With my year here slowly coming to an end, I find myself preoccupied daily with the pros and cons of staying for another year or heading back to the States. The best word to describe what I’m doing, actually, comes from the Polish: waham sie. One could translate this as “I’m wavering,” or “I’m going back and forth,” but somehow I feel neither of those quite conveys the meaning as well as waham sie.
Semantics aside, I can justify both courses of action. I miss home a lot, and while I perhaps feel less foreign than some of my friends here, who struggle with the language or with some of the customs, I am nevertheless conscious of not being truly Polish. (Of course, at home this can also be a problem. My sister and I agreed long ago that when we are in Poland, we feel more American, but when we are in America, we feel more Polish). I came here with the intent of finding my “passion,” that is, what I wanted to spend my lifetime doing, but in the fall I worked too much to devote much time to exploring this, and this spring I’m too poor.
I think I can probably come up with many more arguments to head back to the States.
The most convincing argument regarding either option, however, falls on the side of staying here: I’ve met some of the most colorful, wonderful people any fiction writer could imagine here, and I’m not sure I’m ready to part with them.
For example, I have a friend here, who’s half Italian, half Polish. He has a thick accent when he speaks Polish, and has even more trouble communicating in English, but somehow, we manage. Whenever he’s at a loss for a word in either Polish or English, he holds up his hand and says “aspetta, aspetta” until he remembers. Another friend and I recently tried to teach him the word “game,” in the wild animal sense. We had trouble explaining it to him, but a few minutes later, when describing a catering job, he told us “We had to use the animal the family hunting,” and then his face lit up and he proudly said “the games, we use only the games they hunting.” He’s handsome, in a distinguished sort of way, but his heavy smoking and drinking show, and often he seems older than his 38 years, especially after a gruelling day at work–along with a friend, he owns an Italian restaurant just off the main square here, and though he seems to enjoy his work most of the time, it takes its toll. One of the best nights I’ve had here was at his restaurant. A colleague and I were leaving the school at which we worked, he with his girlfriend, and I on my way to meet another friend, when our restaurateur friend saw us passing and beckoned us in. He proceeded to ply us with food (bruschetta, pizza, and prosciutto he said had been massaged by hand–to this day, I’m still uncertain whether he meant the pig itself was massaged before being sent to the slaughter, or if he meant the meat, once it had been removed from the pig) and alcohol (multiple glasses of red and white wine, sambucca, limoncello, and grappa; he kept claiming each new drink was “strzemienny,” which loosely translated means “one for the road”). His generosity and hospitality certainly do nothing to discredit the (positive) stereotype that Poles and Italians are among the best hosts in the world.
Another one of my close friends here hails from Finland. My first meeting with her is a bit hazy–we were celebrating a mutual friend’s band’s first concert–and originally I was convinced she was from Poland. Now I’m aware of her accent, but even so, can’t help but be in awe of her Polish. Considering that no one in her family is Polish, and all the Polish she knows she picked up in the last year and a half, she’s worthy of admiration. Because so many of my friends are ex-patriates from English-speaking countries, my Polish has not improved anywhere near as much as I’d hoped, and this Finnish friend of mine remains one of the few people with whom I can practise. Neither of us is very good at opening up to people, and so we both have many, many acquaintances here, but very few friends (another idea well-expressed in Polish–mamy wielu znajomych, ale malo przyjaciol). Perhaps as a result of being the only girls amongst our group of male friends, we’ve bonded, nonetheless, and she’s now the first person I call whenever I need not to be alone. A few days ago she asked me to help her set up a photo exhibit, and this ended up being another one of those wonderful, memorable days I’m loath to leave behind. We met around noon and, as her fellow exhibit-coordinators hadn’t yet arrived, went to a cukiernia (sweet shop) for “breakfast.” While there, we amused ourselves and probably annoyed the other customers (probably on their way home from church) by looking through the various cake decorations and laughing about the more ridiculous choices. Just as I was about to finish my fruit tart, a sickly, small child wandered by with her mother, and right as I was about to take another bite, turned her head to sneeze directly onto my breakfast. The child’s mother looked embarrassed and cautioned Zosia to cover her mouth so as not to infect other people. My friend and I burst into riotous laughter. Though I might normally be annoyed at having my breakfast ruined by germs, this morning it just seemed hilarious. Perhaps it was the company I was in. After our laughter-filled breakfast, we headed back to the bar where we were setting up. In spite of a few setbacks (like dirty frames), we managed to set everything up just in time for the official opening, and I left the event feeling like I could never leave a place that draws such wonderful people.
In addition to having made several very close, unique friends here, I have a gazillion “acquaintances” (or “znajomy”) here, with whom I’d also hate to part. In some ways, it seems even harder to part with this category of acquaintances, because they are the ones who have made an impression on me but with whom I won’t stay in touch.
For example, I’ve met a young musician here from Bielsko-Biala. He’s best described as earnest–earnest in everything he does or says. He works and is a student and is so passionate about music that he makes time for three different bands. One of these bands, which he says is his “dream” plays what they call “retro circus music.” One of my favourite of their pieces gets its name from a dingy, old Communist-style store near my flat, Hala Targowa. I attended a music high school, and yet I’ve met very few people quite so talented or driven. I never tire of listening to this musician talk about music. He’s introduced me to some new composers, like Krzysztof Komeda and Michal Lorenc, and one hungover afternoon he cooked dinner for us and played some of his favourite songs.
Another interesting character I’ve met is a poet/journalist/translator/professor. She periodically hosts what she calls “kitchen sessions,” where a bunch of her friends gather in her large, beautiful flat to cook dinner and then play and sing music. Her flat is beautiful–it’s one of those old buildings just off Karmelicka, one of the most beautiful streets in Krakow–and the best part is that there’s a piano in the kitchen. Though compared to her usual guests I have nothing to offer in the way of music, I was lucky enough to get to tag along with a friend once to one of these sessions. I learned how to make placki ziemniaczane (latkes) and found myself surprisingly at ease with a host of artists (musicians, singers, actors, poets). It was a thrill to be participating in such an event, and though the night ended with our being denied entrance to some trendy bar because of the shoes two in our party were wearing, I consider my memory of this evening among my most prized from this year.
And the list goes on…
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