What's a dream, what's real?

I thought I was slowly getting this compartmentalization thing. But then it turned against me. Or did it? Maybe that's the only way for it to work?

When I woke up I though it was just a bad dream - after all, things were looking up, at least some of them, at least I did not want to see when they did not...
I woke up and a split second later it started dawning on me that it really happened. But it was so unreal. It could not have happened. Something so heavy, so choking started rising from the dark corner of my heart and creeping slowly up, up to grip at my throat.
I wrapped it up then, fast, while I still could get hold of it, before it integrated with my brain and became real. I set it aside, on the shelf where bad dreams sit.
I pushed it far away from me, as far as I could.
But it keeps haunting me. It somehow manages to ooze from between the wrappings and swearl around me, veil me with sadness, this strangly intense but numbing feeling...
A part of my mind feels so torpid, I am trying not to feel much, not to think much, it must be unreal, it must be.
So I go put my make-up on to hide the scars and bruises but my eyes stay dead, no light, extinguished, I cannot fix my eyes! So I don't look, I can't look because then my eyes would not be able to contain these feelings that I am trying to put away. And that needs to stay on the shelf. Carefully compartmentalized. Separated.
I know now. I know how it works. When you collect enough of these bad dream boxes on your bad dreams shelf they will scream so loudly, they will engulf you in such terrible despair that you will have to escape into this little space that you may have left and....
Make this tiny fragment a dream.
Make this thing yours.
Make this real.
Only this.

The rest does not exist.
Liberation.

That's when people call you crazy.

Felicity conditions

Today one of my classes was taken over by a new professor - a truly brilliant and accomplished scholar whose dissertation advisor back a few decades ago was nobody else than good old Noam Chomsky. Two hours of his lecture went by like a few minutes. His interests include semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language. I was listening to him and simultaneously contemplating how big my ignorance is. What an exercise in humility! Love it.
Anyway, he chose to be my advisor when I was admitted to this school and I don't have the courage to change it although my interests overlap only partially with his. Now, I will have to face the fact that if I need some advice (and I will need some very soon) and I have to meet with him and have a nice little chat. Scary. I think it always hurts to realize how inadequate your knowledge is even though you know you cannot possibly absorb all there is to know with the time limits you have. Still, I think I should know more about certain things. I am thinking what is better - the fact that I have other responsibilities in my life which prevent me from going crazy trying to learn more and more and more.... or the fact that without enough time investment into studying I will always be behind those with smaller burdens. Sane but slow. Hmmm... I don't know.
Talking about philosophy in general, I have been thinking what drives people apart - is it what they say to each other, or what they don't say? Is more important what they do or what they don't do? Is it the fear of getting hurt? Is it our innate selfishness? Is it the fact that communication is so difficult that it is a miracle we seem to understand more or less what the other person is babbling about (or we only think we understand)? I suppose we really don't get each other at all much more often than we think. Is it because we get too busy and engrossed in our troubles, duties, feelings? It is difficult even when you are native speakers of the same language and share similar life experiences - what if you don't have these things in common?
Sometimes I am in the middle of saying something and I get this sudden impression that what I say is being subconsciously formed by my own mind in such a way as to persuade the listeners and me that reality is this and not that. My whole tirade must then serve some purpose I have not really known I had, never has a fully shaped thought like that crossed my mind and yet, here I am saying all this and feeling more and more excited as I am discovering that yes, this is exactly what I feel and want to say - this is the TRUTH! Bullshit. The moment I realize that I have just shaped, handcrafted ('mind-crafted'?) this beautiful piece of truth that fits me so nicely I know that it is worthless. It is pure manipulation. It's just saying "here I am, look at me, this is who I am, this is how it works and looks like, see and believe, here's the proof, blah,blah, blah...." No, this is just what I want you to think I am and maybe I want me to believe it too. Nothing that fits nicely has a great potential of being necessarily true. It is usually the opposite.
I don't know me that well. I'm acting sometimes as if I did but I really don't. And I'm not even sure if wanted to know all about myself as that could be difficult to accept. I have never liked bitter pills. It hurts like hell to get a full glimpse of even one truly ugly side of oneself. Unfortunately, bliss is a very fleeting state. Ignorance - so often a requirement for bliss - can only last a while. Even for a slow learner.

Self-prescribed blindness

There is this proverb in Polish, I have no idea if English has an equivalent, something like "hell is paved with good intentions." I have been wondering how often we use this excuse - "but I meant well", or even childish "I didn't mean to..." It may well be true that we have the best intentions and screw something up anyway, for different reasons - maybe our idea of what was supposed to work was a big misconception? But my question is how often do we say something like that and it is meaningless, or worse - a big fat lie? How many times do we say it to lie to ourselves and how often to others? When it is less painful? How easy (difficult?) is it to convince ourselves or somebody else that we do mean well...
If we really knew ourselves, would that knowledge be helpful (and for whom?) or rather a burden? If we carry some kind of standards within our minds, uniquely developed throughout each person's life, then our self-perception can never be objective anyway. It will unavoidably be a reflection of what we think, feel, and want. When somebody "opens our eyes" to some part of our disposition, is it truly that we get to see what we refused to see before or we are just accepting this person's perceptions/standards/experiences? If most people have only a vague or highly idiosyncratic idea of who they are, is it possible to truly bond with anybody? On what level?
It seems that what we get are only little fragments, shreds of random connections, these sweet little moments of euphoria because it feels, even if only for a short while, that we are understood although we don't understand. That we are accepted although we don't accept. That we are not alone although, eventually, we always are...

Intro to Psychosis

I don't understand my own feelings. And I would love to be simply different. I hate the fact that I 'm so pessimistic and it is so easy to make me feel depressed. I'd like to be be a cheerful, energetic, "it-could-always-be-worse" kind of person. I'd like to be able to have more control over my own self and train myself to do things that I don't feel like doing, especially when it is beneficial for all people involved, or not to do things that are potentially destructive. I would need to change my whole frame of mind. I think that I will waste my life if I don't, but I don't even know where to start. Can we really change our own personality so much?
Since I came back from Poland I have been constantly experiencing a very disturbing separation from the world around me, I'm beginning to feel that I will end up in a mental institution one day. I don't feel like talking... and that is very unusual for me. I feel like shunning reality. I feel vulnerable and ridiculously immature. I see my future diagnosis description - "derangement of personality and impaired contact with reality causing delusions and hallucinations, overall deterioration of normal social functioning." Yep, that's me.
My school is a total abstraction, on every plane possible. They drive me crazy in Syntax when I see the process of creating some theories and adjusting, adjusting, adjusting when a problem arises. It sounds like a great big fake sometimes - stretching reality so that it fits the box nicely. Basically, this is the idea - they would like to define innate language structures in the simplest form possible so that it explains the famous Plato's problem - how is it possible for children to learn a language so fast exposed to such an imperfect input? Why do we think that it has to be so simple - can't our brain process more sophisticated structures? I feel that all of these theories are mostly dictated by our very limited understanding of the world and human brain. All these big name linguists are like children trying to figure out how things work never realizing that maybe the tools they are using are far too small for the job. We are so restricted by our perceptions of the world and so presumptuous in thinking that we know enough to make claims about things that we have hardly access to. Maybe that is why it all sounds like gibberish sometimes; all these attempts to explain, account for, or even just scratch the surface... How can something be called science if it is based on "because he said so" ideas? Even if somebody sounds logical and improves their theories as data flows in, it still stays a "because I call it so" thing. Marcel (my Syntax prof) would kill me if he read this post. He'd say I'm an ignorant (which would not be that far away from the truth...). I'd be an outcast forever.
OK, I managed to redirect my mind and Syntax became my victim to let me relieve some of my frustration about all the other things that I seem to have little control over in my life. Better Syntax than something else. That said, I have to come back to my lovely Government and Binding Theory, which works better than any sleeping pills I have tried so far...

