Bless The Mess

six green bottle caps, three used condoms, seven belly-side beached-up fish [whitegraygraywhite], another condom, a trail of sea foam, dead bird stench, an island-less horizon, a broken lighter, some beach glass [which could be a jewel of jade if I were still 6 years old]. Seagulls peck and swans sit tall. These swans are peacefully displaced [or are they displaced-ly peaceful?] and the drool of an Irish Setter sets into the fibers of my jacket. Its owner tells me I am too friendly; I should not smile. If I hadn't given him 'smiling eyes' [I've heard this phrase before] my jacket would be dogdrool-free. Too late, I think, and I remember a time in college when a Rugby coach said I could avoid a mess by 'getting mad.' She meant no smiling; no being nice. And I think maybe I'm not always so good at that. Not so good at being mad. Not for long, at least. And so I quit playing Rugby and here I am on a beach along the Baltic Sea with messy dogdrool on my jacket. There are worse things. Another used condom under a pile of seashells. Another dead fish. Another trail of sea foam. Today the sky is a bed of magnolias patched with blue hyacinth blossoms and the sand looks like gingerbread and I am...

... I am not a poet. Not so good at making lists and not so good at getting mad either, but it doesn't really matter. I'm walking on a beach and now the magnolia bed-like sky is snuggling with more blue and the sun peeks through and I realize life is not so gray right now. Babies play in the sand in snowsuits not swimsuits and they make me giggle. And later that night there is a euphorically glorious [gloriously euphoric?] blizzard. I'm walking on the beach and then I'm running and I'm with a woman who barely speaks English. She doesn't say much but she's smiling a little so I throw snowballs at her. It's not really flirting; just a language lesson because 'flirt' is a word and she pronounces it 'fleeeert' and now knows what it means. My fingers are cold and my shoes are mokro but I am frolicking at night in a blizzard on a beach in Poland along the Baltic Sea and life feels good like this. Everything wet, everything white, everything slippery and I'm not getting mad which maybe means I haven't avoided a mess. I'm happy being messy, happy being snowy. Messiness feels nice sometimes. Life is messy and so is love and sometimes it helps to take a walk in the snow.

* * *

It is the end of Shabbat and I'm back on the beach. There are a few elderly women, a middle aged man, a woman named Ewa, and the woman who I threw snowballs at the night before. I am standing with them in a circle and it's time to do Havdalah. It's windy and dark, snowy and wet, and everyone is zimno (cold) but we all have smiling eyes, I think. The braided candle won't light and I have an orange in my pocket because I couldn't find spices. And instead of wine, I'm holding a plastic cup of tea; we'd drunk all the wine on Friday. I don't have a lighter; just a few matches and my fingers are stiff. I'm kneeling in the snow and everyone's bundled around me. The candle still won't light, and the middle-aged man who is not Jewish says Spokojnie. Be calm, be patient. He cups his largemanhands around my frozen littlewomanfingers. We block out the wind with our bodies. He strikes a match and the candle stays lit. I start to sing the blessings and the elderly women start 'Lalala-ing.' Their lives have been a bit messy -- this I know -- but they still like to sing. The wind is blowing harder now. And the waves are loud.

Blessed are You for creating the fruit of the vine.
Blessed are You for creating varieties of spices.
Blessed are You for creating the light of the fire.
Blessed are You who distinguishes between the secular and the sacred, between lightness and dark, between the seventh day and the six days of labor.

This is Havdalah on a beach in Poland. When we've finished the blessings, I tell the man to extinguish the flame in the tea. He doesn't understand at first, and then he gets it. The flame is out and the women start clapping. Everyone's cold, but we still have smiling eyes. A new week has just begun.

* * *

On the train back to Warsaw, Ewa says 'Ah, piekne dzien.' Yes, it is a beautiful day and I don't want to read my book or take a nap because the Polish countryside is covered in white and the snow-kissed haystacks look just like frosted mini-wheats. A little girl is squirming by the window and humming to herself and twirling her messy pigtails. She makes me smile. Today, there are more blue hyacinth blossoms in the magnolia bed-like sky. The sunshine makes me squint and I think to myself: at this very moment, on this very train, in the same corduroys I've worn for 5 days, and in my own head of messy hair, life feels alright; messy, but quite alright.

