Slowly silent snow day

I woke up this morning to a silence that was spreading inward and outward at the same time.  Inward, I felt very centered, still chasing the tail of a dream while slowly reaching into the waking life. It was pleasant. Outward, I couldn’t hear any sounds outside the window and I imagined the snow that  must have fallen last night. It was pleasant, too.

When I finally decided to get up, I saw it.  The world was white, silent, and still.  There is something about the snow that makes me remember the past in details — or perhaps I should say there is something about the snow that makes me see my past the way I want it to be remembered. I am not sure which one is true but I am sure what I remembered this morning.

Here is an excerpt from my novel, To Kill the Other, that was inspired by my childhood, by snow, by my mother.  And this is what came to my mind this morning when I woke up to the silent white world.

“You know, it’s funny how everything always somehow comes back to childhood,” Marek said, taking a deep breath.

“Like what?”

“Like the powdered donuts,” he continued.

“Hmm,” Katie said, waiting for him to continue.

“When I see this white powder on donuts, I see myself better.” He wiped his mouth and continued his story while folding the napkin slowly.

Katie crossed her arms as if hugging herself, knowing what was to come.

“Somehow it always goes the same way for me.”

“Why snow?” she asked.

“My mom used to make pączki.”

“What’s that?”

“Similar to donuts, but without the hole inside and…and just different, really…completely different, denser, not as sweet, a bit flaky, and with a teaspoon of thick strawberry jam inside.”

Marek closed his eyes and tilted his head back.

“First she would mix the yeast with a bit of hot water. It was live yeast. It was grayish, chalky, and cold. We would buy it in the store just a block away from our apartment. The lady in the store would cut it with a long knife and weigh it on a scale with a vertical arrow swinging from side to side. I remember we used fifteen decagrams for this recipe.

“I remember my mom checking everything twice—the weight of the yeast and the price. I loved eating it. My mom always objected, saying that I would get sick from it. But I just loved the texture melting on my tongue.

“I remember she would cover the yeast mixture with a linen cloth and put it on the radiator in the hallway for the yeast to rise. She would always tell me not to peek under the cloth because lifting the cloth could make the yeast cool off and drop to the bottom. I always thought if I did it slowly enough and just for a little while the yeast wouldn’t notice. I was sure the yeast could somehow notice things since it was alive.” Marek smiled.

“Making the dough was always fun. We would laugh and knead the dough for eternity. We had so much fun. Then she would ask me to form these dough balls with my hands. She said my hands were the perfect size for it. I was five or six. Then she would make holes in the balls with her finger and put the jam inside. Then she would close it and flatten the balls to make them look more like flying saucers. Finally she would gently put them, one by one, in deep-frying oil, asking me to stay away from the pan. She didn’t want the hot oil to splash on me accidentally.”

“You talk a lot about your mom,” Katie whispered.

“Only when I see something that reminds me of her… which is … about … always.” Marek opened his eyes.

“What about the snow?”

“I still remember her hands whitened with the powdered sugar we would sprinkle on our pączki. We used a small aluminum container that had tiny holes in the bottom. It looked like snow to me. She always allowed me to do it, to use the container. And of course I would make it snow all over the table. ‘Mom, it’s snowing, it’s snowing!’ I would scream.

“‘Just like outside. Look! Look!’ she would say in such an excited voice. We would look out the kitchen window to see snow coming slowly in the pools of streetlights at night. I would make it snow on her hands, on her wedding ring, on her other ring with a little pale pink stone.” Marek stopped for a while.

“Her eyes meant the world to me. I feel her so close sometimes,” he whispered. “Especially when I see Julie. My little Julie looks so much like my mom. Sometimes I imagine how much fun it would be to see them together.”

“Does Julie have the same attitude?” Katie smiled.

“Yep, she is six, going on sixteen,” Marek said, smiling back.

“And she has been going on sixteen ever since I can remember,” Katie said, reaching for her coffee.

“Since she was one year old.” Marek nodded.

They both stared at the box of Dunkin’ Donuts for a long while, not saying anything.

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Suspended again!

To my childhood friends.

Dedykuje moim przyjaciolkom z lat dziecinstwa.

I feel like I haven’t posted anything new on my blog for ages.  I think about all the things I want to write but for some reason I am unable to bring myself to writing.

When I woke up this morning, I  realized, and verbalized for the first time, the reason for my writing inertia. It’s nothing new; it’s something that has been haunting me from time to time throughout my life: I can’t write when I become suspended.

The suspension happens between events, times, ideas, people, and things I can’t predict or explain.  And it has happened again!  Recently, I have been suspended between two worlds, between my past and my present.  When the suspension occurs, all I can do is to wait.  I have to stop and become still to allow for the suspension to end, for things to come together, for the immersion to take place.

