Being Polish, the day after Halloween always held something special. Not something festive. Something once again, as all Polish holidays are, ancient, deep rooted, symbolic, important.
In Poland, today is filled with people either taking off work or making a personal priority for this day. Today is filled with cemeteries being visited, gravestones swept, washed and scrubbed, flowers and plants around each resting place tended.
Today is a day of Mass. My older daughter goes to Catholic school and the toddler and myself attended Mass today along with the entire school and other community members.
At the entrance, an elderly lady told the school children who were entering the church, "If you pray for me, I'll pray for you" and beamed when the children in chorus replied "Yes, Ma'am." I silently beamed as well, knowing that my older daughter was somewhere in that group acknowledging an elderly person and replying with respect to them.
I held the door open with my toddlers help for some elderly people to enter the church and they gushed at how precious my little one was as she pushed the door and called "I do it! I big!"
While my toddler wiggled around and looked at a pretty colored piece of folded paper with the Mass Responses, I kept one eye on her and the other on the service.
The school children's voices rose with the various songs and responses. There was a quiet hush as several hundred children listened quietly without talking or moving around as Father delivered his sermon about the various Saints and as several school children presented short prayers to various Saints.
The prayers that stood out to me were to Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, the patron saint of immigrants. The child's voice presenting her struck me "Pray for the immigrants that they may live a happy and fulfilling life".
The other prayer which was a prayer uttered every Mass in every Catholic church, no matter the day, "that our country's leaders may protect us and lead us to a world of greater justice and peace".
When it was time to offer up our prayers, I prayed for the strength and wisdom to be a good mother to my children and find and keep my patience. That my two Dziadki and my Babcia who had passed away will rest in peace. That my husband's Busia may rest in peace and that his Grandpop may as well. And that I, selfishly, may have more time to see my Babcia before she passes away. And I send an apology to my departed grandparents that I am sorry we didn't get to spend time together in life.
After school, I plan on taking my two daughters to a local cemetery. We will tend to a few abandoned graves and light candles on them. We will say prayers that they may rest in peace. And that some one out there is tending the graves of our own beloved who had passed away. My husband's family buried in Maryland and my own buried throughout Poland.
In Maryland, we would go to Mass at our local Polish Catholic Church, Holy Cross. A part of that Mass involved visiting the church's cemetery, special services and tending the graves and lighting the candles.
I am out here in Illinois now. There will not be anyone out there at the cemetery, I'm sure. Definitely nobody I know. So, I will have to do it on my own, holding my children's hands and hoping that they grow up carrying on this tradition.
I know one of my cousins is tending today to the graves of my grandparents on my father's side. And I will send up a prayer to God thanking him for that. And hoping that they all know how much I love them and miss them every single day.
Today is a day of mourning.
It isn't the anticlimactic end to Halloween. It isn't a day of candy and goodies. And it isn't for us, the Day of the Dead, full of festivities and food and celebration. It's a day of prayer and of letting out all the feelings I hold inside of missing my family. And not being able to be with them.
One day, I pray that I can tend their graves and light candles over them. And that they know I love them.
I leave you with some videos that capture the spirit of today.
A Brit's explanation...
And if you speak Polish...
I will share pictures of our lit candles either later today or tomorrow...
What do you do today?
Na razie...
Note: Traditional Polish lanterns for use on All Saints' Day can be purchased at dom itp.
Disclaimer: An affiliate sale link is used in this post for those looking to purchase lanterns as is traditionally used on this holiday.
You might find interesting:
General Prayer and Reflection for Catholics
An Explanation of All Saints Day and All Souls Day in Poland
From Transparent Language's Polish Blog Święto Pamięci Zmarłych – All Saints’ Day, All Souls’ Day
A Mama born in Poland with "Gypsy Blood" living on the American Prairie with her daughters, two future Miss Poland and Nobel Peace prize recipients :: Food, Travel, Life...
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
01 November 2011
05 July 2011
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland: In the Mountains With Chickens
I had been writing about my older daughter's first trip to Poland when she was 3 years old in a sequential order but have decided at this point to just write about it as the memories come back to me.
We are in the mountains of Poland visiting my Wujek's property. My Wujek, Ciocia, my middle cousin with her husband and two children, youngest cousin and her boyfriend, my Tato (Father), my daughter and myself have been spending the day enjoying the day.
All around, trees whisper in the breezes and in the meadow, the grasses bend their stalks gently rippling in the summer air.
The slopes are calling us all quietly. It's time for a spacer (pronounced Spah-tser, and meaning walk in Polish).
My Ciocia, middle cousin, her daughters, one wrapped in a baby wearing wrap safely snuggled against Mama and the other holding my daughter's hand, and myself all start the walk up the road. The road is gravel covered and winding up the mountain.
We pass an old stone structure. It is a Kiln from ages ago used by the villagers further down the slopes. There is finally a plaque in Polish about it's history. My borrowed camera batteries fail as I attempt to take photos.
Walking on, we are embraced by shadows. The hazelnut and pine trees whisper to each other about the people walking in their midst. I tell my daughter to keep her eye out for Krasnolutki and other fairy folk that live in these ancient woods. Her eyes flit left and right in excitement, hoping to find some.
The girls chatter together, one in English, the other in Polish, as they have since they met each other, the adults walking together and just enjoying each other's company and laughing that the girls can communicate together since neither speaks the others language.
The true test of this will come soon, we are to find out.
After a short walk, both start getting tired but more so my daughter. She is very used to long nature walks but the 6 hour time difference is affecting her energy constantly. We turn around to walk back down the mountain.
A bit down the trail, coming out from the cool summer shadows, the girls look down the road and see chickens from the house next door walking around as is common. They both begin to run. And keep running.
I start yelling to my daughter, "Stop running! Slow down!" but she keeps running. I start to run after her but my pregnant belly moves strangely from the motion, uncomfortably, something hard bouncing around inside and I stop running immediately. I call again, "Stop running!" The girls keep running.
Further down the road, brown and white chickens roam freely, chasing bugs in the sunlight without a care in the world. They look as though from the many bajki I read as a child and the folk art drawings my mother always treasured.
"Chickens! Get out of there! Come on (cousin), we have to stop them!" my daughter calls.
My daughter's cousin calls the same words, in Polish.
Running. Running. We start walking quickly behind, by now all of us calling for them to stop. I start envisioning chickens attacking my daughter. Not that chickens are mean, but provoked who knows how they could react to two small running assailants like our children.
Both Dziadeks to the girls, my father and Wujek, come running out onto the road, looking around and finding the girls. They are quickly snatched up and lectured on running away from their mommies and asked why they did so.
A moment later, both "Dziadek"s are laughing loudly. Even though the girls don't speak the same language, their stories completely match up. They were trying to stop the naughty chickens from going into my Wujek's yard. For the next few minutes, the girls are treated to hugs and kisses from the adults and we all discuss how amazing children are to not speak the same language yet be able to think along the same paths and communicate so well.
My Wujek then tells of the time he battled the rooster next door. While I love chickens, he does not. But then, he was awoken by this rooster for several years and it regularly enjoyed patrolling his yard and causing more grief than a rooster has the right to cause.
The two girls walk over to the overgrown fence and yell at the chickens for trying to enter my Wujek's yard, both in English and Polish. The chickens argue back. Both girls flap their arms like chickens and attempt to speak in "Chicken" to them and an argument between the chickens and the two girls occurs. The girls end with a well timed "Buck buck!" and walk away, satisfied that they had lectured the chickens about trespassing into this yard.
The girls run around trees bordering the meadow, chasing each other and pretending to be wood fairies. And the mountains look on in their ancient wisdom at us.
Related Post: My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland: Coming to Poland
We are in the mountains of Poland visiting my Wujek's property. My Wujek, Ciocia, my middle cousin with her husband and two children, youngest cousin and her boyfriend, my Tato (Father), my daughter and myself have been spending the day enjoying the day.
All around, trees whisper in the breezes and in the meadow, the grasses bend their stalks gently rippling in the summer air.
The slopes are calling us all quietly. It's time for a spacer (pronounced Spah-tser, and meaning walk in Polish).
My Ciocia, middle cousin, her daughters, one wrapped in a baby wearing wrap safely snuggled against Mama and the other holding my daughter's hand, and myself all start the walk up the road. The road is gravel covered and winding up the mountain.
We pass an old stone structure. It is a Kiln from ages ago used by the villagers further down the slopes. There is finally a plaque in Polish about it's history. My borrowed camera batteries fail as I attempt to take photos.
Walking on, we are embraced by shadows. The hazelnut and pine trees whisper to each other about the people walking in their midst. I tell my daughter to keep her eye out for Krasnolutki and other fairy folk that live in these ancient woods. Her eyes flit left and right in excitement, hoping to find some.
The girls chatter together, one in English, the other in Polish, as they have since they met each other, the adults walking together and just enjoying each other's company and laughing that the girls can communicate together since neither speaks the others language.
The true test of this will come soon, we are to find out.
After a short walk, both start getting tired but more so my daughter. She is very used to long nature walks but the 6 hour time difference is affecting her energy constantly. We turn around to walk back down the mountain.
A bit down the trail, coming out from the cool summer shadows, the girls look down the road and see chickens from the house next door walking around as is common. They both begin to run. And keep running.
I start yelling to my daughter, "Stop running! Slow down!" but she keeps running. I start to run after her but my pregnant belly moves strangely from the motion, uncomfortably, something hard bouncing around inside and I stop running immediately. I call again, "Stop running!" The girls keep running.
Further down the road, brown and white chickens roam freely, chasing bugs in the sunlight without a care in the world. They look as though from the many bajki I read as a child and the folk art drawings my mother always treasured.
"Chickens! Get out of there! Come on (cousin), we have to stop them!" my daughter calls.
My daughter's cousin calls the same words, in Polish.
Running. Running. We start walking quickly behind, by now all of us calling for them to stop. I start envisioning chickens attacking my daughter. Not that chickens are mean, but provoked who knows how they could react to two small running assailants like our children.
Both Dziadeks to the girls, my father and Wujek, come running out onto the road, looking around and finding the girls. They are quickly snatched up and lectured on running away from their mommies and asked why they did so.
A moment later, both "Dziadek"s are laughing loudly. Even though the girls don't speak the same language, their stories completely match up. They were trying to stop the naughty chickens from going into my Wujek's yard. For the next few minutes, the girls are treated to hugs and kisses from the adults and we all discuss how amazing children are to not speak the same language yet be able to think along the same paths and communicate so well.
My Wujek then tells of the time he battled the rooster next door. While I love chickens, he does not. But then, he was awoken by this rooster for several years and it regularly enjoyed patrolling his yard and causing more grief than a rooster has the right to cause.
The two girls walk over to the overgrown fence and yell at the chickens for trying to enter my Wujek's yard, both in English and Polish. The chickens argue back. Both girls flap their arms like chickens and attempt to speak in "Chicken" to them and an argument between the chickens and the two girls occurs. The girls end with a well timed "Buck buck!" and walk away, satisfied that they had lectured the chickens about trespassing into this yard.
The girls run around trees bordering the meadow, chasing each other and pretending to be wood fairies. And the mountains look on in their ancient wisdom at us.
Related Post: My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland: Coming to Poland
14 June 2011
My Older Daughter's First Trip To Poland: Coming To Poland
The small plane came in for a landing and my daughter thought she could see her cousin on the ground (which she couldn't). We unbuckled and she told me that she couldn't wait to see Poland and her family. How she was so excited.
She grabbed her little red jacket, put on her black Maryjanes, her "Poland shoes" as she still calls them, her Care Bear who she had looking out the window with her before. Put back on the teddy bear book bag with leash, held my hand, turned to her Dziadek and said, "Dziadek, you're home!"
Turned around quickly to face the front of the plane, smiled brightly at the flight attendants, waved goodbye and proclaimed loudly in English, "My cousin is outside waiting to meet me! Isn't that cool?"
Down the steps, onto a standing shuttle, across the runway to the small airport, into a room that is the Wroclaw airport. Baggage claimed, paperwork in order, men dressed in Polish army attire whom I whispered in my daughter's ear that they were there protecting Poland, eyes wide, taking in the new surrounding.
The voices around spoke Polish everywhere. The air smelled different. Her fingers in mine, close to me but not scared.
A face was in the crowd, waving for a moment, smiling. Another and another. And I knew them and my heart leaped. I pointed them out to her, "That's your family."
"That's my family, Mommy? Really?" she whispered. And waved back, pulling against my hand to walk faster.
Embraces, kisses on cheeks, my father reunited with his brother. My cousins watching the two brothers hugging, the oldest was too young to remember my father, the others were not yet born when we left Poland so had never met him.
My daughter greeted everyone with a huge smile and hug. "You're my mommy's cousin? Wow! I never met any of her family except her Mommy and Daddy before!"
My cousins used the English they know with her and she jumped up and down, "You speak English and Polish? Wow! I don't know Polish but my Mommy does! But I want to!"
Walk outside, fresh air, the brothers lighting up cigarettes, my daughter chiding my father that they smell terrible.
A little girl in pink clutching her mommy's hand holding a large gift bag, staring. Introductions. "This is your cousin." My daughter can be overwhelming at times, wonderfully overwhelming. I can't blame the little girl for being nervous around it all. She's beautiful. I look at her, looking at every feature on her face, hoping the two girls become like sisters the way I am with my cousins.
