the girl
Apples and Pairs
Chores
Evening Walk
After a few administrative matters were taken care of — moving the car, taking the trash out to the street — we headed out this evening for a brief walk. As we headed up the street, K playfully commented on how dirty L was.
“Well, if I had to choose between a child who is filthy,” I said, “and a child who is obsessed about being clean, I’d have to go with the filthy child. At least it’s a sign that she’s outgrown her princess phase.”
The Boy, of course, has still not outgrown his machine obsession.
Jumping Redux
Out With the Old
If there is one thing I hate more than going to shop for a new cell phone, I don’t know what it is. I hate shopping for just about anything (with a few unhealthy exceptions), but cell phone purchases are at the very bottom of my list. You go into an electronics store and everyone is so excited about the new XYZ and the incredible DEF and the improved KLW — and it just leaves me baffled. It’s a tool, nothing more, nothing less, but I suppose in the age of iPhones and Galaxies, it’s more than that to most people.
K and I don’t upgrade our phones often. Indeed, we don’t upgrade them ever. Until recently, I was happy to hobble along with my half-broken piece of junk. Then, coming home on the bike, I got caught in a downpour and the phone got soaked in my bike bag, putting it out of its misery.
In a way, I was thrilled. No more phone, period. I don’t have to remember to pick it up in the morning; I don’t have to remember charge it; I don’t have to think about it — heaven. But there are times when even a phone curmudgeon like me has to admit that a phone can be fairly useful. Emergencies, for example. So despite my hesitations and protestations, we upgraded.
The upshot of that was I could finally do what I always wanted to do to my phone. L enjoyed getting in on it, too.
Yet the Boy was a little upset about it. “Why are you breaking your phone?” he asked, genuinely concerned. I explained that it was already broken and that L and I were just being silly, and so soon he was stomping away too, chirping, “I love breaking phones!” It was at that point that K and I thought a little addendum might be in order…
Balance
Since we’ve added a trampoline (free from friends in our Polish community whose boys, now in high school and college, have no interest in it) to our entertainment possibilities, I’ve come to see the whole potentially injurious toy in a whole new way. Sure, there’s the possibility broken bones, I guess, snapped spines, but in truth, I don’t think there’s the kind of jumping going on down there that could lead to such tragedies. And the advantages are overwhelming at times. There is of course the simple fact that it’s an enclosed space that allows the adults to relax while the kids go crazy.
But what I’ve noticed most is the incredible improvement in both the kids’ balance and, to borrow an eduspeak term, their kinesthetic intelligence. When we first began the jumping and bouncing, the Boy fell quite frequently. All you had to do is jump somewhat near him and the jolt of the trampoline below him would be enough to send him tumbling — laughing often but frustrated just as often. Now, we hop all around him, and he seems simply to absorb it all with a bit of knee action. He’s gone from little timid hops to being able to bound across the whole trampoline with only four or so jumps.
The Girl seems to enjoy it the most, though. We’ve lately been taking the whole popcorn idea to an absurd — and dangerous, K insists — level. Basically I launch her: she sits near the middle, I take a giant leap and land right beside her, and Newton’s third takes care of the rest — she pops up three, four feet into the air and lands on her feet. And if I get the timing just right, I launch her again at that moment, sending her flying yet again, making her laugh even harder. Which gets me to laughing. Which amuses the Boy. Which is why I ultimately have come to love our trampoline.
First Day 2015
“Goodnight, couch potato!”
I stopped on my way out the door just long enough to turn and give a smirk smeared with a grin. “Couch potato indeed,” I thought. Just because I’d almost fallen asleep while playing cars with the kids earlier this evening doesn’t make me a couch potato. I biked to work, wrestled with all the first-day problems that consume a teacher’s initial planning periods, taught five lessons straight, and biked home in a fairly substantial rain — couch potato indeed. Still, I just gave L a smile mixed with a slight smirk, wished her goodnight again, and headed out.
