from Warsaw: home?

In my life, I will probably never again have this confluence of meteorological and seasonal facts, all working so well to create a visually stunning day in my city of birth. Indeed, I muttered to myself early in the morning – Warsaw, I’m sorry I was fickle: I’m sorry I briefly expounded the virtues of Krakow. You are the fairest! You are! (Which is the way I used to feel when I lived here. I've come around again.)

But really, it’s not just the weather and the spring blossoms. The city has been getting a facelift (thank-you, EU support for infrastructure! America, come visit Poland to experience what an infusion of infrastructure funds can do to a city!) and it shows. True, so many people are still poor, life here is pretty tough for most, but you can suffer amidst great beauty, because Warsaw is buffed and sparkling!





I spent the morning walking. Endless walking through the new old town (for those who do not know this – few structures are authentically old, since the Germans did a pretty good job leveling the city during the war; Warsaw rebuilt herself according to her past; Warsaw is the glorious story of the beaten down soul rising again), down to the river and up again.

It's way past my midnight, but let me put up just a few photos for you, to give you an idea of this city that's always looking at rubble and imagining how best to transform it into something fresh.



In my childhood, this was a common scene. It's rare now. But, some patched buildings had to fail and this, I suspect is one of them.





New! Not here a year ago.





Reading about literary icons: we have many and places where they lived are well marked.





The buildings around my UW: that would be Uniwesytet Warszawski




Only Rome has more nuns out and about. Okay, maybe Krakow has more.





Going down toward the river (or biking up from it).





Mariensztat: the first planned post-war residential community; note woman with chicken!





Classic view of the old town.





tending to his horse





With the highlander moustache: waiting for a wedding





Syrenka: she stands as a symbol of Warsaw


And because it’s Saturday, I discover a small market of Polish foods. At the side, there is a stand with Polish scarves and folk costumes for kids. Fifty years ago, I proudly owned one. We all did. Little girls in glittery vests and flowered wreaths and ribbons in our hair. Giddy with pride.




















And I retrace my steps, all 594,245,895 of them, back toward the hotel.





In the afternoon, I hike again to the Old Town for the wedding that brought me here this week-end -- a civil ceremony at the Palace of Weddings. I’d only been to one Polish wedding before this (my sister’s). In the years that my friends got married – all within a few years of each other – I was too poor to travel back. And so this was the trip that would put to rest all pangs of sadness for not being here before.

What stands out now? Well, first and foremost, it was a beautiful wedding ceremony.





And, because no one moves in this country unless they emigrate out of the country (and only one or two of my high school and university friends did that), they were all there today.

I wont post much by way of photos or stories. Most of my Polish friends do not read Ocean, but those who do have mixed feelings about it. Here's why: they knew me before I wrote so much, so openly (I was a closeted writer in those years) and I think the image hasn’t yet sunk in. Maybe it never will.

Back in Madison, my friend Chip said recently (on the occasion of his wife’s entry into blogging) that when you start to blog, or write, and publish stories about your life, the following will happen: some friends will accept this about you, some will be indifferent, and some will run an hide, perhaps never to be seen again.

Ethnographic blogging, autobiographical writing – these are antithetical to the psyche of my generation of Poles. And the generation before them. And the generation before them. Etc. Putting forth ideas publicly, ideas and chapters that are written from the very best material in the world – your own life, in a forthright manner no less (even as my American friends accuse me – rightly! – of not being transparent at all!) is completely befuddling to people who have spent centuries writing in allusions and metaphors. There is a distrust of the voice gone public that cannot be erased in my time. It says a lot about my confused cultural heritage that I can write as freely as I do and not worry too much about whether writing a column, an autobiography, or a blog are good or worthwhile enterprises. I simply can’t imagine not writing. The worry stops there.

But, I’ll say this much – I am amazed and gratified to see that time, over all, has eased the edges and made gentle people of so many. Our children are grown (I’m the youngest of the set and predictably have the youngest children, but hey, mine are out and running as well!) and so the greatest challenges are behind us. It makes us a rather mellowed out bunch.