Gifts exchanged, dolls clutched tight. Children cooed over by the adults.
Walking down the sidewalk, so different from the sidewalk back in the US, to the cars parked by gardens bursting with flowers, and off we went.
My daughter sat next to me in the van in a borrowed car seat and I asked, "So, what do you think of Poland so far?"
Arms thrown around my neck, whispered in my ear, "I love it! Thank you, Mommy! I can see why you miss it so much."
Related Posts:
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, The Planning
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, Wordless Wednesday
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, Our Departure
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, On the Plane and in Munich
She grabbed her little red jacket, put on her black Maryjanes, her "Poland shoes" as she still calls them, her Care Bear who she had looking out the window with her before. Put back on the teddy bear book bag with leash, held my hand, turned to her Dziadek and said, "Dziadek, you're home!"
Turned around quickly to face the front of the plane, smiled brightly at the flight attendants, waved goodbye and proclaimed loudly in English, "My cousin is outside waiting to meet me! Isn't that cool?"
Down the steps, onto a standing shuttle, across the runway to the small airport, into a room that is the Wroclaw airport. Baggage claimed, paperwork in order, men dressed in Polish army attire whom I whispered in my daughter's ear that they were there protecting Poland, eyes wide, taking in the new surrounding.
The voices around spoke Polish everywhere. The air smelled different. Her fingers in mine, close to me but not scared.
A face was in the crowd, waving for a moment, smiling. Another and another. And I knew them and my heart leaped. I pointed them out to her, "That's your family."
"That's my family, Mommy? Really?" she whispered. And waved back, pulling against my hand to walk faster.
Embraces, kisses on cheeks, my father reunited with his brother. My cousins watching the two brothers hugging, the oldest was too young to remember my father, the others were not yet born when we left Poland so had never met him.
My daughter greeted everyone with a huge smile and hug. "You're my mommy's cousin? Wow! I never met any of her family except her Mommy and Daddy before!"
My cousins used the English they know with her and she jumped up and down, "You speak English and Polish? Wow! I don't know Polish but my Mommy does! But I want to!"
Walk outside, fresh air, the brothers lighting up cigarettes, my daughter chiding my father that they smell terrible.
A little girl in pink clutching her mommy's hand holding a large gift bag, staring. Introductions. "This is your cousin." My daughter can be overwhelming at times, wonderfully overwhelming. I can't blame the little girl for being nervous around it all. She's beautiful. I look at her, looking at every feature on her face, hoping the two girls become like sisters the way I am with my cousins.
Gifts exchanged, dolls clutched tight. Children cooed over by the adults.
Walking down the sidewalk, so different from the sidewalk back in the US, to the cars parked by gardens bursting with flowers, and off we went.
My daughter sat next to me in the van in a borrowed car seat and I asked, "So, what do you think of Poland so far?"
Arms thrown around my neck, whispered in my ear, "I love it! Thank you, Mommy! I can see why you miss it so much."
Related Posts:
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, The Planning
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, Wordless Wednesday
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, Our Departure
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, On the Plane and in Munich
07 June 2011
My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, The Planning
My older daughter was then 3 years old when my Dziadek passed away from a heart attack. I was pregnant with my second daughter and was just out of my first trimester. It was time to visit Poland and take her on her first trip to the place her mother always talked about.
Time to visit my birth country.
And time to bury a family member.
My husband had to work and couldn't take a vacation. Also, because we were buying tickets last minute, along with having to file for her first passport ever, we were in a time crunch and had to pay an exorbitant amount for our tickets and expedite the passport.
For her passport, I braided her hair into two plaits, which she proclaimed made her look like a "little Polish girl" as she smiled in the mirror and looked at her reflection. This was not the first time I had styled her hair this way.
At the post office, she was so proud strolling in to be getting a passport, that she announced to everyone present "My mommy's Dziadek died so I need a passport please so we can go to POLAND!" She stayed perfectly still as the woman took her photo. The first photo, she looked last second in my direction, pride on her face and my heart burst. The woman gave me the photo to keep since "her expression was so precious" but had to be looking straight ahead for the passport.
When we left the post office, every employee at the front desk had by then heard her story and was waving goodbye to us and wishing her luck. She waved goodbye to everyone and skipped to the car, holding my hand.
This moment was precious and I needed it as I was mourning the loss of my Dziadek.
I went through my maternity clothes and saw yellows, flowers, pinks and decidedly not-for-a-funeral clothing. This also required a trip to the maternity store to snatch up whatever blacks I could find.
Can I say I do not wear black? Others can wear it. But I have learned something about myself as I have gotten older. I don't look quite "right" in black. Maybe it's the color against my medium blonde hair. Maybe it's the fact that I don't exactly ooze black clad martini sipping designer handbag socialite but instead seem more natural in "bohemian peasant" style clothing. Maybe it's because I don't style my hair. It is straight and if you try to do anything with it, it doesn't seem to want to cooperate. So, I keep it clean, brushed and parted straight. So, black does not go well with my "aura", if you will.
But for a funeral, what do you wear? Black, of course.
This was June and the only clothing on the racks were for overheated pregnant moms who were sweating even in air conditioning in June. In Poland, the week I went? It was cold.
After spending money for funeral appropriate maternity clothing, we had to pack my daughter's bag. Her obsession at the time was Disney Princess t-shirts, the color purple and bright sparkles. Again, not funeral attire. In Poland, and I would imagine in the US as well, you especially do not wear purple to a funeral.
Of course, children her age are exempt from having to wear black head to toe. But still. Sparkles and Princesses don't fly. Another trip to the store and we bought her a navy blue skirt, 2 pair of Capri chinos in black and brown, 4 peasant style shirts in brown, navy blue, black and white, a red button coat which screamed "adorable girl from Europe", black Maryjane's to match Mama, and a navy blue long sleeve shirt. Just in case. Thank goodness I thought of the just in case.
Toys were purchased for my cousin's children which I couldn't wait to give to them. My daughter kept pulling them out and staring at the Sleeping Beauty doll asking about her cousins' names and any details I could give them. She couldn't wait to meet them.
The trip total cost us over $3,000 for the two of us with all expenses.
I started panicking between all the rushed planning that I had not taught my daughter Polish. She knew a few safety words in Polish and how to express love and affection and a song. How was this going to work? How was she going to play with my cousin's children?
In the meantime, my daughter was telling everyone she saw, even strangers, that she was going to visit "the country my Mommy is from! POLAND!" with such squeaks of joy, I couldn't understand it.
I stressed that there would be no macaroni and cheese, no chicken nuggets and french fries, nothing she was used to on a daily basis. And that she would eat whatever people gave her because it would be rude otherwise. Eye widened at this information, she would nod and say "Yes, Mommy."
In my stomach, butterflies were turning while the baby was beginning her first signs of movement inside me.
A teddy bear book bag with leash was purchased. I received strange and often disapproving looks as we carried it to the register and purchased it. Look, stare, and judge however people wanted to, I was going to be a pregnant Mama on my own with my child travelling from Washington, D.C.'s Dulles airport to Munich, Germany to Wroclaw, Poland. To bury my Dziadek.
It turned out, there was nothing to worry about....
To be continued...
Related Articles: My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, Our Departure
Time to visit my birth country.
And time to bury a family member.
My husband had to work and couldn't take a vacation. Also, because we were buying tickets last minute, along with having to file for her first passport ever, we were in a time crunch and had to pay an exorbitant amount for our tickets and expedite the passport.
For her passport, I braided her hair into two plaits, which she proclaimed made her look like a "little Polish girl" as she smiled in the mirror and looked at her reflection. This was not the first time I had styled her hair this way.
At the post office, she was so proud strolling in to be getting a passport, that she announced to everyone present "My mommy's Dziadek died so I need a passport please so we can go to POLAND!" She stayed perfectly still as the woman took her photo. The first photo, she looked last second in my direction, pride on her face and my heart burst. The woman gave me the photo to keep since "her expression was so precious" but had to be looking straight ahead for the passport.
When we left the post office, every employee at the front desk had by then heard her story and was waving goodbye to us and wishing her luck. She waved goodbye to everyone and skipped to the car, holding my hand.
This moment was precious and I needed it as I was mourning the loss of my Dziadek.
I went through my maternity clothes and saw yellows, flowers, pinks and decidedly not-for-a-funeral clothing. This also required a trip to the maternity store to snatch up whatever blacks I could find.
Can I say I do not wear black? Others can wear it. But I have learned something about myself as I have gotten older. I don't look quite "right" in black. Maybe it's the color against my medium blonde hair. Maybe it's the fact that I don't exactly ooze black clad martini sipping designer handbag socialite but instead seem more natural in "bohemian peasant" style clothing. Maybe it's because I don't style my hair. It is straight and if you try to do anything with it, it doesn't seem to want to cooperate. So, I keep it clean, brushed and parted straight. So, black does not go well with my "aura", if you will.
But for a funeral, what do you wear? Black, of course.
This was June and the only clothing on the racks were for overheated pregnant moms who were sweating even in air conditioning in June. In Poland, the week I went? It was cold.
After spending money for funeral appropriate maternity clothing, we had to pack my daughter's bag. Her obsession at the time was Disney Princess t-shirts, the color purple and bright sparkles. Again, not funeral attire. In Poland, and I would imagine in the US as well, you especially do not wear purple to a funeral.
Of course, children her age are exempt from having to wear black head to toe. But still. Sparkles and Princesses don't fly. Another trip to the store and we bought her a navy blue skirt, 2 pair of Capri chinos in black and brown, 4 peasant style shirts in brown, navy blue, black and white, a red button coat which screamed "adorable girl from Europe", black Maryjane's to match Mama, and a navy blue long sleeve shirt. Just in case. Thank goodness I thought of the just in case.
Toys were purchased for my cousin's children which I couldn't wait to give to them. My daughter kept pulling them out and staring at the Sleeping Beauty doll asking about her cousins' names and any details I could give them. She couldn't wait to meet them.
The trip total cost us over $3,000 for the two of us with all expenses.
I started panicking between all the rushed planning that I had not taught my daughter Polish. She knew a few safety words in Polish and how to express love and affection and a song. How was this going to work? How was she going to play with my cousin's children?
In the meantime, my daughter was telling everyone she saw, even strangers, that she was going to visit "the country my Mommy is from! POLAND!" with such squeaks of joy, I couldn't understand it.
I stressed that there would be no macaroni and cheese, no chicken nuggets and french fries, nothing she was used to on a daily basis. And that she would eat whatever people gave her because it would be rude otherwise. Eye widened at this information, she would nod and say "Yes, Mommy."
In my stomach, butterflies were turning while the baby was beginning her first signs of movement inside me.
A teddy bear book bag with leash was purchased. I received strange and often disapproving looks as we carried it to the register and purchased it. Look, stare, and judge however people wanted to, I was going to be a pregnant Mama on my own with my child travelling from Washington, D.C.'s Dulles airport to Munich, Germany to Wroclaw, Poland. To bury my Dziadek.
It turned out, there was nothing to worry about....
To be continued...
Related Articles: My Older Daughter's First Trip to Poland, Our Departure
01 June 2011
Wordless Wednesday: A Surprise in the Mail
After a full day of prekindergarten joys, laundry, playing in the sun, cleaning out my younger daughter's closet of outgrown clothing, and playing at the park, we came home yesterday in the beginnings of a heavy Midwest Prairie thunderstorm.
Standing in the rain, I opened the mailbox and saw a beige package. Who doesn't love mail from family?
And a picture of the Apricot Knedle (Potato Dumplings) I made the other day with a recipe tomorrow to share here...
Standing in the rain, I opened the mailbox and saw a beige package. Who doesn't love mail from family?
And a picture of the Apricot Knedle (Potato Dumplings) I made the other day with a recipe tomorrow to share here...
19 May 2011
"L" in Salmon, "R" in Wash
My favorite argument with my husband is word pronounciation.
Husband: "What's for dinner?"
Me: "Salmon (with the "L" pronounced)."
Husband: "Sa-min. Say it with me, Sa-min."
Me: "Like Caramel? There are two a's and an e in Caramel. So you pronounce them."
Husband: "No, you don't. It's Caramel (he pronounces it as Carmul, I have no idea why)."
Me: "Whatever. You say it the wrong way, I say it the way it's spelled."
More discussion about how to pronounce the word "Salmon", including my stating that Worcestershire sauce can be pronounced with all the letters since we do not spell British English but American English.
Finally, I throw up my hands and tell him to pronounce "Wash".
Husband: "It's Wash. (pronounced Warsh)"
Sometimes, to prove the point further, I ask him to say the word "Water".
Husband: "It's Water (pronounced Warter)! What's your point?"
I walk away, knowing I win my argument.
These are the arguments we have in my bilingual, bicultural household. I have to wonder whether others have such arguments.
Husband: "What's for dinner?"
Me: "Salmon (with the "L" pronounced)."
Husband: "Sa-min. Say it with me, Sa-min."
Me: "Like Caramel? There are two a's and an e in Caramel. So you pronounce them."
Husband: "No, you don't. It's Caramel (he pronounces it as Carmul, I have no idea why)."
Me: "Whatever. You say it the wrong way, I say it the way it's spelled."
More discussion about how to pronounce the word "Salmon", including my stating that Worcestershire sauce can be pronounced with all the letters since we do not spell British English but American English.