L had a rough first day in a lot of ways. Now in third grade, she heads upstairs to the classrooms that house the third, fourth, and fifth grades. Assigned a teacher known for being strict, she fretted throughout the evening about the news that they will have assigned lunch seats starting tomorrow. “Last year, we only got assigned seats when we were bad!” she sniffled, and I think I know at least part of what’s going on: L tries very hard to be a good student, and when she hears that they’re getting assigned seats, which she usually associates with misbehavior, she begins doubting her own goodness in class. It’s a fairly natural reaction, I would think, but L chews and chews on things like this until she wears it down or it wears her down.
We talked about it a bit tonight, and in the course of that conversation, one of the real concerns became evident, a concern that I myself remember having when I was in elementary school. “We don’t have a bathroom in the class.” Instead, they must share the facilities with fourth and fifth graders. Who knows what that might lead to, she reasons. And while I certainly think there’s little to worry about, I do recall how we’re seeing more and more news reports that show children younger and younger growing more and more brutal. It’s unlikely, though, that anything worse than a sideways glance from a fifth grader might happen. But I too remember that fear that comes with being thrown in among older kids who are completely unknown.
The Boy, on the other hand, had a completely different experience. “But Mommy, I’m not ready to go,” he told K when she picked him up from his part-time K-3 (K-3? Is there any limit to this?!) program. The teacher commented on his manners, which consistently imzpress me, and he likely commented continually about the enormous Thomas the Train play station in his room.
And my day? First day back as an eighth-grade teacher is always a bit stressful. I’d already had my visit with the seventh-grade assistant principal to find out which students could be most challenging and therefore which students I need to focus on as I developed relationships with 100+ new thirteen-year-olds. But despite the schedule I feared would be brutal, I mounted my bike feeling I might not have had a better first day in my entire teaching career.
A Rainbow, Some Circuits, and Cars
We’ve had rain every afternoon for the past several days. After such a long streak of dry weather, it is certainly a welcome view, even if it does prevent the kids from going outside. But the rain really only lasts an hour or so in the late afternoon, so it’s easy to work around. Today, though, we got an added bonus: our own personal rainbow.
“Do you think there’s a pot of gold at the end?” L asked, and it occurred to me that we might actually be able to make our fortune if that were the case as both ends the rainbow seemed to be within our property lines. We wouldn’t even have to worry about claims of the property owner once we tracked down the gold. Sadly, though, before we could go out and hunt it down (or perhaps both down — who knows whether or not rainbows have treasure at both ends), the colors faded.
But the rain really wasn’t even a problem for the kids: everyone had something to do. L was busy loading apps on the tablet she bought for herself with the money she’s been collecting. I won’t quite say “saving” because it’s been burning a cliche hole in her pocket, and she got most of it in one go. Still, she managed to hold off on spending it in Poland, likely because Babcia kept her financed and all the friends who came to visit brought little knickknacks as well
As for the Boy, he was, as usual, content playing with his cars.
First, Last, Only — Tired
The real challenge in trying to live each day as if it were the one day you chose to return to and relive — in other words, to live each day as if it were your first, last, and only day on Earth — is how utterly tiring it is. If you wake up and say to yourself, “I’m going to live today like it’s the only day of my existence,” you’re going to want to try to squeeze every drop of life out of every single moment. You’re not going to want to waste time sitting around, doing nothing.
When you go to the pool with your family, for example, you’re not going to sit in a deck chair, slowly drifting into near-sleep, with the only thing really stopping you being the fact that you have contact lenses in. You’re not going to sit on the side of the pool watching your family have a good time.
You’re going to get in and swim, like E did today. Even though he was exhausted. Even though he’d had no nap and so was incredibly exhausted.
It’s not that you’d live that day always on the go, but it seems like quiet moments of the day would be at the very least contemplative and not sleepy.
And you certainly wouldn’t waste any part of precious final evening watching some silly show from the History Channel about the supposed evidence that ancient civilizations created all their glorious monuments with the aid of extraterrestrial assistance. Sure, you might have the thought when you see the show on Netflix, “Hum, I wonder if they’ve tightened up that little theory since von Daniken popularized the theory in the early seventies with books like Chariots of the Gods?,” and you might be tempted to watch it to see if von Daniken himself makes an appearance (he doesn’t). But you wouldn’t actually watch it
But since it’s not my first, last, and only day on Earth, I do get another shot at it tomorrow.