I have just returned from Poland, and even though the visit was short it was filled with unforgettable moments of intensity that forced me to stop and wait.

Here is the story of one of the moments.

I had the opportunity  to meet with my childhood friends.  All of them live in Poland in the area where we all grew up.  And as we were sitting together, I realized that the last time we had seen each other in this group was when we were in 8th grade.

Here we are (the picture above) in December 2010, from left to right: Mariola, Terenia, Lucyna, Danuta, Adela, and Janka.

And here we are in 8th grade!  Our teacher, Ms. Zochol is sitting in the front row.  To her left are Mariola and Janka; to her right are Terenia and Lucyna.  I am standing behind them in the second row and my friend Adela is standing next to me, to my left.

Since each one of them wanted a copy of my novel, To Kill the Other, our visit started with questions related to the plot, to my research, to the reasons that made me write about this specific subject.  They were interested particularly in the story because it was the only opportunity for them to learn about it, since none of them spoke English.

As I was signing copies of my novel for my friends, I had this feeling that I was writing my name and the dedication on something mysterious, something my friends will never access.  Suddenly my work became a secret code and just by that definition grew to something more desirable, like an exotic destination we hear about but can never visit.  It wasn’t an invitation to a dialog, as books often are; it was a treasure box with a solid lock and the key to that lock was never to be found.

And at that moment the feeling of suspension started to emerge with silent questions: Am I a bridge that connects the two shores of my life? One shore is called my past and the other is called my present?  How can I bring together the content of my book, which has been a part of my life for many years, to merge with the treasure box?  How can I bring the long journey of writing my novel that transformed me and my understanding of who I am and explain it to my childhood friends who after all know me well?  And finally: Where do I belong?  Where is my home?

As I was trying to answer their questions, I felt myself falling deeper and deeper into the place of suspension.  I felt pulled down into a whirlpool of time that sliced my mind into pieces .  One part of me was there, in Poland with my friends and it felt like home.  The other part was here, in Ellicott City, at my house, at my desk remembering working on that novel and it felt like home as well.

As I ponder the different answers, that would eventually end my suspension, I am relieved to admit that I have at least finally came up with the right questions.

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It all started when I was six years old.

… as I was saying “it” all started when I was six years old.

I grew up in Gościcino (watch a short video here), in a single family house.  My maternal grandparents lived on the first level of the house and my family — my parents, my sister Aleksandra, and I — lived on the second level.

Even though the house was divided into two separate “apartments” and we lived upstairs, my sister and I had spent most of our days downstairs with our grandparents, since both of our parents worked.

Our grandparents’ bedroom was our playroom and this was the place where the “it” happened.

Here is the story of the “it.”

I see myself sitting on the floor close to the foot of my grandparents’ bed.  The bed is made of dark, almost black, heavy wood.  It towers over me resembling a ship more than anything else. I want to climb on the bed and see how the humongous comforters (my grandparents have two separate comforters) filled with goose feathers can change into waves or mounds of snow.  I am not allowed to do it.  No one is allowed to touch the bed after grandmother makes it for the day, smoothing the waves with a broomstick, making sure it’s flat like a table.

It will be many years from that moment, after both my sister and I become rebellious teenagers, before we dare to jump on the bed in the middle of the day just to break the perfectly flat surface and laugh and see our grandmother leave the room, rushing to the kitchen to hide her laughing.  It will take her many years from that moment, until both my sister and I become adults, to jump on the bed with us and laugh with us until we have to wipe our faces moist with tears.

I remember music in the background, always the same and ever present.  It became inseparable from the air we breathed and from the blood that filled our veins. Here is the ballad by Fryderyk Chopin I associate with everything that means home to me.  It took me many years from that moment to learn that there is this wild world of music darker than anything I know, by Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin, that doesn’t belong to me, that doesn’t run in my veins, yet touches something shamefully and excitingly intrinsic to my being.

There was an old daybed in my grandparents’ bedroom.  It was situated along the wall that was decorated with an oil painting, a bucolic scene of two deer on the hill in the middle of a clearing.  I remember myself kneeling on the daybed and running my fingers on the uneven surface of the oil paint, imagining the scene coming alive — the deer clashing their antlers, their nostrils giving a warm and visible vapor with their fast breaths.  It took me many years from that moment to see that painting as a pinnacle of kitsch and many more years to be able to admit to my early admiration of it.

And beneath this daybed was an enormous drawer where my sister and I kept our toys.

That day all the toys were removed from the drawer and placed in a heap in the middle of the floor.  Our two friends from the neighborhood came over to play but my three-year old sister wasn’t there.