Finally, I throw up my hands and tell him to pronounce "Wash".
Husband: "It's Wash. (pronounced Warsh)"
Sometimes, to prove the point further, I ask him to say the word "Water".
Husband: "It's Water (pronounced Warter)! What's your point?"
I walk away, knowing I win my argument.
These are the arguments we have in my bilingual, bicultural household. I have to wonder whether others have such arguments.
17 May 2011
Calling Babcia
I called my Babcia this weekend, like I do twice a week. She has told me she loves when I call her but I can tell if I call her too often that she thinks I'm worried about her and that it makes her feel bad. So, for now, I call twice a week.
My babcia has always been such a warm, caring woman. The sort of woman anyone would feel extremely lucky to have as a Babcia. She gives pearls of wisdom when you have a stomach ache, can tell you what to eat or drink or do when your teeth hurt, believes in not letting children cry themselves to sleep and affection and attention being top priority toward children. I love her.
When I called her this time, she was complaining about how the weather in Poland was not great for First Communions. I told her we had rainy cold weather here as well for the First Communions of the 8 year olds in our Catholic school.
She told me that she remembered on her First Communion, her mother was holding an umbrella over her head because it was raining. The priest looked at them and said "Don't worry, we will go inside and the weather will turn around for our children." And sure enough, it became warm and sunny outside right away.
She hoped the same would happen for the children having their First Communions this weekend.
That God looks out for those who love him.
You can't help but love her.
These are the moments I want my parents to share with me, I think.
She also told me about a woman who had recently passed away and who my family knew well. She had made it to the viewing. But somehow while waiting for the bus and making it to the funeral, she missed the group. She arrived at the cemetary, which is very large and wooded, and could not find them. So, she instead visited the graves of both her and her deceased husband's parents and also my Dziadek, her husband.
I could hear she was sad so I told her what I thought she would tell me. "Maybe God knew they were thinking of you so you were led to visit them today instead."
She cheered up and started talking about how she thinks of them as well. Then, the dark cloud of old age settled on her and she said she would be with them soon as well.
In the conversation, I asked her to possibly give me her and my Dziadek's parents names. I had this information before our move last year but cannot locate it. My Babcia planned to write me a letter with all of the family names.
She told me that her grandparents had died before she knew them. From diseases before they could reach old age and that it was very common at the time for that.
My Babcia admitted that she would always get jealous of others when she would hear or see other children playing with their grandparents and here she was with no living grandparents in her life. My heart ached at those words. Although my grandparents (except for my mother's father) were all alive for a long time in my life, the long distance and cultural difference had always had me feeling the same as a child.
I told my Babcia that I wished we could have had much more time together in life but that no matter what, I loved her forever. I had to tell her. I don't know how much more time I have with her. And if I will have time with her being aware of what I say. Alzheimer's seems to be claiming my Babcia faster and faster every day since about two years ago.
We talked about many other things. The situation in France politically. The people suffering in Libya and Syria right now. Reminders that I am her first grandchild. My comforting her that my brother loves her and that he wants to call and talk to her but fears his Polish is less than adequate. I have to figure out how to three-way call to Poland to act as translator.
As usual, we hang up the phone with many professions of love and missing each other and warm wishes to the rest of the family and my heart praying that I have enough time to see her again. So that she can meet her second granddaughter by me. And sorrow at all the time I lost with her because I was here and she was there and time, money, and distance were our enemy.
I have to wonder whether this is something my husband and his family can understand. Whether friends can understand. Or is this what it is to be a grown Immigrant Child? And how my Babcia must have felt all these years.
My babcia has always been such a warm, caring woman. The sort of woman anyone would feel extremely lucky to have as a Babcia. She gives pearls of wisdom when you have a stomach ache, can tell you what to eat or drink or do when your teeth hurt, believes in not letting children cry themselves to sleep and affection and attention being top priority toward children. I love her.
When I called her this time, she was complaining about how the weather in Poland was not great for First Communions. I told her we had rainy cold weather here as well for the First Communions of the 8 year olds in our Catholic school.
She told me that she remembered on her First Communion, her mother was holding an umbrella over her head because it was raining. The priest looked at them and said "Don't worry, we will go inside and the weather will turn around for our children." And sure enough, it became warm and sunny outside right away.
She hoped the same would happen for the children having their First Communions this weekend.
That God looks out for those who love him.
You can't help but love her.
These are the moments I want my parents to share with me, I think.
She also told me about a woman who had recently passed away and who my family knew well. She had made it to the viewing. But somehow while waiting for the bus and making it to the funeral, she missed the group. She arrived at the cemetary, which is very large and wooded, and could not find them. So, she instead visited the graves of both her and her deceased husband's parents and also my Dziadek, her husband.
I could hear she was sad so I told her what I thought she would tell me. "Maybe God knew they were thinking of you so you were led to visit them today instead."
She cheered up and started talking about how she thinks of them as well. Then, the dark cloud of old age settled on her and she said she would be with them soon as well.
In the conversation, I asked her to possibly give me her and my Dziadek's parents names. I had this information before our move last year but cannot locate it. My Babcia planned to write me a letter with all of the family names.
She told me that her grandparents had died before she knew them. From diseases before they could reach old age and that it was very common at the time for that.
My Babcia admitted that she would always get jealous of others when she would hear or see other children playing with their grandparents and here she was with no living grandparents in her life. My heart ached at those words. Although my grandparents (except for my mother's father) were all alive for a long time in my life, the long distance and cultural difference had always had me feeling the same as a child.
I told my Babcia that I wished we could have had much more time together in life but that no matter what, I loved her forever. I had to tell her. I don't know how much more time I have with her. And if I will have time with her being aware of what I say. Alzheimer's seems to be claiming my Babcia faster and faster every day since about two years ago.
We talked about many other things. The situation in France politically. The people suffering in Libya and Syria right now. Reminders that I am her first grandchild. My comforting her that my brother loves her and that he wants to call and talk to her but fears his Polish is less than adequate. I have to figure out how to three-way call to Poland to act as translator.
As usual, we hang up the phone with many professions of love and missing each other and warm wishes to the rest of the family and my heart praying that I have enough time to see her again. So that she can meet her second granddaughter by me. And sorrow at all the time I lost with her because I was here and she was there and time, money, and distance were our enemy.
I have to wonder whether this is something my husband and his family can understand. Whether friends can understand. Or is this what it is to be a grown Immigrant Child? And how my Babcia must have felt all these years.
09 May 2011
Tato, Tell Me About Our Story...
I have been begging my father as long as I remember to tell me our story. Who my parents were as children. What they liked to do. What I liked to do. About my Dziadkowi (grandparents). My father's Dziadkowi. Where different people were born or lived. About his cousins, his aunts, anyone. Why we left Poland.
The same answer hits me every time.
My father smiles at me, loses eye contact after a moment, and says "Not today, maybe tomorrow."
30 years of tomorrows have gone by and I have begun pieces our story together myself. And there are gigantic holes. The sort of holes that leave me feeling like maybe there is a giant monster eating it all, figuratively.
It took me this long to realize my father's character completely. My brother thinks my father pushes people away, shuts himself off from the world. My mother felt the same way. They aren't wrong.
But it goes deeper than that. My father isn't cold. He is very loving. Not the sort of loving like in the movies. But the sort of loving where I could tell him any sort of thought I had, no matter how preposterous it was and he would help me nurture it into knowledge. Questions I would have regarding politics, history, religion, social behaviour... What? You never had these sorts of conversations with your parents? Well, my father would ask me questions back, give me books to read, tell me about what he knew, and I gobbled it all up. It was knowledge. What I would never learn in school.
That monster eating it all away was the culmination of all our story was filled with. Death, loss, separation, sorrow, more death, hunger. There is a word for it but I won't utter it because I won't allow it to win.
What do you do to deal with that? I can tell you what my father has done. What my brother does. What I have always done. Thrown ourselves headfirst into work. Not one of us has ever worked less than a 45 hour work week. More likely 50-70 hours. Without thought. I worked a bit less but I had housework to throw myself into as well. Meals to cook, corners to scrub on my hands and knees because the mop doesn't do the trick on drowning out that monster.
Now I have kids to care for, writing to be done, research to do to claim my children's Polish citizenships, volunteer hours at the school, baking for the nursing home, story times, and it goes on and on and on.
When I would talk to my father about WWII, he always told me he didn't want me to hate others. Not to judge others for what some monsters did.
In Wroclaw once, I wanted to take a picture of a memorial of some students who were killed by the Soviets while protesting against the Communist government and he blocked my camera. He shook his head and said, "No, it's too sad." He began to walk away very quickly. My Wujek was around all these memories daily, living in Poland. My father, in the USA. Where the saddest memory was of a favorite store closing or some other event that affects nothing in life.
Yesterday, I asked my father again. "Tato, I need your parents places of birth."
He didn't answer like always before. Instead, he said "I don't remember."
"Daddy! Then, what are your grandparents names?"
"I don't remember."
I start to lecture him on this and what it means to me.
He interrupts me, "Ges (Goose), it's been so long, I just don't remember. Sorry."
He doesn't have Alzheimer's or anything. Time has passed. It's been too long.
Now I know why we left Poland. So that someone would not have to remember. It's not the people, it's the memories and the emotions along with it all. He needed to let it all go.
I am now alone in this. I don't want to forget. But I have less to remember.
The same answer hits me every time.
My father smiles at me, loses eye contact after a moment, and says "Not today, maybe tomorrow."
30 years of tomorrows have gone by and I have begun pieces our story together myself. And there are gigantic holes. The sort of holes that leave me feeling like maybe there is a giant monster eating it all, figuratively.
It took me this long to realize my father's character completely. My brother thinks my father pushes people away, shuts himself off from the world. My mother felt the same way. They aren't wrong.
But it goes deeper than that. My father isn't cold. He is very loving. Not the sort of loving like in the movies. But the sort of loving where I could tell him any sort of thought I had, no matter how preposterous it was and he would help me nurture it into knowledge. Questions I would have regarding politics, history, religion, social behaviour... What? You never had these sorts of conversations with your parents? Well, my father would ask me questions back, give me books to read, tell me about what he knew, and I gobbled it all up. It was knowledge. What I would never learn in school.
That monster eating it all away was the culmination of all our story was filled with. Death, loss, separation, sorrow, more death, hunger. There is a word for it but I won't utter it because I won't allow it to win.
What do you do to deal with that? I can tell you what my father has done. What my brother does. What I have always done. Thrown ourselves headfirst into work. Not one of us has ever worked less than a 45 hour work week. More likely 50-70 hours. Without thought. I worked a bit less but I had housework to throw myself into as well. Meals to cook, corners to scrub on my hands and knees because the mop doesn't do the trick on drowning out that monster.
Now I have kids to care for, writing to be done, research to do to claim my children's Polish citizenships, volunteer hours at the school, baking for the nursing home, story times, and it goes on and on and on.
When I would talk to my father about WWII, he always told me he didn't want me to hate others. Not to judge others for what some monsters did.
In Wroclaw once, I wanted to take a picture of a memorial of some students who were killed by the Soviets while protesting against the Communist government and he blocked my camera. He shook his head and said, "No, it's too sad." He began to walk away very quickly. My Wujek was around all these memories daily, living in Poland. My father, in the USA. Where the saddest memory was of a favorite store closing or some other event that affects nothing in life.
Yesterday, I asked my father again. "Tato, I need your parents places of birth."
He didn't answer like always before. Instead, he said "I don't remember."
"Daddy! Then, what are your grandparents names?"
"I don't remember."
I start to lecture him on this and what it means to me.
He interrupts me, "Ges (Goose), it's been so long, I just don't remember. Sorry."
He doesn't have Alzheimer's or anything. Time has passed. It's been too long.
Now I know why we left Poland. So that someone would not have to remember. It's not the people, it's the memories and the emotions along with it all. He needed to let it all go.
I am now alone in this. I don't want to forget. But I have less to remember.
04 May 2011
May Crowning, Finding Other Poles, and It Could Have Been My Father
I start to leave my older daughter's classroom. My husband is home today and has decided he wants to take the younger daughter with him for some errands and Father Daughter bonding time. As I start to leave, I hear the teacher mention that the May Crowning would follow immediately after Mass.
My feet stop. May Crowning.
I walk outside, breathe the air and focus on the signs around me. The leaves are just now finally coming out of trees now in small amounts. The air is comfortable but the wind is still carrying a chill. The sky is a flawless blue and the sun shines on me. It is Spring here.
I don't know whether you know this about me, but until last year, I lived in Maryland. The weather here is taking a lot to get used to. I keep thinking to myself, "I should be barefoot for the past 2 months now". But that is life. It keeps changing.
So, I celebrate traditions instead of focusing on getting frustrated with change. Because that's all I can do with a life full of change.
Down the path, toward the Church.
"Hello, Sister! How are you today?" I greet the Sister at our Church and we exchange pleasantries. She asks if I am coming to Mass. I confirm this and continue to walk around the corner to drop off tuition at the Rectory. On the way, I see other parents and teachers who point at the Church doors and say "See you inside for Mass?" I nod yes.
For a split second, I am in Poland. Because my feet are crossing a patch of grass trampled by feet next to the sidewalk and a tree. There is nothing special about this tree, this patch of grass. But the deja vu feeling is there anyway. Perhaps it's the Spring that does that. Perhaps it's the recognition that this patch of trampled grass has been trampled by the faithful around this Church for over 150 years.
