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More Complaining

Saturday 09 September 2000 | 0 Comments

It seems that every Saturday or Sunday morning these days I wake up feeling that I really don’t want to do anything — as if it’s too much work even to get out of bed for a cup of coffee. It’s not like I’m really depressed or anything. I just feel that it’s more effort than it’s worth to get up. I think of all the things I could do that day — today for example I could work on the little light box I’m going to try to create — but I just don’t feel like doing anything. Do I lie in bed thinking of LW? Not really. I just don’t feel like there’s anything worth doing. I think, “At least during the week I keep myself busy.” It was similar to when I first arrived in LW, I think. No — I was just generally depressed and alone at first.

It’s amazing — I just have nothing to write about. I could write about Marlon coming over for dinner last night, but why? We just chatted. I don’t know how I could write so much in Lipnica. Page after page. And now I haven’t even finished a full page in the first nine days of the month. In Lipnica — this would have been just the beginning of my first entry, writing about the first day back to school.

This week it’s been really weird walking to work. It was so sunny out — not a single cloud in the sky — and it made me think about the beginning of school and such. Fall crispness and I was thinking about not the beginning of my own school years, but the beginning of the three years in Lipnica. And how technically this should be the beginning of my fifth year there.

I’m still so sad. I still feel like I’m not where I belong. I still feel like I’m missing out on life. “When you dream, what do you dream about?” sings BNL. Lipnica. Always.

Moving

Sunday 03 September 2000 | 0 Comments

The move is finished — accomplished — done. Or perhaps more appropriately, survived. I left at 7:15 Tuesday morning to pick up the moving van and I finally fell into bed at 55 Adams Street, 99.99% of our belongings in the apartment, at 11:30 that night. And of course we’ve spent the next several days unboxing everything and working the stiffness out of our muscles. It was, in many ways, hellish, but it certainly wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.

The new place is a dream. We have more storage space in this apartment than we would have had we used the whole apartment at 168 North Beacon for storage. In other words, we have more storage space now than we had living space at the last place. And as far as living space goes, we have so much of it here that we don’t have enough furniture to fill it! As far as I’m concerned, we can stay here for as long as we live in Boston.

The only bad thing is the movie rental situation. The closest place is Blockbuster but they won’t let me get a membership there without a valid Mass ID. I can rent a truck that costs tens of thousands of dollars with my VA driver’s license, but I can’t rent a movie. I asked whether a passport would suffice — no go. So I can get into any country in Western or Central Europe with my passport, but I can’t get a Blockbuster membership card. How insane.

I’ve been thinking the past few days about the obvious: Lipnica. It’s now been four years since my arrival in Lipnica Wielka. I would — perhaps should — be starting my fifth school year if I were still there — and I think in many ways I should still be there. More later.

More Leaving

Saturday 12 August 2000 | 0 Comments

More Leaving

Thursday 10 August 2000 | 0 Comments

Back in the States a Year

Sunday 09 July 2000 | 0 Comments

I’ve been in America for a year now. A year has passed since my time in Lipnica, since my departure from my home, more or less. I’ve been thinking about that for some time now and I’ve decided that it would be a good idea to do some accounting at this point — figure out what I’ve paid and what I’ve earned and see whether I’m in the black or the red. So I shall begin making breakfast and think about it for a while — I’ll be back shortly.

So let’s do a year in review. Maybe a chart: what I did, how I feel it has helped me, and how I feel it has helped others. Yeah, and maybe I could add some percentages and make charts and use that to determine whether I should be happy now or not. I’m being too analytical about all this, thinking, “If I just look at the data the right way, everything will be just fine; I’ll have my decision laid out for me right there, clearly and simply.”

Pride Parade

Sunday 11 June 2000 | 0 Comments

Thoughts Back at Home

Sunday 04 June 2000 | 0 Comments

I’m back in America. I have been for almost a week now. And I feel awful. Just as I suspected/expected I would. Even “just as I feared I would.” “Tell me that it’s nobody’s fault, nobody’s fault but my own,” sings Beck now, and I guess that’s somewhat appropriate. I don’t know if “fault” is the best word choice, but all the same . . .

