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Lipnica Thoughts

Saturday 10 June 2000 | 0 Comments

I woke up thinking about — guess — Lipnica. More specifically — for a moment I was absolutely sure of one thing. “I must go back,” I thought. “The decision is made: I’ll go back for one year at least. I’ll go back, help Halina, Kasia, Krystyna, et. al. though their final year at the liceum. And if I like it, I’ll stay. Maybe sign a four or five year contract in exchange for paying off some portion of my student loan. Something like that.” I smacked the pillow beside me and said aloud, “I think the decision is made. I think I’ll go back.” And for a brief moment, it was as clear and simple as that.

I’m listening to The Ghost of Tom Joad and feeling something like the characters in those songs — someone who’s lost something. Someone adrift. “It’s just dry lightning. And you on my mind.” I don’t have a person on my mind — and that’s part of the problem — but instead I’ve got a place. No, that’s not right. I do have people on my mind. Students, friends — most of my friends, in fact.

After transcribing some of my “journal” from my LW trip into last month’s WP version, I’m now listening to Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony — on of my favorites, of course. The problem is that even this brings comparison of life in LW to life here. This incredible symphony is accompanied by the sound of passing cars, trucks, and busses. Not exactly conducive to fully enjoying it. In LW the only interruptions I might have would come from someone upstairs — and even that wasn’t constant. The damn cars going by our apartment — and, living on the front side, there’s no place in the apartment to escape it — is a constant annoyance.

I remember sitting on the bed in LW just before going to sleep, and realizing that as I sat there I didn’t hear a single sound. Nothing.

I still hate it here. I still want to go back. And I think I will for the rest of my life.

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.

More Reviews

Sunday 28 May 2000 | 0 Comments

Review

Friday night:
Mary and her “boy”
Talked to Iwona’s sister Agnieszka
Stupidity with Edyta — about Mary and so on
Camera worries
Danny’s adventures
Sprite and wódka
Benia
Not always happy
Boys to bed
Talking like old friends
“You can go — I want to talk to Gary, please leave.”
[Sat with Halina for a while, speaking Polish at her request]

Saturday

More stuff with Edyta
Watering flowers, chatting with Mamo
Meeting Monika Styla — works at the Haven
Talked a little to Agnieszka Kubacka
Żurek — “children”
Anna P.
Trouble with “boyfriend”
[Walked home
“You are a good friend”]
Visit with Ramzes, Agata, and Adam

“Plan maximum” — every moment of every day should be put to use. For a week now I’ve been trying to do that. I want to go visit someone (anyone — but some in particular) then go on to the next person, and the next, and so on. Of course they’re almost all girls, my students of old. Almost all of them I’ve already seen once or twice. I feel that all this week friendships have only begun showing their true potential and now I see how they can be, so I want to develop them. Beina, for example, could be a great friend, and it’s sad to realize that and then leave once again. Sad and a little stupid.

I really feel I almost belong here. Yet being here as a visitor and as an inhabitant — two different things.

Monday Morning
2:45 a.m.Lipnica Wielka

I will be leaving — again — in about an hour. I don’t want to sleep, though I should.

I’m so sad. I feel empty. I want a life I can never have. It exists now, but it will fade as the sun rises. I want never to leave, and I want never to return. I want a life filled with moments like my first meeting with Danuta, or teaching IIB, or walking with Benia, or chatting with Kamil on the balcony. “I try to tell myself to hold on to these moments while they last.” But the attempt to suck the marrow from life often turns into desparation. And that’s how I feel now. I’m grasping for a life that doesn’t exist. It existed for three years, was resurrected for a week, and will die again in about two hours.

I feel so empty. And homeless.

Review of Busy Week

Friday 26 May 2000 | 0 Comments

Lots of review

Wednesday:

Kinga and I walking; Marcela’s grave; the whole story as to what happened
Sunny day — didn’t want to leave
To Nowy Targ at 7:30; pool, hambuger, beer, cigars; return home for beer, chili, cribbage, and annoyed words from Malgorzata

Thursday

Left for Kraków after checking email and hot shower (no hot water at Mastelas’ in the morning); slept on bus
Met with Edtya — sat on rynek talking
Met with Kinga — went to Jewish quarter and Singer bar
Back to LW on 6:20 private bus — slept
Quattro last night — talked to Kinga about why she likes LW; why I want to return and why I can’t; same conversations 3 times
Talked to Teresa Wojciak at Quattro for a while; found out Mary got a 6 for English matura