Plans, Rain, and Barszcz
It’s usually not until the end of the day, when it’s too late, that I realize I haven’t been living my life that day as if I had chosen, out of all days, to relive that one day. It’s not until I’m with L, working through our examen (which we have re-initiated with our reunion after a summer break) that I see that I’ve been going through the day relatively blindly. I look back on the day at that point and realize I wasted time and energy wallowing about in this or that negative emotion, letting this or that frustration take control. I look back, I see these things, I promise to do better the next day, and I promptly forget.
During tonight’s, though, it occurred to me that I’d been constantly aware of how lovely the day was as it unfolded. I rode my bike to school and was pleasantly surprised at my average speed. I had a long productive meeting with the other teachers on our instructional team, planning a multi-disciplinary unit that might not only teach some academic skills but also affect change in the kids’ lives. Despite the afternoon rain, I made it back to the house relatively dry. I had a lovely dinner with my family, marveling at how the kids both devour beet-root soup, which seems unimaginable given the pickiness of L. We had a pleasant walk after dinner, with the kids scooting ahead and returning on their various vehicles.
And then, during our examen, I looked down at our wiry, energetic (often frustratingly so), intelligent daughter, and I realized that simply being around all the wonderful people in my life should be enough to make me aware of the marvelously blessed life I have. I have incredible colleagues at work; I always work with a great group of students; I have children that make me beam; I married a woman that constantly astounds me; I have parents that give to our own family unconditionally. I am lacking nothing. We are lacking nothing. Nothing of any importance. Simply being aware of this is the trick to having a great day, day after day.
Tiring
Since everyone has returned, the trampoline in the backyard has seen a lot of action.
It’s good for everything: exercise, laughs, and coordination.
The Boy especially has improved his coordination.
The Old Man has regained a skill or two as well.
Approahing Floriańska
As you emerge from the tunnel that passes under the intersection of Westerplatte, Pawia, Baszowa, and Lubicz streets in Krakow, you emerge into a green park that surrounds the old city center. All tourists who arrive from a train or a bus must walk this way, and it’s the logical place for buskers, solicitors, and beggars to line the wide sidewalk and compete for attention. There’s always an accordion player or three along the way, numerous students working for a few extra groszy by handing out fliers, and beggars. One tends to grow accustomed to them all. “Dziękuję,” you learn to say politely and briskly to the students who are near enough that you can’t simply ignore. The buskers merge with the city traffic and the general conversation to form an ignorable element of the soundtrack, unless a given performer is really gifted. And the beggars: they’re everywhere. The conscience hardens, especially when you suspect their motives. (Beginning in the nineties, some younger beggars were more honest, holding placards that simply read “Piwo” with “Beer” possibly scratched underneath for foreigners.)
But some of them get to you.
Last week, as we were walking the kids towards the old city center, we passed by an elderly woman sprawled on the sidewalk, her hands shaking violently and her medicines spread out in front of her.
“Why is she shaking?” L asked.
“She’s sick, honey,” K replied.
We took a few more steps and realized what we’d done.
“Here,” I said, giving L a couple of five-zloty coins. “Go take this to her.”
The Girl grabbed the Boy by the shoulders. “Come on, E,” she said solemnly. They went back and clanked the two coins into the small metal box that held a handful of change. Hopefully, a small, quiet lesson for them.
Helping with Canning
The Boy loves helping. He insisted on helping Babcia prepare sour cherries for canning.
The Girl got in on the action, too.
Pyzówka Ognisko
The day started with a walk. The walk. The walk we go on several times while we’re here. The walk K and I took together countless times before moving to the States. That walk.
It starts in “town,” so to speak, with fairly common rural Polish views — the metal worker neighbor who also raises ducks and chickens in his yard. K’s parents used to have a similar little farm where they raised chickens, rabbits, the occasional pig. During the Communist period, there were so few goods in the shop that it really was the only way to have access to certain items on a reliable basis.