After the wedding, I sat with one friend for a long time at an outdoor café. The sun was so warm that I let my shoulders go bare. It was hard to remember that really, these people were no longer part of my daily world. That in all honesty, I am more American than I am Polish. That my family is there, in the States, not here, in Warsaw. It was hard to stay focused on this – I am not back for good, I don’t live here, this is not my life.

For those few hours at the café, this was my life.


I walked back through the Old Town…





…picking up tulips for my evening visit, passing the Palace of Culture along the way (Stalin's gift to Warsaw; once the second tallest building in Europe -- now either an eyesore or a dignified historical landmark, depending on your level of anger).






In the evening at my old home, at the place where I lived during my high school and university years, I sit back and talk again for many hours. We are not lighthearted with each other anymore, my dad and I. Life has not been light or boring for him. He’ll call himself lucky, but I wonder sometimes if he wishes he’d been just a tiny bit more lucky.

He serves me little quail eggs and flaczki (tripe).





Did you cook this?
No, not this time. The woman that comes here to help – she likes to cook the traditional dishes. But you know, next time you come, I’ll make it myself!

We exchange doubts about either of us being alive for there to be a next time. This is how we talk. There’s a lot of Polish character in it and I think -- maybe I'm not so completely American yet.

As Barbara, his steadfast partner for years and years, brings Polish pickles for me to try, I think – Ed would appreciate this, he, who loved so much New York pickles in his childhood, purchased on Sunday outings with his dad. The best! – he never fails to tell me. Except that I do believe that Poland has the world’s best pickles. Ed is just plain wrong in the matter of pickles.

April in Warsaw

Before I left, Ed said to me – you realize you’ll be traveling almost 20 hours to get there?

Oh, I realize it. But mostly I don’t think about it, so that I can take in each hour as it comes. Unless things get tense. Then I fret.

Things got tense on the trip over pretty early in the game. I wanted to save money. And so I bought two separate roundtrips: One from Madison to the east coast and one between the States and Warsaw (via Paris).

Now, I know that’s not a good idea. If something goes wrong with the first leg of the journey, you’re dead meat. The trip will get the hatchet, because the second leg wont honor your first separately booked segment nor any delays thrust upon it. But the price of doing separate itineraries was SO much better, that I took a chance.


Sure enough, my flight from Detroit to DC Dulles was unexpectedly canceled. The only cancellation out of maybe a million flights that day. Oh, the worry! I wont bore you with the desperate scramble that followed. I will say this – to the gentleman who saved me by zipping me on his account to the desired airport in DC – thank you. I will always honor you and your company. (Even as I type away on this Apple -- the competition.)

In all, it was a tedious trip with multiple negotiations, tense agents, crying babies – you know the kind: you get there, but your sanity is severely disturbed.


I did not pause in Paris. Even though flying in during early spring is always so beautiful!





I ignored it and ran for my flight to Warsaw. It’s on this flight that I always get the first blast of my home country. Inevitably, I will right hear the wretched curse words (in meaning, it's somewhere between “bitch” and “whore,” and it's always tossed around by men, to each other. For some reason it always offends me, and I am by no means a lightweigth in terms of curse vocabulary).

And I’ll see the full, bushy mustache on men. And there will be women who will be impeccably dressed. And sweet, precious, adored children. And this is a new one – there will be affluence. A guy carrying a Prada shopping bag to take back home. Designer this, designer that. To me, it just wrecks havoc with all my memories of a very designer-free society. Of course, my countrymen and women should have access to the poshest consumer goods! Of course! Earn more, spend more. And for a small minority, Poland is like that now.

The flight to Warsaw is not full at all. A (French) toddler screams the entire two hours, but by now it just doesn’t matter. I’m tired but I am here. Little small fields outside. We’re landing in Warsaw.





I take a cab from the airport. I push down the window and watch the people go about their daily errands.





