Of being polite and how the appearances might be deceiving.
I went to the grocery store today. There is this really narrow aisle there, and an elderly couple was ahead of me, so I had to walk really slow behind them. From the opposite direction approached a woman. Good-looking, well dressed, holding a phone to her ear. Talking loudly, which in itself isn’t very nice when you’re in a crowded public space. But okay.
She said “excuse me” to the elderly couple. And then when I was passing, and she had to wait a second longer, I heard her muttering to herself: “kurwa”, eyeing me with an annoyed face.
It’s basically the worst word you can say in Polish, there’s no bigger curse word than that.
I passed, she went on and got lost out of my sight, but it left me shocked. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even touch her. I was just passing through the aisle, following that elderly couple. How was that deserving such rudeness? How a person can even be rude like that to a perfect stranger?
And I’m not talking about some drunk in a train station, or a drug addict, or something like that. That, I could understand. But she looked really, well, refined. Trim. Really good black coat, high heels, makeup, smartphone.
How appearances can be deceiving. I’ve met drunks and drug addicts who behaved ten times better.
Is it really that much to ask? To be polite to one another when we meet in public spaces? I know everyone is entitled to have a bad day, but hey, I’ve been feeling like crap since Monday, running a fever of 38 degrees Celsius, and I’m still being polite to others. And it’s not like the woman is incapable of being polite – she said “excuse me” to the elderly couple. How am I different in this case? I don’t know the woman, seen her for the first time in my life. I was doing exactly what that couple did. And yet she felt they deserved a polite “excuse me” and I deserve a “bitch”? And let me assure you, she wasn’t saying THAT to her phone. It was clearly meant for me. Like I was in some way worse than her. Or than that couple, for that matter.
And I know our society teaches us to be polite towards the elders, and I think it’s great, and I always give up my place to them in trams and buses, and all. But I think we shouldn’t stop at being polite to elder people.
I think we should be polite to everyone. Or at least not be rude, which isn’t necessarily the same thing.
Sometimes it’s the little things that frustrate me the most.
Like today. I have a class called “Ecrits professionnels”, which I would translate as “professional writing”. The teacher was explaining how the Curriculum Vitae, or your resume, works, and what should we put in there. (I’ve never said this class makes much sense to me; I didn’t find out a lot of new things during the 1h30 it lasted.) And of course there is a place for marital status in the resume, and she was saying that the only two options that are required to be put there is the status unmarried / married. You can, if you want, write “divorced”, but if you are divorced then you are unmarried, so you don’t need to specify.
And then I asked “what about civil unions”? The teacher said it was the same as with “divorced”. Because a person in a civil union is still unmarried, so you’re not required to put it there. What’s more, you shouldn’t, because it’s better to not give details if you’re not specifically asked for them. And while I understand her reasoning, I refuse the premise.
Because being in a civil union is NOT the same as being unmarried. In France, the PACS has been working for years, and it’s true that it’s possible to make the PACS even between, for example, a grandmother and her grandchild. Because the PACS in France is a very wide term and it’s not reserved for romantically involved couples. (Although study shows that by the end of 2012 more people will enter PACS than marry.) The problem is I wasn’t talking about PACS. I made it clear I meant civil unions in Poland, the thing that doesn’t exist yet, but might in the near future (I hope soon). The proposed bills about civil unions or the agreement of civil union (there are three different projects right now) encompass both heterosexual and homosexual couples, but all of them not only give many privileges that till now have been reserved for married couples only (like a right to decide about partner’s health or joint tax declaration, inheritance etc.), but also set some strict obligations similar to those in marriage (caring for one another, providing jointly for the family etc.). they’re obviously meant for couples romantically involved. It’s a step on a path to full marriage equality.
So how is being in a civil union same as being unmarried? It’s not. In fact it would be less of a lie to say that you’re married, if you’re in a civil union, that to say that you’re unmarried. Unmarried means single, and you’re NOT single. You have this person that you’re legally and emotionally tied to, and saying otherwise is lying, and you’re not allowed to lie in an official document. (Ethically speaking, you shan’t lie at any time, but that’s a completely different question.)