Christmas, Garter Belts, Elevator Etiquette and More!

For my list-lovers...

(1) Since Christmas is nearly here (and since there's clearly no escaping the Christmas spirit given the amount of green, red, gold and in-your-face Jesus-love saturating this entire Catholic country), I've been learning about some of the Polish Christmas traditions. The Vigil of Christmas Eve Feast called Wigilia is a bigger deal than Christmas Day. There is always an extra place at the table set in memoriam of ancestors and/or Christ. The idea is that Christ, as the unexpected guest, will come and bless the gathering. Even if Christ himself doesn't show up, Poles have a saying that "a guest in the home is Christ in the home." The feast begins with the sharing of the "Oplatek," the Christmas Wafer. Each family member is presented with a wafer and is bestowed a "wish" for the year to come. Then, families eat a large meal which, according to my co-worker, is meatless. It is customary to have several types of fish and lots of mushrooms – fried mushrooms, mushroom pierogis, and mushroom soup all made from wild mushrooms picked from the forest. There's also a traditional Wigilia borszt (beetroot soup) that isn't made in a meat broth as well as traditional fruit soups made from plums, apricots, and apples.

(2) A few weeks ago at a bus stop, a friend and I started talking to an elderly woman about the weather. We all agreed that it was very cold outside. The woman made some comment about how neither my friend nor I were wearing stockings or long socks. She then proudly hoisted up her skirt and showed us her hosiery and garter belt! "See how great it is?!" she said, "You girls should get one of your own!"

(3) In some parts of Poland including the city of Krakow, wooden sewing machines from the Communist era have been transformed into restaurant tables.

(4) Studying the offspring of inter-bred dogs in Poland is an ongoing source of amusement for me. Try imagining a creature with a Dachshund body and a German Shepherd face... or a Basset Hound body with a Schnauzer face... or a Husky body with a Boxer face... or a Cocker Spaniel body with a Pug face. These creatures do, indeed, exist and let's just say that their appearances are very... special.

(5) I recently ran a 10K race in the forest with Warsaw's Running Club. At the end of the race each runner received a free cup of hot mulled wine. I suppose this is one of the many perks of being in a land where there's never an occasion in which alcohol isn't paramount. On another running note, back in the Fall I almost collided with a Polish soldier during the changing of the guard. He then gave me a wink and blew me a little kiss. Have I mentioned that I like running? <*sarcasm*> Have I mentioned that if I didn't run during this time of year I'd most likely crawl into a little dark cave with some bottles of warm milk and perhaps a jar or two of Nescafe and hibernate until spring time? <*not sarcasm*>

(6) Abortion is entirely and unconditionally illegal in Poland.

(7) There's this strange social more of saying "thank you" or "goodbye" to people in the elevator. One can ride about 12 floors without having said hello or even making eye-contact with his or her fellow riders, but once it's time to exit, it appears to be customary to say Dziekuje (thank you) or Do widzenia, Panstwo (goodbye, men and women). I await the day when I return to the U.S. and find myself in an elevator perhaps in the New Jersey State House or in The Clapp Library of Wellesley College. When I get off at my floor, I will give my fellow elevator-mates an affirmingly emphatic *nod* and reverently announce: "Goodbye, little pine cones." I wonder how they'll respond...

(8) I've come to realize that punctuality and the concept of attendance are not particularly valued in Polish society. There is Jewish Standard Time, there is South Asian Standard Time, there is Latino Standard Time (ultimately, I think we all fall into one big category called "Ethnic Minority Lateness") but I've now learned that Poles basically out-do us all. An affirmative "Yes, I will be there!" often results in not showing up at all.

