Failng

I'm on the train, having left Sydney before dawn, fast-tracking towards the Blue Mountains. The irregularly scattered stops barely break the monotony of my trip. With my head bouncing against the cold window, with my innards shaking with nerves and anticipation of my first day at college, I can't quite go to sleep either.


Then...
"Where did you find it?" an ancient male voice, generously laced in glorious Ocker Aussie accent, raises up from the seat behind me.
There are three second of silence, and then the voice starts again, louder. "Where did you find it? Your hearing device." He seems to soften and stretch the vowels to infinity, as if hoping that making his words longer would help them reach his companion's ears.
"What?" an equally ancient, female voice responds.
"Where did you find your hearing device??" the male voice booms, albeit not impatiently. Just slightly exasperated.
"What?" answers the lady.
They repeat the exchange a few more times, each time turning up the volume just a notch. Sounding a bit more desperate.
"Where did you find it? Your hearing device."
"In your bedroom!" says the female voice at last, a note of triumph ringing in it.
The companion says nothing, but I'm sensing perplexed and intense exchange of face expressions going on behind my back. The lady's answer must have been not an appropriate one.
"What did you ask again?" she pleads.
"Don't worry about it" says the male voice. There's a soothing quality to it. And a barely recognizable hint of resignation. But more soothing.
Then there's no more.


The train pulls over at my destination, and when I rise from my seat, I see them. They're getting off as well. They are both tiny and wrinkled like prunes. She is wearing a pale blue knitted hat. A walking cane supports his fragile steps. They look as old as the trees in my grandfather's yard, firmly intertwined by their twisted roots.
I follow the pair gingerly towards the way out. I watch them help each other cross the gap between the train and the station grounds.
I know nothing about them, except that they'd just failed at an attempt to communicate with one another. Failed to be heard, to be understood, to convey their message, to connect.


Which is a near-impossible task between people even sans hearing problems.
Seeing this, the reflection that followed, make me kind of sad. So much for the funny post again.

Returns

"Don't wait any longer.
Dive in the ocean,
leave
and let the sea be you.
Silent, absent,
walking an empty road,
all praise." Rumi






At first, albeit a mightily jetlagged glance, Sydney hasn't changed much.
Which sort of surprises me.
That the Westfield shopping mall is still exactly where I left it, and so are "The Greeks" selling their overpriced produce at the grocery across the road from where I live.
That Jenn is still cheeky, Soojin still loves sake and Jutta remains the same amazing work-driven hero I remember her as.
That my friends have not forgotten me. Have missed me. Have looked forward to my return. The last one astounds me most of all.
Yes, I am funny like that.

I probably haven't changed that much either. To the first, perfunctory glance. A couple new wrinkles, hair a few shades redder, but that's all.
Yet, I know I've changed deeper. Duh. Obviously. I have jumped the ship and left. I have dived into this scary ocean with no security rope. With no swimsuit even.

I've changed and so has Sydney. So have my friends.
And the next months will probably bring the mutual exploration of 'how'.

Meanwhile, the normalcy of being back here is baffling. Unnerving. Frightening. While at this point there are still people to catch up with and travel stories to be told, soon... It'll be like I'd never been anywhere. Like it was nothing but a dream, a vivid one, but quickly fading. The unrelenting speed and intensity of everyday life will close up above me and swallow me up.

It's good that I have this blog after all. It'll remind me.

Where am I?

I awaken from an afternoon nap. My eyes take in the room: the heavy chestnut cupboard with a massive stone buddha head placed upon it; the abstract painting, a japanese couple hugging across the milky way-like smudge of white paint; a couple of weathered bar stools; a thin stripe of sky outside the window, so blue it makes the eyes pop. All achingly familiar, all known and touched a hundred.

Then why the vague sense of unease? Why the feeling that I am still dreaming, yet to awaken to a place and life that is truly real?

Deja vu?

No.

Sydney.

I have come back.

***

In the labyrinths of airport - incessantly waiting, tasting my own well-practiced patience - I was brushing past time. I had reached the cliched point of no return and decided to take it as a blessing. I had feared it. I had fantasized about deliberately missing the plane. Now it's here. Happening.