I see the three of us playing with colorful wooden blocks.  The red and green ones are most “visible” to me today.  I see how we build walls. First we lay them flat on the floor.  I see us coming up with the idea of putting them up, and finally, I see us closing the standing walls to build rooms. I look inside and see patterns of light and shadows on the floor of the little room and I know we created something very special, something that connects somehow with Chopin’s music.  I feel a wave of happiness rising in my chest.

I see my friend combing the doll’s hair. The doll’s eyelids jump with every stroke of the comb.  The doll’s hair is dark and rather short.  I wish she had longer hair.  This is my second doll.  The first one’s eyes didn’t close and made her look like she was always somewhere else and never with me.  The second doll also cries when you turn her from her back to her stomach. But this becomes boring quickly.  I look at my friend’s face and I am happy to see her.  I look at her focused eyes and her lips pressed together as she goes through a tangled strain of the doll’s hair.

My second friend plays with the lead soldiers my father gave us.  There are dozens of them and they all come from different historical periods but we don’t know it. We have the Confederates from the XVIIth century on horses (like Kazimierz Pułaski on the famous watercolor by Julisz Kossak) fighting along with Polish soldiers in trenches from World War I.

None of us knows anything about the nuances of history.  All we know is that the ones on horses belong to one country and the ones with rifles belong to another country. And since the ones on horses are bigger and prettier, they are the Polish Army and the ones without horses (no doubt much slower in running) are the German Army.  Everyone knows that Germans will lose the war and no one is sorry for them.  Winning all the battles with Germans happens between combing the doll’s hair and putting up colorful walls, while Chopin’s music carries the romantic tune for us for hours on end.

And then the “it” happens!

My three-year old sister enters the room with the impetus of a giant.  In a split second I see the door flying open.  I see her pony tails, tied high above her ears, jumping up and down as she runs toward us screaming:

“Everyone back off!”

She is skinny and fast.

“Everyone back off!”

My friends turn to look at her. The comb in the doll’s hair stops suddenly as if stuck in the worse tangle ever and I see my friend’s eyes going from “focused” to “surprised” and from “surprised” to ” frightened.”

My second friend lifts a horse and stops in mid-air.  I see her confusion as she opens her mouth to say something but stops at the exact moment when her hand with the horse reaches the height of her chest.

My sister snatches the doll (with the comb still stuck in her hair) with one hand and the horse with the other faster than anyone can even process what’s happening.  And then she puts both under her stomach as she lies down on the heap of toys.  To make her point clear and strong, she spreads her arms and legs to cover the rest of the toys on the floor and screams:

“Everyone back off!  The toys are mine!”

Our friends resign without a word.  They get up slowly and quietly leave the room not looking at me or my sister.  My sister’s breath is fast.  I look at her blue dress and white tights.  And her pony tails pointing down to the floor.  I wonder about her face buried in the toys.

It will be many years from that moment before I am able to put into words what happened, and formulate the questions that entered my mind in a vague, perhaps subconscious way:

I want to know why my sister did it and I feel she doesn’t have an answer.  I want to know why I didn’t stop my friends from leaving and I know I don’t have the answer.  I want to know why I have enjoyed watching what was unfolding in front of my eyes even though I didn’t like what my sister was doing.

The “it” is my fascination with life, with “being in it” (playing with my friends) and “seeing it unfolding” (observing my sister).  And I am not sure which one is more appealing to me.

All I know is that I see a story and I want to tell it to someone.  Perhaps, I hope I can preserve the moment.  Perhaps, I hope that in telling I can also ask my questions.  Perhaps, I hope I can connect with someone who can help me to understand.  Perhaps, even answer my questions?

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In a strange cold light and beyond time

Last night I woke up at 3:15 a.m. and since I felt perfectly rested I didn’t see any reason of staying in bed.  I decided to go downstairs.

All the lights in the house were out, even the small one above the stove that is usually left on just so we can see our steps entering the kitchen in the middle of the night.

As I was walking downstairs I had noticed that the living room was strangely lit with a cold light coming from the window that faces the woods.  The intensity of the light excluded, in my understanding, the possibility that it was the Moon’s light.  The table and chairs had cast long dark shadows in the pool of this strange cold light.  I came to the window to see the source of that light but all I could see was that the forest was lid with the same strange cold bright light.

I saw that the kitchen floor was also lit with the same light, and as I came closer to the door leading on the deck I had noticed that the furniture on the deck had cast the same shadows as the ones inside.  I stepped outside and realized that the Moon was the source of this intense light.

I sat down at the table and stared at the Moon.  I couldn’t distinguish any feature on its surface.  It was just exceptionally white and it was encircled by a lustrous aura that was much wider in diameter than the Moon itself.  I knew I was witnessing something rare and spectacular.