And I suddenly understand why Wisconsin springs (or lack thereof) bother me so much. Here, where I grew up, spring is in full swing by now. Shrubs and plants are blooming , the flower ladies are out with their buckets (tin has morphed into plastic). The chestnut trees are on the verge of showing their petals, It’s gorgeous now! How could I not remember??




A woman urges me to go into a flowershop, because what's inside, she says, is even better than the balcony plantings. But I'm transfixed by these: daisies, forget-me-nots, stokrotki -- flowers of a Polish spring.





I’m trying out a new “old” hotel – this one, the Rialto:





It’s beautiful inside and out and it’s four blocks from where I lived as a preschooler and five blocks from where I lived as a highschooler. (If you want to stay here inexpensively, look up their rates on priceline.com).

It’s almost evening when I check in. I’m hungry, tired and sticky, but I set out anyway, just to get that Warsaw stuff into my head, so that I can try to get back the feeling of being of this place.





I pause at a tram stop on Marszalkowska Street. How many times did I jump on and off tram cars here?

On the side streets, I come across the occasional small hut selling the basics that I knew from childhood: sorrel for soup, flowers, pickles, and sauerkraut with grated carrot. And young beet leaves for spring borstch.






Eventually, I make my way to the "lesser" park – Ujazdowski. A handful of steps from my childhood home (I’m saving the gem for Sunday morning). A lot of work went into replanting some of the areas and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Poland does parks better than probably any country in the world. And this is the season to stroll. Hello, willows.





In the past, I’ve rarely eaten out in Warsaw. Friends or family cook for me most every evening I am here and so I actually know very little about the Warsaw restaurant scene. But today I am on my own and I pick an artsy place just at the edge of the park. (Named Artsy Kitchen – or Qchnia Artystyczna, and no, there’s no letter Q in the Polish alphabet; they’re just being clever.)

I picked something from the “Polish dishes” list. I suspected it might be heavy, but for the one meal, it can hardly matter. It's so very good! Potato placki with creamy Polish mushroom sauce.





At the table to my left, three women linger over coffee and gossip. For a minute I am one of them. Meeting for tea. And hours of talk. High school years, university years, spent reviewing everything. From scratch. And starting afresh the next time.





I stroll these very familiar blocks and I teeter between my childhood and the new reality here: there’s plenty of evidence of the old stuff, reestablishing itself in my psyche. Small grocery stores that look like this:





…except now, if you look inside, you see a good assortment of foods and not just candy and canned products.

Or, note this flower lady:





She’s selling bananas. I never saw a banana in Poland the first two dozen years of my life. And here she is, telling me that she sometimes takes photos of her own flowers too. With her cell phone camera.


But it seems to me that things haven't sorted themselves out yet: that people who live here are still straddling different worlds, uncertain where to get off. I get the bill for the restaurant. It’s a usual little sliver of paper printed out from the credit card machine. And I draw a blank – I don’t remember if tip is included in the Polish bill and so I ask. And I am told -- no it’s not. Okay, no big deal, I hesitate to do the math and start to write in what I think must be a nice tip.

The waitress stops me. No no! We don’t use that portion of the bill for tips.
But – there’s a space for it, with the Polish word for “tips”!
Well yes, but we don’t use it. It would be taxed there. People just leave us tips in cash.

Ah. Tips, but no taxes. Poles love eating their cake.


I take the road past the embassies. In front of the Swiss, the pink blooms are magnificent!





And the American – what’s this? A sign on the embassy fence with info on how to obtain a tourist visa. Am I reading it correctly? Make a personal appearance appointment with the counsel… Pay $5 per minute for phone call to make appointment with counsel. Pay $130 for processing your application (no matter what the outcome)…. Fill out this, wait here, do that. You’ve got to be kidding! Why?

When I came off the plane in Warsaw, for the first time in my life, I did not have to go through passport control. If you are coming in from an EU country (in my case France), you don’t need to take out your passport. Refreshingly open, at least in Europe.