I kinda felt frustrated for that, and what even frustrated me more was that there was no room to argue the point. The teacher said her piece and moved on. And maybe I am overreacting, it was a group of what? eight, maybe ten people in the room, not a big deal, right? But the same kind of thinking is all around us. Like it didn’t matter. Guess what, it does matter. The terminology matters. Symbols matter. Because our language, and I mean in the profound structure, is what shapes our views and opinions, not less than the world shapes our language, it’s a two-way thing. The society is built on communication, the communication is what creates the relations between humans and helps us survive as a species, and the way I know it is because that same teacher taught me that last semester during a class called Theory of Communications.
What we say is important, and our words have real world consequences. They can hurt, they can heal, they can make us fall in love or hate. But on a more profound level, they also influence how we view the world. The reason why I always insist on using the word “czarny” (black) instead of “Murzyn” (Negro) is not because I think it sounds better, but because these words have implications. “Black” is the same category as “white” or “yellow”, it’s only one characteristic, color of the skin. “Negro” has some really degrading connotations in Polish, and I imagine in English too; there are certain idioms and expressions with that word that are rather nasty (like, for example, “daleko za Murzynami”, meaning “far away behind the Negros”, which means in some way retarded, e.g. technologically). It points out a group of people as a whole and not a certain specific trait, and is just offensive. The same goes for using the word “gej” (gay) instead of very medically-sounding “homoseksualista” (homosexual). We change our language accordingly to the course of social change, but we also have to go ahead and change our language to introduce the social change.
And that is why I think it’s important to understand that the moment the civil unions are introduced in Poland (and if they are, they’re gonna stay for a long time, because I don’t believe our conservative, oh-so-Catholic society will allow full marriage equality anytime soon, unfortunately), we’ll have THREE required categories to put in “marital status” field on our resume: unmarried, married, in a civil union.
PS. If you are a Polish speaker I really recommend you read the interview with dr Jerzy Krzyszpień in Replika, number 35 (it should be available as .pdf on this site after the new issue comes out). He discusses the question of language in lgbt context more closely. (Also, the entire magazine is worth reading, if you are interesting in LGBT issues.)
I blame the society.
I was reading this powerful story, written by a soldier who for the first time could tell it without hiding his name and face (thank God DADT ended, good job, America), and comparing it to what happened to me just this weekend. And I’ve come to a conclusion that it’s a terrible society we live in.
Society that forces us to live in fear and shame even though our parents always taught us to be proud of ourselves and be strong, and be who we are. Me and the mentioned soldier have that it common: we’ve had this awesome role model in our life, someone to measure up to. And everything that person ever did was love us no matter what. My mom is my best friend, my biggest support, my lifeline. She’s the best person I met. All my life my main fear was to fail her – not because she would punish me or something. It was ME who didn’t want to cause her any pain, any worry.
And we both were for some reason afraid to tell that person who we were. Why? All my mom ever did was love me. Unconditionally. I screwed up more than once, and she was always forgiving and understanding. And I was still afraid to tell her. I knew in my heart she wouldn’t do anything dramatic, like you hear some people do to their children confessing they’re not straight, like throw out of the house or tell them they have a disease or something. But I was afraid. Why?
I blame the society. This society that shapes us all, and tells me I am wrong to be different, even though I can’t help it and I didn’t choose this. This society that only views the world in black and white and refuses the existence of anything that is gray, or colorful. This society that only ever sets the limits and punishes those who breach the frontier. This society that lives in extrema, and condemns everything that is in between, or God forbids outside of the scale. This society that calls me sick, abnormal, a sinner, an abomination, because I dare to love differently. This society that makes me fear the reaction of the closest person I have when I admit the truth about myself. This society that forces their opinion on me so much that I start to assign it to everyone else, even those I love and who I know love me. This society that makes me presume everyone will be against me, even those who have been there for me my entire life. Who have never let me down. Who have been my greatest support throughout all the crap I’ve experienced.