The woods around me were dark and silver.  The weeping willow above my deck was moving gently in the breeze, in that cold light, its long branches shimmering like water.  The woods were filled with rich sounds of cicadas and occasional  animal screeching not recognizable to me. The air moved in a way that made me be aware of the distance things that were touched by the same wave, bringing all of it to me.

I felt like an intruder, witnessing something that was not meant for my eyes and not meant for my ears.  I felt I entered a secret place of a world that exists parallel to mine but separate, never crossing anything I know.

I am not sure if it was the strange light or the sound of the woods around me but for some reason I became aware of one very particular day of my past.  Perhaps, I was inspired by the picture I saw just a couple of weeks earlier while trying to convert old pictures into digital files.  It was the day when my baby sister was baptized.

I was about three and a half years old.  I remember the feeling of happiness, excitement, longing, and agitation mixed with disappointment.  And I remember that the strongest feeling I experienced was the longing.

On our way to church my baby sister was screaming at the top of her lungs.  Her mouth was as wide as her entire head.  She was passed from hands to hands, from my mother to my father (unless he was driving), from my father to my mother, from my mother to the godmother, from  the godmother to the godfather, from the godfather to my mother, from my mother to my father, and so on.  I was the nuisance with arms above my head saying, let me hold her, let me hold her, let me hold her.

I was reminded to be a good girl and be quiet.  It’s bad enough that your sister is crying!  Jesus, what’s wrong with her!

I don’t remember how long was the service but I remember that my sister’s cry, echoed from the high walls of the church’s nave, was turned into an unbearable howl and it lasted as long as the service itself.  I remember myself wanting to go to the front of the church where my baby sister was taken but I was not allowed to do it.  I remember how I wanted to hold her but I wasn’t allowed to do it.

By the time we left the church, everyone, except for me, was drenched in sweat.  All the adults were pulling their handkerchiefs to wipe their faces and necks.

They deliberated for a while if they should go ahead with going to the photographer or not but in the end they decided to keep the appointment.

My sister was screaming.

At the photographer’s studio she was passed from hands to hands again but nothing helped.

I don’t remember what happened next but I have seen a picture of my baby sister with her godparents and on this picture her mouth is as wide as her head.  She didn’t stop crying.

And then I remember the happiest moment of that day.  I was asked to go to my sister.  I jumped and run to her lying on a small table.  As soon as I was close to her, I leaned forward and started talking to her.  I don’t remember what I said but I remember that she stopped crying and fell asleep.

I also remember stories told years after and a sentence from my mother: I always wondered what would happened that day if we let you, Danuta go to your sister and hold her the way you wanted …

When I finally decided to go back to bed I wondered how long I had been sitting on the deck and I decided it was about 15, maybe 20 minutes.  I went upstairs to my bedroom and saw the clock.  It was 4:44 a.m.  No, that’s impossible, I thought staring at the clock’s face.

I don’t remember ever seeing the Moon as white as the one I saw last night.  I don’t remember ever seeing it in an aura as intense as the one I saw last night.  I don’t ever remember losing the sense of time as I lost last night.  And I don’t ever remember myself remembering my past so intensely as last night.

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History: Decades old apple in the net of memory

When I look at this picture of myself with an apple I think of how history is remembered, preserved, and passed on to the next generations.

I come to the conclusion that an accurate account of history doesn’t exist.

History is not recorded as a continuum of things that happened. It is rather a knowledge of the past based on fragments remembered (also documented) and the interpretation of those fragments.  Sometimes we also add our knowledge of the places, people, or the events of the present moment but associated with the past, in hope of grasping, understanding, or explaining the past.

All we have are dots.  Those dots are the “remembered” or “documented” moments and the rest is emptiness.

Here are the dots and the emptiness I remember/know about the day when the picture was taken.

I remember the excitement and joy that was associated with going to my paternal grandmother’s house for lunch, or what we called it back then in Poland,” second breakfast,” after church on Sundays.

Of course, I wasn’t aware of my age on that day but from today’s knowledge I can say, because it was summer and I was born in March, that I was about 15 months old.

I don’t remember the trip itself.  I don’t know if we walked or drove. But I know that the distance between our house and my grandparents’ house was about 1/2 kilometer (1/4 mile).

The next think I remember is the blinding sun, the warmth of it on my body, and my mother putting a scarf on my head.  I remember she struggled with it, unable to cover both my ears, and I remember I didn’t like my ears covered.  The scarf was too tight.

I am standing outside, in the backyard, looking at the vastness of the space and I feel overwhelmed, unable to move.  The adults are inside the house.  My mother comes out the door with an apple in her hand.  She is wearing a white apron on her skirt.  She leans and extends her hand.

“Here.  Just hold it tight, Danuta.  Don’t let it drop on the ground.  It will get all dirty if you drop it,” she says, and hands me the apple.