Perhaps I once did the same in Poland with my mother on a walk around Wroclaw before we left one day in the middle of the night....
At Mass, I join in with the rest of the Church in songs to the Virgin Mary and listen to reminders that mothers should take inspiration from her.
The children's voices fill the Church in "Alleluia" and I get goosebumps. My daughter's voice is in there singing. She will come home today singing whatever song particularly moved her.
During the petition prayers to the Virgin Mary, I am reminded that as a citizen of a developed nation I am responsible to care for those in less fortunate places....
Leaving the Church, my daughter walks down the aisle with her hands together with her classmates and sees me. "Mommy! They are going to crown the Virgin Mary statue outside! Come on!"...
Standing by my daughter's class outside, she beams at me as she stands quietly in line. The school bursts out in song as the chosen girl walks to the statue, climbs a ladder and crowns the statue. I'm sure many have seen the movie "A Polish Wedding"...
I whisper in my daughter's ear, "We will talk after school. And I can tell you about how special this is in Poland as well." She smiles at me, nods her head and whispers back "Ok, Mamu"...
Walking back to the car and someone mentions to a teacher that it would be nice to have the crown left on. I confirm that I want a picture of the Virgin Mary with her crown. This teacher tells me that at her Polish grade school, they always left the crown on. An excited conversation between her, another lady present for the ceremony and myself and we begin hugging each other and talking about our immigrant family histories. We are all Polish. In a town with what seems like immigrants from everywhere else but Poland...
In line at the grocery store, a Hispanic father with his infant daughter in her infant carrier is in line ahead of me with a WIC check. He has not picked out the items he wants to buy. He does not speak English well. But it's clear he wants formula with the WIC checks. The cashier waits on me while an employee who speaks Spanish is found to help the Hispanic father. She shakes her head at him. Perhaps because she is in a rush. Perhaps she assumes something about him.
I look at him. He could have been my father. Different complexion, facial features, height but he is human. He is an immigrant. He is a new father, nervously checking on his little precious daughter who is sound asleep at his feet. He does not have the new language mastered. By his shoes and hands, I can tell he is blue collar and basically trying to find that elusive "American Dream".
He is not sure why he is standing to the side not being helped. He looks helpless in a way, unsure what anyone is saying around him.
I am taken care of for my purchase and go up to him. Instead of speaking a slew of sentences in English, I say a couple of basic words at a time.
"I help?" He nods.
"I see?" Point to his WIC checks. He hands them to me nervously and nods "Yes, please."
"Formula? Baby? Bambino?" I don't speak Spanish. I just speak a couple of words in several different languages, besides the Polish and English I know comfortably. In my mind, I debate speaking French to him since to me, the languages are very similar. I decide against it. Not everyone seems the same language similarities.
"These checks, no." I point to some. "Later." I wave my hands in dismissal to the side. He nods.
"These checks, yes. Good now." I point to others, gesture with my fingers to the floor the international "now". I separate them, hand him the folder. Hand him the checks that are dated for this month. He says "Aaaa!" with understanding. He puts the folder in his pocket, holds the checks.
The cashier comes over, gushing at my patience, thanking me. An employee is found who speaks Spanish and they begin to tell the father how to pick out his formula. He smiles at me, nods his head in appreciation. I smile back, wave goodbye and walk away.
At church, the petition to be responsible and show compassion towards others and to remember to be like the Virgin Mary with her patience and kindness was a good reminder for today.
But really, the reason I tried to help that father?
It could have been my father.
My feet stop. May Crowning.
I walk outside, breathe the air and focus on the signs around me. The leaves are just now finally coming out of trees now in small amounts. The air is comfortable but the wind is still carrying a chill. The sky is a flawless blue and the sun shines on me. It is Spring here.
I don't know whether you know this about me, but until last year, I lived in Maryland. The weather here is taking a lot to get used to. I keep thinking to myself, "I should be barefoot for the past 2 months now". But that is life. It keeps changing.
So, I celebrate traditions instead of focusing on getting frustrated with change. Because that's all I can do with a life full of change.
Down the path, toward the Church.
"Hello, Sister! How are you today?" I greet the Sister at our Church and we exchange pleasantries. She asks if I am coming to Mass. I confirm this and continue to walk around the corner to drop off tuition at the Rectory. On the way, I see other parents and teachers who point at the Church doors and say "See you inside for Mass?" I nod yes.
For a split second, I am in Poland. Because my feet are crossing a patch of grass trampled by feet next to the sidewalk and a tree. There is nothing special about this tree, this patch of grass. But the deja vu feeling is there anyway. Perhaps it's the Spring that does that. Perhaps it's the recognition that this patch of trampled grass has been trampled by the faithful around this Church for over 150 years.
Perhaps I once did the same in Poland with my mother on a walk around Wroclaw before we left one day in the middle of the night....
At Mass, I join in with the rest of the Church in songs to the Virgin Mary and listen to reminders that mothers should take inspiration from her.
The children's voices fill the Church in "Alleluia" and I get goosebumps. My daughter's voice is in there singing. She will come home today singing whatever song particularly moved her.
During the petition prayers to the Virgin Mary, I am reminded that as a citizen of a developed nation I am responsible to care for those in less fortunate places....
Leaving the Church, my daughter walks down the aisle with her hands together with her classmates and sees me. "Mommy! They are going to crown the Virgin Mary statue outside! Come on!"...
Standing by my daughter's class outside, she beams at me as she stands quietly in line. The school bursts out in song as the chosen girl walks to the statue, climbs a ladder and crowns the statue. I'm sure many have seen the movie "A Polish Wedding"...
I whisper in my daughter's ear, "We will talk after school. And I can tell you about how special this is in Poland as well." She smiles at me, nods her head and whispers back "Ok, Mamu"...
Walking back to the car and someone mentions to a teacher that it would be nice to have the crown left on. I confirm that I want a picture of the Virgin Mary with her crown. This teacher tells me that at her Polish grade school, they always left the crown on. An excited conversation between her, another lady present for the ceremony and myself and we begin hugging each other and talking about our immigrant family histories. We are all Polish. In a town with what seems like immigrants from everywhere else but Poland...
In line at the grocery store, a Hispanic father with his infant daughter in her infant carrier is in line ahead of me with a WIC check. He has not picked out the items he wants to buy. He does not speak English well. But it's clear he wants formula with the WIC checks. The cashier waits on me while an employee who speaks Spanish is found to help the Hispanic father. She shakes her head at him. Perhaps because she is in a rush. Perhaps she assumes something about him.
I look at him. He could have been my father. Different complexion, facial features, height but he is human. He is an immigrant. He is a new father, nervously checking on his little precious daughter who is sound asleep at his feet. He does not have the new language mastered. By his shoes and hands, I can tell he is blue collar and basically trying to find that elusive "American Dream".
He is not sure why he is standing to the side not being helped. He looks helpless in a way, unsure what anyone is saying around him.
I am taken care of for my purchase and go up to him. Instead of speaking a slew of sentences in English, I say a couple of basic words at a time.
"I help?" He nods.
"I see?" Point to his WIC checks. He hands them to me nervously and nods "Yes, please."
"Formula? Baby? Bambino?" I don't speak Spanish. I just speak a couple of words in several different languages, besides the Polish and English I know comfortably. In my mind, I debate speaking French to him since to me, the languages are very similar. I decide against it. Not everyone seems the same language similarities.
"These checks, no." I point to some. "Later." I wave my hands in dismissal to the side. He nods.
"These checks, yes. Good now." I point to others, gesture with my fingers to the floor the international "now". I separate them, hand him the folder. Hand him the checks that are dated for this month. He says "Aaaa!" with understanding. He puts the folder in his pocket, holds the checks.
The cashier comes over, gushing at my patience, thanking me. An employee is found who speaks Spanish and they begin to tell the father how to pick out his formula. He smiles at me, nods his head in appreciation. I smile back, wave goodbye and walk away.
At church, the petition to be responsible and show compassion towards others and to remember to be like the Virgin Mary with her patience and kindness was a good reminder for today.
But really, the reason I tried to help that father?
It could have been my father.
19 April 2011
A Cemetery in a Small Village in the Polish Countryside and WWII
My first experience seeing, feeling, and understanding the effects of WWII on Poland and myself was not while reading history books, or watching television, or talking to my Dziadek. At those moments, WWII was an abstract idea, surreal, not tangible. It just didn't seem real. It was as distant as the Revolutionary War.
I was in a village visiting a Ciocia ("Aunt" in Polish) the first moment it really dawned on me what WWII meant. What WWII was in terms of a human event, in terms of my family's history.
This was my first trip back to Poland. And it was life changing.
I stand in a small cemetery.
This is not a cemetery in America. There are no artificial flowers, Styrofoam wreaths, and other such grave ornaments. There aren't miles of meticulously manicured grass, limited plants and trees and bushes, tombstones flat on the ground so that from the highway running next to it, you are not reminded that it is a cemetery. There is no mausoleum of hundreds of unrelated bodies.
This is a cemetery in a small village in Poland. On a path travelled for centuries by villagers as they go about life.
This is the village's cemetery for centuries. The local Catholic church towers over the village, as all Catholic churches in Poland tend to do. The path to the cemetery had been lined with trees, tall grasses, and fields. Not empty fields, but fields planted and growing food, some with cows and other livestock. Farmer's fields growing what the village would be eating and making a living from.
The walk had been beautiful, peaceful. I knew we were going to visit a grave of some family member. I don't know who. Perhaps it is my other Dziadek's but I'm sorry to say I can't remember.
It is a warm sunny summer day. There is a sign above the cemetery. I don't remember what it says.
The cemetery is surrounded by trees and cool shadows. At first, the cemetery seems small. All the graves have tall tombstones and stone covers. Many have bushes and flowers planted around them. Some have candles on the covers.
Behind the cemetery is a once white stucco house with a red roof. The yard is bursting with flowers. Clothes hang on the line, gently moving with the warm summer breeze. A cat, dark brown, peeks at me from under a bush. Winks and crosses the yard toward the other side of the house.
Browning tall grass bends and bobs it's seedheads as the wind plays across them on one half of the cemetery, to my left. All around, Nature is singing and celebrating Life. Yet, I stand in a cemetery, with tombstones marking places where the dead rest, to my right. To the left, tall grasses.
I look around, curious. Begin reading tombstones. Walking down each row. So many names that never would sound "normal" in the USA but names which I grew up hearing around me. And many with my first name. "Katarzyna".
I always loved my first name. I thought it was elegant, exotic and yet not strange, classic. But until I visited Poland, I had never ever heard of anyone else having the same name, let alone met anyone.
I begin to pick small yellow flowers that were growing wild in a section of the cemetery. They are small and beautiful. They seemed so joyous while I walk around this final resting site. I place a flower on one particular grave which has my same first name. It feels right. I begin to do the same for others.
The dates in this cemetery go back at least to the 1600's, with some faded, covered in moss. The idea begins to hit me, as it does everyone at some point in their life, that one day I am going to be a marked tombstone somewhere. The thought makes me uncomfortable. And the more "Katarzyna"'s I read on tombstones, the more the idea hits me.
I place more flowers on graves. This urge is primal. It needs to be followed through. It is the root for All Souls Day. This is my Polish blood, whispering to me in a way I had never heard before.
The sun shines on my head. On the flowers. On grasshoppers and insects flying away from me with each step.
I step to the other half of the cemetery, grass as tall as I am in most places. Wild flowers grow here, blue, yellow, red. I start to pick more flowers. My mother and Ciocia look at me and laugh. They ask what I am doing and realize I have placed flowers on every grave that looks slightly neglected or has my first name.
They don't understand and I can't explain it. Not to them. They grew up around here. Their names are normal to them and people around them, this cemetery is like all cemeteries to them, their history in the soil they tread is normal to them. To me, this is so strange.
I feel something that I had not understood before start to creep over me but I can't explain it. I just can't. I turn away from them and continue what I'm doing. I don't care what they think. It doesn't matter. This is something spiritual I must wrestle with that they never had to. I'm jealous of them.
In that area of the cemetery which I assume to be the empty section meant for future graves, I begin to pick flowers. A few blades of grass move. I find a tombstone. My breathe stops. I look around more carefully, moving wildflowers and grass out of the way and find many many more. More than in the other, more cared for section of the cemetery. And almost all their death dates are during WWII. And there are many other Katarzynas.
I look at my mother and ask "Why hasn't the caretaker mowed around these graves?"
My mother looks at me with a strange look in her eyes. I think now it dawns on her, at least a bit, how much I just don't understand. Not just in life. I'm still a child, after all. But about my family's history, Poland's history. The culture. Little subtle things that I could never really learn about living in the US.
She replies in a quiet voice, "Kasiu, there is no caretaker. In Poland, the family cares for each grave."
I point to the graves, some knocked over or sitting crooked. "But in this village, why don't they take care of these graves also? The tombstones are broken, falling over. The grasses are so tall. The dead must be sad."
My Ciocia doesn't understand. She waves a hand dismissively. I don't like her. "They are Jews. Some Poles. Their families left us here with their graves when they fled to America and never came back to care for their family (meaning their dead). You don't understand how much work is to be done here. People are too tired to care for more graves."
"But a lot of these are children. And how can they be Jews? I see a lot of Katarzyna's."