Questions

I know my life is not the hardest it could be. I know there are people who would call my life a simple walk through the meadows. No major tragedies, nothing that could be described as a catastrophe, all damages within apparently manageable limits... or are they?
Why does it feel as if everything was crashing on top of me? Am I that weak? Can't I take an obstacle or two... or eight?
Three times a week I drive and miraculously find a parking spot by a subway station. Three times a week I spend just a few minutes on the subway, two stops from Queens to my destination in Manhattan. Three times a week I walk down the Fifth Avenue, eight or so blocks. Then I sit in class and wonder: "what on earth am I doing here?" It all seems so unreal in comparison to the rest of my life. But that's the smallest from my problems. At least I think so. I have very little clarity on what the major problem is. Maybe I cannot even see it. If I did, could prove too much. Or maybe I exist within a gradiation of problematic greatness or smallness with no clear endpoints?

I feel helpless when I want to help. I feel ignorant when I want to know. I feel speechless when I want to talk. I feel lost when I want to show the way. Everything feels wrong. So simple. How unbearable. I am facing it every day and every night. Staring at me through different eyes but always equally draining. There are no easy answers and no help within my reach. After all, why would there be?

Phil Collins - One More Night

And another one. I'm feeding my malancholy. Effectively.

Phil Collins - Can't stop loving you

My song for today.

Circular motion

Here I am. I did it again. And I really thought that this time was going to be different. I have come a full circle, just like most of the summers before. No matter how much of America I have absorbed, inhaled, adopted and incorporated in my life, it is enough to spend a couple of months in Poland to realize how easily I can let it all go... Of course, there would be things and people and experiences that I would miss, I am hardly impervious to what the world offers me, but still, the very core of me lies here and as much as it makes my life more difficult I would not give it away. It makes me... me.
I see now that spending my summers in Poland may play a bigger role in my life than I would have thought. Being here is not only for my sons - to have a real summer, to reconnect with their family, to make their Polish stronger, to have an idea where their parents come from and how life can be different from what they experience in NYC.... it is also for me to distance myself from who I become in NYC and decide what I like about it and what, well, I don't necessarily need. My summers here have not always been exactly how they are supposed to be but most of them (with one big exception, but that does not prove or disprove anything, I think) have given me a step back perspective on my life, helped connect 'me' from the past with 'me' in the present. The clash that sometimes occurs at such an encounter may be painful but keeps me real, gives me roots and does not let me float away to some place that would make me so very uncomfortable after a while.
This is my circle - learning every summer again how very Polish I am after all and how difficult it is to leave this place every time, how it hurts to cross this distance again... I have come such a long way in every dimension and I have swum against the current for so long, learning how to place my feet on that foreign land across the Atlantic day after day, sometimes forcing myself to do one after another new thing, trying not to get lost in all of this and wondering how on earth I find the strength to make myself do these things and why I think I need them and if I really need them... I still have not found a place in my American life where I can truly relax, where I can let go and just be me, no more, no less. I have such places here, places where I feel, smell, taste the sense of the words "my little piece of the world." I forget about this feeling after several weeks in NYC, I forget because if I did not I would never be able to live there.
I know it is crazy to go through all of this every year but without this I would probably be a very different person now and somehow I believe I wouldn't like her very much... Yes, it makes me feel confused and yes, it wrecks my emotional stability (which is never in a very good condition anyway...), but you know what... I'll live. And I will use it because I will not let any pot to melt me, ever. Sorry.

A note to family and friends:

And don't you love me precisely because of that (among other things, of course)?!

P.S. When I picture myself at the Graduate Center in Manhattan in just five days in my Syntax class, I can only laugh now. It feels like such a huge incongruity. But the funniest part is that I can do it, I can be there and behave as if it were the most normal thing on earth... while my mind will be somewhere else. And after it ends I will run home and I may even cry, who knows. Maybe I'll cry already on the subway. But who cares, New Yorkers have seen the oddest things and it is said they do not get impressed easily. Fortunately, I know a few who do care. Even if the things that happen to me may be foreign to them.

Sun, peaches, flowers and obsessiveness.

Around noon the Sun was one third less... A partial solar eclipse. Definitely not as exciting as it used to be to people but still reminds us (at least it does to me) that we are only little specks of matter in a huge universe. I cannot believe we spend most of our lives as blind as ants marching in circles around their anthill. Tending to our little tiny problems, carefully constructing our miniscule plans, and putting amazing amounts of arduous work into our miniature projects. Ants work together, their survival depends on it. People seem to work hard on isolating, fracturing, and promoting everything that would make an individual self-suficient. We call it nicely being independent, strong, carrying your own weight, reaching your full potential... and these are all truly virtuous ideas but often we take it too far, as it is quite common for human race to engage in excess. What happens then? We become simply egocentric, concentrated so much on our own self that we cannot even pretend we are interested in what other people do, think, or feel. And even if we are interested it is only when we can get something out of it. There are many different roads to this destination. Sometimes it seems you have no other choice. Sometimes you can become your own 'family-centric' and see any outside input as potentially damaging, hostile, or just offensive. Why should you let anybody ruin what you have worked so long to build? I started thinking here about people and situations I know but many of them are so complex that I won't even try to understand the reasons, sources, products... The line between being a strong, decisive, mentally integrated person and an opinionated egocentric is sometimes as thin as the one between people who simply like to have some control over the world around them and the ones suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

On the brighter note, I spent the whole afternoon and evening walking barefoot in my mom's garden, playing with my kids, eating ice cream and peaches (straight from the tree and warm from the sun) and I even did some gardening, the last of which I found surprisingly relaxing. I discovered that when you work in the garden you literally stop thinking... What a refreshing change! It felt so good I could get addicted. I mean, you do think but it's different than what thinking usually feels like. I was thinking in images, saw in my head the things I was doing and mostly just manipulated it. I don't know if it's like this for everybody but I guess there must be something in it - so many people enjoy gardening. I don't know how often I could do it but it would come in handy from time to time. Everybody needs a break.

Yes! I managed to stop writing about negative revelations of mine and finish my post with a 'bees and flowers' kind of thing. I'm so PROUD of myself. Sigh.

The end of the world

I spent almost four days in a village even smaller than the one I come from. It is one long road with houses on both sides and fields stretching far behind, up to the horizon. I don't know how many people live there but I guess around two hundred at best. Most, if not all of them are farmers. My younger son was constantly asking on the way: "Are we there yet?" and "When will we finally get there?" making me feel we were really traveling to the end of the world...
My mom's childhood house. Old, but changed now. Remodelled. A huge attic I used to love shrunk to give bedrooms to my three cousins, children of my mom's youngest sister. She is only 10 years older than me but we are worlds apart, in so many ways. My cousins, 20, 18, and 14 years old, reign upstairs now. No more dark corners, no more rickety stairs, no more perfect hiding places and dusty treasures.
I slept in one of the upstairs bedrooms, with a skylight over my head. I looked right at the Little Dipper every night. Perfectly dark nights, perfectly starry sky. On the last night there I woke up feeling an awfully bellicose presence above me. I thought I could make out a face staring down and me, a face that was so disfigured and ashy that did not look human anymore. And did not feel human. I heard something in my head, something like "What is she doing in my house? I don't know her, I don't want her here." I knew that was the meaning but I did not really hear the words clearly, I would not be able to say in what language they were spoken. It was as if I could hear thoughts before they were given the form of words. I tried to get myself fully awake, start thinking straight, but I could not. I looked again and I saw it again, and a little more clearly. A part of my brain was telling me it was not real, it was just one of my half-awake-half-asleep nightmares that visit me sometimes but it was so powerful this time that I just could not make it go away. I could hear its thoughts, feel its presence, I could almost touch it. And I just stared back at it, hypnotized by sheer terror until it faded, first from my vision, next from my consciousness. The air in the room felt so dense that I could not sleep in peace for the rest of the night. Tossing and turning I watched the night get brighter and brighter. This time I welcomed the bright daylight... this time I did not feel comfortable in the darkness.

