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!
I feel weird.
I was born 22 years ago today, at around 6 AM, in a hospital in Chorzów, where I lived until I moved to Kraków for studies. I was supposed to be a birthday gift for my mum. She turned 34 on April 25th. But I guess I couldn’t wait to see the outside world. I was also bent back in a weird way, so my mum had to have a C-section. She has scars to this day. I feel a little guilty for that.
It’s weird. When I was little, I though 22 is old. Then I though it was merely adult. Now when I reached that age myself, I don’t feel adult at all. I still feel like I’m a child, vulnerable and helpless. And crazy, but that’s a good thing. I hope I’ll never lose this childish craziness, this joy of life and interest in the world. But still… I wonder whether I will still feel like that – vulnerable and all – when I’m independent. Right now it’s my parents who provide for me, but I am hoping to find a job after I finish the studies (5 years in Poland, so 2 more years for me) and become financially independent.
(By the way, recently I got a great opportunity; I sent my applications to some translation bureaus and I got a response! I have a job interview on Tuesday and if I succeed, I’ll have an internship! That’s a great start on the way to career. I mean, you need a lot of experience to get a good job after studies, and getting an internship is hard. So I am really happy, though also nervous. What if I mess up the interview?!)
Anyway, I feel weird.
Knight in a Shiny Armour.
Me and my roommate, we have our own knight in shiny armour. He comes to the rescue of princesses imprisoned in their own rooms and saves them from the floods. His name’s Maciek and he’s our neighbor from below.
First I was locked up in my own apartment. Our lock is constructed in the way so that you can lock it from outside and no one from inside can open it. I have no idea why and what for, but it’s what it is. And my roommate, while leaving for the spring break, has locked me from outside. I didn’t even know till she called me; I had an exam the next day, so I stayed home, studying. (Yes, it is like that in here. The exam session can last even a month and so there is no spring break, like for me this last February, while my roommate got to go home.) I couldn’t go out and I had to drop the keys to my neighbor so that he could open me from outside.
Then, few weeks ago, my roommate locked herself in her room. I am still not sure how, since she doesn’t have a lock, only kind of catch. There is no key, you just push the knob down and the door opens. Only, this time, it didn’t. It was morning, I was already awake, because I had some classes coming up. (And I was trying to be a good girl and go.)
I tried to open the door.
Nothing.
We both tried.
Nothing.
I pulled out a door knob.
Nothing.
At this point Bastet called the owner of our apartment (we only rent it). The owner’s name is Paweł. She was sleepy. She didn’t realize she was talking to Paweł… only not the one we needed. She was talking to her friend from classes. It wasn’t till after he promised to come and got on the bus when she realized her mistake. Well. She was really sleepy.
Paweł didn’t do much, so after the call to our owner (the right Paweł, this time), our neighbor came to the rescue. With a drill. He drilled a whole in the catch of the knob, but couldn’t open the door anyway. Fortunately, while he was gone for a moment, Paweł (Bastet’s friend) took a tent wire he had in the pocket of his jacket (I know, normal people don’t carry around things like that; then again, I never claimed that my merry bunch is normal) and somehow managed to open the damn door. Bastet was liberated! The main thanks, though, are due to our good neighbor and his drill.
No, Bastet didn’t get a new door knob. I think she’s a little paranoid about them now.
And yesterday the faucet in our kitchen broke. Bastet was home alone, I was at my parent’s when it happened. It just sort of started leaking more and more. Bastet had to turn off the hot water so that it only dripped a little. Today, she went to Castorama to buy a new faucet, but of course we, two girls, weren’t able to install it ourselves. And yet again our brave neighbor came to our rescue. He removed the old one and – with some difficulties – installed the new faucet and it works. (Finally we can wash that pile of dishes.)
As a thank-you gift, he received an original, Lithuanian Šakotis the first time (after the lock) and now we got him a Guinness, Heineken, Desperados and Tyskie (we heard he liked beer and we know nothing about beers, so we chose four that seemed best. Not that we don’t drink alcohol, just not beer). It was all packed in a bag with pink roses printed on it. (We loved it. And yes, we know we’re five degrees of crazy.)
Thus, our neighbor became our official Knight in a Shiny Armour. Basically, we’re alive thanks to him. (Well, okay. Maybe not alive, but certainly we owe him a lot.) It’s good to have a neighbor like that!
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.
I feel blessed.
I watched the movie “Karol” today, both parts. Of course, I’ve seen it, like, ten times already. And every single time I’m starting to cry three minutes after the beginning and not stopping until five minutes after the end. The combined emotional charge of watching the life of our great Pope and the history in the background – especially in the first part – just overwhelms me.