My mother looks at me, shakes her head, and says, "Kasiu, that's how it is." She turns herself to end the conversation. I wanted a hug from someone who understood what I was wrestling with. My brother was there, he was walking around as well but he was quiet. And he didn't touch any graves. I don't know what he was thinking. I should have reached out to him but didn't know what to say.
I continue walking around the graves. I'm angry. I see that there is a group of graves which all share the same death day. Another grave has a Star of David. So many are children.
I realize these people were killed by Nazis. I don't know what the exact event was. Perhaps I never will. But first hand, for the first time ever, I see the effects of WWII. In a village where some family member of mine is buried and therefor a part of my blood is from.
It could have been over 100 graves, I'm not sure. But there were so many.
I continue to walk and begin pulling up grass. I leave the flowers. But the grass I start to pull up and toss into a pile in the back of the cemetery that must have been from others tending graves before.
I keep pulling up the grave. Graves which had not seen light in many years begin to bask in sunshine. I know my Ciocia is upset. Perhaps I'm making someone else look bad. I don't care.
I would not want to have my final resting place forgotten.
But then, which is worse? Paying a stranger to care for the cemetery and family not feeling the need to come visit and care over your final resting place? Or being forgotten in a corner of a cemetery.
But not really forgotten. I understand that this is an event which still rests freshly in the memories of the Babcias and Dziadeks of this village, they saw it first hand. It can never be forgotten. No matter how horrible. But life must go on. And if caring for those graves chokes people up all over again, remembering such a horrible event in human history, perpetrated right there, in their own backyards, in the backyards and fields which for centuries had been in their family, can you imagine the feeling?
Graves continue to be pulled free from the wildlife taking over them. Light brings more names back to the present, reminders of others who passed away, who I don't know. But I will always remember them.
I keep pulling grass and picking flowers...
I was in a village visiting a Ciocia ("Aunt" in Polish) the first moment it really dawned on me what WWII meant. What WWII was in terms of a human event, in terms of my family's history.
This was my first trip back to Poland. And it was life changing.
I stand in a small cemetery.
This is not a cemetery in America. There are no artificial flowers, Styrofoam wreaths, and other such grave ornaments. There aren't miles of meticulously manicured grass, limited plants and trees and bushes, tombstones flat on the ground so that from the highway running next to it, you are not reminded that it is a cemetery. There is no mausoleum of hundreds of unrelated bodies.
This is a cemetery in a small village in Poland. On a path travelled for centuries by villagers as they go about life.
This is the village's cemetery for centuries. The local Catholic church towers over the village, as all Catholic churches in Poland tend to do. The path to the cemetery had been lined with trees, tall grasses, and fields. Not empty fields, but fields planted and growing food, some with cows and other livestock. Farmer's fields growing what the village would be eating and making a living from.
The walk had been beautiful, peaceful. I knew we were going to visit a grave of some family member. I don't know who. Perhaps it is my other Dziadek's but I'm sorry to say I can't remember.
It is a warm sunny summer day. There is a sign above the cemetery. I don't remember what it says.
The cemetery is surrounded by trees and cool shadows. At first, the cemetery seems small. All the graves have tall tombstones and stone covers. Many have bushes and flowers planted around them. Some have candles on the covers.
Behind the cemetery is a once white stucco house with a red roof. The yard is bursting with flowers. Clothes hang on the line, gently moving with the warm summer breeze. A cat, dark brown, peeks at me from under a bush. Winks and crosses the yard toward the other side of the house.
Browning tall grass bends and bobs it's seedheads as the wind plays across them on one half of the cemetery, to my left. All around, Nature is singing and celebrating Life. Yet, I stand in a cemetery, with tombstones marking places where the dead rest, to my right. To the left, tall grasses.
I look around, curious. Begin reading tombstones. Walking down each row. So many names that never would sound "normal" in the USA but names which I grew up hearing around me. And many with my first name. "Katarzyna".
I always loved my first name. I thought it was elegant, exotic and yet not strange, classic. But until I visited Poland, I had never ever heard of anyone else having the same name, let alone met anyone.
I begin to pick small yellow flowers that were growing wild in a section of the cemetery. They are small and beautiful. They seemed so joyous while I walk around this final resting site. I place a flower on one particular grave which has my same first name. It feels right. I begin to do the same for others.
The dates in this cemetery go back at least to the 1600's, with some faded, covered in moss. The idea begins to hit me, as it does everyone at some point in their life, that one day I am going to be a marked tombstone somewhere. The thought makes me uncomfortable. And the more "Katarzyna"'s I read on tombstones, the more the idea hits me.
I place more flowers on graves. This urge is primal. It needs to be followed through. It is the root for All Souls Day. This is my Polish blood, whispering to me in a way I had never heard before.
The sun shines on my head. On the flowers. On grasshoppers and insects flying away from me with each step.
I step to the other half of the cemetery, grass as tall as I am in most places. Wild flowers grow here, blue, yellow, red. I start to pick more flowers. My mother and Ciocia look at me and laugh. They ask what I am doing and realize I have placed flowers on every grave that looks slightly neglected or has my first name.
They don't understand and I can't explain it. Not to them. They grew up around here. Their names are normal to them and people around them, this cemetery is like all cemeteries to them, their history in the soil they tread is normal to them. To me, this is so strange.
I feel something that I had not understood before start to creep over me but I can't explain it. I just can't. I turn away from them and continue what I'm doing. I don't care what they think. It doesn't matter. This is something spiritual I must wrestle with that they never had to. I'm jealous of them.
In that area of the cemetery which I assume to be the empty section meant for future graves, I begin to pick flowers. A few blades of grass move. I find a tombstone. My breathe stops. I look around more carefully, moving wildflowers and grass out of the way and find many many more. More than in the other, more cared for section of the cemetery. And almost all their death dates are during WWII. And there are many other Katarzynas.
I look at my mother and ask "Why hasn't the caretaker mowed around these graves?"
My mother looks at me with a strange look in her eyes. I think now it dawns on her, at least a bit, how much I just don't understand. Not just in life. I'm still a child, after all. But about my family's history, Poland's history. The culture. Little subtle things that I could never really learn about living in the US.
She replies in a quiet voice, "Kasiu, there is no caretaker. In Poland, the family cares for each grave."
I point to the graves, some knocked over or sitting crooked. "But in this village, why don't they take care of these graves also? The tombstones are broken, falling over. The grasses are so tall. The dead must be sad."
My Ciocia doesn't understand. She waves a hand dismissively. I don't like her. "They are Jews. Some Poles. Their families left us here with their graves when they fled to America and never came back to care for their family (meaning their dead). You don't understand how much work is to be done here. People are too tired to care for more graves."
"But a lot of these are children. And how can they be Jews? I see a lot of Katarzyna's."
My mother looks at me, shakes her head, and says, "Kasiu, that's how it is." She turns herself to end the conversation. I wanted a hug from someone who understood what I was wrestling with. My brother was there, he was walking around as well but he was quiet. And he didn't touch any graves. I don't know what he was thinking. I should have reached out to him but didn't know what to say.
I continue walking around the graves. I'm angry. I see that there is a group of graves which all share the same death day. Another grave has a Star of David. So many are children.
I realize these people were killed by Nazis. I don't know what the exact event was. Perhaps I never will. But first hand, for the first time ever, I see the effects of WWII. In a village where some family member of mine is buried and therefor a part of my blood is from.
It could have been over 100 graves, I'm not sure. But there were so many.
I continue to walk and begin pulling up grass. I leave the flowers. But the grass I start to pull up and toss into a pile in the back of the cemetery that must have been from others tending graves before.
I keep pulling up the grave. Graves which had not seen light in many years begin to bask in sunshine. I know my Ciocia is upset. Perhaps I'm making someone else look bad. I don't care.
I would not want to have my final resting place forgotten.
But then, which is worse? Paying a stranger to care for the cemetery and family not feeling the need to come visit and care over your final resting place? Or being forgotten in a corner of a cemetery.
But not really forgotten. I understand that this is an event which still rests freshly in the memories of the Babcias and Dziadeks of this village, they saw it first hand. It can never be forgotten. No matter how horrible. But life must go on. And if caring for those graves chokes people up all over again, remembering such a horrible event in human history, perpetrated right there, in their own backyards, in the backyards and fields which for centuries had been in their family, can you imagine the feeling?
Graves continue to be pulled free from the wildlife taking over them. Light brings more names back to the present, reminders of others who passed away, who I don't know. But I will always remember them.
I keep pulling grass and picking flowers...
12 April 2011
Letter To Heaven: Dear Dziadek, a Letter to My Father's Deceased Father
Dear Dziadek,
Actually, if I were writing this letter to send to you, I would write it in Polish. But since you have passed away, I suppose it doesn't matter what language I write this in. Actually, I don't even know if this will reach you. But it needs to come off my chest.
I never really knew you. I know you affected my life. I can see you in the mirror sometimes when I am tired and angry.
I suppose I should tell you how I have always seen you as a person, since you wouldn't really know.
You hated my mother. You called her a "Russian" and all sorts of curse words. Once, you told me that I was part Russian with a strange smug smile, as though you loved me but you knew a dirty secret about me that made me imperfect. Whether or not I am actually part Russian, as you claim, I do not know but I now feel the need to find out. Whether or not I am actually part Russian, I hope you loved me.
The details of our flight from Poland in 1981 were very few when I was growing up. Nobody wanted to tell me. For a long time, I only knew that we left in the middle of the night in a Maluszek (an extremely small car in Poland for a while under Soviet government). The car had no heat and it was the dead of winter so I was wrapped up in a coarse green blanket which we kept for a very long time until someone lost it. I wish I had that blanket still.
I knew that you drove us. That all of our lives were at risk if we were caught but that you risked your life twice to sneak back through the border to Poland. Thank you.
I know that you always made little sense to me when I would talk to you. Your letters and postcards rarely did either. I thought it was my (by my own perception) poor mastery of my first language. I didn't know it's because you had problems.
You came to visit us once in the US, perhaps it was twice but I don't remember. I know you and my mother did not get along. I know you smiled at the strangest situations and I never knew what to expect from you. You scared me. But I was very young, perhaps 6 years old. You never hurt me though. You were just strange.
I remember you liked to eat raw onions and I thought it was a very unnatural thing to do and that you and the whole apartment smelled atrociously from it while you stayed with us. I remember once everyone took a daytime nap, everyone except my brother and I. We just couldn't. You snored so loudly from the living room that we ended up sneaking out of bed to stare at you sleeping. We didn't know what snoring was. Your breathe stunk so terribly of the raw onion you had eaten earlier that the open windows and balcony door did little good. I tiptoed up to you, to the giggles of my little brother, pressed my lips to your ear and made a spitting sound. Just to get you to stop snoring.
I didn't realize your temper. You jumped up so quickly and loudly screaming about what I wasn't sure but there was violence and anger in your words. You carried me to my parents room and threw me onto their bed and told my father that if he didn't beat me into silence with his Polish Army belt, he would. I don't recall many other times in my life when I was so terrified. I always carried that in my memories about you after that, being extremely careful how I talked and moved around you.
I know that you expected my father to give you money, just like many others on my mother's side still living in Poland expected. Some sort of idea that we were rich like millionaires a couple of years after moving to the US was stuck in your head. You were wrong. You were very wrong. We were just beginning to eat better food than what we had our first two years coming here, but still unable to pay to go out to eat or have fun at that point in our lives. Because when you move to a different country, success doesn't happen overnight, and it isn't guaranteed in the first place.
When I would call your home, you always answered the phone with "Hello!" When you would realize it was my voice (no need to say my name, you knew by my words and accent) you would shout "Hello, New York! Hello, Baltimore! Hello, America! Nice to talk to you!" in English and would proceed to talk with great interest and joy in your voice. I had no idea what you said most of the time so I would laugh and call you very funny during the times when it felt right and that I loved you and missed you at other times.
When I went to Poland for the first time after leaving, my mother did not want to visit you. I knew you both hated each other. So, instead, you drove to my Wujek's place and stayed there with us. You and Babcia. My mother told me to go into your room with my brother and spend time with you. I didn't want to. I didn't know what to do or say to you and Babcia. It isn't as though we had Grandparents around to show us how that relationship works. I had only seen you as a child for a month before. Who were you? What could we talk about?
I sat on one bed with my brother, looking overwhelmed. You and Babcia sat down on the other, with looks on your faces like you were also overwhelmed with emotion. Joy, Trepidation, Sorrow at so much time lost forever, Love, Regrets, Shame that I didn't speak better Polish, feelings that the world was unfair. We spoke for a while, I don't remember what we talked about. I just remember the emotions because they were like a cold bucket of water pouring over me without end from nowhere, the true reality of how my life had been changed.
You took my brother and I down to a village further down the mountain to purchase us something for our birthdays. In the same Maluszek. My brother got a Smurf and I got a pen. I don't have the pen anymore but my brother has the Smurf.
It wasn't until your funeral a couple of years that I learned a lot more about you. Yet none of it shocked me. I still want to learn more.
I learned, from listening to conversations you, your brother and your mother had, that your temper had alienated our family from us a long time ago. That I had a very large family who had always wondered what had happened to me and my brother. People who I had no idea about were hugging me and crying over my daughter who was at the funeral.