...Even as I watch a handful of old men set up signs and distribute leaflets in support of Polish nationalism. They remind me of the sings on Indiana highways that say -- get America out of the UN now! Except here, we've substituted Poland for America, and EU for UN.

It's cool in the evening. I am barely awake as I type this, but it's now or never. Tomorrow is the wedding, followed by dinner with my father. Minutes ago he happily proclaimed over the phone that he has made me that favorite Polish dish of his -- flaczki (a.k.a. -- tripe. Guts).

up and away

After class today, I fly to Detroit. Then DC. Then Paris. Then Warsaw. It’s the best sequence I could put together, given the circumstances.

Last night, Ed and I watched Vicky Christina Barcelona. Five minutes into it, he said – I’ve seen this! I remember now – we both saw it. On the airplane. The last flight back from Europe. And then -- Remind me again why you’re not going to Poland with me?

Ed rolls his eyes. The idea of spending so much time getting to Europe just does not appeal to him. Not for a week-end anyway.

I wonder what movies I’ll have on my flight over...
Can you check ahead of time?
I wouldn’t want to. You have to create some pleasurable anticipation for the travel time: the moment of lifting the AV program out of the seat pocket as you settle in, looking at the dinner menu choices, and hours later -- lifting the shade and spotting the shores of Great Britain, and finally -- seeing the narrow and irregular farm fields just on the outskirts of Warsaw.


The weather is cooperating. I’m hoping to make all my connections.

Next post should be from Poland.

hectic

Come to the farmette. It’s beautiful outside!
It’s cold.

(We’re both right. Sunny, but cool again. Transitional stuff. Though the cloudless skies are predictable. Skies clear on April 21st every year. By the 22nd the heavens are a deep blue. That’s the norm. At least it’s how I remember it!)

I’ll buy you a latté.
It’s tempting, but I am swamped. I have the usual end-of-semester flood of work and in addition, I’m skipping out right after class tomorrow. To return Monday. Not likely that I can get much done Saturday or Sunday.

Take a break, why don’t you. You need the exercise.
Oh fine, you win. But just for an hour. No more! (Ed knows where the weak spots are. And he's persistent. It's a killer combination.)

It’s a short but beautiful trek to his farmette. Across the road, we watch cranes search for their meal. (What do cranes eat?)





We pick up the rackets at the shed (not the writer’s shed; that project is waiting for a design solution to the water issue). I do think that this is the best time to stroll through Ed’s property. It’s not overgrown. It’s gentle and sweetly innocent. Not aggressive, not overwhelming.





The breeze kicks up the willow and again I am reminded of Poland. There is the statue of Chopin in the Warsaw Lazienki Park – he’s sitting under a willow, getting inspiration from nature. It’s a beautiful image.


I’m going to Poland tomorrow. Just for a couple of days. But they’ll be sunny days. And I am surely ready for them.


In the meantime, we volley the tennis balls back and forth at the secret tennis court and I laugh heartily at our mistakes.





P.S. Many, many thanks for the good wishes on the previous post. Every message there and on email is a treasure. And it speaks of your good hearts. Again, thank you.

April 21

Uncomplicated. Pretty: always full of buds, beginning to show color. Cheerful. With rays of sunlight, if I’m lucky.

I’ve always liked April 21st.

Not too long ago, we’d make such a terrific fuss on April 21st! It was a well-planned day. I’d insist on time outdoors and most certainly we would begin and end the day with great food. In the middle, there’d be ribbons and sweet things and if this all seems terribly playful, I’d have to say that indeed it was!


I knew from the first day that I met Ed that to him, April 21st was going to be as significant as October 20th. Meaning not very significant at all.

No matter. For me, it will be a day that stands out.

This year it’s a workday, yes, there’s that. And I swear I’m seeing snowflakes outside! But, I will have some significant back and forth with daughters, I’ll pick up a small bunch of spring flowers [UPDATE: no I wont -- thank you!], and I will go out for an early dinner with Ed (the man plays volley ball Tuesdays – can’t bump into that).

I’m 56 today.