I blame the society for the pressure. And I never want my close ones – my children, perhaps, in the future? – to feel that pressure. I blame the society and I’m going to do something about this. I’m not going to stand and watch the world go by. I am going to act and I am going to change the world. One person a time, if needs be.
I’m lost.
My mother and I are best friends. But we do have our issues too. I am writing this on my phone, to publish it as soon as I get back home. Right now I am on the train (it’s already half an hour late and we haven’t moved from the station in Katowice yet, welcome to National Railways of Poland)(*EDIT after getting home: It was an hour late when we departed…). I left home with a nail stuck in my heart, because I know my mom is mad at me and worried. We had a talk about my not going to church anymore.
I told her I didn’t like the Church anymore as an institution. I am not saying I don’t believe in God, because I do. I just can’t pretend like I am a good Catholic if I disagree with the Church on some very important – at least to me – issues. And if I don’t trust it anymore. I used to think that all those years of history made the Church somehow more right. Now I know they don’t mean anything. On the contrary, what happened in the past only proves they were wrong before. What makes them think they aren’t now?
How can the Church assume moral superiority over anyone and anything if they were the ones making so munch evil in the world? I’m not just talking about the most obvious Crusades and Inquisition, but also keeping the science development back for ages. How can they claim there is no doubt as to the righteousness of their teachings if they themselves changed it over the course of the years? How can they justify that they came from basing their dogmas on St. Augustin to basing then on St. Thomas? How would they explain the celibacy? It was introduced as a canonic law in XI century. 1000 years, there was no priest celibacy in Catholic Church! How can they expect me to believe that the pope is infallible if the history tells the story of their promiscuity, cruelty, luxury and sins all over? How am I supposed to have faith if I witness the Church, led by the pope, covering up their priests’ pedophilia?
And most of all, how am I supposed to be a good Catholic and not be a hypocrite if I disagree with the Church on things like contraception and in vitro and homosexuality? I can’t tell that to my mom just yet, but I am bisexual (or more like pansexual, if we really want all those etiquettes), so how can I adhere to the religion that says I’m against nature and I shouldn’t love my way and that my love is wrong, that it’s a sin and I am ‘called’ to a life of chastity. God created me like that. And now He doesn’t want me to act on it? He doesn’t want me to love and be loved? I just can’t agree with that. I just can’t accept that. And I never will.
But the truth is, I am scared. I am scared because I was brought up to believe that going to the Mass on Sunday is important. Because it’s a direct link with God. Because it’s a sacrament and it should be observed. And I really want to belong. I have this longing in me, longing for a community of people. Putting the institutional side of the Church aside, it’s also a community of people who believe. And I want to be a part of that community. But I can’t. Because I don’t want to be a hypocrite.
I am not saying here that the Church it’s necessarily wrong. Maybe it’s not. But I doubt, and that doubt is what keeps me from saying “I am a Catholic”. I am not. With religion you have to go va banque. All or nothing. And I can’t just decide “from now on I believe in everything the Church says”. It doesn’t work that way. I can’t just chose to change my opinions, my views. They have to convince me. And they’re not doing a great job at that right now…
I’m lost. But I won’t lie or pretend like I am someone I’m not. Even for my mom, whom I love dearly. She will just have to accept that. I don’t like worrying her, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m sorry, mom. I love you. But I can’t just get unlost with a flick of a wand. I wish I could. But I can’t.
I’m lost.
Never Forget.
I was twelve. I don’t remember much. I remember we were having our living room renovated. I came back from school and my parents were sitting on the couch, watching TVN24, in the middle of half-painted walls, newspapers on the floor to protect it, dust everywhere. I remember standing by the couch, because there was so much clutter all around that I couldn’t get through to sit. So I stood there for the most part of the afternoon. I don’t remember what was being said or what I thought about all this.