I learned that some of your family was from the area in Poland called Mazowsze prior to WWII. That there was some whispering about someone coming off a transport train from Ukraine during WWII. Nobody has yet told me what that was about. But I remember the venom in your mouth when you would say someone was Ukrainian or Russian. Were you part Ukrainian? What would be so terrible about that?
I knew that you had lived in Poland during WWII, that you were 13 when the war had ended. I didn't realize to what depth that had affected. It broke my heart when I learned that the Nazis had burst into your house in your village (Which village was that? Why had you never told me about where you were from?) in the middle of the night, rounding up all the villagers, grabbing some and shooting them in front of everyone. That group included your brother (You had a brother?). You would have been around 8, I would think. What happened to you from there, I don't yet know.
I do know that you ended up in Wroclaw somehow during WWII. I know that you lived in there through the Breslau Festung period. I heard in a whispered conversation that you fought against Nazi youth during that time. I know that you saw death filling the streets, Poles and Nazis left to rot out in the open unburied. That would have damaged anyone mentally.
I knew that you joined the Soviet Army in the Polish Army and were "Career Army". Yet, I thought that you had left the Army early and didn't know until your funeral that it was because you were given honorary discharge for Schizophrenia. It all began to make sense.
I remember talking to you once as a child and suddenly you had become angry in the middle of our joking and began to talk about something dark and terrible and your face had distorted. My mother had shooed me away immediately and told my father to tell you to stop talking about something. You must have been having flashbacks, I suppose. It would have been no long stretch of the imagination to say that you had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well. There is no shame in any of that.
When I brought my husband to meet you and my Babcia on our honeymoon, my husband really liked you but he had no clue what you were saying. You said nothing wrong, you were very pleasant to him. But you did call me a "Russian Communist".
And you played a video which was no different than your other videos. It was a video with footage of Space and you began to talk about how you save money over me because you travel everyday from your living room. The scene on the video changed to a commercial about beer, then something French, then a naked woman rubbing a slice of watermelon all over herself. I wanted to fall through the floor. I spilled the brandy you had poured for us. My husband laughed at my embarrassment, not understanding. My Babcia begged him to realize that he was embarrassing me. You kept laughing then changed the channel. I silently prayed for you because I realized you were mentally ill and that you didn't realize what you had done.
Suddenly, my father made sense to my husband. You had two TV's, a Satellite Dish, at least 4 VCR's, a computer, several receivers and so many cables that there was no way for me to make sense of it all. My father is a "gizmo" man. If it is electronic, he loves it.
We went in your car to your favorite store, Tesco. It was the same Maluszek that had carried me as a small child to Austria many years before. Because I am tall, I was terrified of getting into an accident as my forehead almost touched the windshield. My husband was fascinated.
You explained to me that you and my father could make your own car alarms. I had known about this but had never seen it. You first turned the key and nothing happened. A smile was on your face as you explained that the car could never start like that. Then, you touched something somewhere, I'm not sure what, with your left hand as you turned the key and the car started. This was something you and my father had done together to this car and you cherished it.
Then, the car played some strange tune as it turned on. The left blinker played a different song and the right blinker played "Happy Birthday". Oh, the madness. Yet, it was something to see and smile about.
I broke your heart because I didn't want to go to the cemetery to visit your and Babcia's parents the next day. When I told you that, your face became so sad that I have always regretted it since. I thought I could do it the following trip. Or the following trip. I didn't realize that you would pass away. After all, Dziadeks don't pass away.
I learned that you could be violent at times. I don't know what to say about that. I don't want to talk about it. Is it denial or is it that it had not happened to me so therefor I had no right to say anything about it.
I learned that some of your family had at one time kidnapped my father and denied my Uncle. Why?
I learned that you were hard on my father and his brother. That you were unsure how to show love and affection, through the many stories I heard.
When we buried you, I learned something else amazing about being Polish. The respect. Irregardless of how someone felt about you, your funeral had over one hundred people in attendance. And every single person had flowers.
At the same time, my husband's grandmother passed away in the US was buried. With a handful in attendance, most not dressed in mourning clothing. Nobody had flowers at your funeral except my husband. She was a kind woman who loved me as a grandchild.
I will have to explore my feelings and memories of your funeral another time, it's still very sad for me.
I just want to tell you that I think I understand you much better now. We buried you in Wroclaw but you will always be a part of me.
In the way that I keep a month's worth of food in my pantry at any given time, food hoarding that my father does, that you did. From the times when there was nothing to eat so you always counted on needing that stored food.
In the way that gadgets give me a certain thrill to master as well. In my pride at the Polish Army and her soldiers and all those who fought to protect her. In my respect for anyone in the military, as long as they were compassionate and loved their country and didn't join for the joy of killing and oppression. In my interest of WWII, trying to learn about you. What had happened to you.
I know you have family who died in the Katyn Massacre. Did your father know them? Who were they to you? Is that why the military was so important to you?
I will always have questions about you. I will always have love for you.
Rest in Peace and know that you are remembered.
Your first grandchild...
Actually, if I were writing this letter to send to you, I would write it in Polish. But since you have passed away, I suppose it doesn't matter what language I write this in. Actually, I don't even know if this will reach you. But it needs to come off my chest.
I never really knew you. I know you affected my life. I can see you in the mirror sometimes when I am tired and angry.
I suppose I should tell you how I have always seen you as a person, since you wouldn't really know.
You hated my mother. You called her a "Russian" and all sorts of curse words. Once, you told me that I was part Russian with a strange smug smile, as though you loved me but you knew a dirty secret about me that made me imperfect. Whether or not I am actually part Russian, as you claim, I do not know but I now feel the need to find out. Whether or not I am actually part Russian, I hope you loved me.
The details of our flight from Poland in 1981 were very few when I was growing up. Nobody wanted to tell me. For a long time, I only knew that we left in the middle of the night in a Maluszek (an extremely small car in Poland for a while under Soviet government). The car had no heat and it was the dead of winter so I was wrapped up in a coarse green blanket which we kept for a very long time until someone lost it. I wish I had that blanket still.
I knew that you drove us. That all of our lives were at risk if we were caught but that you risked your life twice to sneak back through the border to Poland. Thank you.
I know that you always made little sense to me when I would talk to you. Your letters and postcards rarely did either. I thought it was my (by my own perception) poor mastery of my first language. I didn't know it's because you had problems.
You came to visit us once in the US, perhaps it was twice but I don't remember. I know you and my mother did not get along. I know you smiled at the strangest situations and I never knew what to expect from you. You scared me. But I was very young, perhaps 6 years old. You never hurt me though. You were just strange.
I remember you liked to eat raw onions and I thought it was a very unnatural thing to do and that you and the whole apartment smelled atrociously from it while you stayed with us. I remember once everyone took a daytime nap, everyone except my brother and I. We just couldn't. You snored so loudly from the living room that we ended up sneaking out of bed to stare at you sleeping. We didn't know what snoring was. Your breathe stunk so terribly of the raw onion you had eaten earlier that the open windows and balcony door did little good. I tiptoed up to you, to the giggles of my little brother, pressed my lips to your ear and made a spitting sound. Just to get you to stop snoring.
I didn't realize your temper. You jumped up so quickly and loudly screaming about what I wasn't sure but there was violence and anger in your words. You carried me to my parents room and threw me onto their bed and told my father that if he didn't beat me into silence with his Polish Army belt, he would. I don't recall many other times in my life when I was so terrified. I always carried that in my memories about you after that, being extremely careful how I talked and moved around you.
I know that you expected my father to give you money, just like many others on my mother's side still living in Poland expected. Some sort of idea that we were rich like millionaires a couple of years after moving to the US was stuck in your head. You were wrong. You were very wrong. We were just beginning to eat better food than what we had our first two years coming here, but still unable to pay to go out to eat or have fun at that point in our lives. Because when you move to a different country, success doesn't happen overnight, and it isn't guaranteed in the first place.
When I would call your home, you always answered the phone with "Hello!" When you would realize it was my voice (no need to say my name, you knew by my words and accent) you would shout "Hello, New York! Hello, Baltimore! Hello, America! Nice to talk to you!" in English and would proceed to talk with great interest and joy in your voice. I had no idea what you said most of the time so I would laugh and call you very funny during the times when it felt right and that I loved you and missed you at other times.
When I went to Poland for the first time after leaving, my mother did not want to visit you. I knew you both hated each other. So, instead, you drove to my Wujek's place and stayed there with us. You and Babcia. My mother told me to go into your room with my brother and spend time with you. I didn't want to. I didn't know what to do or say to you and Babcia. It isn't as though we had Grandparents around to show us how that relationship works. I had only seen you as a child for a month before. Who were you? What could we talk about?
I sat on one bed with my brother, looking overwhelmed. You and Babcia sat down on the other, with looks on your faces like you were also overwhelmed with emotion. Joy, Trepidation, Sorrow at so much time lost forever, Love, Regrets, Shame that I didn't speak better Polish, feelings that the world was unfair. We spoke for a while, I don't remember what we talked about. I just remember the emotions because they were like a cold bucket of water pouring over me without end from nowhere, the true reality of how my life had been changed.
You took my brother and I down to a village further down the mountain to purchase us something for our birthdays. In the same Maluszek. My brother got a Smurf and I got a pen. I don't have the pen anymore but my brother has the Smurf.
It wasn't until your funeral a couple of years that I learned a lot more about you. Yet none of it shocked me. I still want to learn more.
I learned, from listening to conversations you, your brother and your mother had, that your temper had alienated our family from us a long time ago. That I had a very large family who had always wondered what had happened to me and my brother. People who I had no idea about were hugging me and crying over my daughter who was at the funeral.
I learned that some of your family was from the area in Poland called Mazowsze prior to WWII. That there was some whispering about someone coming off a transport train from Ukraine during WWII. Nobody has yet told me what that was about. But I remember the venom in your mouth when you would say someone was Ukrainian or Russian. Were you part Ukrainian? What would be so terrible about that?
I knew that you had lived in Poland during WWII, that you were 13 when the war had ended. I didn't realize to what depth that had affected. It broke my heart when I learned that the Nazis had burst into your house in your village (Which village was that? Why had you never told me about where you were from?) in the middle of the night, rounding up all the villagers, grabbing some and shooting them in front of everyone. That group included your brother (You had a brother?). You would have been around 8, I would think. What happened to you from there, I don't yet know.
I do know that you ended up in Wroclaw somehow during WWII. I know that you lived in there through the Breslau Festung period. I heard in a whispered conversation that you fought against Nazi youth during that time. I know that you saw death filling the streets, Poles and Nazis left to rot out in the open unburied. That would have damaged anyone mentally.
I knew that you joined the Soviet Army in the Polish Army and were "Career Army". Yet, I thought that you had left the Army early and didn't know until your funeral that it was because you were given honorary discharge for Schizophrenia. It all began to make sense.
I remember talking to you once as a child and suddenly you had become angry in the middle of our joking and began to talk about something dark and terrible and your face had distorted. My mother had shooed me away immediately and told my father to tell you to stop talking about something. You must have been having flashbacks, I suppose. It would have been no long stretch of the imagination to say that you had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well. There is no shame in any of that.
When I brought my husband to meet you and my Babcia on our honeymoon, my husband really liked you but he had no clue what you were saying. You said nothing wrong, you were very pleasant to him. But you did call me a "Russian Communist".
And you played a video which was no different than your other videos. It was a video with footage of Space and you began to talk about how you save money over me because you travel everyday from your living room. The scene on the video changed to a commercial about beer, then something French, then a naked woman rubbing a slice of watermelon all over herself. I wanted to fall through the floor. I spilled the brandy you had poured for us. My husband laughed at my embarrassment, not understanding. My Babcia begged him to realize that he was embarrassing me. You kept laughing then changed the channel. I silently prayed for you because I realized you were mentally ill and that you didn't realize what you had done.
Suddenly, my father made sense to my husband. You had two TV's, a Satellite Dish, at least 4 VCR's, a computer, several receivers and so many cables that there was no way for me to make sense of it all. My father is a "gizmo" man. If it is electronic, he loves it.
We went in your car to your favorite store, Tesco. It was the same Maluszek that had carried me as a small child to Austria many years before. Because I am tall, I was terrified of getting into an accident as my forehead almost touched the windshield. My husband was fascinated.
You explained to me that you and my father could make your own car alarms. I had known about this but had never seen it. You first turned the key and nothing happened. A smile was on your face as you explained that the car could never start like that. Then, you touched something somewhere, I'm not sure what, with your left hand as you turned the key and the car started. This was something you and my father had done together to this car and you cherished it.
Then, the car played some strange tune as it turned on. The left blinker played a different song and the right blinker played "Happy Birthday". Oh, the madness. Yet, it was something to see and smile about.
I broke your heart because I didn't want to go to the cemetery to visit your and Babcia's parents the next day. When I told you that, your face became so sad that I have always regretted it since. I thought I could do it the following trip. Or the following trip. I didn't realize that you would pass away. After all, Dziadeks don't pass away.
I learned that you could be violent at times. I don't know what to say about that. I don't want to talk about it. Is it denial or is it that it had not happened to me so therefor I had no right to say anything about it.
I learned that some of your family had at one time kidnapped my father and denied my Uncle. Why?
I learned that you were hard on my father and his brother. That you were unsure how to show love and affection, through the many stories I heard.
