șezătoare I started waving a blanket for you, a gift upon your return. I shall try to embryoid it too for you. The older women showed me and a few others the process for a few days, but now I am able to do it by myself.

I doubt I will go to șezătoare as often now, i prefer to work in our home, for it feels like you are still here with me.

I dearly await your return. A part of me hopes that you shall come back, long before I can finish the blanket”

“My dearest Sasuke, I was speaking to some of the other women, and they mentioned losing track of how many days since the departure and I felt alienated from them. How could that be true? I am painfully aware of each second. I felt every minute of every hour of all 62 days since you left.

The house feels empty, and I can’t help but cry daily lately. Your bed sheets have lost their smell. I keep cooking enough food for two people. You full plate hurts me each meal.

Please return home soon. I need to hold you in my arms, the world seems to be in chaos without you.

I finished waving the blanket and I have started the embroidery process; my fingers have been picked endlessly. They shall not heal till you are here to kiss the injury away, so for my sake alone, please return.”

“It has been 19 days since I last received a letter from you my dear. People look at me differently now, with pity and sadness in their eyes. They don’t dare utter the words, but I know what they think. But not I, for they are wrong. Their gazes shall not change my mind.

It has been 81 days since I last laid my eyes on you, since I watched you pack your bags and go to war. A war they started. A war you have fight in. Each day is harder to bear. But I am trying my best Sasuke…I am, for I know you too are doing your best.

You are busy and I understand the lack of reply. I will wait for it. For your letter will come, not only that; but, you shall deliver it yourself. I know that’s why there’s no reply. You wish to surprise me, you are on the way back home and I am waiting my love.”

“I threw away the calendar. How dare it move forward so many days in your absence? Summer is here and I despise it. You left at the beginning of the year. How could time be so cruel and continue as if my world did not pause?

I can no longer eat in your absence my love. The food turns to sand in my mouth, and it tries to kill me. It makes choke on its dryness, it tries to poison me, it wants to break my teeth. But it can’t do that if I do not eat it.

The other women tried to visit me last week, but I locked the door. They want to take your things, I know. They are thieves, they will take everything I have. They want to bury your belongings, those witches, to curse you so you do not return. But I shall not allow them to, I will protect you.”

“I fear I have fallen sick. The doctor says nothing is wrong, but he can’t possibly know better than I do. I can feel my heart failing me for it yearns of something that has been absent far too long.

I am in constant physical pain, as if someone continuedly twists a dagger in my heart. A turn of the dagger each moment, of each day, of each week and month. The agonizing pain does not allow me to sleep.

Even if it did, I wouldn’t sleep, for they are watching me. Waiting for me to close my eyes so they can take you from me. The witches, they come by often.

My love…I fear I can’t hold on much longer. I wish you would write back. I wish you would return. I wish the war would stop. I wish I were there, for the battlefield with all its horrors is more appealing to me than being here without you.

The walls of our house mock me. They laugh at my pain. I can hear them daily. I no longer am able to lay in our bed, I have taken refuge in the closet, surrounded by your clothes. I am scared to take them out of the enclosed space, they will lose your scent.

I have woven and embroidered you shirts and vests. And my dearest creation, the blanket, oh how cold you must be now that winter is approaching. Come so, your blanket can keep you warm my love. The pattern I worked is you, us. I look at it daily wishing for the face on the blanket to come alive.

You must return my dear, for I am fading away, and what disaster would it be, if you were to come home and I would be a ghost.”

“They said you have died my dear. What liars. What witches. It all a ploy. They want to make us believe we are weak. The enemy is here in this village, and they are spewing lies.

You must return Sasuke. You must protect me from their words, for each one is a stone and I am bruised and beaten already.

The enemy came in my sleep to our house my love and they tore it down and built another. This is not our home anymore, so I must leave. I shall wait for you in the snow at the village gate. I have taken your blanket with me so we can both be warm when you arrive.

Come quickly my love for it cold out here,

Love Hinata.”

A lot of the folk songs I mentioned are from the war period depicting how the women left behind grieved waiting for their lovers to return. I hope I managed to depict the depth of ‘dor’ it is often translated as ‘missing someone’ but it goes beyond that.

Also, to explain the little * aka ‘șezătoare’ in English i guess it would be translated as ‘seat/sitting’ but it's an archaic word seldom used. It was a common happening in older times. Everyone from the village would gather in a destinated place and they would talk, gossip even make important decisions as a village (so it served a social and political purpose) Most of the discussions happen while women wove blankets and men would practice woodworking.