I remember the image, it’s stuck in my brain, of the second airplane hitting the tower. I wasn’t there when the first one hit, but this one image of the second airplane, of the tower smoking, crumbling down, will always be there, before my eyes.
I remember this was the first time in my life that I saw pure shock in people’s eyes. I don’t remember if they cried, I just remember those eyes, wide open, not understanding, not grasping what just happened. They were Poles, just presenting the news, but I think they realized something I’ve learnt years later, when I was older: it was the end of an era. The beginning of a new one.
And I remember fear. And sadness. I remember it was the first time in my life I went to school wearing a black ribbon, the next day. I did that again when Pope John Paul II died (although the ribbon this time was white). And I did it after Smoleńsk plane crash. In some ways, Smoleńsk was our own, Polish 9/11, even though it was not an attack of enemy forces.
And the sadness is still here. And the fear is even bigger. Maybe now no one is safe. And you know what? Being aware that Osama ben Laden is dead doesn’t make it any better or easier, it doesn’t bring any relief. At least to me.
I wish I could remember more, but I don’t.
But there’s one thing I am sure of: I know I will never forget.
The victims, their families and friends, all the American people and frankly – everyone in the world who has been directly or indirectly affected – you are in my prayer tonight.
I wish people wouldn’t think Poland is hidden somewhere in the Russian tundra.
Why do I have to live in such a nowhere?
I was talking to @WeAreSBNN on Twitter, asking if they had any t-shirts for people who are neither straight, nor narrow ;) you know, to support the cause. They said they’re planning on making a suitable t-shirt. I said cool, do you ship overseas? Yeah, sure, to all major countries. The list is on their site. And of course it doesn’t include Poland… so I’ll have to ship to a friend in UK or Ireland instead and they will have to ship it to me next. Twice the price.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the whole campaign, I support it wholeheartedly, I love the guy (or gal?) behind their Twitter account, so nice and kind, and I really get why they don’t ship to Poland – no point if there’s only me wanting it or even knowing about the campaign, right? I get it, really.
I just wish Poland wasn’t such far end of the world. I just wish we were recognized as one of the biggest (both by area and population) country in EU, with strong economy (the only one in EU holding steady without negative GDP during recent world crisis and recession) and awesome culture, worth looking into.
I wish people at least knew where Poland is. The number of times when I had to point it on the map or explain to people where it is and that no, we don’t have grizzly bears walking on streets and we do have TV and Internet and everything (I’m exaggerating only a little), is alarming, really.
I wish we weren’t ignored. But I know it’s not gonna change anytime soon. So I just have to get used to being ignored.
The Blessed One.
I was looking at my old blog. It’s still out there. It covers the period from 2004 to 2008, though the last two years are very sketchy. I was a teenager then. And all is there: my tears, my depression, my suicide almost-attempt, my teenage little problems and little joys, and my stupid, banal, childish reflexions. Today I went back to the archive, to April 2005. Do you know what I wrote in the evening on April 2nd?
I wrote:
I was waiting for that miracle. I believed in it.
God, you took a man who meant too much…
There are no tears in me now.
And the next day:
“Jesus, I trust in You.*”
And the next day:
I’ll permit myself to quote Wisława Szymborska:
“Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared”
And then I went to Krakow for the funeral. And it was something really amazing. I can’t believe it’s been so many years already.
I still feel as if He’s right there, beside me, waiting for something.
And sometimes I can’t help but feel that I disappoint Him. But then again I remember something like the sermon I heard today. My cousin’s First Communion was marked by a priest that preached in his sermon that we shan’t vote for people who want to pass the In Vitro bill, because it’s not christian. Moreover, he implied that people who are not Catholic are worthless and halfwits. I literally got up and left the church. Couldn’t listen to him.
And so there are constantly two images of Church in me: one with our Pope’s face, reassuring, tolerant, ecumenical; and the other one with a face of angered Father Editor with his Maybach, shouting invectives at people who don’t agree with him. Sadly, there is many, many, many more priests with the second face on. Thus, I am not sure if I even want to be a part of Catholic Church anymore. (There is more to that, but it’s a part of the reason I tell people that I am a Catholic With Doubts or a Theist.)