I forgot I was supposed to write about bees and flowers, in other words, about something light and pleasant. In my next post I'll just gossip about my family and whine how thay have changed for the worse. No more ghosts and crazy minds. On the second thought, though, I cannot promise anything... It's almost midnight here in Poland. Sweet dreams...

Pride and Prejudice

Do I really want to talk pride with an American, even when it is my best friend? Yes, I think we can do it without risking a major international crisis, right? I started writing this as an answer to my friend's comment but it has grown to be too big to let it stay in the comment section. And seemed too important to leave it there.
My point when I was writing my last post was not to judge which approach to pride is better. I wanted to spell it out, mostly for myself, how we treat this feeling in Poland. I don't like extremes and that is why I am not very appreciative of how difficult it is to feel pride in Poland without being stigmatized as someone truly obnoxious. But I also think that displaying pride on every possible occassion is simply too much, somehow makes any achievement less admirable - as if we've spent all the admiration possible for it already, I don't know if that expresses my exact feeling about this clearly. I think it has a lot to do with our culture and what we have been surrounded with most of our lives. I think my understanding of pride is very different from what my American friend feels about it and possibly from my Polish-influenced British friend as well.

I'll try to explain why Americans may be disliked sometimes - when they display their pride for their country and say how it is the best possible place on earth to live in - what meaning can it have for the rest of the world? Americans may say at this point: "Feel free to talk the same way about your country," but wouldn't that be a little silly? Everybody singing praises for their one and only the most wonderful piece of the globe... It seems that in Europe being proud has a very strong connotation of lifting oneself above another so Americans are doomed to be perceived as obnoxious. Hearing Americans expressing their pride for their country makes people feel that Americans must consider themselves superior to other nations - to these poor unlucky non-Americans. Most people don't like to be pitied or looked down upon so it awakes negative emotions in them. Maybe the whole situation is the source of European scorn towards Americans. Now, the question if Americans really feel superior to other nations is something I don't think I can answer. Again, I hate generalizations.

One last thing - I think we need to be a little more open-minded and not project our own understanding of the world and words, for that matter, on other people. So maybe some or many Americans are not that obnoxious but just behave in a way that feels natural to them but also some or many non-Americans are not just pretending to be non-proud, they truly can't make themselves feel proud because they have been taught their whole lives that it is wrong to feel that way, and even worse and disrespectful to stick it in somebody else's face. I don't think we should suspect that people that appear humble are hypocrites just because humility is not highly valued in our culture. I have been taught that humility is a virtue and pride is a vice. The lesson must have stuck - maybe that's why I had to be practically forced by persuasion that my achievements at QC were actually something to be proud of. I came up with countless reasons for why I did so well - that I had some training back in Poland, that I was more mature than most students, that my mom helped me for a few semesters, etc. - of course, it had nothing to do with all the effort I put into it, sacrifices I had to make, or, God forbid, my skills, talent, or intellect! I think I am not alone in it - we will do our best trying to kill any emerging feelings of pride because we know it is dagerous, we have a strongly ingrained fear, maybe even a certainty, that it is a straight road to becoming full of onerself, conceited, simply an impossible person.

I was always told that people of the greatest minds were modest, that people that really did great things never thought much of themselves, that only the ones that are not too amazing need to make a big fuss about themselves to cover up their deficits. I am not saying that it is always true, but when you hear something like this often enough when you are a child, it sure shapes the way you perceive the world. So maybe some of us are subconsciously striving to be great and virtuous, however futile it may be, while others do take a shortcut and only pretend to be humble without even trying to fight their abominable pride?

I have just one more thing to say right now and please treat it more like thinking aloud, just some ideas that have come to my mind while writing this post. I would like to find out if it makes any sense, if possible. There is no intention here to offend anybody's feelings - I hope people who know me will have no doubt about that. Just overactive mind.
Can it be that patriotism was so promoted in the US because that was the only base for building some solidarity within the new country back when it was created? And it has been used since then to promote the same feeling among millions of newcomers just to make the country grow and be somehow unified and not fractioned by persistent loyalties towards countless foreign countries? That could make governing such a huge country quite difficult, I guess. Or it has been believed to be this way. I'm really not an expert on politics so I'll stop talking about that. But a similar reasoning can be applied to language policy at schools (that I know a little about and learnt about it from Americans) that for a very long time has concentrated on eradicating minority languages among immigrant children - something that is changing only very slowly right now. Obviously, keeping your minority language potentially allows for closer ties with your parents' culture and may slow down your acculturation process - and fast acculturation is perceived as very desirable under the cover of giving everybody equal chances. In reality, however, it can be quite problematic. Enough about that! I came here to relax and not deal with heavy topics! If it is going to continue I will alienate my American friend, whom I love dearly, and she will not come to visit! Next post will be about flowers and bees and the like....

The nature of being proud

Let's talk about being proud:
proud
1. Feeling pleasurable satisfaction over an act, possession, quality, or relationship by which one measures one's stature or self-worth.
2. Occasioning or being a reason for pride.
3. Feeling or showing justifiable self-respect.
4. Filled with or showing excessive self-esteem.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English language list several shades of meanings. I copied only these four and then checked a Polish Language dictionary to see if I find what I expected to find. And I was not mistaken. The meanings given were very similar to the ones I listed above, this seems to be a word with a close correspondence in meaning between these two languages. However, there is one significant difference - in the order of the meanings given. Does it matter? As far as I know, the order of the meanings should, on principle, reflect the order of the most common to the least common usage. Don't ask me how it is determined but at least here it collaborates with my hypothesis, namely that in Polish the word "proud" carries the "excessive" meaning more often than in English. It may be a little redundant to say at this point(but I will say it anyway) that meaning number 4 above moved up to number 2 in Polish, the first meaning being basically the same. It is hardly a proof but still, must mean something, right?
It is not good to be proud in Poland. It may be changing but I think its negative connotation has a long way to go before it gets degraded to number 4... You can be proud of somebody else, for example your friend has just finished a marathon on a wheelchair - it is very natural to be proud of such a strong willed friend. You have a right to be proud, especially if you somehow helped the person to achive this incredible feat. But you should never say you helped because then your being proud is not that noble anymore. The assumption goes - you have your share in the success - no wonder you are #4 proud!
Under certain circumstances, you are allowed to be proud of your kids. It is tricky, though. You boast about their grades, awards, successes, and whatever else a little too much (and the question is what is too much? - never easy to say) and you are just another crazy parent and everybody assumes your kid must be average at best - maybe you are trying to cover up for something? If everything were so well you'd feel satisfied and wouldn't need to make all this fuss... Everybody hates you and your kids too, just in case they are as full of shit as their parents. Again, if your kids overcame some extraordinary difficulties to achieve what they did you are given a little more room to carry your pride around.
Now, the most problematic situation to deal with is being proud of yourself. Here, even if you had worked your butt off and fought with cancer while writing a bestseller or learnt to paint with your mouth after an accident that left you paralysed.... even then you should not talk too much about how proud you are. People will be proud of you, some have not lifted a finger to help you out but for some reason they will tell you how proud of you they are. I understand that semantics can be really complicated at this point - of course, it is not the same kind of pride every time - when you are proud of somebody who truly deserves it, you feel moved by the achievement, you appreciate the amount of effort it took to do this particular thing for that person but what you are really doing by saying: "I am so proud of you," may actually be this: "I feel proud for you, so you don't need to taint your wonderful success and your admirable person with this low feeling."
So how do you speak about your successes in Poland? The best way is to tell some friendly or easily bought person all about this and let them sing your praises. But you have to pick very carefully, it cannot be somebody that would benefit from making your achievements widely known even in the slightest way, like taking credit for some of it. That would make you lose all credibility. Ideally, it should be somebody superior to you, or an expert in the field of your success, totally unrelated to you. Your role then will be to be appropriately embarrassed, get a little red in the face if you can, and say something like "Oh, stop it, that was not that great. I was just lucky!" They won't like it but they will accept that you did what you did. And that it is something.
Maybe I do have an issue with this word - there is one more aspect of it that I could say something about but I'll leave it for some other time because it's getting late here in Poland. Maybe the fact that I have had several traumatic experiences with words make me want to be a linguist? Something like the idea that many people decide to study psychology to find solutions to their screwed up lives... I guess I should have considered psychology... Well, a little too late now!
Anyway, it does seem sometimes that when you talk to people about your failures, problems, and difficulties you come across as more approachable and friendly than when you toot your own trumpet too often (is that how you say it? Anybody?). Unless you overdo the complaining, of course. I don't think friends or relationship gained this way can be true and lasting. You will just get a little attention, for as long as you serve the purpose of making people feel better about themselves, either because they realize they are not as miserable as you are or because they can be so nobly supportive and helpful. The moment you are not needed anymore... well, who wants a needy or whiny friend around all the time? Get a grip, finally!