When we buried you, I learned something else amazing about being Polish. The respect. Irregardless of how someone felt about you, your funeral had over one hundred people in attendance. And every single person had flowers.
At the same time, my husband's grandmother passed away in the US was buried. With a handful in attendance, most not dressed in mourning clothing. Nobody had flowers at your funeral except my husband. She was a kind woman who loved me as a grandchild.
I will have to explore my feelings and memories of your funeral another time, it's still very sad for me.
I just want to tell you that I think I understand you much better now. We buried you in Wroclaw but you will always be a part of me.
In the way that I keep a month's worth of food in my pantry at any given time, food hoarding that my father does, that you did. From the times when there was nothing to eat so you always counted on needing that stored food.
In the way that gadgets give me a certain thrill to master as well. In my pride at the Polish Army and her soldiers and all those who fought to protect her. In my respect for anyone in the military, as long as they were compassionate and loved their country and didn't join for the joy of killing and oppression. In my interest of WWII, trying to learn about you. What had happened to you.
I know you have family who died in the Katyn Massacre. Did your father know them? Who were they to you? Is that why the military was so important to you?
I will always have questions about you. I will always have love for you.
Rest in Peace and know that you are remembered.
Your first grandchild...
05 April 2011
Stuffed Rolled Beef Warsaw Style or Zrazy Wolowy Zawijane po Warszawsku
Stuffed Rolled Beef is one example of a Polish recipe which is many centuries old and elegant. I have purchased it at Polish Stores before ready made for reheating at home on nights when you do not want to cook but still want to eat real food.
Since my father had been working many hours the past two weeks and my husband has been missing friends since our move, I thought I could cheer them up with a dish that would appeal to any man. I am very glad that they appreciated it, as the dish took almost an hour to prep and all together about 2 1/2 hours to make.
Ingredients:
2 lbs. Beef sliced and pounded very thin and cut into sections (should be about 8 pieces)
1/2 Sweet Onion, finely dices
5 tablespoons Breadcrumbs
4 tablespoons Butter
pinch of Salt & Pepper
Flour
Oil
2 tablespoons Butter and 1 tablespoon Flour for gravy
Combine the Onion, Breadcrumbs, Butter, and Salt and Pepper into a thick paste. Smear onto one side of Beef slice, being sure to leave a 1/2 inch edge with no filling. Roll up and secure closed with toothpicks*.
Roll in flour and brown on each side on high heat in oil, being sure to keep roll from falling apart. Drain off oil, add to pot and fill with water to the top of meat. Cover and cook on low for 1 1/2 hours.
After removing meat to set aside, in a seperate pot melt butter, combine with flour and pour into the broth created in cooking the meat. Cook for a few minutes until thickened. Serve with meat. We enjoy this dish with either beets or sweet peas and with mashed potatoes. If you like, you can add dill or parsley to the gravy.
Smacznego!
* Be sure to keep track of how many toothpicks used and remove before serving, for safety.
Since my father had been working many hours the past two weeks and my husband has been missing friends since our move, I thought I could cheer them up with a dish that would appeal to any man. I am very glad that they appreciated it, as the dish took almost an hour to prep and all together about 2 1/2 hours to make.
Ingredients:
2 lbs. Beef sliced and pounded very thin and cut into sections (should be about 8 pieces)
1/2 Sweet Onion, finely dices
5 tablespoons Breadcrumbs
4 tablespoons Butter
pinch of Salt & Pepper
Flour
Oil
2 tablespoons Butter and 1 tablespoon Flour for gravy
Combine the Onion, Breadcrumbs, Butter, and Salt and Pepper into a thick paste. Smear onto one side of Beef slice, being sure to leave a 1/2 inch edge with no filling. Roll up and secure closed with toothpicks*.
Roll in flour and brown on each side on high heat in oil, being sure to keep roll from falling apart. Drain off oil, add to pot and fill with water to the top of meat. Cover and cook on low for 1 1/2 hours.
After removing meat to set aside, in a seperate pot melt butter, combine with flour and pour into the broth created in cooking the meat. Cook for a few minutes until thickened. Serve with meat. We enjoy this dish with either beets or sweet peas and with mashed potatoes. If you like, you can add dill or parsley to the gravy.
Smacznego!
* Be sure to keep track of how many toothpicks used and remove before serving, for safety.
01 April 2011
"Busia's" Mizeria or Cucumber Salad
My husband's grandmother, who liked to be called "Buzia", woud always make this family favorite for special occasions, Cucumber Salad. It is a different version of the Mizeria I grew up with but it is still delicious and I felt it was worthy of sharing with others.
As the days start warming up and Lent is nearing it's end, such recipes are welcome additions to the Easter Table, picnics, and warm weather days. Because I am becoming very impatient for winter to end, I am starting to make such dishes off and on, to remind myself that summer is coming.
Ingredients:
3 Cucumbers (I used 2 European Cucumbers instead this time)
Salt
2-4 tablespoons Sour Cream
1-2 Chives or 1/2 small Sweet Onion, diced finely
Salt, Pepper, Sugar and White or Apple Vinegar to taste
Peel cucumbers, if you like *. Depending on your family's preference, you might julienne, dice in 1/2" to 1" cubes, or slice thinly using a mandolin slicer.
In a dish, layer cucumbers with pinch of salt between layers. Allow to sit for 1/2 hour to an hour so that the salt can draw out the moisture from the cucumbers.
In a colander, rinse under cold water well, squeezing cucumbers to remove extra moisture (I don't squeeze them, but this is how "Buzia" did it).
In a bowl, combine the Sour Cream with the Pepper, Sugar, and Vinegar. Mix with Cucumbers.
Taste to see if any Salt is needed. Serve with bread and Chicken or Pork.
Smacznego!
* If cucumbers tend to upset your stomach, peel and also remove seeds,as this works for some people.
As the days start warming up and Lent is nearing it's end, such recipes are welcome additions to the Easter Table, picnics, and warm weather days. Because I am becoming very impatient for winter to end, I am starting to make such dishes off and on, to remind myself that summer is coming.
Ingredients:
3 Cucumbers (I used 2 European Cucumbers instead this time)
Salt
2-4 tablespoons Sour Cream
1-2 Chives or 1/2 small Sweet Onion, diced finely
Salt, Pepper, Sugar and White or Apple Vinegar to taste
Peel cucumbers, if you like *. Depending on your family's preference, you might julienne, dice in 1/2" to 1" cubes, or slice thinly using a mandolin slicer.
In a dish, layer cucumbers with pinch of salt between layers. Allow to sit for 1/2 hour to an hour so that the salt can draw out the moisture from the cucumbers.
In a colander, rinse under cold water well, squeezing cucumbers to remove extra moisture (I don't squeeze them, but this is how "Buzia" did it).
In a bowl, combine the Sour Cream with the Pepper, Sugar, and Vinegar. Mix with Cucumbers.
Taste to see if any Salt is needed. Serve with bread and Chicken or Pork.
Smacznego!
* If cucumbers tend to upset your stomach, peel and also remove seeds,as this works for some people.
23 March 2011
Fasolka po Bretonsku with Piekny Jas and Memories
On my last trip to our local ethnic store, I found a bag of Piekny Jas and bought it. Tthe packet cost me nearly $5 for just 12 oz.
But one glance at the large white plump dried beans and I was reminded of a pleasant memory I hold of my mother's family...
I am a teenager, visiting my family in Poland, one household at a time on both my mothers and fathers side. It is my first trip back to Poland.
A Ciocia of mine, from my mothers side, lives in a small village in Wielkopolska, sitting in the middle of Polish fields.
Ciocia has a small apartment, a husband and two children. She also has a garden.
Her small garden feeds her family though out the year. In her garden, my Ciocia grows apples, with which she makes a compote. I ate so many of those apples that summer, that one of my life's goals now, as trivial as it may seem to others, is to make that same compote.
My Ciocia also grows dill, parsley, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, chives, cabbage, and beans, perhaps more but these are the fruits and vegetables I remember.
One day, she took me with her to harvest some of the food she would prepare and preserve for winter.
We walked down the stairs of her small apartment complex, out the wooden door, and into the street.
Down to the wooden fence by a house I could imagine being well over 200 years old, a little before the village's looming Catholic church.
A turn in the road, past a roadside shrine, and we walk down a dirt road passing several other houses, ducks and chickens eying us with a mild curiosity. Flowers decorate yards, bees sing about their sweet summer nectar, butterflies fly away from us.
My cousin, brother and I talk a bit but mostly, we look around. Every other shuttered, red roofed house we pass, I think "I wish this was my home". I wonder about the people inside. If they loved that house as much as I do at that moment.
A woman looks up from talking to a small child, sheilds her eyes with her hand and waves before going back to the child and the blue flower he is holding.
The houses stop and a field spreads before us for miles, dotted with trees, clusters and remnants of an ancient forest.
We turn to the side and follow a trail.
We enter her garden with large baskets on our arms, my Ciocia, our younger cousin, my brother and myself. She showed us which beans were ready to harvest and we picked them fresh off the vine together under a warm Sun, the Polish fields which stretching for miles around us.
The same Polish fields which Poland is named after, as "Pole" (pronounced "Poh-leh") means "Fields" in Polish.
The same Polish fields which my ancestors nurtured and harvested, their very lives connected to the soil inseparably. Generation to generation, father and husband to son, wife and mother to daughter, working together for their sustenance.
For their future.
For moments like this.
Sitting under the warm Polish sun, eating freshly picked apples, and removing the beans from their pods into a plastic bowl. Beans which look so similar to Piekny Jas that perhaps that is what they were...
So, perhaps this is why I spent nearly $5 for a bag of beans, went home, and made a pot of Fasolka po Bretonsku.
Na razie...
But one glance at the large white plump dried beans and I was reminded of a pleasant memory I hold of my mother's family...
I am a teenager, visiting my family in Poland, one household at a time on both my mothers and fathers side. It is my first trip back to Poland.
A Ciocia of mine, from my mothers side, lives in a small village in Wielkopolska, sitting in the middle of Polish fields.
Ciocia has a small apartment, a husband and two children. She also has a garden.
Her small garden feeds her family though out the year. In her garden, my Ciocia grows apples, with which she makes a compote. I ate so many of those apples that summer, that one of my life's goals now, as trivial as it may seem to others, is to make that same compote.
My Ciocia also grows dill, parsley, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, chives, cabbage, and beans, perhaps more but these are the fruits and vegetables I remember.
One day, she took me with her to harvest some of the food she would prepare and preserve for winter.
We walked down the stairs of her small apartment complex, out the wooden door, and into the street.
Down to the wooden fence by a house I could imagine being well over 200 years old, a little before the village's looming Catholic church.
A turn in the road, past a roadside shrine, and we walk down a dirt road passing several other houses, ducks and chickens eying us with a mild curiosity. Flowers decorate yards, bees sing about their sweet summer nectar, butterflies fly away from us.
My cousin, brother and I talk a bit but mostly, we look around. Every other shuttered, red roofed house we pass, I think "I wish this was my home". I wonder about the people inside. If they loved that house as much as I do at that moment.
A woman looks up from talking to a small child, sheilds her eyes with her hand and waves before going back to the child and the blue flower he is holding.
The houses stop and a field spreads before us for miles, dotted with trees, clusters and remnants of an ancient forest.
We turn to the side and follow a trail.
We enter her garden with large baskets on our arms, my Ciocia, our younger cousin, my brother and myself. She showed us which beans were ready to harvest and we picked them fresh off the vine together under a warm Sun, the Polish fields which stretching for miles around us.
The same Polish fields which Poland is named after, as "Pole" (pronounced "Poh-leh") means "Fields" in Polish.
The same Polish fields which my ancestors nurtured and harvested, their very lives connected to the soil inseparably. Generation to generation, father and husband to son, wife and mother to daughter, working together for their sustenance.
For their future.
For moments like this.
Sitting under the warm Polish sun, eating freshly picked apples, and removing the beans from their pods into a plastic bowl. Beans which look so similar to Piekny Jas that perhaps that is what they were...
So, perhaps this is why I spent nearly $5 for a bag of beans, went home, and made a pot of Fasolka po Bretonsku.
Na razie...
20 March 2011
Bigger Picture Moments: Soft Boiled Eggs and a Reminder of a World of Love
I have always loved Soft Boiled Eggs. My children do, as well.
My older daughter remembers eating Soft Boiled Eggs with her Pra-Wujek (Great-Uncle) in Poland less than two years ago during her first trip to the country of my birth.
And everytime I make them, she reminds me.
To make a soft boiled egg, begin by bringing water to bowl in a saucepan. In the meantime, place an egg in warm water in a bowl. This is to prevent cracking when you drop it in the hot water in the saucepan. When the water is boiling gently, place the egg very carefully using a slotted spoon into the water. Boil for 3 minutes. Remove and run briefly under cool water to peel shell easier, or use an Egg Holder and eat by cracking the top off and spooning out (my favorite way but, of course, during packing for our move they were broken).
It seems like such a simple thing and yet, it brings back memories for her that there are other people in this large world who are her family and love her.
Beyond my small immigrant family who are spread out across this vast continent, seperated from our roots by a vast ocean and too many years of trying to chase that elusive "American Dream" and fill the void that being an immigrant causes.
Beyond my husband's very large family with their constant emotional distance from one another.
It's amazing what a small egg can do...
Smacznego!
Please visit Alita for the Bigger Picture...
