Perhaps you read this and think -- ah, the returning person has all the friendship privileges without the bumps. She reaps the rewards just by crossing the ocean to be wined and dined!
Well yeah, I do. But the dynamic here is much more complicated. When I left Poland (in 1972), I did so at the peak of disengagement with my family and at the peak of engagement with these guys. They were my family. My parents were crisis ridden, my own love life was a mess, I hated my chosen field of study (econometrics). And yet they stuck by me. Perhaps unknowingly -- because they themselves were full of youthful exuberance and excitement and their talents amassed them great successes despite the fact that they were born and raised in so called communist Poland -- they lifted me to be a better person, one who would continue to seek adventure and excitement and excellence wherever I wound up. When the three guys -- the core of the original Group -- came to visit me in New York when I had just moved there in the early 70s, it was like a seal on our friendship. Not being great letter writers, and our lives moving as they did in different directions, we didn't always keep our communications alive (not until Bee came along!). But I always knew that in Poland, in that traditional Polish way, they were there, ready to resume that conversation.
It's of course different to be returning as a person in her 70s. How will we track each other's lives as travel becomes more difficult? Will it be a ten people Group in theory only? Honestly, I cannot answer that. As a person who settled on a life away from everyone, I understand that what happens next is a complete mystery for me, for all of us. I'm not for them in the everyday way and they can do even less with and for me, as ultimately my world is only a little familiar to them. I'm the outlier with my quirky Americanisms (and there are many...)! I have no expectations that all will be seamless and beautiful. One day at a time, people! One day at a time!
* * *
Breakfast! Now is the time to at least nibble on some of the Polish essentials. Like herring, for instance. (I always have my yogurt with blueberries and the kitchen here is benevolently tolerant of this request. Here she comes, get out the blueberries!)
It's warm, but there are wasps eager to share my honeyed cheese on black bread. I resort to wasp swapping, remembering all the time wasps that menaced our meals in Gniazdowo, where I lived with my grandparents when I was little.
* * *
It's my last day in Warsaw and I put aside a good chunk of it for my sister. She comes to Warsaw, we walk to the park. You know me and parks: if a city has a beautiful one, I'll love that city. (Think Paris, Jardin Luxembourg.) Otherwise -- forget it, it's a lost cause.
(On the way to the parks, the square: Plac Trzech Krzyzy -- bet you cant pronounce that!)
The first of the parks: Ujazdowski. We picked chestnuts here as kids...
And fed the ducks and swans...
Next along the same avenue -- we come to the big one: Park Lazienki.
(A group of Polish seniors out for a walk...)
(the park's lake...)
(Oh! The red squirrels we fed!)
(the Chopin we listened to on these benches...)
Our high school is close by. It's like a magnet for me now: when I was a teen, that high school was my world. Everyone who counted in my everyday, was right there, coming in, going out. Ha! These girls, standing there now, what do they know about life!
My sister and I walk back, toward the hotel again.
* * *
Once my sister takes off to catch her train back to the countryside, I take stock. Lunch. Where to? Well, there's this Pierogarnia near the university. (A pierogarnia is a place that specializes in a Polish favorite: pierogi. Stuffed dumplings.) It's called Syrena Irena (translate: Mermaid Irene, except in Polish -- it rhymes). I head there. Past the university.
(this building once housed the Department of Econometrics, my hated field of study)
The pierogi restaurant is an informal place -- you put in your order then sit and wait for it. It's such a warm day, so brilliantly beautiful, that I actually enjoy the wait, the view toward Copernicus in front of the Polish Academy of Sciences. And the pierogi? I ordered the cabbage and dill ones, noting that the traditional russian ones on the menu (potato and cheese) were now called "Ukrainian." Oh, and yummy green beans as a side dish, because, as you know, I love me my veggies!
Coffee? From a local cafe on Nowy Swiat. Where they also sell jagodzianki -- the yeasty blueberry rolls. In season briefly. Now, when I am here. Of course I buy it!
Here's something only I would do: I'm leaving tomorrow. I have a bouquet of flowers in my room but nine days is a long time and they are basically wilted. I pass a flower stand. For this one day, one night, is it worth to pick up a bouquet of fragrant carnations?
Of course it is.
* * *
A handful of my friends stop by the hotel in the evening for a last drink together. Upstairs on the hotel terrace. We're a group of five today.
The artist among them has sketched a Mazovian country scene for me to take home. They encourage me to write more about Poland, to put books together. I am incredibly touched by their support and kind words.
And then they're gone, and the visiting part of the trip is behind me.
* * *
I go out for a walk. To mail a letter, but really to look one last time at the Warsaw I left behind.
(A shop mirror reflection: you may see it as a pic of me, I see in it the apartment building behind me and think: those windows, those balconies, those shops below -- so Polish!)
Again I stare at the faces of young people. Friends, couples in love, dating, talking, making a date.
This is the age when I left. It was a different Poland of course, and I wonder now if I would have felt differently about leaving had I been able to die my hair pink and wear clothes that would have given off that sense of freedom in spirit and expression.
I keep thinking about bringing my young families here and I will do it someday, I know I will, but here's the thing: they'll be amused, curious, perhaps a little interested, but they -- the grandkids especially -- will never ever feel Polish. It will be them looking at my world and they will be kind about it ,because they are so very kind, but it will feel foreign. Like visiting Paris only different. They wont look at these young faces on the street and see themselves in them.
And then I come back to the hotel room, eat a salad and some kohlrabi. in my room...
(I really love my hotel here...)
... and I put on a song that Bee gave me a very long time ago that always brings back all of Poland for me, and sit down and cry.
with so much love...