Great (or not so great) expectations

OK, some more "me, here, so misunderstood" whinning... But it really makes me furious how I am expected to behave in a certain way just because I don't live here anymore and probably especially because I moved so far away. I do understand that things are different but I won't be visiting every single aunt and cousin and soon after I come because people think I am too proud to make them feel like visiting me. It may sound a little confusing but I think it works this way - because it seems obvious to some that I must be feeling superior to them, I have to go out of my way to be very humble and do things I never did when still here (like visit some members of my family, not to mention have some meaningful conversations with them).
People project things, thoughts, feelings, and I don't know what else on me and I am supposed to prove it all wrong. And it's getting worse - a couple of years ago people would just informally come over for a while to talk or we would just talk a moment when we met somewhere shopping or whatever and that's it. Now I really feel like never leaving my mom's garden. I used to get more smiles, nods, meaningless but at least neutral small talk here and there and now I'm mostly getting these searching glares, I don't know... I'm sitting here, quite frustrated, trying to figure out how much the bad vibe I'm getting is real and how much it's something I make up, or feel because I've changed too much. I know one thing - I don't feel comfortable among these people. And I don't feel comfortable not feeling comfortable!
Why do they have to expect all those things from me? I don't think I made them do it by behaving in some particular way because they hardly see me! And it's not very different from how it was when I was living here. But I was one of them then, so maybe that's why it was ok?
I just want them to leave me alone, have some peace finally. I want nobody to know me! I simply can't find a place where I could have some peace... Is it so much to ask? A place where I could stop thinking, remembering, planning, expecting, fearing, obsessing about... a place where I could just be. I should look for it somewhere inside my mind - if it's not there how can I find it outside? But my mind feels like a crazy rollercoaster ride most of the time... It's not that I don't like rollercoasters - actually, I got totally addicted to them after I got on one for the first time (not so long ago, by the way, we don't have those really good ones in Poland yet so I had to wait until my son got big enough to drag me on one). But you cannot make a home on a rollercoaster, can you? You need to get off and get a rest. Where's my rest? Have to wait for RIP, I guess.
Now, coming back to expectations. These are such tricky beasts. Can never feed them enough, cannot kill them as the are usually too big, cannot ignore them as you'd trip over them sonner or later anyway. The world is so full of them, bombarding you from every possible direction, sometimes making it difficult to figure out what your true feelings are. Can never satisfy them, always slipping when trying. Always someone gets disappointed. What if there were none? What would we do? How would we behave? Maybe then, finally, we would be able to live up to them... they would not exist - how difficult could that be? How unimaginably stupid do I sound right now?

Silver lining

I've heard it a few times but never believed it much... a hopeful or comforting prospect in the midst of difficulty... can it be really true? I found this cloud today on my evening walk. Left me pondering over the question of how much we can trust the heavens... But it did look beautiful. Does beautiful mean true? Beauty can be blinding, can't it? Oh, forget it! I believe in the silver lining, at least tonight.

A picture story

I'm wondering...

My new school:


in the city of bright lights:

and me:

from a place of shadows:

Is it really a match?

I'm wondering...

Remembered

I remembered today how I loved the sound of wind lost in the trees. I used to lie down under a linden tree somewhere in the middle of one of the meadows around my house, close my eyes, and pretend it's the sea I loved so much but could only see once every few years.
I remembered today how I loved the sound of crickets hidden in the bushes or in the fields. You could chase the chirping for hours and never find the source of it. So strong, yet so elusive.
I remembered today how I loved twilight, the time when night is born. Only when the daylight is fading can sounds and smells emerge. Your eyes open wider but you can see shadows only. You let go. Get startled by he sounds you could not hear with your eyes still seeing. Strange, unknown, soft rustlings, alive. Get dizzy with the scents the sun is always killing. You discover a whole new world. Your mind at peace but your body never more alive. Finally separated.
It's night now.

Circus

I'm back. Back here, on my blog, writing. Back in Poland. Should I be saying "back in Poland"? Would that mean that this is my permanent home? But it's not. Or is it?
I'm writing in English, in my all Polish childhood house, it's the middle of the night but it's not even 6 p.m. in New York, I'm probably somewhere in between... time, place, me - all mixed, all so not real right now. I'm confused, maybe not utterly but still, confused. Every hour I spend here I discover new things in me, things that I was half aware of when in NY but which become much clearer here, things that have changed in me since last year and years before. Never been as aware of it all as now. I'm wondering why? My mind is not here at all. Not like it was before. And people look at me in such a strange way, as if they could see all of it. Do I walk differently? Do I talk differently? I went to a local grocery store and I got a hundred stolen fractions of stares. The circus came to town, folks! And I don't know so many of these people who are pretending not to stare. Do they even have any idea who I am or they just see a new face and are trying to figure out who, where, and why. Oh, and the silence we get all around when my kids start speaking English - a fricking circus! Should find it entertaining myself but somehow I cannot. We'll just stay home. Make everybody pay for coming to see the freaks if they really want to.
I'm being so unfair now. Soap operas and gossip are two biggest sources of excitement and entertainment for so many people here. I should be compassionate and help them out - maybe wear a cowgirl hat, or put lots of stars and stripes on my clothes, or start speaking with an American accent, or do some other outrageous things expected from outsiders - and even more exciting when coming from an insider-turned-outsider one. I can almost hear somebody conclude: "Yes, I knew she would end up so strange, never fitted in, always keeping herself aloof. Probably feeling so much better than all of us now, and why would she, ha? What has she done so great? That she moved to America? That doesn't make her any better,anybody could do that. Always was too proud to play with our kids like everybody else!" And they would be so right and so wrong!

Trip

This is probably the last post I'm writing in New York. I won't have much time over the next two days to do anything except packing and everything that goes with it, like realising I don't have something I really need and rushing to get it. It seems I will be left to deal with all that alone if I don't enlist my friend to help... Atmosphere around very heavy, very difficult to ignore, very exhausting, very everything... as usually in the days before I leave for Poland. It's kind of our tradition now. I wonder... never mind.
I always think that my plane may crash and how everything would end so fast. Big dreams, small joys, tiny nervous breakdowns, overblown emotions, and all these little, trivial problems. But trivial only when you look at them from death's perspective, whatever that can actually be... Nothing's trivial when you're stuck right in the middle of it. And you're tired, and insecure, and rather pessimistic by nature. The only thing I can do is just to walk on, and on, and on. Slower or faster, with ease or with difficulty, but forward. And I know I have a lot more mistakes to make ahead of me, this seems to be my life - a very bumpy road to perfection. Hopefully, I will get there eventually. But because I'm not even close, I do hope my plane gets me safe to Poland and back. I have so much to come back to, more than ever before. I need a long, quiet, relaxing, uneventful vacation. I'll just make an exception for one week in August. A healthy dose of fun in appropriate company has never hurt anybody, right?