* For those of you who haven’t heard about the Painting of Saint Faustyna Kowalska: click!
April 10th.
It was Saturday. I stayed in Krakow for the weekend. I was asleep. I usually catch up with sleeping during weekends. I was waking up. I heard a low buzz. SMS. My eyelids seemed heavy when I lifted them to see who’s that. Ireth, of course. I hardly ever get texts from someone lese, at least in comparison. If they come very early or very late, I usually push reading them until later. But not this time. This time I was already waking up, so I opened the message.
“Zabiło nam prezydenta!”, said the message. “It killed our president”. I distinctly remember thinking: What the hell? April Fools was ten days ago. (I hate April Fools. Someone fooled me once into believing that a close friend died. I was just a kid. I don’t like that day since then.) I thought about ignoring it and going back to sleep, but something inside told me to check it out, just to be sure. So I got up and turned on Hotch. (Hotch is the name of my PC. I am that person. I give names to inanimate objects.) I sat in my chair, in nothing but the pajamas, and opened onet.pl. I usually don’t use it, because since few years ago it’s similar more to a cheap tabloid than a real journal or news service. But for the quick search it’s not that bad.
It wasn’t black yet. They changed the colours to black and white later. But it was there. The news. A plane crash in Smoleńsk. President’s dead. Or is he? How many victims? Did the plane burn? How many people were on board? Who was there? Someone we knew? Are there any survivors? Is it really one hundred dead? Or maybe fifty? Or eighty? The information contradicted one another. It was all very chaotic. I don’t remember what was happening, not in the chronological order anyway. I remember commenting it all on Twitter. I remember sending an SMS to pay for a day streaming of TVN24, Polish version of CNN. I remember news presenters in tears, their voices rough, eyes wide with disbelief. I didn’t blame them. I couldn’t believe it myself.
I remember the then speaker of the Sejm (the lower chamber of the Parliament) giving his statement, his voice stiff, angular, husky. The commenters thought he was emotionless. I thought he was just shocked, like we all were. Suddenly all has changed. He had to take a great responsibility on his shoulders and not after long campaign and elections, but right there, right now. He just coped with it a little differently than we’d expect. Doesn’t make him compassionless.
I remember the sirens. I remember the minute of silence, when all the trams and buses and ordinary cars stopped and just stood there.
I remember people whispering on the streets, eyes wide opened, tears. White and red flags with black ribbons. I wore a black ribbon too. All week.
I remember my mom saying over the phone that she has met Mrs. Bochenek on occasions. I remember staring at the victim’s list. Mrs. Jaruga-Nowacka, the woman who had done so much for the feminist and LGTB situation. Former President Kaczorowski. Military people. Members of Parliament. Senators. The Russian interpreter (this touched me a lot, since I want to be an interpreter myself). Officers of BOR, the government’s protection bureau. Even Lech and Maria Kaczynska, though I didn’t vote for him and did not support him. He wasn’t the best president, but didn’t deserve to die. No one deserved to die. Why did they? We may never find out. But one thing I know: I don’t believe in any conspiracy theory. Everything else I’ll accept.
Sunday. The day after the crash. I had a meeting with friends planned for weeks. We didn’t cancel. We went to the cafe called Cieplarnia, it’s on the Bracka Street. We didn’t know… there were some people at the nearest table. We weren’t very quiet. It’s impossible to be sad or quiet if you’re in such jolly company. We didn’t know… A very pale, sad-looking woman, that one of my friends categorized as “some politician”, though she didn’t even know if she was local or national, asked us to turn it down a little. We didn’t want to disturb them, so we left. It wasn’t until then that we realized. The cafe was directly beneath the parliamentary bureau of late Zbigniew Wasserman. One of the Smoleńsk victims.