The apple is too big for my hand.  And because it is peeled it is also unpleasantly wet.

I don’t remember myself squatting but the picture tells me that I did.  My imagination tells me I squatted to protect the apple from falling to the ground.  The other version that my imagination dictates is that my mother asked me to squat to protect the apple.

I remember looking at the dirt floor beneath my feet and thinking about the apple.  I remember the effort of holding it.  I don’t remember eating it but I remember the apple falling to the ground.

I see it released from my hand, I imagine the feeling of wetness on my hand, I see it rolling on the ground and as it rolls I see the dirt sticking to it in a pattern of the path it takes while rolling on the ground.

Next thing I remember is my mother coming out the door again with the same apple now rinsed and maybe dried.

The rest is emptiness.

The next dot of memory is the puppy.  I see it.  I squat.  I pick it up struggling a little bit.

I feel the puppy’s softness and its warmth on my arms and  I feel the same softness and warmth moving inside my chest, a flutter of butterflies flapping their wings, tickling.  The feeling is pleasant.  Perhaps, the butterflies are just a memory of falling in love with something or someone later on.  I am not sure.

For some reason I see myself holding the puppy with some effort.  Perhaps, I wanted to hold it and I didn’t know what to do next?  I see someone taking the puppy from my arms but I am not sure who the person is.  I assume it wasn’t my mother only because I know she stayed away from patting animals.  If fact, I had never seen her patting a dog or a cat.

The next dot is my stroller.

I remember it was white and blue but I don’t remember which parts were white and which parts were blue.  My imagination tells me that the inside of the stroller was white and the outside was blue.

I liked pushing it and I liked to look at the leather straps close to the wheels that played the role of shock absorbents.

Leather straps as shock absorbents?  That’s strange, I think today, and I wonder where the memory comes from.  And I wonder why the memory is so clear.  I can even see the silver buckles.

The last dot is my cousin, Mariola.

I know that she was born a month before me.  I look at the picture and I know I don’t remember anything.

I don’t know why she is sitting in my stroller but this doesn’t interest me.  What interests me is: Why is she holding an apple?

Is this the same apple I was holding before?  I see on the picture that the apple was bitten.  Who had bitten the apple?  Me?  Mariola?  Did I give her the apple?  Did she take it away from me?  On the picture I am looking at the apple.  What am I thinking?  Who is the adult taking the picture?

Nothing comes to my mind.  All I see and feel and can imagine is emptiness.

From the pictures of my early childhood I have learned that the history of my life is made of bursts of remembrance and imagination.  These are the dots.  And when I ask myself how the dots are situated on a time-line, I have to conclude that the time-line doesn’t exist.  The dots are not align chronologically but exist the same way knots exist in the net.  Except that the net of my memory is not symmetrical the way nets are.  Other words, the dots or the knots form a random pattern.

Why is it random?  How random is it?  And what makes is random this particular way of mine?

Today, I don’t know.  But I am not sure what is the answer of tomorrow.

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Burning the Qur’an

When I think of the thread to burn the Qur’an and of the many divided voices in the media, I can’t help but to admit the strong clash I feel between what we call the liberties of this country with what I remember as the history of my family, of my country, of Europe.

I didn’t expect to discover in the past week, but I did, that I am against the liberties of this country, of the country I love also for its liberties.

I remember being a child, growing up in a multi-generational  family and learning some aspects of the history of my country and of Europe almost every day of my life.

On many occasions, when I didn’t want to finish my meals, my elders reminded me of the horrors of World War II. “Don’t waste food.  Children in Auschwitz were dying of starvation.”  Sometimes I had heard a different version of the same message: “If you won’t eat your food you will look like children in Auschwitz.  All skin and bones.”

I still see myself staring absent-mindedly into the plate of unfinished kotlet schabowy (a pork chop dish) and wishing I could either erase history or be transported into the horrific past to share my food with the ones who needed it most.

I also think of the relatives I had never met because they were killed by the Nazis.  I look at the picture of my grandfather’s brother, Leon Jank, a young priest, printed in Pomerania Magazine in September 1995 in the article about my family, Szesc Pokolen Rodziny Jankow (Six Generations of the Jank Family) and I wonder what would had become of him and his life if he hadn’t been murdered at the age of 33.  I see a young face and intense eyes behind round glasses, short haircut, and a priest’s collar.  I imagine him hunched over a book for long hours into the night.  No one knows where his body was buried.

I think of my grandfather Joseph, whom I carry in my heart remembering the many stories he shared with me when I was a child.  And I remember the stories about him told to me by my mother when I was a teenager.

“Grandfather lost his mind after the war,”  she told me.

“What do you mean?”  I couldn’t imagine him being different from the grandfather I knew.