This Man was always present in my life, since my birth; I even remember a recurring dream I had as a child, in which the Pope was coming to me, to my home, and giving me a little, metal box containing something very precious. I do not remember what this something was, but I do remember the feeling that accompanied it – the overwhelming joy, mixed with embarrassment and shyness. I remember wondering: why me? I never found out – every time I wanted to ask that question, the dream would end and I’d wake up.
I always regretted not having the possibility to attend one of His pilgrimages to Poland. I was too little to go by myself and my parents weren’t religious enough to take me. But I always knew He was there – a soothing presence, a bright spot. I was very religious child, back then.
I remember the day He died. I was praying for Him to get better. I knew the world without Him wouldn’t be the same. I was doing something on the computer when I found out – I read it somewhere on the Internet. I stared blankly at the screen for couple of minutes. I couldn’t believe it. God wouldn’t take this great man… would He? Then I started crying. The whole week was kind of blurry. Hidden behind the fog of tears. I remember national grieving and mourning. I remember going to school wearing a little white ribbon. It’s customary to wear the black one – but it was special. He was “the man in white”. He was a symbol of hope. And so we wore white ribbons.
For his funeral, I went to Kraków. I was living with my parents in Chorzów back then, and such a trip on my own was rather big for me. Kraków was a special city. It’s where He lived and taught, and served. Many people came to Kraków that day. There is a large field, called Błonia, where all major events that require big space for big crowds are held. That day the big screens were put there, and the altar for the mass. More than eight thousand people gathered there to watch the funeral held in Rome on the screens and celebrate the mass. There was this one moment that I won’t ever forget; eight thousand people kneeling on the ground, inclining their heads, hands folded, saying nothing… I heard nothing but the light breathing. The silence was almost absolute; it was an amazing moment.
This was almost six years ago. I didn’t even notice where all this time disappeared. I was fifteen, almost sixteen back then. Now I am almost twenty-two. I’ve grown a lot. I am no longer this religious, blind little girl. There are things I consider bad in the Church. It disappoints me a lot. I resolved that I disagree on many issues with the views of Vatican. I think the Pope was wrong in some things. (Let alone this new guy, whom I wished luck at the beginning, knowing he would never be “the Pope”, just “a pope”. I really gave him a chance, though; I even was there when he came to Poland, on this same field in Kraków. But he disappointed me too many times now.) But He was right most of the times. He brought so much good to this world! And so I was joyful when I heard about His imminent beatification on May 1st. I respect Him for what He’s done and love Him for how He was. I feel blessed that I could be a part of all this – that He was and still is a part of my life.
But the movie doesn’t show only a great man. It shows also a reality, His reality. History. My history. And I feel blessed because I live in a free country. I don’t have to live in fear. Fear of war… fear of oppression… fear of hunger… fear of poverty… I get to make my own decisions, I get to do with my life whatever I want. I get to cherish my life with my family and my friends. I don’t have to sacrifice anything. I can, but I don’t have to.
My grandmother was seven when Germans assailed Poland in 1939. She was 13 when the War ended. I don’t know what she’s been through. She never speaks of it. But then she had to endure the Communism and her own unhappy marriage. It was usual, patriarchal, poor family. My grandfather worked at the mine. He spent most of his salary on games – he was a gambler – and alcohol. My grandmother stayed home, taking care of her two children, my mom and my uncle. “Home” was an apartment in one of the famous Silesian “familoki”. It had one room and a kitchen. The toilet was outside, in the corridor, shared with another family. There was no bathroom. The only room was divided in two smaller ones; there was no wall added, just a big wardrobe. They didn’t have central heating, they had a steel stove. They had to bring coal all the way up (the apartment is on the fifth floor). They used a big washtub – no bathroom, remember? In the hardest times, they ate from one bowl; this is why my mom still eats everything so fast. If you weren’t fast, someone else was and you couldn’t eat enough. My grandfather abused his family. I don’t know if he ever touched them – it’s not exactly something you can ask – but I know he abused them mentally. Sometimes words hurt harder than worst bruises.
I was blessed, because I never knew poverty. Hunger. War. Oppression. My little problems now seem just that – little problems. Nothing I can’t get through. If my grandma could get through all this, why shouldn’t I get through whatever life has prepared for me? I have my family and friends. I have money – not much, maybe, but enough to live with dignity. I have education – something my grandmother didn’t have. And most of all, I have freedom. Freedom that I haven’t worked for; freedom gained with tears and blood of those who came before me. And for that, I feel, I have the moral responsibility to carry on that freedom to others. To perfect it in every way possible. To make it universal. To make other people feel as blessed as I do.
This week sucked.
It really did. I had an Arabic test on Monday, which I blew completely; I’ll have to retake it. I did completely nothing on Tuesday, which was very lame, because on Wednesday I had an exam on Theory of Literature (which was held in French). I got up at 4 a.m. to study for this exam, wrote it at 10 a.m. Then did nothing for the rest of the day.