I feel like I have a huge choice to make in about six months or so: stay or go. The implications are huge. I want to go back to Lipnica so badly it’s killing me — paralyzing me with depression sometimes. Yesterday I just lay on the couch, thinking, “I have to go back, and yet I can’t go back.”

Let’s way the pros and cons again, beginning with what I wrote some days ago — about a week ago, flying home:

As I write all that stuff, I think, “Now, most of these things aren’t really problems if I’m honest.” There’s plenty of people I have there, and the fact that the disco is now at Quattro (which is primarily a bar) seems to show how silly my worries were. My life there would be just what I want it to be. It’s simple: I work my ass off and become as nearly fluent in Polish as I can possibly be (barring grammatical perfection, that is), and who’s to say what my limits are?

My life here could be just what I want it to be if I’m honest. I can make anything of my life I want to here in Boston. The thing is, I don’t really want to.

So what are my options? One option seems most promising: go back for one year to see. I don’t know that I can ever stop thinking, “I might have made a terrible mistake in leaving,” unless I go back for a while and test the hypothesis. At any rate, that’s what I want to do. The implications of that are fairly substantial, though. I could say to Chhavi, “It’s just for a year — I just have to see for myself if I made a mistake,” but the obvious correlative of that is, “. . . and if I decide I did make a mistake, I’ll want to stay there.” When I left for Lipnica sometime next year, it would be worse than the first time I left (by then it will/would have been five years ago).

And here’s the shock: four years ago I’d just finished my first day of training in Radom. It’s around 4:30 in Poland now — I’d be just about to finish the first day. Four years ago. Four years. That’s 1,460 days ago. A long damn time. No, quite the opposite. Four years is almost nothing. Two years is nothing. I guess it’s true what they say about time going faster the older you get.

What I don’t want is to realize that I’ve been back from Poland for four years and think, “I’ve done nothing important with my life in that time.” I don’t want to think at the age of sixty, “I wasted my life, by and large.” And that’s exactly what I’m afraid will happen — unless I go back. I keep treating that as if it’s my only option, and it really isn’t. But it’s the only one I’m aware of; it’s the one I feel is sure to bring me happiness and fulfillment.

Two quotes — from the same song — seem particularly relevant now:

The nearer your destination,
the more you’re slip slidin’ away. . . .
A bad day’s when I lie in bed
and think of things that might have been.

What makes all this so difficult is that I could talk to someone in Lipnica about my dilemma — Teresa Wojciak, for example — and she would simply reply, “So come back.” How I wish it were that easy! I would have talked to Jasiu about coming back for this coming school year. Can you imagine the reaction of the students?!

Back to Boston

Monday 29 May 2000 | 0 Comments

12:40 p.m. Okęcie Airport

I feel almost as empty now as a year ago. The only difference is that I know what awaits me. Otherwise, it’s as if I’ve stepped into some kind of time machine: I’m traveling alone; my thoughts are filled with images and faces of Lipnica; I sit wondering whether I’m doing the right thing in leaving; and I feel generally shitty about what awaits me, as compared to what I’m leaving behind.

What I dread most is going into work tomorrow morning. For a week I’ve been having the same conversation: “I really would like to come back, in fact.” To which Mary, Anna P., Benia, Teresa, i.t.d. respond, “So, come back.” “It’s not so easy,” I say, and I wonder — maybe it is so easy — maybe it’s nearly impossible.

I just feel basically trapped.

On the plane now, wondering more intensely than ever, “Should I be here? Now?” And the opposing question: “What would I be accomplishing if I weren’t here?” Teaching some lesson, I guess. Feeling a little better than I am now.

Sunday —

  • Woke up at 9:30 after 6 hrs of sleep
  • Helped with lunch — barszcz z uszkami
  • Met with Edyta — 1 hour and said bye
  • Went to bistro for ice cream and last words to Agnieszka
  • Met with Danuta; no tears this time
  • Rode with Kinga (around 7:30) to Murowanice to see Mary; forgot about her oral FC
  • Rode on to the lake for a while
  • Visited Benia: “You have a guest” as I approached; short conversation, think her sister Kamila offered to stay in the room with us; Kinga came up, talked with Benia for a while, including, “I hate English”; “No good at foreign languages in general.”