But within a few moments, the walk leads us into the fields, away from any house. Or at least it used to be that way. These days, the houses are moving further and further into the fields. People are converting beet or potato fields into lots.
But it’s still fairly rare to find single houses out in the middle of a field. They still tend to clump together near the two main roads that go through Jabłonka. We went out in search of mud, getting the kids dressed out in gum boots and jackets, and both kids were completely convinced that we’d find plenty of mud.
We walked among fields of potatoes and various grasses
but in the end, we could only find a few mud puddles. And when we did find puddles, the kids took turns in the small puddles.
In the end, we walked probably close to two and a half miles and had only a little mud on the gum boots to show for it.
In the evening, we headed back to Pyzówka to visit with K’s nearly-sister and a mutual friend from Warsaw whom they met more than twenty years ago at a summer camp and stayed in touch since. The last time the three couples got together, we were, more or less, just that. Three couples. One couple had become a family, but the rest of us were childless and thus, in a certain sense, without responsibility.
Ten years later and among the three couples, six kids are running around. Well, five kids running around and a beautiful nine-month-old taking turns in everyone’s arms.
There were some things that were fairly standard: there was a cook out over an open fire with plenty of meat.
The amount of meat in the average Pole’s diet always made me wonder about those Poles who were vegetarian. These days, that’s a much easier dietary choice. In the mid-90s, it seemed to me that for a rural Pole to be vegetarian, it meant essentially eating potatoes and cabbage and cheese.
Going into the average rural shop in the midst of winter seemed to confirm that suspicion, but perhaps it was just a linguistic issue: I really wouldn’t have been able to ask freely about winter vegetarian dietary options that first winter.
This time around, I’m not the one having linguistic difficulties. The Girl has blossomed into a fairly fluid speaker, but the Boy still struggles. When playing with children, he tends to keep fairly quiet, occasionally saying things like, “Watch this!” but mostly being a silent participant.
But L was the same way, if memory serves, so I’m not terribly worried about it, and K is not concerned at all.
The day ended with the promise of a beautiful sunset, but unfortunately, the cloud cover returned, and it was a typical gray affair.
But that’s okay too. I always grow a little nostalgic when I return to Poland, and the gray, cold days filled with the smell of coal smoke as people heat their houses in early July fits that nostalgia just fine.
Six Kids, One Mom, and a Babcia
All the kids in the immediate family (plus one from the other side) are now at Babcia’s. That means six kids and two adults.
There are the chores, and with four bigger kids, that means the love is spread out through the day. The boys take the morning, the girls take the evening.
Time for an electronic break — television and computer. The twenty-first century generation.
Afterward, an outing to visit Dziadek’s grave and pick up some treats on the way home.
And to end the day, some silliness in the yard.
Nowy Targ Afternoon
Every time we go to Poland, we do the same things — and I make that observation. Yet Poland is changing, growing. It’s got one of the strongest economies in Europe now, and when that simple fact is coupled with additional funds that come from the EU, it’s easy to understand why. Yet this is the second day that I look at the pictures and say, “Where in the world is that?” I know where it is: K told me in an email what they did today, and I knew about the afternoon visit long before. But the first part? They’re in Nowy Targ, but where in the world is this park?
I do see one thing that’s not a mystery: the Boy being a gentleman, helping a young friend — dare we say a cousin? After all, K and D are as close to sisters as you might possibly be without an actual genetic bond.
It’s easy to identify the location of the second batch of pictures: the rynek in Nowy Targ. Yet had I not known about the renovations, I never would have guessed it. Until I saw the ice cream: NT has a little hole in the wall with the best ice cream on the planet.
Finally, at the end, familiar faces, familiar location.
Babcia’s Day
Not having a driver’s license, Babcia is not able to go where she wills when she wills. For the last few days, K has been taking the lead, I believe, more or less deciding on the agenda. Today was Babcia’s day.
She wanted to visit a friend. Where? I can’t recall, and the area doesn’t really look familiar at all. There’s a restaurant — karczma it would be called — that looks like a place near Spytkowice, but I don’t think Spytkowice has apartment blocks like that.
So odd to be looking at your own family’s pictures but not really knowing much more than a stranger at times.
