kayahWhen I moved back to America from Poland in 1999, I had a difficult time adjusting. I missed my friends in Poland; I missed my students and working with them; I missed the adventure.

It was a rough time.

Listening to the last album purchased before leaving Poland, Kayah i Bregovic, didn’t help.

Kayah is a Polish pop star; Goran Bregovic is a composer from the Balkans. An odd pairing, but effective. It became the best-selling album in Polish history, if memory serves.

You’ll find no other popular music so utterly filled with yearning as this one.

All the tracks have at the very least a ting of longing, but one drips it: “Trudno Kochac” (“Hard to Love”). Though obviously a love song, the refrain captured the duality of my feelings for Poland:

Tak trudno kochac
Lecz trudniej jest
Nie kochac wcale cie

What a summary of the love-hate relationship many of us have with Poland: difficult to love, difficult not to love.