U2 - Beautiful Day

At your request, my dear friend. Thank you for a beautiful evening.
"What you don't know, you can feel somehow..."

Demons

I know posting songs and their lyrics is not exactly what blog should be about... or is it? Maybe it's just making it easy on myself. Why write about things that are difficult or impossible to write about if you can do almost the same with a song? Not to mention that with a song you don't really need to worry about somebody getting your meaning wrong - you can always say that well, it was just a song...

The truth is that every day I listen to several songs and tend to stick with the one that best reflects my thoughts, feelings, or my mood that day. Sometimes it is the song that shapes the way I feel. Makes my emotions stronger, forces me to think about something I have carefully avoided, depresses me or energizes me. Next I kill it. I listen to it so many times that it stops meaning anything or starts to mean something different. I like coming back to my blog to listen to these songs. I can remember what I was thinking at that time much better this way than just reading my posts. My posts never express exactly what I would like them to.

Yesterday if I were to post anything it would have been "Beautiful Day" by U2. I loved its contradictions and a surreal feel (maybe only for me?), against everything.



"The traffic is stuck

And you're not moving anywhere."


"Touch me

Take me to that other place

Teach me

I know I'm not a hopeless case."

"You're on the road

but you've got no destination."

I have a destination. So many of them. I just need to reach them. Some say I will but do I believe them? Do I believe in myself? How can I believe "everything will be OK" if I can do so little about most of these matters? And yes...

I see only when in pain

I feel only when hurting

I'm alive only when in agony

Learning the hard way

That my skin feels too much

My body

Hardly ever without bruises

My mind

Killing me with endless pictures

Played repeatedly

Until I am left

Shapeless

Somebody wise once told me that most, if not all people have their own personal demons. You may be aware you have it or be totally oblivious to its presence. You may welcome it, take care of it, help it grow in strength... both consciously or again, unknowingly. It has its way to make you want it to take over bigger and bigger part of your life. It will help you succeed in whatever you choose to do, letting you think you must be doing something good if everything goes so smoothly. You will think you're meeting your destiny. You will follow this path of success, carefully designed and paved for you, and hardly realize how much damage you are doing along the way. You will be led very gently until you've done your share of evil. When not useful anymore you'll be plunged into the depth of failure to make you the most miserable and hateful person on earth... A product of your weakness and self-indulgence.

But there are different roads as well. You can fight it. You can get rid of it and make your inside nice and clean. The dirt swept out. Decorated with flowers. Filled with beautiful fragrances. And then you relax, you get comfortable and lazy. After all, you've done a hell of a job, haven't you? How could you have known that your demon never left your side, that it had been sticking around close enough to watch... It knows you. It knows you better than you want to know yourself. You wouldn't be able to stand knowing yourself this way - wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you saw everything... So it will just lay low and wait for you to leave your door or window open, even just a little tiny bit, and fall asleep. It will be back inside sooner than you would ever think possible. And it will bring friends. Nobody wants to live alone, even a demon. It so much fun to play this game with some company around. Especially in such a pretty place you made for them!

Is there anybody in this world that manages to keep one's windows and doors shut tightly at all times?

Easier to run

It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It's so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone

Something has been taken
From deep inside of me
A secret I've kept locked away
No one can ever see
Wounds so deep they never show
They never go away
Like moving pictures in my head
For years and years they've played

If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
If I could take all my shame to the grave I would
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave

It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It's so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone

Sometimes I remember
The darkness of my past
Bringing back these memories
I wish I didn't have
Sometimes I think of letting go
And never looking back
And never moving forward so
There'd never be a past

If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
If I could take all my shame to the grave I would
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave

Just washing it aside
All of the helplessness inside
Pretending I don't feel misplaced
Is so much simpler than change

It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something numb
It's so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone

(It's easier to run)
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made
(It's easier to go)
If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave

Summer rain

First day of summer. I got caught in the rain. Each drop was so big and heavy that I could feel them hitting me, soaking through my clothes, and making my body wet. Hundreds of drops. Surprisingly forceful, almost painful in their coldness against my warm skin. Waking me up. Pouring down my face, replacing tears. Refreshing. Cleansing. I was walking as if in slow motion among all the people rushing, hurrying, running to hide from the rain. The sensation on the border of pain and pleasure. Bringing awareness... but washing it away. And then, as suddenly as the rain started, the sun appeared. Yes, everything does look different flooded with bright light. Sometimes more beautiful, sometimes... ugly and dirty. Does light bring the true image out? Or does it sharpen it out of proportions? Bright sun always hurts my eyes. I prefer staying in the shadow. So I'll be rushing and running, escaping the sun. And walking slowly in the rain. A little longer.

Old song that I can understand now.

Just a few lines from the video "One" I posted earlier. These come from the movie used in the video. I'd like to see the movie. Or maybe better not...

"It is impossible for this celebrated individual to experience pain, pleasure, memory, dreams, or thoughts of any kind. This young man will be as unfeeling, as unthinking as the dead until the day he joins them."

"I don't know whether I'm alive and dreaming or dead and remembering."

"How can you tell what's a dream and what's real when you can't even tell if you're awake or you're asleep."

"Where am I?"

"Oh, God, please let them hear me. They won't listen. they won't hear me. Hear me!"

"It's like a piece of me that keeps on living..."

"It won't always be like this, will it?"

"I can't live like this! Please wake me!"

"Oh, God, let them hear me."

"Kill me, I'm asking you to kill me."

"Inside me I'm screaming. Nobody pays any attention. If I had arms I could kill myself. If I had legs I could run away. If I had a voice I could talk and be some kind of company for myself. I could yell for help... but nobody helped me."

"I don't see how I can go on like this"

"SOS, help me, SOS, help me..."

I found it so incredibly powerful and captivating, and so extremely unsettling. I kept coming back to this video again and again. Imagine trying this for yourself. Lie down in a totally dark room, your arms and legs tied up so tight that you cannot move them at all, your mouth silenced with tape. It may take longer for some people, shorter for others but soon enough you'll be going insane, screaming: "Kill me!" over and over again. I guess some people get a feeling like this even without being deprived of the freedom of movement and voice. But can these two be really compared? How much can we imprison ourselves or let other people or situations imprison us without any physical limits in place? Or maybe the limits are there, different, less tangible, but equally compelling, threatening, never to be escaped from...

Metallica - One

One lyrics

I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or a dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops in me

Now that the war is through with me I'm waking up, I cannot see
That there is not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me

Back in the womb it's much too real
In pumps life that I must feel
But can't look forward to reveal
Look to the time when I live

Fed through the tube that sticks in me
Just like a wartime novelty. Tied to machines that make me be
Cut this life off from me

Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me

Now the world is gone I'm just one
Oh God, help me hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, help me

Darkness imprisoning me
All that I see
Absolute horror I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell

Landmine Has taken my sight
Taken my speech
Taken my hearing Taken my arms Taken my legs
Taken my soul
Left me with life in hell

Losing it?

I feel I could write today. I'm sure I would write a lot if I only started. But as I'm not really starting I doubt I will create anything worth reading today. I'm just freewriting, whatever comes to my mind I'm putting down, with some filtering of course, so that I don't get locked up in a mental institution.
I had a strange conversation today, not so long ago, that made me realize yet again, how difficult it is to escape from your actions - however long ago they happened. It's as if what you do is written in stone, never to be erased, always to come back to haunt you, always tinting your presence, your life, always destroying the moments that could otherwise be the most carefree times of your life, always making everything you do later have somewhat negative connotations. It imprisons you, changes the way you are, the way you think, the way you act, the way you enjoy or dislike... It puts limits on what you are allowed to feel or how happy you can be. It's pretty obvious that the actions I'm talking about are not good deeds. Good deeds... wouldn't it be marvelous to have more of those on one's record? How would it feel? Well, how would I know, right?
I feel we talk too little. But talking is not as easy as it seems. It often starts innocently, some laughter, light topics, you'd think you are having a nice relaxing conversation. A minute later you are on dangerous grounds that can only bring pain, anger, and further detachment. Welcome to the hell's gate, baby!
The sadative is kicking in. Need to go now. Not making much sense here anyway. No loss.