The impression that I'd set out on this journey some immeasurable pieces of existence ago helped me, paradoxically. It held me when my fingers expressed the sudden and desperate clawing for the past. When the great moan for what I'd left behind uncoiled in my gut. Had it only been a day since I walked the grassy greens of my parents' backyard, since I sat on the porch wrapped in a blanket, watching the sky go to sleep? Time. It twisted and danced around me like an Indian sari, first entrancing me with its seemingly weary stillness; then again jumping up and ahead like an agile horse, leaving behind chipped remains of hours.

Another seat on another plane, I closed my eyes, letting myself drift back towards Poland, amidst the pine forests and barley fields of gold - caressing the moments I'd spent there, living them again in fast-forward. When I opened them back, I found out that time had galloped forward again, swallowing several precious hours of being, and bringing me closer - geographically, mentally - to where I was headed.

The timelessness of traveling on planes, I have fondness for it. In the fume of filtered, microbe-laden air-plane air, between the neatly packed rows of seats, hosting simultaneously bored and anxious hordes of co-passengers, liberation occurs. Somewhere between what's already the past and what is to be future. A bland but poignant now. You are given space to farewell what's left behind, then - to open to what's coming. It's a rite of passage.

And then I was there. The fed-up mouth of the Boeing spewed me out, mercifully, right into the fresh and wintry Australian ground. And into my friend Jenn's comforting arms.

I still have to wake up though.

Too many loves

My heart lives now in three places. Yes, as if two weren’t complicated enough.

The red land

Towards the end of my first year in Australia I discovered Pacific Ocean. I remember blissful hours spent making love with the splendid waves, a new Venus on the block. Ever since, in my mind Australia and the turquoise element have become inseparable. The so-called “temporary” tattoo in the shape of Maori symbol Koru was the result of my longing and my promise to return to the Land of Plenty. The tattoo never disappeared.

Poland is the land that has seen me born and has witnessed my growing. My feet have forged and memorised countless paths here, which in my body are never forgotten. When I think of my childhood, I see the barley ‘fields of gold’ and me running through, ahead of my little gang, in search of a hidden treasure. I miss the endless summer evenings when I’m not here. Yet I have fled – haven’t I – and I have serious doubts whether I could grow satisfied roots here. I wouldn’t know how.

The homeland

Poland always brings the feeling of family. My friendships here are old like ancient oaks. Whilst their branches may be reaching for different skies, they’re still intertwined at the roots. My blood family…through separations and conflicts, through lost tracks and confusion, through endless searching, and trust and trying, through love that is truly unconditional, through joy and comfort of knowing someone and being known by someone for your whole life…I’ve come to a place of peace. We’ve grown closer. We let each other be.

The holy land

There is another country I’ve come to love. Go read my older posts, you’ll know what kind of love I mean. The fresh like young olives leaves and simmering with yet unspoken hopes, juvenile hopes perhaps – kind.

Three deep, significant relationships. Three loves. I’m a polyamorous citizen. Hell, aren’t I lucky?

As I’m the sort of person that develops attachment faster than a homeless dog catches flies, the pain of separation with my loves tends to be brutal. It is a familiar feeling, you’d think I’d be immune to by now. The inner tremble when you pack your bag. The conversations that get stuck, because you always fail at behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, and pathos – you don’t like pathos either. The last walks around the hood your eyes tattooing every single detail into your memory cortex. The catching in your breath, the painful savouring of each moment, the resistance to leave, the holding on to the stair rail, the fantasy that you’ll miss the plane and will have to remain where you are.

The deep breath you take while safely tucked in your airplane seat, with a magazine and inflated cushion. The worst is over. On to another world.

Ah, it’s so very hard to leave one amazing home and switch it for amazing another. Poor, poor old me.

Seriously though? I’m perched on the brink of yet another journey, waiting for someone to mercifully push me off that nest. Then again I know that pushing won’t be needed. Scared, hopeful and grateful I’ll make the jump myself. Scared but pretending to be fearless. Hopeful just because one naturally is. Grateful for the three amazing homes that stretch my heart to bursting, that show me that its capacity is after all, limitless.

Lomir ale in eynem

The beautiful Tempel Synagogue

Khaira Arby "The Queen of the Desert"

Roger Davidson Ensemble

My small suitcase was packed. My stomach was churning with excitement. As if I hadn't done enough of it recently, I was to travel once again. My parents were taking me to the train station.