“He saw too much during the war and couldn’t forget.  He spent many months in Kocborowo, psychiatric hospital,”  she said in a whisper.

Everyone whispered about my grandfather when the war was mentioned in his presence, because losing one’s mind was stigmatized as weakness and not accepted as a medical condition.  One had to be strong to live through the horrors of war and this is what was expected of all.

And I think of my father, Jerzy (George), who still, at the age of 73 is tormented by what he remembers.

“I remember them here.”  He had pointed to the ground next to the bridge near my house for the first time when I was a teenager and then repeated the story many times throughout my life.  “The woman was lying on her back and the little boy was next to her.  She had holes in her sweater and her tights.  I was six years old.  They were buried right here, in the same spot where they were shot and killed.” He have been haunted by this image since the day it happened.

“I think we should dig them out and give them a proper burial,”  he says sometimes, “We need to dignify their lives and their passing,”  he says, “I need to talk to the Mayor one day,”  he says, “I see them as if it happened yesterday,”  he says.

When someone says, “There is no book that is too holy to be burned,” I remember that moment in history when books by Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, Jack London, H.G. Wells went up in flames. The moment of burning those books preceded the horrific atrocities of the Word War II and marked millions of lives, including mine with knowledge that should never be learned.

And here is a list of incidents of book burning in our human history.  Can we point even one that came down the history as justified or noble act?

I want to remember the words of a Jewish-German poet, Heinrich Heine who said:

“Where books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too.”

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Memories: How much do we remember?

I came to believe that the me inside of me is the same since my earliest memories can reach.

I came to believe that time and experience have changed my flesh and matured my way of thinking but have had no impact on the core or the essence of what constitutes the me.

And I think that the me is the part of me that remembers.

Here is what I remember when I look at the picture you see in this post.

My mom leans over me and picks me up.  She places me on the chair.  The cushion of the chair is soft and springy.  I try to be still and I am afraid to lean back.  I look down and I see the tips of my yellow shoes being scratched and I don’t like it.  Mom asks me to hold my doll and then she moves back a couple of steps to look at me.

“No.  It doesn’t look right.  The doll is too big.  It covers her too much,”  my mom says to the photographer, a woman who will take my picture.

Both women look at me, come closer to the chair and then move back.  They move fast, I try to be still.

“Do you have a toy we can borrow?  Something smaller?”  my mom asks.

The photographer passes me on the left and disappears behind the black curtain.  I turn slowly to look back, to see what she is doing.  I want to go there with her.  I want to see what’s behind the black curtain.

She comes back and hands me a little puppet.

“That’s better,” my mom says and comes closer.  She touches my hands and says:

“Danuta, don’t squeeze it so much.  Hold it gently.”

I understand what she says and I want to do it but I can’t.  My hands don’t listen to me.  I can’t even open them.  I try to be still on the soft cushion.  I can feel the springs in the cushion and this is what makes me be still.

Mom places my doll on the chair next to me and she lifts the doll’s arm.  Now she moves back and says:

“Danuta, smile.”  And she smiles at me in a strange way.

She encourages me a couple of times.  I remember what smile is but somehow I can’t do it.  I am confused.

Today, when I look at the picture the me inside of me comes to the surface and I am the one year old Danuta on the chair again, as if there was no time that past between then and now.

When I become still and look down (but sort of inward), I see two women hovering over me.  I don’t really remember the exact words (I can’t hear them) but I remember what was being said.

I remember the feelings and moods of that day more than anything else.  My mom was nervous because my father was late.  I don’t remember him joining us but I know that he came because I have a picture of the three of us from that day.  I also remember the speed of things, much too fast for me.  The photographer going behind the curtain, my mom moving back and forth to look at me, wobbly chair, my immobile hands.  I remember wearing an amber color top with one button on the back and black pants.  And of course the ankle high leather shoes.

Even though, I came to believe that the me is the core or the essence of me, sometimes I wonder if I am right.  Do I really bypass the time?  Can I feel the moment from years ago?  Can I truly remember?  How much of the me is shaped by stories I have heard and told over the years of my life?  Why is it that the me feels so strongly like the essence of who I am?  Like the place where I belong? Like home.

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The day I met my baby sister Aleksandra

I was three years, three months, and one week old on the day my baby sister, Aleksandra, was born.

I didn’t know my mom was pregnant and I didn’t know I lived in Poland.  I didn’t know there was a world outside of my own and I didn’t know I had my own world.

I lived from one moment to another, without any purpose other than being, watching, and taking it all in.

My father took me to the hospital to meet Ola (a short form for Aleksandra) three days after she was born.  For some reason I was also supposed to see my mom but I couldn’t understand why. There was really nothing new or exciting about seeing mom even though my father tried to make me as excited as he was.  He talked about mom all the way to the hospital but all I wanted was to see my sister.