My attempt at positivity

My friend told me that my last poem was very depressing. I never mean to depress anybody with my writing - that's hardly a thing to desire! I just want to arouse some feelings, create a moment when words transform readers' mood, make them aware of a fleeting emotion, an image, a scent... Unfortunately, I usually write about feelings and experiences that can hardly be called pleasant so why would I want anybody to share that with me?! Why does writing about such things come naturally to me and I cannot create even one fully joyous post or poem, for example glorifying some fulfilling part of my life? Or maybe I have, I hope I have done something like that, I have to go back and check! My friend also told me that nobody would even dare to comment on such a poem. I think I can see why. There may be several reasons but one of them can be that if the poem sucks, nobody wants to say anything in case I truly feel depressed and that would put me over the edge. Or they liked the poem and now they feel too depressed to write.
I'll try to be as positive as possible for the rest of this post. There is only one more thing I wanted to write about today so hopefully I'll manage to keep it cheerful.
I think I'm finally acclimatizing. I have been an immigrant for eight years and when I happened to spend some time with Americans I always felt to be an outsider, an observer, an oddball. Always having a feeling I see the world differently made me afraid to open up to people. I did not want them to see how strange I was. For some reason I stopped worrying about that. College helped but that was not enough. I think I owe this to a few people here who made me feel they not only accept me the way I am but also like these little things that I do or say or write differently. I feel as if a new world unfolds for me right before my eyes. It is still new for me and said with some hesitation but I feel I can make my life work here - for so long I did not believe that I would ever hear myself saying that. I can make it work in ways very different from how it would most probably look in Poland, and this is the most exciting part!
That's not to say that in Poland my life would be worse - I think I would be able to make it quite good too. But it seems it would be much more predictable and familiar and yes, a little more limited in opportunities. I like challenges - it keeps me interested, active, involved. I get bored quite easily... That is probably why I prefer reading and writing in English. I always learn something new, not only about content but also about form. I love coming across a new word, or an old one but used in an unusual way, a phrase that makes me stop and savor the way it sounds and makes me feel. I love searching for the best way to say something in my writing, even if that means spending much more time writing the same number of words than any of my American friends would. I love learning that what I write not only makes sense but also makes people think and feel. I guess everybody needs some assurance, right? Who likes disappointments... Ok, time to finish, I feel I'm crossing to the dark side again!

Running

In my fear and flaws
I let myself down again
In the darkness of my mind
I let myself down again

I speak in the language of hurt
When searching for perfection
Disappointment is what I find
I speak in the language of the past

Caught up in between
Trying to be someone else
Caught up in between
Trying to be truly me

I run
Until I cannot breathe
Until I cannot feel
I run

Let me pick up the pieces
Before I break more
Keep the best of me safe
Before I break more

Chemical reaction

I keep finding these songs from long ago and for a few moments I get to feel what I felt back then. It seems to be a very effective way to remember not just events but, much more importantly, emotions - the essence of your being when you are a teenager... Some of these songs just make me laugh, some make me dance, some make me feel nostalgic, some make me cry. And I ask myself, how much have I changed? Am I still able to feel the way I did 15 years ago? Or is it something you can feel only when your brain is still in a mess (not that it's not now, but in a bit different way, I guess), your hormones rage, and all these great emotional outbursts are just outward signs of chemical imbalance of some kind?

"Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I'm only falling apart"
"Once upon a time there was light in my life, but now there's only love in the dark"

How can something like this not make you sad? But, of course, a song is just a song. Its very purpose is to make you feel a certain way. If you feel like being melancholic, listen to the one I posted a moment ago - unless you are a person of a far from romantic disposition and something like this song will just put you to sleep... It's probably a much better idea to get a good night's sleep than to lose your touch with reality anyway. Sweet dreams.

Total Eclipse of The Heart

LinkinPark - Numb

My first LP love. This is a song that entered my life a long while ago and has continued to express a lot for me (and often different things at different times) ever since. I was thinking about it when writing my last post.

Asleep

I need to get myself out of this. I welcome any wise suggestions that anybody might have. Now, what the "this" is. It's how I have felt for some time now. To illustrate with just a few examples: I'm not doing anything that I'm supposed to, the things that I really have to do I hardly manage to complete, I'm wandering aimlessly around the house thinking of ways how to get out of here but I find it difficult even to get dressed earlier than noon, every night I realise how much I haven't done and I panic, I go to bed and cannot sleep. I would love to stop thinking but finding bliss in ignorance has never been my strong side. I have to think, know, be painfully aware... I never let go... I can literally feel time seeping through my fingers like sand, disappearing into an endless sea of the past, never to be recovered. Every wave takes some away from me.
Today I went to the basement to do some organizing and instead looked through my old photo albums I found there. I was looking at these moments and people captured in order to remind us of these "good old times" while they were not good old times yet but a living reality, and couldn't shake off a feeling that it is not me in these pictures, that it is somebody else. With a few exceptions, I cannot remember what I was thinking at the moment the picture was taken. I hardly remember some of the people in the photos. I am left with still images, empty behind. Maybe it's because of that emptiness or maybe because it is actually true, I had a feeling that I knew so little back then. I had no idea about how life works. My life has taken so many unexpected turns along the way, I have learnt so much about people around me and about myself, and there has been so many changes in the way I function mentally and emotionally that my life back in Poland seems now like a kid's dream. Maybe it is not exactly right what I said. Maybe I did know a lot back then. That knowledge simply stopped being relevant at some point. It did not apply to what filled my life later.
I still haven't reached any ultimate state of equilibrium, satisfaction, peace - however you want to call it, so I feel suspended between two worlds, although in reality there are no two separate worlds and no clear cut states of being. It is a continuum, a long journey, and everything that happens is written over the old files repeatedly. Nothing gets deleted. "Starting a new chapter", "turning a new leaf", and other expressions like these are just this - expressions, wishes put in words, banal statements that try to perform a real function. So maybe my old knowledge base from Poland has stayed with me; altered, twisted, adjusted, squished but still influencing everything I do. Keeping me imprisoned within the boundaries of my long-forgotten hurt, love, fear, good and bad experience not to be judged or told apart anymore.
The truth is that if you cannot learn to deal with everything you carry inside, recognize it for what it is and what it does to you, some part of you will always exist in a void - this will be the only safe place in your life otherwise full of control - lack of commitment, a state of extended denial, this little piece of you that you let be drowsy and numb. It is not as safe and as easy to maintain as it appears, though. You may feel motionless, you may feel a part of you is at a standstill, but it's an illusion. You let your guard down for a little while and slowly, you start hearing voices, seeing faces, feeling shivers under your skin - the rest of your life takes hold of the whole you. The world has been revolving all the time and has never stopped dragging you into the whirlwind. You cannot stretch any more. Senses you have tried to ignore surface to haunt you. One by one, gradually, these little sensations, visions, and feelings arouse you from your sleep. You have been changing. You either let the reality in, or become paranoid in your self-inflicted state of hibernation. The question is: have you learnt enough to be able to deal with this reality?