More Bullets, More Conversations

Tuesday 23 May 2000 | 0 Comments

No class but spoke to IIC for a while; will teach tomorrow
Matura
Sylwu = 2; all but one wrong
Teresa W. = 6; told me many times in Quattro that she wanted a 6
Lidka = 5
Bogusia = 3
Marek = 3
Before matura talked to Lidka, Bogusia, and Marek about present perfect
At Bistro I talked with Maria Kuliga, Beata G., and some from IIA about life, Bucky (“He doesn’t explain anything,” they said) and whether I’m coming back to teach (“No!?) Czemu?”); they — Polish, I — English
Last night playing “soccer” in Quattro
Conversation with Kamil — told him about Beata and ties and “Keep people out”; wanting Iwona (“Why didn’t you make a move?”)
Conversation with Magda today
Visiting Greg “Fly”

These crazy thoughts — work for a while, then come back here for another long stay. What stupidity. And what makes me think it’s even vaguely possible? Yet it seems completely desirable and reasonable. I come back, begin visiting Mary a lot, then out of the blue, while we are on a walk somewhere . . .

Comparative/Superlative in Review

Names
Show and talk about ads — what are they trying to do?
Discect one ad together
Uses comparative and superalative; review
Long word
Short word
2 syllables clever quiet narrow
- ing (Boring) / — ed (more and why)
In groups of 3/4 brainstorm some adj and at least one new one; some on the board; quick drill
Hand out assignments for adds; five minutes @ end to share with others

Herbata Zielona Peach flavor in NT health shop

Meet with Halina
Give Alina a note for Lucyna
Get in touch with Beata P.
See about visitng Mary
Get letters from classes

Back to My Students

Monday 22 May 2000 | 0 Comments

Taught IIB/A — lots of smiles and laughter; Kaśka “super lesson”; couldn’t remember names “But I at least knew them . . .”; “I’m sorry you have such a bad English teacher”
Talked briefly to Halina — smiled the whole lesson
IIIA what you can do about the problem with Bucky
Józia — glad you’re finally happy; husband once jealous of me; son Kubu
Bus driver there
Last night at Quattro
Piotr and Roma — dziadek
Sylwia, Marta, and Robert
Cloves
“this is how my life could/should have been.”
Today at Agnieszka’s bistro; thought “Greatest thing = live my old life again for a few moments — accomplishing that2
Taught Kamil Macros and VBA
Franek: In Q? Pijemy!

Bullet Points about Return

Sunday 21 May 2000 | 0 Comments

Last night/yesterday

Adela’s face when she saw me
Mary’s reaction; our conversation about Polish guys; old fashioned
Conversation with Kasia (IIB): 3 things I tried to do with/show students.
Iwona S: “I came to see you.”
Tom Pn. and Monika
Jola’s daughter
Lucyna in police station in Jablonka
Meeting Adam; “Want to talk when we’re sober . . .”
Meeting with Kinga
Abdul: imperialist ass; conversation about being 25 and in university
Saw Halina, Monika Karlak, Teresa Bialon, and her friend Monika W.
Couldn’t sleep for thinking about conversations; crazy thoughts about returning and Mary

Today

Meeting with Danuta
What she’s doing
Postcards and current silence
Ania M., and Jadzia
Learned how to be non-Polish teacher from me
What Pawel M. said about my lessons vs. Bucky’s (Buckyego)
On the bus and see Marcel and Marysia; their shock; then Krysztyna and her tears
Visit to Dominika
Trip to Beata Plotek’s
Edyta’s phone call

I feel like I’m in heaven; everyone is so thrilled to see me. Mamo at ognisko — embarrassing but touching. I have never felt so wanted and loved as I have these past days. This week will prove to be, I think, the single greatest of my life. In some ways, better than my time here.

“Don’t think; feel it.”

List Journal

Saturday 20 May 2000 | 0 Comments

I’m here. So strange. Now begins my experiment in journaling: the list —

Time with Charles
“What’s new in LW?” “You’re about to see . . .”
Service station: what shit!
Conversation — Tomek’s confirmation and confession
Today — first to speak = Dominika’s mom; I felt very distracted
Andrzej (priest) — slams into reverse to talk to me
____’s mother (the crying janitor) and a short conversation

First Day Back

Friday 19 May 2000 | 0 Comments

I’m finally here — and I feel like I never left. Except for a Marks and Spencer in front of the Pałac Kultura i Nauki, nothing much has changed. On, and the cheesy PKP picture gallery has been replaced by still other shops. Otherwise, it’s all the same.

I feel I’m back after only a small break at most. As I was walking along the peron, I had a memory of stepping off a train here, in sektor 1, where it’s not so open or spacious. I remember stepping off into that constant florescent dimness that is Warszawa Centralna at all hours of the day — early morning, though — I think it’s a memory of arriving on the all-nighter from NT to deal with all that visa nonsense.

It seems somehow different to be here as a visitor — a tourist, even — as opposed to being an inhabitant. A temporary inhabitant, but a resident all the same. Now I’m not struggling to keep my sanity in a long journey home; I have no home here . . . I’m a visitor. First time in Poland as such.