And then I’ll go back to my condo and give out my own birthday gifts to people very far away*: Fuya Mensah in Togo who needs rice, soap and sugar to replenish her store, Suweni in Indonesia who needs cacao seedlings for her family farm, Sarmes Takhmazov, a displaced person, living with his two sons in Azerbaijan, looking to buy calves.

I may browse the community of others who chose to sponsor Fuya, Sarmes and Suweni. We’re a diverse handful, but we have these people in common now and together we watch the progress they are making in their lives.

At the end of the day, I plan on popping the cork on the New York fizzy wine we bought back in March and I’ll drink a toast to their success. And to my family. And friends. And to Ed’s volley ball game. And to the year ahead.

* Microfinancing, through Kiva. Click here and take a look at the possibilities.

hilarity

Laughing at someone’s mishaps is a delicate matter. Ed will stand passively as one of my tennis returns flies by him (not today: I had no time for tennis today). I’ll ask – why did you ignore that? He’ll say – I had no idea you’d hit it back at all, let alone within range. Ha ha ha. I laugh. Had he pushed it further (had he said, instead -- woaaaaa! You returned that? Really? Unbelievable! Woaaaaa, that’s beyond incredible!) I may have walked off the court and told him to find a different tennis partner.

Of course, one could argue that some of us (me?) are hypersensitive on some issues and some of us (Ed?) are hypersensitive on no issues. Life is very complicated in this way.


I brought Ed along to yoga class today. It was his first time.

Now, Ed is plenty athletic and strong. I was sure, for instance, that he would not faint right there on the purple mat.

But he’s a big man and so you have to believe that flexing a 6’4’’ body that is used to unloading a truckload of woodchips but less used to greeting the sun with arms extended is going to be a challenge.

Our instructor, little Nicky (she is almost 80 years old and certainly no more than 5 feet tall and 100 pounds thin) tries to help Ed stretch back as he drips with sweat and reaches for the sky. Except not really. When Ed reaches, the ceiling tiles move.

The woman on my other side whispers – he seems in pain… tell him not to over do it.

Indeed, Ed is moaning. And then he topples to the floor and everyone laughs in relief.

Laughter is wonderful. Had they laughed when Ed fells asleep during the last ten minutes of relaxation, I would have felt protective. Don’t laugh! He’s exhausted! But, take a self-proclaimed fit man and put him on a yoga mat in a child's pose and he’s fair game.



The air outside is cool. And truthfully, the blooming season hasn’t quite burst forward. But, as always after yoga, the world feels like it has a lot of potential to be a good place.





In the late portions of the day, I work and Ed recovers under a warm quilt, with a bag of chips and a carton of ice cream. I’d say it is a very typical kind of April day.

recovery

It’s good to know how to proceed with recovery. To act deliberately, with method rather than madness. So that in the end, you’re fine. Maybe even better than before the fall. That’s the hope. The American Dream relies on this.

Though truthfully, I never much bothered with thinking about the American Dream. Because for an immigrant like me, that dream was anyone’s dream and success was not promised here or elsewhere. Indeed, when I came to the States as a young adult, with a job but no money with me, I learned about falling flat very quickly. I got sick. I got better. I got married. I found work. I lost work. I found better work. I got divorced. I got sick again. I got better. I found an occasional traveling companion… and so on.

The savvy and the lucky can recover. For me, the American Dream is the possibility of recovery.

I’m keeping this in mind as I bounce through this housing madness that threatens to either put me out on the street (owing more for your condo than its assessed value - so the city told me yesterday - can do that to you) or, in the alternative, push me forward.

Now, what is it that I have to do today?

Let me start by looking at the market flowers now growing on my condo balcony.

green-eyed monster

I think I have run through my share of sinful emotions (behaviors?) in life. But I’ll say this – I am not especially prone to feelings of envy. I like it when people fare well for themselves. That they travel, have summer cottages in beautiful places, eat well, write books, look beautiful, have perfect dogs, perfect aunts, nieces and nephews – all gathering together for large Sunday meals, preferably outdoors under a grape arbor, at a long table covered with a red-checked tablecloth – fantastic! I could watch a movie about other peoples’ happiness again and again.