Last night in Quattro

  • Short talk with Benia, Mary, and Teresa
  • Conversation with Janusz’s friend [Marion]: would like to speak English as well as you speak Polish
  • Conversation with Kinga — you think like a woman
  • Talk with Kinga about waking up in someone’s arms
  • One hour of sleep before I left

The farther I get from LW — both in distance and time — the less realistic my thoughts of returning. As much as I want it, it will never happen. Once again, the farther I get from LW, the less realistic it seems. I was there only a few hours ago, and it might as well have been years ago.

I have this unrealistic hope that I’ll be getting more letters from various folks: Anna P., Kasia M., Marcela J., Kasia (IIB), Agnieszka Kubacka. And while part of me is of course hopeful, I can’t help but think it’s the exact same hope that’s been making me sprint to the mailbox every day for the last year.

Why exactly is it unrealistic that I’ll ever go back for good? First — it’s a simple matter of one person — C. She has no intention of going back — no desire. And even if she were willing, I'm not sure it would be quite the same. What I’m thinking of is a total immersion in the culture, which, as things stand, is impossible for Chhavi. And that emersion in culture that I want is total. Being with Chhavi would create an us-them division that would be all but impossible to overcome.

Second, there’s the ever-nagging worry that the life I’m looking for has disappeared. Enough of all that.

Third, I owe $10,000 for my student loan. I could never pay that off making the little amount I would. This seems to be less of a problem if I could just work a bit extra and pay it off now while I still have such a good job.

Fourth: A. I refuse to deal with that dork. Of course, that too seems to be less of a problem. I could just tell Jasiu, “I won’t come back there if he’s teaching at the liceum.”

Fifth there seems to be some kind of barrier that I would never be able to cross. I would always be something of an outsider.

All in all, I think what I’d be looking for is some kind of idealized life there that is unattainable. This desire to return is based on an exceptional week which would be impossible to sustain for very long. The new-ness would wear off for all involved, I think. Everyone wants me to come back to teach because they have Bucky as a comparison. That won’t always be the case, obviously enough.

Another factor: I’m growing ever older. I couldn’t continue living the life I had. A few years at most. A 40-year-old hanging out at the disco seems a little stupid. If I’m honest, I also have to admit that a ot of my social fulfillment came from friendships with students. There were few “adults” I was really good friends with. (And yet I think, weren’t there enough? Ramzes, Agata, Kamil, Kinga, Piotrek, itd.)

It’s all just a silly dream.

Almost Returning

Monday 15 May 2000 | 0 Comments

An awful start to a month that will turn out to be one of the most eventful of my life. Though I had no idea at the beginning of the month — or even the last journal entry — I’ll be leaving for Poland in three days! It’s difficult to believe, but I’m leaving for Poland this Thursday.

This evening I read some of my journal entries from my last days in Lipnica. There are so many people that I want to see, to talk to — will I be able is another story. At any rate, the thought of going back and being among some of the people who were so very important to me during the most formative period of my life — it’s difficult to describe how I feel about it, but I feel equally at peace and anxious about it, often experiencing both at the same moment.

Because of that, I won’t be writing much more than ten pages this month, if I’m lucky. I’m not planning on keeping much more than a rough outline of my days there. Every night (or morning) I hope to jot down a few lines about what happened since the last time I wrote something and then flesh it out when I get back. I’ve bought a new, small notebook for that purpose. Zobaczymy.

“I try to tell myself to hold to these moments as they pass.” Those words have haunted me since I’ve returned, and I’m determined that for the time I’m in Poland I will make the most of every single moment. I don’t know how much I’ll sleep — I”m hoping not much; I don’t know how much time I’ll spend sitting around doing nothing — I’m noping, not much. I want every moment to be something to cherish; and I want to be aggressive enough in initiating visits that that’s the case. I want to hunt down Józia and talk to her; I want to go see Anna P. if she’s not at the disco; I want to drop in on people without worries. I’m going to do it if I can. I’m going to walk across the street to Agnieszka Kubacka’s house and find out where she is and whether I can get a phone number to contact her, and the same for Maggy. I’m not going to have a single moment of regret while I’m there; no wasted time whatsoever. It’s completely unacceptable.