(9) Earlier today I stopped at a kebab shop (k-e-b-a-b is the Polish spelling) to buy some falafel for lunch. The man working there asked where I was from. After responding that I was from the U.S., he then explained that he'd lived in Chicago for six years and in Oklahoma for a short while, too. I asked where he was from originally and he proudly said he was from Syria. I asked if he liked living in Poland and this was his response:

"Well, yes, I like it here, but I am a very busy man. I have three wives. I see the first one on Friday, the second one on Saturday, and the third one on Sunday, etc. etc."

I had temporarily forgotten that polygamy still does exist in some cultures, but it's most definitely *not* legal under Polish law.

The Borders of Our Lives

Indeed, I've stolen this title from a Simon & Garfunkel song, but I suppose it's fitting. Lately, I've been thinking about the borders in the lives of my wise elders, the borders of my own 23-year-old life, and the places at which these borders overlap.

With recent changes in the social climate, Poland's Department of Gender Equality now ceases to exist and a movement to ban gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools has become increasingly vocal. LGBT protests began sprouting up in different cities but were deemed "illegal," as they would "cause violence." Ultimately, those in power have quashed all forms of expression that counter the Catholic agenda. Nearly two weeks ago, a counter-demonstration took place in Warsaw (essentially, it was a rally for the right to protest) and was attended by a diversity of individuals – fathers, mothers, children, grandmothers, Jews, Catholics, Queers, activists, archivists, writers and artists; all of whom were gathered together in solidarity. Rainbow flags with Stars of David were flown high and people held signs advocating for freedom of expression. One man held a mosaic-like picture he'd painted of two women. The caption beneath the women read: "A gay life can be beautiful."

I thought about this demonstration in relation to the April 2004 "March for Women's Lives" in Washington, D.C. There, at a march for reproductive rights, nearly everyone was White, nearly everyone was middle class, and there weren't a whole lot of people over the age of 60. Here, too, I don't believe that there were any colorful faces, but I was a bit struck by the ways in which boundaries were broken. In the States, I'd venture to say that it's rather unusual to see members of an Orthodox synagogue at an event in which gay pride flags are flown. The paranoia, the gossiping, and the fear of association is quite prevalent in the American Orthodox climate. Yet in Poland, it's not so unthinkable for a member of the Orthodox Jewish community to be in solidarity with someone who's Queer. The ideology is different, the politics are different, but the enemy is the same. It's a bit tragic that "building bridges" often happens along lines of oppression. I remember a time in college when the Black community and the Jewish community experienced some political tension. Our reconciliation effort felt a lot like an analogy one might see on an elementary school test:

Black people : racism :: Jewish people : _____________

[you can fill in the blank]

The moral of the story was: "you're oppressed and I'm oppressed, so let's just try to get along." I wonder if respect can result from something more than just solidarity in the face of a common threat. Or is this asking too much?

* * *

Less than a mile from where the counter-protest took place lives Mr. Kowalski, a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor who remarkably still lives alone. I frequently bring Mr. Kowalski his lunch and visit with him for about an hour. He's sharp-witted, intelligent, and speaks several languages. He can even still play the piano from memory. Whenever I visit, he insists that I have a cup of tea while he tells me about his family, anti-Semitism, the Germans, and asks me questions about life in the United States. He recently asked: "How many rooms are in your home in New Jersey?" I thought for a minute and then gave my answer, suddenly aware that the number of rooms in my home are triple the number of rooms in Mr. Kowalski's apartment. He asked if my mother works and was surprised to know that yes, she does. He then asked me if my family has "n*gger help." The question stunned me for a moment and then I explained that no, we do not, and that today very few Americans have servants or any kind of "help." Times have changed. I realized a moment later that his question shouldn't have surprised me so much; here I was in a room with a 98-year-old Jewish man who talks about the Nazi occupation as if it happened just last week. He, himself, is a piece of living history, physically dwelling in the emotional borders of his life. Yet he has internalized a reality that is long-gone. Ironically enough, stacked on a table with his crooked lamp, his smudged glasses, and his translucent bottles of pills, was an assortment of modern magazines, one of which is this week's copy of Newsweek Polska. Set against a rainbow-colored background, the title reads "Gej Polski" -- Gay Poland.