But sometimes, at rare and odd times, the green-eyed monster pops up. Here I am, ready to torture you!

Take today: I wake up, step out on the balcony and I am absolutely joyous at seeing the first market of the year (both the downtown Farmers Market and the Westside Community Market began their outdoor sales on this day).





Ed and I cross the street, my Pierrerue basket swinging with us, and voila, there it is! My very own, very local Westside Community Market.





I emphasize “local,” because our farmers markets sell only local, Wisconsin grown and produced foods and plants.





And this “only local” rule is great. At least, it’s great in April through October. The tradeoff is that if you don’t throw some California or Florida produce at us in winter, we get almost nothing that grows (I say almost because the cold spell does still give us hoop spinach and greenhouse tomatoes), unless you count mold grown on cheese and I haven’t seen much of that either in this otherwise cheesy state.

By contrast, French markets are year-round. But they are not local. You can tell where each product is from (there are signs) – what region in France, or perhaps Italy, or Spain – but you definitely get an infusion of the more distant stuff. Local stands are mixed in with stands that sell south of the border fruits, and local cheeses are supplemented with the usual Roqueforts and Reblechons from the other parts of France.

Is this better? I’m not saying that. We couldn’t have outdoor markets in Madison anyway, so why create a winter “grocery store” of produce and cheese once a week indoors?

Here’s why: because the produce is so limited in the winter, I don’t bother going to the indoor winter market in Madison. But I would go if it had just that little more for me to buy. It wouldn’t be my local across the street market, true, but I’m willing to drive a little to buy a lot. Or, a lot more than I see myself buying now at the “only from Wisconsin” winter market. From November til mid-April, I stay home and mope and wish we were more, well, France-like.

Or maybe this is simply too big a country. Zipping up Florida oranges to Wisconsin seems a bigger deal than zipping up Spain oranges to France. Or am I wrong? We already get a shrimp guy driving up once a month from the Gulf and he seems happy with his sales in Madison!

All this to say that the farmers markets in Madison are superb. And they conjure up in me that green-eyed monster as I think how those who have bountiful, or even halfway bountiful markets every week, without pause are so damn lucky! Simply put – I’m jealous.





But not for the next six and a half months. Right now, I’m in my joyous mode: the markets have arrived. Including my local one, just across the street. Bliss.

who would not love…

… a day so full of sunshine? Who would not be made happier by it? It’s ridiculously easy to let loose. All the negative ideas, thoughts, grumblings that I hear daily, in the same way that we all do (probably because it’s not as fun for people to push the upbeat as it is to remind us of life’s hazards)? I know you don’t mean them. Not today.

(Damn sun! You are so powerful!)


Late last night I lay awake thinking about my office neighbor and colleague – a woman who has an astonishing ability to describe things (inadvertently) in ways that invite peace and gentleness. It is not surprising that I nearly always stop by her office before I enter my own. (She doesn’t read my blog and does not know how much I treasure those quick visits.)

I thought what a gift it is to make someone feel upbeat and how tight we (the rest of us) are with our reassurances. As if we don’t really believe them. As if we think that if we warn of pain, that pain will leave our own backyard and migrate elsewhere!


The sun is strong. So strong that for our game of tennis, I am down to my undershirt.





Ed and I volley balls for two hours and slowly I dissolve in the warmth. If yoga was like a massage, today’s sunlight was like a week-long yoga class.


In the late afternoon, Ed zips me on his ancient motorbike over to La Baguette (for a baguette, of course; and a coffee and brioche). I watch people deliberate and select and I think -- that's right! Your moment here, at La Baguette, may be one of the very best, in ways that you (we) don't even realize!





Maybe it’s the sun. Maybe. Or maybe it's a moment spent over food and drink...





Maybe it’s the daylong massage of warm air that makes it possible to love the ordinary again.