Excitement at Return

Sunday 07 May 2000 | 0 Comments

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but in two weeks I will be in Lipnica. Two weeks. I’ll actually be arriving in much less than two weeks. Still — last night I was thinking, “Two weeks and I’ll be back at Zurek.” A very comforting thought.

“I try to tell myself to hold on to these moments while they last.” As Adam says about chess, I’ve got to be “balls-to-the-wall” with this. I’ve got to be aggressive in seeing people — not wait for someone to invite me over for a visit, in other words. I’ve got to savor each and every moment — even the time taking the train from Warszawa to Kraków. In fact, I’m sort of looking forward to that more than anything else — my initial adjustment period, so to speak. Every time I’m on the orange line going to work, I look out and think, “This could just as easily be a train somewhere in Poland.” And I get a little tug of nostalgia. So now in the coming days I’ll get something similar, but a sort of nostalgia-in-advance.

I hope that my trip to Poland will help me adjust to being back in America. I don’t know if I’m being blindly, naively optimistic about this or not, but I really think that going back to Poland for just a little while will give me the necessary perspective to appreciate being back here. What I miss most about my life in Lipnica are the friendships. It’s not the apartment (though of course it would be nice to have such a place here); it’s not really the teaching (it’s more the interaction with students, not the act of teaching them when to use “a,” “an,” and “the”); it’s not the cold winters; it’s not even the thrill (which quickly wore away) of living in another country. It was the friendship — knowing that I had something to do on Saturday nights and, more importantly, someone to do it with; sitting at talking around an ognisko; smoking and drinking with Janusz while listening to our mutually small blues collection;' having an unplanned lunch with Mastelas on a Sunday afternoon.

So now I’m listening to Trzycie (sp?) Simfonia Góreckiego. It’s music that demands to be listened to — commands one’s attention — and it’s probably not the best music to be listening to while trying to type in my journal. Still, I’m in the mood to listening to something Polish, and this is the best I’ve got (without a doubt).

At some point I’ve got to start really planning what I want to do while I’m there. I don’t want to go and just let things happen. I’m afraid if I do that then I won’t get to do certain things I really want to do. Among them — a day in Kraków, perhaps with Kinga J. or Edyta; a day in Zakopane, definitely with Charles; a day of riding a bike around Lipnica, hopefully with Kinga M. when she gets back. I want to have some sort of idea of what my time there will be like.

Other than this exciting bit of news — and the accompanying news that I’m flying for less than $700, thanks to Michelle — nothing much has happened this week.

Oh, part of the motivation for going so soon: Kamil was drafted into the army! He leaves 4 July for a six-month stint. That means if I were to go for Charles’ wedding in September, I wouldn’t get to see Danuta or Kamil. I found out about this Monday, hence the suddenness of the trip.

I had to talk Kali into letting me get time off. At first she wasn’t keen on the idea, but I had a strong argument: we have two course developers starting — one tomorrow, one the next Monday. The first thing they’ll have t do is read all the chapters and start making some changes. I’ll have enough time for them to read the chapters and discuss them with me before I leave for about a week. During that week, hopefully, they’ll have time to make some changes, re-write stuff and so on, so that when I get back, there’ll be a pile of work for me to do — which certainly hasn’t been the case of late.

Another interesting development in the workplace: I had my evaluation this week and Kali feels I’m not making the most of my skills. What exactly did she mean? Well, she’d like to see me more involved in the tech side of things as something of a liason between the tech staff and the editors. An editor who knows a lot about the ins and outs of the software we’re using and things like that. She also wants me to design and implement some workshops for editors to help them make the most of Word. Several of them — including Kali — would like to learn how to make macros (as if it’s terribly difficult), and so I’ll be teaching again. And I won’t have to worry about not being prepared and such — I’ll be able to prepare this stuff while I’m at work. Part of my job will be to prepare for these workshops! What a novel concept!