It was the beginning of June.  Looking up at trees was both scary and exhilarating.  I liked the way the light seeped through leaves and I liked the way the leaves moved in the wind–waving to me constantly but looking up while walking made me dizzy.

In the hospital, my father and I waited in a large and cold foyer, sitting on a wooden bench situated along the wall on the right side from the front door.   At some point a lady in a white dress, white tights, white shoes, and a white, strangely bended, piece of cardboard on her head, came to us and announced that my sister was ready for me to see her.  She also announced that my father was not allowed to go upstairs with us.  “Will you go with me?”  She asked and I grabbed her hand immediately, looking straight at her face.  “Yes,” I answered thinking that I will ask her about the white cardboard later.  Nothing was as important to me at that moment as seeing my baby sister.

We walked two flights of wide and shiny stairs that smelled like the stairs at my doctor’s office but weren’t made of tiny white and black tiles but something much bigger, one big rock.

At the top of the stairs was a very heavy wooden door with a curved door handle situated way above my head.  The white lady pressed the handle and we entered the room. “We have to be very quiet because they babies are asleep.”  She whispered and I nodded.

There were boxes on wheels along all four walls.  In each box lay a baby with its head pointing at the wall its feet directed to the middle of the room.

“Now,” the white lady leaned closer to my face, “go ahead, pick your sister.”  She said smiling.

“Okay.”  I answered and let go of her hand.

I came to my toes as I stopped at a box that had a glass top and looked the the baby inside. “I don’t want this one.”  I said to the white lady.  And when she asked me why I told her that the baby was too small.

I walked from one box to another until I came across the one with a perfect baby.  The baby’s head was as big as mine and the baby’s cheeks were much bigger than mine.  When the baby yawned I saw that its mouth, although not having any teeth, was enormous.

“I want this one!”  I said in a bit too loud voice.

“Why?” The white lady asked giggling.

“Because this one is the biggest.”

“Do you like big babies?”

“Of course!  She will grow fast and she will play with me very soon.”  I explained my choice.

“That’s so amazing!”  She said and squad next to me.  “Danuta, the baby you picked actually is your sister.”

“I know,” I answered.

I didn’t understand why the white lady was suddenly so excited.  I didn’t understand why she used the word “actually.”  I didn’t know that the odds of picking my own sister were one in thirty.  And I didn’t know what odds were.

All I knew was that I came to the hospital to see my new baby sister.  I knew that the white lady asked me to pick my new sister and that I did. Didn’t I?

P.S. For those of you who are reading my posts regularly:  On the picture in this post I am wearing the infamous short dress.

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On the nature of freedom: holding on to your scars and yet letting go

Inspired by a conversation I had with a friend, I am reading a poem by Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish, and I am thinking about the appealing and yet strange concept of freedom.

The question I see being asked and answered in the poem constitutes not what defines freedom but how it is achieved.

The speaker in the poem talks about the life experience of the tremendous fish, he/she is holding after catching, written on the fish itself:

five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.

The painfully long and descriptive narrative makes me stop and draws me so closely to the examined fish that I eventually identify myself with the strange experience written on the mouth of the fish.

And I remember being four years old.

I am running down the hill with a stick, as tall as me, I had found in the garden.  I get to the front steps of my house and as I place the stick on the first step, I lean forward fast and the sharp end of the stick enters my skin exactly where my left eyebrow ends.  Blood fills my eye and I can’t see anything but it doesn’t scare me as much as the scream of my mother.

My father picks me up and runs to the street  to catch a car that will take us to the hospital.  My favorite yellow skirt with the comfortable elastic band is stained and I don’t like it.  The car that takes us to the hospital is black and it’s dashboard is adored with tiny plastic flowers behind a tiny fence.

I don’t remember the first hospital visit but I am scared to go there for the removal of the stitches.  And I remember that visit vividly.

There are two doctors in the room.  My mom, who is wearing a nice gray suit and high heels, is asked to leave the room.  I scream.  Her face is filled with sorrow.  I know she doesn’t want to leave but the doctors are in charge.  I am scared.  I scream again.  Somehow I end up on a table, high above the floor, and the doctors ask me to lie down.  I say, no!  They put me down by force and I scream again.  And then I fight them with all my force.  They give up.  One of them leaves the room.  I sit up but can’t get down because the table is too high.

The doors open and four men enter the room.  They force me to lie down.  I fight for a brief moment.  And then I see the bright ceiling and I can’t move.  Four men are holding me down and the fifth one is hovering above me, touching my forehead.  In the last moment of my fight against all odds I scream: “Gentlemen, please, let go of me!  I have something very interesting I need to tell you!”  They all laugh and let go of me.