My older daughter remembers eating Soft Boiled Eggs with her Pra-Wujek (Great-Uncle) in Poland less than two years ago during her first trip to the country of my birth.
And everytime I make them, she reminds me.
To make a soft boiled egg, begin by bringing water to bowl in a saucepan. In the meantime, place an egg in warm water in a bowl. This is to prevent cracking when you drop it in the hot water in the saucepan. When the water is boiling gently, place the egg very carefully using a slotted spoon into the water. Boil for 3 minutes. Remove and run briefly under cool water to peel shell easier, or use an Egg Holder and eat by cracking the top off and spooning out (my favorite way but, of course, during packing for our move they were broken).
It seems like such a simple thing and yet, it brings back memories for her that there are other people in this large world who are her family and love her.
Beyond my small immigrant family who are spread out across this vast continent, seperated from our roots by a vast ocean and too many years of trying to chase that elusive "American Dream" and fill the void that being an immigrant causes.
Beyond my husband's very large family with their constant emotional distance from one another.
It's amazing what a small egg can do...
Smacznego!
Please visit Alita for the Bigger Picture...
20 February 2011
"Pizza" and Thinking About My Family
Today I decided to make "Polish Pizza", as we call it in my house. This wasn't any ordinary pizza. In fact, it really wasn't pizza at all. It was what I made while in the Polish countryside with my cousins the first time I returned to Poland to visit them.
We were staying in their parents "Kolonia Letnia" (Summer Camp). It was gorgeous! I was so envious of them. Could you imagine? Living at a summer camp? Anytime you wanted to, a campfire could be made and your mother could play her guitar and everyone could sing together. Or you could go ride horses, hike up the mountain, go raspberry or mushroom picking. Look up on a chilly summer night after a warm summer day, and really see the Milky Way. I don't mean the way most can see it in their suburban backyard, I mean standing on a Polish mountain. Clubs, malls, shopping centers, cities miles and miles away so that there is no light pollution blocking you from seeing what our ancestors saw so many years ago.
Anyway, I'm rambling. But I miss them and when I think about them, I usually eat or do something to think about them and talk to my kids about my amazing family.
I was recalling us as children, teenagers mostly, sitting in the white tiled kitchen which served the entire "Kolonia" (for short). I was craving pizza. At first, I was irritated that I couldn't have any. After all, in the US, I would just call and order some. There was no pizza place here and now I am so glad there wasn't!
My mother and their parents suggested we think how to make one. I don't know who came up with the idea but it was brilliant! We took Wroclawski Chleb (a very light rye bread), smeared Ketchup on it, topped it with a soft white sharp Polish cheese (think something like Sharp White Cheddar Cheese) and toasted it.
I know what some, particularly my husband's very funny and honest cousin, might say. "That's hood/ghetto pizza!" But it is different.
First, the flavor of Ketchup in Poland is different. It is called Lagodny Ketchup. In the beginning of the trip, I didn't like their version of it. But then I opened my mind to the experience and realized I love it better than the American version I was used to. It is one of the items I prefer to buy at the Polish store.
Also, the cheese was obviously not the Mozzarella cheese I was used to on pizza. I didn't see how this could taste good. Oh, but it did! I think we each ate probably 4 slices of bread like this.
So, today I made some and shared it with my children, along with the story.
I hope you enjoyed it as well as my children and I did! Na razie!
We were staying in their parents "Kolonia Letnia" (Summer Camp). It was gorgeous! I was so envious of them. Could you imagine? Living at a summer camp? Anytime you wanted to, a campfire could be made and your mother could play her guitar and everyone could sing together. Or you could go ride horses, hike up the mountain, go raspberry or mushroom picking. Look up on a chilly summer night after a warm summer day, and really see the Milky Way. I don't mean the way most can see it in their suburban backyard, I mean standing on a Polish mountain. Clubs, malls, shopping centers, cities miles and miles away so that there is no light pollution blocking you from seeing what our ancestors saw so many years ago.
Anyway, I'm rambling. But I miss them and when I think about them, I usually eat or do something to think about them and talk to my kids about my amazing family.
I was recalling us as children, teenagers mostly, sitting in the white tiled kitchen which served the entire "Kolonia" (for short). I was craving pizza. At first, I was irritated that I couldn't have any. After all, in the US, I would just call and order some. There was no pizza place here and now I am so glad there wasn't!
My mother and their parents suggested we think how to make one. I don't know who came up with the idea but it was brilliant! We took Wroclawski Chleb (a very light rye bread), smeared Ketchup on it, topped it with a soft white sharp Polish cheese (think something like Sharp White Cheddar Cheese) and toasted it.
I know what some, particularly my husband's very funny and honest cousin, might say. "That's hood/ghetto pizza!" But it is different.
First, the flavor of Ketchup in Poland is different. It is called Lagodny Ketchup. In the beginning of the trip, I didn't like their version of it. But then I opened my mind to the experience and realized I love it better than the American version I was used to. It is one of the items I prefer to buy at the Polish store.
Also, the cheese was obviously not the Mozzarella cheese I was used to on pizza. I didn't see how this could taste good. Oh, but it did! I think we each ate probably 4 slices of bread like this.
So, today I made some and shared it with my children, along with the story.
I hope you enjoyed it as well as my children and I did! Na razie!
06 January 2011
My Simple Moment Today-A Part of Simple Moments that make up the Bigger Picture Week
I didn't get a chance to go to the library today with my youngest. She decided to nap right before it would have been time to go.
I didn't get a chance to drive to my local PNC Church (over an hour away) to get blessed chalk to write "MCB 2011" above my doorway. I was on the phone.
I didn't go to my daughter's school to volunteer today for lunch duty, which today was fine as they actually had plenty of volunteers. I was looking at pictures of family instead.
I went to playgroup today with friends. We all talked about everything that had been going on with our lives since the last week or week before that we had seen each other.
We looked at the children, mostly 8 months old, one just shy of a year, and another 4, when they had all met. We marvelled at how they were hugging each other, snatching toys from each other without malice just simple toddler desire and each child remarkably still smiling and showing they would like the toy back "Please". They've all grown so fast in so short a time.
My older daughter drew a picture of Poland while the rest played. She's been missing her cousin. I've been missing my Babcia, who fell yesterday on ice and who I, for some reason had the nagging urge to call since yesterday. I called her today and although she is alright, I miss her more and more. So, I sent her a letter with pictures of us all. The mail may be slower than email but who doesn't love a simple letter? My daughter asked that I put this in the letter.
Please forgive the fact that I photoshopped out my daughters name, I don't feel comfortable sharing that.
She said this is the house she would have built in Poland where we could all live together, my Babcia, her beloved cousin, the younger cousin so that the baby could play with her, my dear cousins, my parents, my Wujek and Ciocia, and us. If only it were so simple...
10 December 2010
The First Trip Back to Poland After Communism
A couple of years after the collapse of Communism, we went to visit our family in Poland for the first time after leaving. I was very nervous and scared. I didn't feel that I spoke polish proficiently enough to communicate with anyone. So much was racing through my mind, to the point where I was not looking forward to the trip.
What if my family made fun of my accent, or thought I was unintelligent or even rude for not speaking polish as well as they did? What if I dressed different? How did they dress? What sort of music did they listen to? Would I be bored? What if I didn't like the food over there (which made little sense since I grew up eating polish food)? What if they would be jealous of me because I lived in America? I was another young teenager who's view of the world was about to be expanded and I wasn't sure I wanted it to be...
I had always grown up feeling like I was Polish. But not being able to define what that meant. But I also knew that going to Poland, I would be seen as American, and perhaps not Polish. I was worried I would be seen as an "outsider".
It turned out I had nothing to fear. In fact, I look back on that trip as being a turning point in my life, and I thank my parents regularly for allowing me to make that first trip, which I know makes them very happy to hear because that simple "dzienkujem" (thank you) still turns into an in depth conversation about what it did for me and what it has and will do for my children.
First of all, my family in Poland was just so happy to see me that they greeted me with hugs, kisses, and plenty of warm greetings. They were also so pleased to hear my attempts at Polish that I had nothing to worry about, many of them spoke at least some English, and were very patient at communicating with me.
They also did not dress so different from myself. In reality, Poland is much closer to Paris and it's internationally famous fashions. My cousins were not the frumps I ignorantly assumed they would be. The only way in which our dress was different is that in Poland, young ladies generally do not dye their hair and wear makeup until they are of legal age, then they are free to express themselves fashion wise, whereas in the US, an adult choosing to dye their hair strange colors is not considered acceptable for most jobs.
They listened to some of the same bands as I did and turned me onto some Polish bands, as well, during the trip. Music was all around in Poland. In the town squares, a local musician could be strumming a guitar playing American, British, Polish, or any sort of music to an impromptu audience (Town squares in Europe are an amazing social phenomenon, one I will have to discuss in a separate post.).
It also turned out I had plenty to keep from becoming bored, because my family wanted to show me Poland. The woods, the country side, the city, the villages, the festivals, the stores, the markets, everything. We enjoyed campfires together, and since many of my family could play guitar, we sang together in the Polish summer nights, all memories that I will cherish forever.
The food, I ended up falling in love with. And many trips back later, I am still discovering Polish cuisine to be better and much more interesting than what I could ever imagine it to be. I found out several things that changed my taste buds forever. Milk can be shelf stable, instead of pasteurized and refrigerated. Pierogi are much more than just stuffed with mashed potatoes, and maybe cheddar cheese or sautéed onions, in fact, they can be hand made in your own kitchen instead of frozen from a store. There is much much more to Polish cuisine than potatoes, cabbage, onions, kielbasa, Kotleti Schabowe (although Kotleti will forever my favorite "comfort food"), pierogi, and beet soup.
I ended up coming away from that trip realizing that there is much more to life than the mall, McDonald's, and your friends. There is family which still is your family regardless of the distance, home made foods that I try to make myself now, and trips back to Poland, all the while dreaming of the day I can own my own place in Poland, as well...
To my parents, years and years later, I still say "Dzienkujem" for that trip. To my family in Poland, I say "Dzienkujem BARDZO!" for opening your hearts to me...
If you liked this post about my first trip back to Poland, you might also be interested in my post about going to a wedding in Poland
What if my family made fun of my accent, or thought I was unintelligent or even rude for not speaking polish as well as they did? What if I dressed different? How did they dress? What sort of music did they listen to? Would I be bored? What if I didn't like the food over there (which made little sense since I grew up eating polish food)? What if they would be jealous of me because I lived in America? I was another young teenager who's view of the world was about to be expanded and I wasn't sure I wanted it to be...
I had always grown up feeling like I was Polish. But not being able to define what that meant. But I also knew that going to Poland, I would be seen as American, and perhaps not Polish. I was worried I would be seen as an "outsider".
It turned out I had nothing to fear. In fact, I look back on that trip as being a turning point in my life, and I thank my parents regularly for allowing me to make that first trip, which I know makes them very happy to hear because that simple "dzienkujem" (thank you) still turns into an in depth conversation about what it did for me and what it has and will do for my children.
First of all, my family in Poland was just so happy to see me that they greeted me with hugs, kisses, and plenty of warm greetings. They were also so pleased to hear my attempts at Polish that I had nothing to worry about, many of them spoke at least some English, and were very patient at communicating with me.
They also did not dress so different from myself. In reality, Poland is much closer to Paris and it's internationally famous fashions. My cousins were not the frumps I ignorantly assumed they would be. The only way in which our dress was different is that in Poland, young ladies generally do not dye their hair and wear makeup until they are of legal age, then they are free to express themselves fashion wise, whereas in the US, an adult choosing to dye their hair strange colors is not considered acceptable for most jobs.
They listened to some of the same bands as I did and turned me onto some Polish bands, as well, during the trip. Music was all around in Poland. In the town squares, a local musician could be strumming a guitar playing American, British, Polish, or any sort of music to an impromptu audience (Town squares in Europe are an amazing social phenomenon, one I will have to discuss in a separate post.).
It also turned out I had plenty to keep from becoming bored, because my family wanted to show me Poland. The woods, the country side, the city, the villages, the festivals, the stores, the markets, everything. We enjoyed campfires together, and since many of my family could play guitar, we sang together in the Polish summer nights, all memories that I will cherish forever.
The food, I ended up falling in love with. And many trips back later, I am still discovering Polish cuisine to be better and much more interesting than what I could ever imagine it to be. I found out several things that changed my taste buds forever. Milk can be shelf stable, instead of pasteurized and refrigerated. Pierogi are much more than just stuffed with mashed potatoes, and maybe cheddar cheese or sautéed onions, in fact, they can be hand made in your own kitchen instead of frozen from a store. There is much much more to Polish cuisine than potatoes, cabbage, onions, kielbasa, Kotleti Schabowe (although Kotleti will forever my favorite "comfort food"), pierogi, and beet soup.
I ended up coming away from that trip realizing that there is much more to life than the mall, McDonald's, and your friends. There is family which still is your family regardless of the distance, home made foods that I try to make myself now, and trips back to Poland, all the while dreaming of the day I can own my own place in Poland, as well...
To my parents, years and years later, I still say "Dzienkujem" for that trip. To my family in Poland, I say "Dzienkujem BARDZO!" for opening your hearts to me...
If you liked this post about my first trip back to Poland, you might also be interested in my post about going to a wedding in Poland
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