Graduation

For those of my oh-so-faithful readers who have asked for some photos and for all other unexpected visitors I hereby present a few snapshots of the glorious days that already belong to the past:



Without a doubt, the last several days have been the most extraordinary days in my life. The honors, awards, and all the other events around it surpassed anything I could have imagined. It felt like a dream and feels that way even more now, when it's all behind me. I managed to feel proud, surprised, confused, elated, ridiculous, overwhelmed, scared, embarrassed, and happy so many times and so intertwiningly during and in between that it is difficult now to tell one emotion from another.
But it wouldn't be me if I didn't ask myself: where does it all lead? I guess after so many blissful moments it can get only worse. I have learnt that you cannot sustain a state of happiness and success for too long. This is not a natural way of life. Savor what you can and when you can, make the best out of it, hopefully stash some away for the future use and run! Does that sound reasonable? I don't know. Most probably not. Sometimes I feel that there is a disaster lurking behind every corner of my life just waiting to jump and consume me. Now, I did not mean to write anything like it in my "Graduation" post. Sorry - especially to you, C.
Celebrating graduation can certainly be fun - I've had my share of it. A trip to the beach, eating out, getting presents, spending more time than usual with people I love and ruining their schedules because of that... yes, that's definitely fun! I hope everybody agrees here with me.
I feel I have so much on my plate now that I don't know how will I ever manage to deal with it! I'm trying to build some healthy professional relationships that should make my graduate life easier and more productive but it seems that it is not free of certain risks that I have not learnt to negotiate yet. I'll just have to improvise and learn on the go, as I usually do. I'm going to meet many new people soon, some of them may have a big impact on my studies and future career. Good first impression will not be enough. I see a lot of hard work in front of me, long meetings, long and hopefully at least sometimes interesting conferences, a lot of studying and talking, and a lot of skillful maneuvering in order to get people to give me what I need - startegies for which that I have not developed yet. Not to mention that I haven't figured out yet what I need either... And all that is just an addition to my family and the responsibilities that go with it. God, give me energy, and a mean a lot of it!

Words unspoken

Words unspoken
Hurt the most
This cursory look
But really so telling
Welled, almost overflowing
Fill in the words
Fill in the emotions
Fill in the pain

You wander aimlessly
Behind my back
Eyes searching
Silent and breathless
Waiting, nervously
Fill in the thoughts
Fill in the meaning
Fill in the torment

One step forward
Two steps back
Endless struggle
Nervous hands
Tense voice
Fill in the memories
Fill in the anxiety
Fill in the love

Words unspoken
Bury them
Forever

Republika - tak , tak , to ja

Good old Polish 80's - revisited. Seems ages ago when I last listened to Polish music. Maybe it's time to change that.

Queen - I Want It All

Isn't this song uplifting? So inspiring and assertive. I almost feel I want it all too. People do you hear me? No more where's and why's and living lies! I really need some sleep... I'm done with school, should be calm and relaxed and I'm all in pieces. I need to get out of this house. See some space, breathe, walk with no purpose,no thought, no worry, clear and pure nothing.

My last QC day

My Queens College student days ended today. I am going to remember my last two classes for a long time. For different reasons. My Anthro 201 because it was probably the end of my love affair with Cultural Anthropology. I feel very downhearted about that. It was a thrilling and inspiring affair. It restructured my brain more than any of the Linguistics classes I have taken so far. I think some of it may be permanent, or I hope it will be. I want to develop these kinds of thinking further, before I drown in syntax and semantics and forget about the rest of the world.
The second class is going to go down in my personal history not only because it was conducted by an amazingly brilliant and interesting guy but also because it was interrupted by a fire alarm. I left my last class "in the bells and rings, better than in tears" as my professor observed on our way out of the building. It was a very unique ending, underscoring my grand feelings of sadness and newly born nostalgia...
Now I'm facing a very difficult task - find a way to fully use the time before I sell my soul to my graduate school. I have three and a half months of relative freedom ahead of me, not counting the time I'll have to give to my kids as usually, days and days of cleaning and organizing my apartment before we move downstairs so that the upstairs can be remodelled, as well as doing a dozen other things that I have been putting off until "I have more time." I would still love to have some time to read, go out with my friend, go to the beach a few times, maybe visit a few places in Manhattan... I'm afraid my plans are far too ambitious to be realized easily. I forgot that I also plan to sleep, a lot!

Lily of the valley

I found it on my way home today. In somebody's little front yard garden. It looked so fragile, surrounded by tons of concrete, engulfed by the noise of the city that never sleeps... I was surprised to find its scent was the same as I remember from Poland. I felt, for some reason, that it shouldn't. Smells have always been bringing back memories for me. Memories that are otherwise long dead, forgotten. I am closing my eyes and I can see so many images and voices playing in my head, as if I were to die in a moment. Shreds of my life. Such a smell can only veil the memories in subtle beauty, erase all that's sordid and harsh. But it's so evanescent. I have to hurry. My stolen bunch of fragnance is going to die soon. Not much time left. I can smell the first signs of decay.

A survival strategy?

Is it the case that we construct our own sophisticated world of values, explanations, maxims, and truths just to feel good about the reality we are living? Or rather to deal with the things that are too difficult to face when bare and exposed. Even on a very small personal scale I can say it is quite common. It may be very obvious and then people say somebody lives an illusion or is in denial. I think it is more interesting when nobody notices the illusion or even when the illusion is a generally accepted norm. When you do not subscribe you are a lunatic. It works on every level - from individual people, through social groups, communities, up to entire nations. It may be increasingly difficult to find a commonly built fantasy as the number of people grows, but if we accept a few exceptions or variations here and there I believe it can be done .
Is it a sign of weakness or wisdom? Is there any boundary we should not be allowed to cross in this charade of ours? Can we live our lives without it and stay sane?

Disappointment

It is hardly surprising that being misunderstood or misjudged by somebody you respect, hurts more than when you have no regard for the person. You do not need to think long and hard to figure this out. The fact that it is so obvious does not help much. You feel you have been misled, tricked, deprived of something precious. If you are as stupid as I am you are trying to straighten things out and.... you may actually make it worse, get even more misunderstood.
Sometimes you just have to let things go, just forget it, stop caring! I have to learn to sense the borderline here -when fighting to maintain your integrity ends and an idealistic quest for truth begins. It is not worth it. You cannot make everybody understand you, your motives, your feelings... What difference would it make anyway? I guess it could even be too dangerous. It is much safer to mold a few versions of oneself, practice the roles, and learn how to decide which one is appropriate for which occasion. I better get started. I do not want to act on impulse again and get in trouble.
A few days ago I thought May was going to be a really good month for me, after so many ups and downs, I hoped this coming month would give me something positive for sure. Something to enjoy. At least part of it has just died. It is all one big farce.
When will I finally learn that I cannot change some things and enjoy what I actually can do?!

U2 - Walk On

This is my idea of optimism. I'm trying, right? I like finding music and lyrics that fit my mood, feelings, and ideas about life. But I like it even more when what I find transforms these things for me, lets me see and feel differently.
Lyrics for this song:

Walk On

And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing....
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight

You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom

Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can’t sell it, can’t buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight

And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is

I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on

Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme…

A poem

so tired that it doesn't even hurt that much
we got numb along the way
my hands looking for yours
find emptiness
I made

there are no more words left to say
all of them spent already
you take a knife
and cut the last
hope

you say it's destruction, no way to go on
I say that's how I go on
I've shut it all out
am I the one
mistaken...

what can be moved can be changed, you say
you move things to escape
it's too late to change
it's all been
done



Anybody that may read it - please, do not try to interpret it. Poems are never about true feelings, they are never real, they are ephemeral in their expression and falsify reality. Reality is never poetic. We only make it so. Everybody can read it and find something different in it. I may change or add to it in the future.

One Republic - Apologize... Comment

I'm getting really melancholic... I should head for bed now.

One Republic - Apologize

U2 - One

I just thought about this song after I wrote my last post. I don't really know if it has anything to do with what I wrote or not.

