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!
2 comments:
Yes, you walk differently. Yes, you talk differently. You are so different from when I met you only a few years ago. You must be truly different from the Eva that grew up in Poland. When I come visit, I will bring you a stars and stripes bandana that you can wear around town. I'll wear a matching one and together, won't we be a sight to behold!!!
Honestly, do you really care what people over there think of you. I don't think you do. Maybe it feels uncomfortable at the very moment when people are staring, but you are not like them -- and you have never been like them. And you know it. Now it's just more obvious.
If you don't feel comfortable having me call you an American (you corrupt thing!!), then maybe it is more comfortable for me to call you a New Yorker. Now at least you have an excuse to be different when years ago you might not have. You have American children, and they have American accents. When you are talking to them, do you speak in Polish louder to let the people there know that you are really one of them? Or do you speak English louder so they know that you are not really one of them any more?
Would you have ever believed that your life would have followed this path?
I love the bandana idea! They would have something to talk about for a decade! I don't care about what they think that much, you're right. But maybe I am like them, at least part of me, still. I don't feel I am an American, I would not call myself a New Yorker, what am I?!
I do code switching when talking to my kids, quiet code switching... But I do try to speak to them in Polish only, unless I really don't want anybody to know what I'm telling them!
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