Playgrounds don’t tell you much, but the architecture of the wooden buildings shows that it’s still in the general area K grew up, still in the mountains.
Perhaps you should ask K.
Ząb 2015
Odpust 2015
Because almost every village is its own parish, almost every village has an odpust. During the last trip to Poland, we were in Pyzówka for their odpust. We were there strictly as visitors, as observers.
Today, however, the Girl got to participate in Jabłonka’s odpust, as did K.
“I cleaned the church!” K told me, relating her part of the experience. The excitement came from the fact that she cleaned the altar, dusting and wiping down all the statuary that’s part of Jabłonka’s main church’s impressive altar piece. It’s something she’d looked at all her life growing up, so I guess seeing it all so up close, from a different perspective both literally and figuratively, was certainly exciting.
L’s part, though was as visible as K’s was behind-the-scenes: she was helped lead the procession to the church, sprinkling flowers before the priests and dignified guests as they processed. The whole experience must certainly be novel to the Girl, for even though we’re members of a vibrant and active parish here in Greenville, there’s not a lot of processing going on, not of this nature. And besides, how would everyone treat that?
In Jabłonka — and elsewhere in Poland — everyone treats it as such a special occasion that all the traditional garb comes out and it becomes a visually lovely experience. In America, everyone would come out in shorts and flipflops because in the summer, that’s about as close as we come to traditional garb. It’s one of the disadvantages of living in such a relatively young country that has, for generations, been much more mobile than the Old Country. We mix and match and before you know it, any sense of tradition that stretches back into the mists of memory have disappeared. The only people that hold to that are the Native Americans (who often have to fight on onslaught of competing cultures that see themselves as somehow extensions of that very culture) and the minority populations, Asian, South American, and to some degree African. It’s a sad thing, but perhaps somewhat unavoidable, given our history and our lack of homogeneity.
But Poland, especially in the rural areas of the mountains, really exemplifies homogeneity. It was something that took some getting used to when I first moved to Lipnica Wielka, which is just about seven or eight kilometers from K’s home village of Jabłonka. Everywhere I looked I saw homogeneity: white people speaking a single language. When, on a trip to Warsaw, I saw African students in the the main train station, I almost wanted to hug them and say, “Let me just look at you! It’s so refreshing to see some diversity again!” When I saw a young Asian girl and a black girl on a popular TV series, both speaking flawless Polish, I became enthralled, wanting to learn everything I could about them. Heterogeneity was so rare that I just gawked at it.
That was the Poland of the latter mid-90s. Twenty years on, so much has changed. Emigration from Poland has increased with the open EU borders, creating a certain brain drain as many of the more educated young adults move west, and immigration from the east, often illegal, has increased as well, as people from the former Soviet republics move to their own West, which is now Poland. And about all that, I have mixed feelings. I know that Poland will never become America, ethnically speaking, but might it become Germany? France? Diversity is a wonderful thing, but as with everything, it comes with a certain price. Still, I don’t see the highlanders of southern Poland diluting their own culture and pride in it at all for anyone.
Not that I’m suggesting anyone would try to dilute it — it’s just a byproduct, I think, of competing cultures. Not so for the gorals of the south: they’d cling to it ferociously, ever more mindful of the competition. And to some degree, that competition, with the level playing field that the Internet creates, already exists.
Back to the story: after odpust, everyone went to aunty’s for dinner. And it was a huge feast, in keeping with the Polish saying, “A guest in the house is God in the house.” And even though they’re family, K and the kids are still guests, and the Polish spirit demands sharing on a massive scale.
L hit it off with K’s cousin, R, who is a technophile as L is becoming. She loves showing people how to play this game or that game on the family tablet, which, truth be told, is more hers than anyone else’s.
When L and I were there two years ago, we attended R’s and M’s wedding — our daughter’s first experience with a Polish wedding. As a girl who loves — absolutely loves — dancing, she was hooked immediately.
There’s another family wedding coming up in mid-July, one which I’m hoping to attend myself. Still no decision yet: the to-do list still has a lot to get done, but maybe. Hopefully.