the girl

the girl

Pyzowka

Saturday 09 July 2022 | 0 Comments

I keep repeating myself: X is always a highlight of our time in Polska. When you come here only every few years, I guess everything becomes a highlight. Still, going to Pyzowka to visit K’s dearest friend D and her family has to count as a highlight no matter how you define it.

D is the type of friend you have that, no matter how much time has passed since your last visit, the years disappear in an instant and except for the topics of conversation, your relationship feels little different than it did when you were in high school together. These days, you might talk about the cost of your child applying to college versus the cost of your child going to college if you lived in the states. You might talk about friends that only one of you has seen in the last twenty years and how they’ve changed or not changed. You might talk about the cost of heating your house this year as opposed to last year. These are discussions your parents would have had years ago, but now you have them.

Before you know it, your children will be having them as well. But for now, your children are happy jumping on the trampoline and playing with a puppy. The cost of heating is as distant to them as it was to you when you were their age. They hear your discussions, but they don’t pay much attention to them.

Then again, neither did you.

Bowling and Cards

Tuesday 05 July 2022 | 0 Comments

Traveling always risks bad weather; coming to Poland, for us it seems, just about guarantees it. After several lovely days (how many? four? five?), it's supposed to rain. Every day. For the rest of K's and L's stay in Poland.

Still, we make the most of what we've got, like using leftover meat from rosol to make pierogi for lunch, or using the rainy weather to chop a little wood for Babcia.

After lunch we met with K's brother's family for some more bowling. This time, we took two lanes, and the adults played as well. That was a mistake: my long-injured finger began aching again, and I made it through two frames before I decided that it might be less painful to have my finger in a vice than roll even the lightest bowling ball available.

Afterward, we all headed back to Babcia's for games and conversation. Hearing the cousins laugh and argue and joke together is a lovely bit of chaos.

And finally, I talked the girls into the first of several photo recreations. The original image is from 2008, when L was a year and a half old and S was a year older. They barely fit into the tub together now.

Wypasiona Dolina Plus

Monday 04 July 2022 | 0 Comments

There was so much more -- so much more -- today that, at 11:59, I don't care to cover. But this was the most insignificant event of the day.

Trzy Korony

Sunday 03 July 2022 | 0 Comments

Climbing mountains is something my mind loves but my body questions. Ever since I seriously injured my knee about 25 years ago hiking in the Tatra Mountains, I’ve been wary of mountains. The way up is not the issue. In fact, it’s a great relief sometimes to be heading up. No, it’s the way down – that crash! crash! crash! against the knees. Almost 190 pounds dropping on knees time and time again.

So when we started our trek up to Trzy Korony today, I was a little concerned about the effect it might have on my knee. I was more concerned when I saw just how steep it was. Fortunately, we all made it fine.

And I'm so exhausted that I can't say much more than that about the whole day.

First Saturday

Saturday 02 July 2022 | 0 Comments

Originally, the plan was to meet with K's brother's family and head out for an adventure on the Dunajec River this afternoon after a morning hike around the Three Crowns Mountains. But in fairly typical Podhale fashion, the weather turned suddenly overcast, threatening rain. We decided it wasn't worth it: what's the point of hiking up a mountain if you can't see any views? And we always have tomorrow.

So since we were all up (meaning, the adults and the Boy) early, we went ahead and had an early breakfast. And as we had nothing else to do in the morning, I went out for a walk in the hilly fields just west of the village.

I saw a gentleman sweeping hay from the floor of his barn with an old-fashioned twig broom. I thought to ask him if he would mind me taking a picture of him, but I didn't. Why? I really don't know. What's the worst that could have happened? He would have laughed, said "No," and I would have gone on about my walk. Instead, I am writing about it hours later with just a little regret. Next time.

After lunch, the plan was to head to Wypasiona Dolina for a little line-park action, but just as the weather put a quick end to our river plans, the rain put an unforeseen end to our afternoon adventures: though the park is only a few kilometers from Jablonka, and though it didn't rain all day today, it poured there apparently, and the owner, seeing that all the wood was wet and thus slippery, sent all the workers home.

Instead, we went to the outdoor museum that we almost always seem to visit while here. It seems to grow each time we go.

On the way back to Babcia's to pick her up for church, we stopped at a new place that had -- strangely enough for a small village -- a small bowling alley. It was not quite a normal bowling alley: the pins were suspended by strings and seemed to be lighter plastic. The Boy managed to win the first game but didn't do so well with the second game.

After bowling, we rushed to pick up Babcia to head to church so that we can have tomorrow completely free. Afterward, we dropped by the cemetery to tidy up around Dziadek's grave and pay our respects. As always happens at the cemetery, we met an old friend of Babcia's, a former teacher of K's.