Rush

Sometimes I dream about having more time to do all these things I don't get to do on a regular basis like... doing nothing, sleeping a lot, watching TV, listening to music days long, going for a walk, shopping for pleasure and not just for necessities of life, chatting with my friends, getting drunk, reading fiction, writing emails to my friends, adding new pictures to my site, writing a story or a poem, writing an intelligent, thoughtful blog post, maybe even cleaning up my closets... I could go on, and on, and on here but that would only get more and more bizarre, including things I don't even really want to do or would be very improper to do...
I have this long to-do list in my mind all the time, the top 10 shifts from time to time so I cannot even set the priorities and this may be a huge problem. When I finally do have some time, I find it very hard to figure out what I should do in the first place and end up feeling miserable that I cannot do them all. Still, even when my classes are over, there is enough in my life to keep me occupied and not let me do everything! Slowly put a check mark by all of them. So comforting. So impossible. I'm lucky if I get to go through the third of my list. And I'm so tired at the end of my break... And often miserable... I don't understand. I think I'd love to have more time and feel exhausted and overwhelmed when all the things pile up on me and suffocate me but when I get a break from some of them I cannot do anything constructive and I realize I do enjoy having so much to do that it prevents me from wasting my time on things like TV or shopping for things I can do without or keeping my closets in perfect order. Is it workaholism or rather studyholism? Is it that I truly lost the capacity for resting, have I become a "do, achieve, conquer, and the like" junkie? I like the rush of things around me, it makes me feel alive, makes me move, progress, learn, grow... And it also helps forget about the things you want to select and delete but you don't own the computer it's saved on... It helps go on even when you'd much rather sit and cry, stop and give up. I can only hope that's not the main motivation here. That would mean it's much worse than I thought.

Graduate Initiation

My post are getting shorter and shorter... Midterms, term papers, meetings, all that on top of my personal life demands leave me practically with no time at all. Not that anybody notices it anyway. But I'm not going to whine here, I've never really expected it to be different.
I went to a reception for newly admitted students at the Graduate Center in Manhattan. Diagonally across the Empire State Building. Nice. I liked the lobby. I liked the carpets everywhere. I liked how the quiet corridors breathed serious work. I loved the library. It was a very strange experience. I still haven't formulated my thoughts on this one. At least not completely.
They admitted only 18 people so we were outnumbered by faculty members and representatives of current student body. I felt strangely at home, as if I have been waiting for this moment since my more or less mature personal consciousness surfaced. And yet... it was all so surreal, this world of PhDs and research, papers and conferences, low esteem or high esteem depending on the number of books published, wisdom and big egos or both combined in one person sometimes... They seem so amazingly happy to get hold of somebody who shares their interests. How often is their life outside these walls plagued by lack of understanding for their passion? It is sad to sense that.
But then you see some of them truly and deeply involved in some projects which they believe are going to make a difference for many people in the future and you cannot help but feel inspired by it. You cannot help but be drawn to it. Finally some people that at least try to do something. It may be successful or it may be a failure but I can say one thing - they will take this failure and learn from it. And this is what I think somehow, some day, long ago, became my motto. The best strategy that you really hope you won't be forced to use too often in your life. Don't let your mistakes destroy you, use them to make you better. I only wish it was easier to do.

Self-inflicted pain

I'd like to know how common it is among humans to get this feeling of presence, physical presence, of somebody whom it's quite impossible to really get close to. The presence so material that you keep looking over your shoulder and every time you feel as if you have just touched, smelled, heard... but it's a split second too late. You missed it again.
I get this sensation after a complex of occurrences. First, I accumulate images, sounds, and emotions. Then I have a dream. Last, I replay the dream in my head and I start feeling it. It has pervaded my senses and I cannot get rid of it no matter how exhausting it becomes after a while. It is so easy to lose connection with reality then, so easy to get confused, so hard to come back. I learnt how to induce this although it does not work every time and often not the way you expected or hoped so I tend to avoid it. Unless it's one of these days when I just cannot control myself. One of my weak days when I succumb, letting myself be exposed to things that do not make my life easier, not easier at all .

Insomnia

I have been suffering from insomnia for the last few nights. I had trouble with sleep before but this was unusually long and left me exhausted. Now I dread going to bed. I'm trying to find a reason or rather reasons for this but there are so many... I don't even want to start. Maybe I just need to slow down if it's at all possible in this crazy world of mine. Would I even be able to really relax, stop worrying, stop rushing, stop trying to do everything for everybody, and for myself? I used to criticise people who cannot rest, who lost this ability to just let go and do something for fun. Now I think I don't have time to do something like this. Or do I just feel that I would waste this precious commodity that my time has been transformed into... Waste and not do something important, something that would make a difference, something that would be an investment in the future... What would I be worth if I turned myself off for a while? I could disappear. But then... if I wanted to come back, would there be something to come back to? Would I be able to put everything in order again, make it work?
I made my decision about my graduate school. I think I made a good and practical choice. But the world is full of other possibilities, maybe less practical, maybe ones that look less practical but would actually make me happier, more fulfilled? Silly dreams. How can you ever tell what would make you happy, what would be "the life" for you. Most of the time we simply grope around in darkness trying to avoid a major crash, happiness seems to be pure luck. Can we really think we have any power to control our life? Some people maybe can, or it just looks like they can, maybe they have only learnt how to disregard the trips and falls better than others have. At my age I should know better than letting myself speculate like that. What good is it? Just brings you insomnia. That would be one of the reasons for it, I guess.

Linkin Park

Very short music commentary...

Some people may think I'm too old to listen to Linkin Park. I guess it is a fact that on average LP fans are at least 10 years younger than me. Does it really matter? Does it say anything about me? Does it have to say anything? What can I say.... I feel this music flow through me like I haven't for a long time, I hear the lyrics as if the words were conceived in my own mind, it makes me experience, touch, taste, not just hear. I don't like all of their songs, some I dislike, but many of the ones I do like will most probably never leave me. I own them now.

Words

Words have failed me so many times. They are a constant source of disappointment. They sound in my head so harmoniously for a short moment, but then become more and more ephemeral, flooded by all the fleeting perceptions crowded in my mind. When I want to transform them into their corporeal form of signs on paper (or rather on my computer's screen....) they look so crude and awkward. Hardly ever am I satisfied with my words. Maybe this is one of the reasons I started this blog. To make them behave, to master them, control them finally. I doubt I'll meet with much success in this endeavor.
Sometimes words carry me away to places I never wanted to go. They whisper to me "this sounds so good, so interesting... this must be what you want to say, what you feel..." This inevitably leads to trouble. You cannot let them take over your actual feeling and ideas. You may find that the road back to where you started does not exist anymore.
Sometimes I hear or read a few words, a short phrase, and lose my breath. I am struck with awe, with total amazement how these few words expressed so much for me at this very moment. Maybe a few days later or earlier I wouldn't get it, I would miss it completely but this is the time for me to attach meaning to it, possibly very different from the meaning or meanings that the author had in mind... And this is the true power of words, how they speak to us in many tongues though expressed in one language, as contradictory as it may sound.
Example. I've been haunted by a certain state of mind that would come back to torture me, usually triggered by something different each time, yet I never found words to describe the feeling. Then.... "when this began I had nothing to say and I got lost in the nothingness inside of me... When all the vacancy the words revealed is the only real thing that I've got left to feel." There is a part of me that never recovered from the times that I felt like this. And now I have a name for it. Is an experience more real, easier to deal with when you have words to describe it? Or does it gain power to stay with you forever, invincible, always lurking in the shadows of your mind to attack when you lower your defences?
I have just come across a statement that sounds relevant to what I said before:"The interdependence of thought and speech makes it clear that languages are not so much a means of expressing truth that has already been established, but are a means of discovering truth that was previously unknown. Their diversity is a diversity not of sounds and signs but of ways of looking at the world."Kerényi, Carl; translated from the German by Ralph Manheim (1996). Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, xxxi.