My mom enters the room and I run to her.  I don’t remember the moment my stitches were removed. All I remember is the fight — my body turning into a tight string under the unbearable pressure, blinding lights on the ceiling, my mom’s face, and the roaring laughs.

The fish in the poem made me see myself in a different perspective.  It made me remember the hook I carry exactly where the left eyebrow ends, six little indentations left by the stitches.

The speaker in the poem sees himself/herself as well:

Here and there
his brown skin hung like strips
like ancient wall-paper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wall-paper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.

I read “brown skin” and I see liver spots.  I read “ancient wall-paper” and I see skin wrinkled with time.  I read “full-blown roses stained” and I see white hair.  I read “lost through age” and I see something lost and gained through age.

The fish in the poem certainly is not an object of beauty but a symbol of strength, gained through life experience, and surrender (the fish doesn’t fight) in the moment of being caught.

In the end, the fish is being released. It’s a beautiful testimony to freedom achieved by strength, throughout its life, and surrender, letting go, in the last moments.

When I imagine the spaciousness of the waters the fish was returned to (for the sixth time), I think of the appealing aspects of freedom — the lack of boundaries and the plentiful of choices.   When I think of how his/her freedom was achieved through a long life and painful experiences, I know nothing is free.

And when I think of the speaker in the poem releasing the fish and the doctors that had released me I know that sometimes freedom is simply offered.  How strange, I want to say.  Sometimes, freedom doesn’t depend on our actions but simply comes to us as a gift.

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The World As I See It

I have been rearranging and sorting things at my house for several weeks now and I have learned something new about myself.

I am unable to let go of anything without giving it time and consideration.  Starting with the long silk skirt my late mother gave me twenty years ago, through pieces of rock, glass, and wood I found three years ago at the bank of my childhood river in Poland, to scraps of paper with notes I had made several years ago.

And all the other things?

What is it about the necklace I received from my “boyfriend” when I was seven years old?  Why do I have to keep it?  I remember the boy vividly.  His name was Detlef and he lived on Siedlungsring in East Berlin.  We visited his family every summer for a couple of weeks when I was a child.  Detlef and I used to ride together on his bike.  I would have to sit either on the back or on the frame between Detlef’s arms.  I remember I liked his clothes and I would ask him to let me wear his sweaters.

What is it about the red pencil holder (with a zipper shredded to pieces now) I used in elementary school? Why do I have to keep it? I remember my teacher, Mrs. Klewer, and her clear voice when she sang for us playing piano.  I remember staring at the golden clip in her wavy hair and thinking about the freckles on her face and hands that moved so effortlessly on the white and black keys.

How about the long plastic ice cream spoons from (then) East Germany?  I don’t use them but I keep them in my cabinet. I remember my grandfather’s story. He told me that story on a hot summer day while we were eating ice cream using the long plastic spoons.  His spoon was purple, mine was yellow.

“What is the difference between heaven and hell, Danuta?”  He asked one of those questions that always led him to telling me a story.

“What is it?”  I asked in anticipation.

“The spoons!”  he said.

“The spoons?” I asked.

“Yes!  Heaven and hell look exactly the same.  There are very, very long tables set up in heaven and very, very long tables set up in hell.  In both places the tables are full of the most delicious foods one can possibly imagine.  People are allowed to eat as much as they want but they have to use very, very long spoons.  The spoons are longer than a human arm.”  He said.

“How can they eat then?” I asked.

“That’s the difference between heaven and hell.”  He said.  “People in hell starve through the entire eternity and people in heaven are always full and satisfied.”

“How come?  They have the same long spoons.”  I asked.

“In heaven, Danuta, they feed each other.”

How about the now-see-through bath towel that was mine when I was an infant?  I don’t remember the towel being used ever but I remember the stories of my birth.  “We were lucky.  We got to the hospital before the snow storm.  When you were born the snow was two meters high.  Everything was so quiet.”  My father remembered.  “We were so happy you were born.”  He said.  “Didn’t you want a boy?” I asked him.  “No.  After your twin sisters died, three years before you were born, all we wanted was a healthy child.”

And how about my mother’s winter coat I have in my closet?  It still smells like her even though she passed away ten years ago.  I remember her hands and how she touched my face saying, “I love you so much, so much.”  I remember her laugh and her high heels.  “I always wanted my daughters to be taller than me.  Thank God, you and your sister are tall.”  She would joke.  “And I wanted you to have long legs because mine are short.”  She would say.  “Why didn’t you ask God for skinny legs?”  my sister would joke back.  I smell my mother’s winter coat and I miss her so much, so much.

As I struggle through clothes, objects, books, notebooks, pictures, postcards,  I come to the conclusion or truth that was eloquently described by Albert Einstein in his essay titled “The World As I See It.”

How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people — first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving…

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