And finally, back home, Babcia began teaching the Boy how to make a fire for hot water -- a basic skill in old-school rural Poland

Arrival 2022

Thursday 30 June 2022 | 0 Comments

The trip here seems endless — completely

Coming to Poland is always worse than returning as far as the travel itself goes. Returning to America, due to the time change, only feels like a really long day. The sun just never seems to set. Going, however, is deceptive because you have that night in the middle, but in reality, it’s not much more than a short nap at best. So you feel cheated, tricked — and your body does not appreciate it. It was not expecting one long day with the illusion of sleep in the middle.

Having a six-hour layover after an eight-hour flight doesn’t help much either. It seems like that will be long enough to catch up on sleep just a bit, but just like the night itself, it only teases.

So we board the plane from Munich to Krakow some twenty hours after we began the whole adventure with eyes barely open. K and L try to nap on the flight, but it’s of little use. E and I, each having a window seat, spend the flight looking out the windows at the shapes below.

Anyone flying into Poland with a window seat as we have knows exactly when we’re over the border. The shapes change immediately and drastically. The irregular, large shapes of fields and forest interspersed with houses and towns disappear, and in their place stretch long, narrow fields, one beside another. This is Poland from the air.

Packing

Tuesday 28 June 2022 | 0 Comments

Tonight is our last night in the States for a little while. Four suitcases and four carry-ons are ready to go. The Boy is going around the house constantly saying, "We're leaving for Poland tomorrow!" K is going around the house saying, "I can't believe we're leaving for Poland tomorrow." I'm going around the house saying, "Does anyone know where the bladder for our backpack is?" And L -- she's been at work, so she hasn't been saying anything this evening.

Driver

Monday 27 June 2022 | 0 Comments

The Girl got her restricted license today. This means that, once we have her covered on our insurance, she can drive alone during daylight hours.

It's not that big of a change, I guess. She's been driving for six months now. Ah, but it is a big change: she'll soon be doing it alone.

The Boy learned about the joys of putting together furniture.

Sunday 26 June 2022 | 0 Comments

When I got my current job teaching eighth graders, Nana said to me, "I don't know how I survived your eighth-grade year. I wanted to strangle you every other day." I can't say that I've been as upset and frustrated with teaching eighth graders as Nana might have suggested. Indeed, I've come to love it, and I don't really have any desire to teach any other grade.

My own child, though, was a different story. I began to understand Nana's hyperbole. I haven't written much about the Girl here because it's been a typical period of growth, which means frustration for parents. What are we doing wrong? Why is she pushing us away? What can we do differently? We knew the answers to those questions (Nothing; Because she's thirteen/fourteen; Nothing -- just be there unconditionally), but that didn't make it any easier.

Playing in a box -- the Boy's favorite hobby?

In the last few weeks (or even months), though, since she's started driving, since she went back to work, since she's made it through her first year of high school, it's like she's taken a deep breath and made peace with us and herself.

I knew it was coming: the transformation eighth graders go through is amazing, and I know it continues through ninth grade (until they're sophomores and temporarily revert because they're sophomores and know everything -- or is that just a cliche?), but to experience it has been refreshing. To begin seeing what kind of an adult she will be: a valiant defender of anyone facing injustice, a friend who sometimes lets her love for her friend overshadow reason (not always a good thing, not always a bad thing), self-reflective and self-aware -- to see this change really start to kick in just makes me smile.

Tonight, we finished watching Schindler's List. The reason (other than it's a moving film that everyone should see) is that L and I are planning on visiting Auschwitz while we're in Poland, and I wanted her to have an idea of what the scale of the Holocaust in real, human terms. Tomorrow, we will watch Conspiracy, a film about the Wannsee conference so she can get an idea of the "logic" that drove the Nazis.

That I am comfortable letting her watch such a film is a testament to her maturity.

Family

Saturday 25 June 2022 | 0 Comments

Aunt D is a national treasure. She is at least a treasure to everyone who knows her. Selfless and kind, she's helped the family more than anyone I know. When her own mother-in-law was ill, she took care of her for several years. When Nana was ill, she came and spent alternate weeks taking care of Nana.

For years she hosted the family Thanksgiving gathering, cooking for the whole family. Of course, everyone brought something, but she cooked enough herself to feed everyone.

She's generous almost to a fault.

She's always buying things for people: she sees something that she thinks someone would like, she buys it and gives it to them.

Now she's taking care of her own husband, Uncle M. He's facing his own health challenges, and he's stubborn: that would be more than a challenge for most, but Aunt D is sly and caring.