And then Thursday came. I had another exam on Friday, so I really wanted to study. But. My flatmate, Bastet (this is not her name, of course, but a nickname; we met on the Internet, been friends for two years in real life and then moved together when the option presented itself), ahs been sick for some time before. I told her on Sunday that she should go to see a doctor, but she didn’t want to waste time. She, too, has to pass her exam session. She’s already certified dentist, but she wanted to do something else, so she started studying ethnology. It’s pretty darn impressive, if you ask me.
And Thursday, at last, she went to the doctor. She was feeling so bad that she asked me to accompany her, because she was afraid she could collapse. Of course, I went with her. We waited some time, but once she got into the doctor’s cabinet, it was quick. Doctor said it was an abscess of tonsil and told her she had to go to the hospital. The ambulance was called in and we were gone to the hospital. (Fortunately, paramedics let me come with her in the ambulance.) This was a first for me – I was never in the ambulance before.
Of course, once we got to the hospital, from the movement we came to sudden stop. We had to wait. And so we waited. Bastet wasn’t feeling so good, but at last she was examined by the specialist. The laryngologist said it wasn’t as bad as the first contact doctor said. Bastet didn’t need to stay in the hospital, but the doctor prescribed her some really strong medicines. We got back home by taxi, I made her some tea – since she was dehydrated – she took the meds and went to bed. Next day she was a little bit better and today, she speaks normally at last and can swallow everything without pain. Thursday, she was in such pain when she was speaking that she couldn’t even call her mom to tell her what was going on; I did all the phone calls for her. T’was a crazy day, let me tell you.
And of course, we got back at 9 p.m., so there went my all-day learning. I stayed up all night, though, studying. I chose to at least try to pass it, and I made the right choice, because the professor said he wouldn’t put the bad grade to my index (since, of course, I screwed up the exam) and let me retake it with still a chance of a good grade. (Because normally if you fail and retake an exam, the grade you get is an average of the two, so you can’t really get anything better than 3+, which is C+ in America, I guess.) Let me tell you, it was a tough night. I studied History of Islam (that was the subject, “Introduction to Islam”, meaning its history and most important rules) while drinking South American beverage called Yerba Mate (it’s the only thing beside Energy Drinks that wakes me up; coffee doesn’t work on me. And Energy Drinks are not healthy, while Yerba is!) and listening to Maccabeats and Loreena McKennitt and other Celtic music. That was a real culture mixture!
But I’ve blown the exam anyway. I went back home and went straight to bed. And ever since, I haven’t done a single constructive thing. Right, I’ve been with my friend to the lecture about Chinese superstitions connected to their calendar (I know now why I wan born on 23rd; the world’s supposed to have a very bad luck this day, so that explains it). And we went to the shop with soap bubbles. And the to the best cafe I’ve ever seen (they have a round table. And the throne it men’s restroom. And waiters and waitresses wear medieval clothes. It’s absolutely fantastic!). But still, it wasn’t anything really constructive. And today? Today I’ve done a big, round ZIP. Nothing. Null. Zilch. Ech.
How lame.
Best apple-pie in the world.
Today was the last day of classes. Tomorrow starts the exam session – fortunately my first exam is on Monday. I went to some classes in the morning (though overslept a little and had to really hurry up to make it on time; classes at 8 am are a nightmare and should be banned, I don’t even think clearly that early…) and then decided with Ettariel to skip the conversations and go to a café instead. Of course we had to meet our teacher on our way there. He smiled at us and told us “It’s in the other direction!”, but we just said “Bonjour” and kept going. Well, I never said I was a good girl.
We wanted to go to the canteen in the library, but it was closed, so we decided to go to the Gazeta Wyborcza café. Gazeta Wyborcza is a journal, one of the biggest and most important ones in Poland, and they own a place on Bracka Street, just a few yards from Krakow’s Main Marketplace. I discovered that café few weeks ago and immediately fell in love. It’s spacious, bright and much more quiet than other cafés I’ve been to. There is a big screen always showing TVN24, kind of Polish CNN, with news all around the clock. There are bookshelves by the walls and anybody can grab a book and read it while sipping coffee, seated in one of the comfortable chairs or on one of the huge, wooden steps with special pillows to sit on.
I love the ambience of this place, the quiet, very work-concentrated climate. It’s perfect to come all alone and sit there and learn or read, or come with small number of friends and talk quietly.
And, to top all that, as I found out today, they have the best hot apple-pie with ice cream on the world. It was so delicious! Totally worth those 8 zlotys. If you’ll ever be around, step in. I will visit that place quite regularly, I think. Love it!