I remember that we were to have a test with Madame K., our French lecturer. She didn’t do it. She said she understood that nobody felt like studying this weekend. She was really great about that. I think she experienced it almost as much as any of us. After all, she’s lived in Poland for years.
I remember when all different heads of state were promising to get there for the funeral. Somehow, I found it soothing. Just a little. But then, the volcano. You remember that, right? And now, there’s a crack. Why Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, though he came late, was able to get there and Obama or Sarkozy or Merkel weren’t? They were all in US for the summit. So how was it that Saakashvili managed to do it and almost nobody else did? Was it security issues? Or… simply an excuse? I don’t know. I don’t think it matters now. I’m just wondering.
I remember that despite the fact that I thought – and still think – that burying Kaczynkis on Wawel was wrong on many levels, I went there the day of the funeral. It was raining. It was cold. We stood there, at the foot of the Wawel Hill, on a square where the cross is. The cross was erected years ago in commemoration of Katyń victims. Since that day, it’s never going to be only Katyń massacre anymore. It’ll be also the Smoleńsk tragedy. The double meaning will always be there from now on.
We stood there, by the cross, in rain. There was a big screen nearby, so we could watch the ceremony. I don’t remember much of it. It was cold and wet. And sad.
This is what I want to remember. This is what I want to mourn. It was a tragedy that shouldn’t happen. It should have stayed in the safe imagination of writers. (Did I mention I wrote something very similar not long before it happened? It still gives me the chills…) But it did happen. What I don’t understand is how this week of tragedy, a week of national mourning turned into this year… this year of bartering, politicizing every aspect of it, this year of egoism, inflated self-esteem, lost values, fights, partial, partisan tricks, media wars. It was awful. We have enough. We don’t want it anymore. I don’t even want to write about it. ENOUGH! Let us mourn our lost compatriots in peace. And then let us get back to our lives. Let’s start to live our lives, to prepare our future. Let us remember the past and not live it!
Let us move on. Please.
The black Volga.
Have you heard a story about the black Volga? It is said to roam around cities and kidnap little children, especially those who wander alone. My grandma used to scare me by telling me this story when I was a kid. I didn’t know what Volga was, but I assumed it was a car. And of course, it was a luxurious limousine popular during communist times.
The story about black Volga has been around since the early ’60s, I think. My mom told me her mom used to scare her with it too, and my mom was born in ’55. When I was a child, in early to mid ’90s, Volgas became very rare, because suddenly the market has been opened and Western cars started to be imported in great numbers. I’ve never seen a Volga – or I didn’t notice anyway. And I would notice if I saw one, at least in the last five years, ’cause while I don’t exactly love cars, I like them enough to be interested what make or model is this or that car.
My grandma was the one who told me the black Volga story, because she didn’t want me to wander the streets alone (I was always very keen of it), she wanted me to stay with my family or friends when I played outside. But, while I didn’t know back then nothing about Volgas, I knew enough about Mercedes and BMWs.
Because the story returned at full speed in ’90s. Only it was no longer the black Volga, but the black Mercedes or black BMW. They either kidnapped children or young and pretty girls. It’s been also said that it was the Satan himself who drove the car and he asked people about the hour and they would die at that exact hour he asked about… and many more frightening stories.
The funny thing being, my father owned a black BMW. Well, it wasn’t exactly black – the color was called, if I recall, “dark dolphin”, but don’t ask me why. It was very, very dark, almost black, but there was a metallic edge to it. But it could easily pass for black. It was rare to have the car that good back then – even if my father bought it used – and all the children on my yard were envious and scared of it. Even more so, because my dad always wore a black suit and had a beard… also because when he was angry, he yelled a lot. All this made them very anxious of him. My not-quite-cousin-but-almost told me once that he was always scared of my dad. Huh. Who wasn’t? I certainly was!
Anyway, I don’t know why this story came to me today. I thought I’d share. Do you have similar urban legends where you live? Were you ever really scared because of something your parents or other people told you? Share it with me :)