"Should you meet Shevah Weiss" said my Dad, while lifting my suitcase into the car boot "give him my respect and admiration. Here's my business card, invite him to visit us."

My Dad's sense of humour is the dead-pan kind. If you don't know him very well, and superficially judge people by the number of smiles they shoot into the atmosphere, you might think him a very solemn and stern man; which is nothing but untrue.

We both knew that the chances of delighting Mr Weiss (Polish-born Israeli political scientist and former politician; a great friend of the Polish people) with our home made cholent were as scarce as snow in Tel-Aviv. But one can dream, can't they? And since I was going to Krakow, to participate in the XXI Jewish Festival, dreams like that were even appropriate.

Sadly, I didn't end up harassing Mr Weiss. Neither did I stalk him from afar. I simply didn't see him. Could it be because I missed the Friday's Shabbat dinner, to be populated by many VIPs and some 200 hangers-on? Too long I procrastinated with buying the pricey ticket, worrying about my red shoes - my only shoes - would they be inappropriate? Having finally gotten over this trifle internal conflict, I was told that the tickets had been sold out long time ago anyway.

No, I wasn't heart-broken. I'd been already gorging on too many concerts, talks, workshops, meetings etc. offered by the festival - my head and heart full to the brim - that I barely noticed. What a sensual, emotional and intellectual feast it was, what a smorgasbord of top-notch events. I could pee myself trying and still I could not describe it.

"These are the real heretics of klezmer music" bellowed Janusz Makuch, the creative director of the festival, when introducing a band called Sway Machinery " and I love heretics. There wouldn't be growth or progress without heresy."

I couldn't agree more. I did listen to many amazing heretics these last few days, to bold propagators of unpopular thoughts or seemingly jarring sounds. I sat speechless, open-mouthed, sometimes I sang or danced, then wandered the quaint streets of Old Kazimierz in a kind of stupor, as if a huge elephant had jumped of a building and landed on my head, except it hadn't.

During an open meeting called "The Wisdom of the heart. Message from the spiritual elders" conducted by transpersonal psychotherapist Tanna Jakubowicz-Mount - around 30 people shared stories about their sense of identity. Is there a question more difficult to answer and yet less familiar than "Who am I?". The bravery and wisdom of these randomly gathered individuals was mind-blowing.

Jan said he was a Holocaust survivor. David said that although Judaism was him spiritual home, he was just learning to live from his heart. Iwona said she was a leaf on the wind. Ewa was a silver wolverine. Magda, Tomasz and Jeff had been found by Jesus when they needed it. Danusia and Andrzej were recovering alcoholics. Mariusz just was. Smilla was confused; she'd suddenly found herself longing for a God so much that it choked her. And so on. Here we were, a bunch of seekers of something that may never be found. Seeking nevertheless. 

It was a tremendous relief - I repeat, tremendous - to find such alikeness, it this one, but powerful aspect. To be with the Poles of no known Jewish origins, but feeling very strongly about this culture, drawn by affiliation that cannot be rationally explained. It's like Shevah Weiss wrote, perhaps the Poles do miss the Jews after all. Perhaps our genes feel and mourn the loss of the nation that was part of our history, a common element of everyday lives, for many centuries. Through the wild and cruel currents of history, there are hardly any Jews in Poland these days. And some of us long for them.

At the hostel, during the short breathless breaks, I talked to Joanna. She was my age, she matched me with the intensity of emotions that colour her days; she too was mourning love lost. Twice we attempted to go wild and entered the crowded club Alchemia for some midnight klezmer dancing; twice we left after less than an hour, defeated by sticky and pushy crowds, by room where breathing space was quickly shrinking, sucked in by deep, beer-infused throats. "At least we tried" said Joanna as we retreated. Then sleep claimed us fast and brought no dreams.

Yesterday the train spewed me out - crinkled and cranky from the 8-hour trip - in Poznan. The weather was disgusting. Grey unrelenting piss of rain that did more than soiling my thin jacket through and through - it also washed out my juvenile euphoria. Yesterday I danced in the circle and ecstatically to the Yiddish music; I considered giving the belief in angels a go. Today...what goes up, must come down, they say.

I'll sit with it. And since these new metaphorical suitcases are big, heavy and have many pockets, it might be a long sit.