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.
6 comments:
"I will not let any pot to melt me, ever."
What did you mean here?
Have you never heard of America as a great "melting pot"? Meaning - we welcome all nationalities, mix them all together, and there emerges a bunch of all identical Americans. It was meant in a good way - giving equal opportunities, treating everybody the same way regardless of their origins but in time people realized that it also means fast and efficient murder of multiple languages, cultures, identities... Now some Americans start to see that they wanted to melt the very thing that enriches their country, what makes it unique, but it is a long process to allow the differences to thrive as sometimes it's problematic, sometimes impractical, sometimes just uncomfortable or even scary...
I enjoyed reading this blog entry for a few reasons. But I will get to that in a minute.
First, I have to address your response to Jim. (You knew I would have to respond, right?)
As the official American representative on this blog, I don't want to begin a big debate about the actual intended meaning and historical references of the phrase "melting pot". I will say that it is less about the "murder of multiple languages, cultures and identities," but rather a description of the natural evolution of how people of multiple ethnicities can exist in a land together and will over time willingly and inevitably intermarry and create "new" cultural identities. That was the phrase's origin. It's always been a bit of a controversial phrase -- with most people here preferring to use the mosaic imagery to describe the multitude of ethnic groups that are able to come together in the US and exist freely together. In any case, the phrase -- from an American's point of view -- isn't intended to mean that Americans force their immigrants to "melt" into society. Rather it's about having several generations of ethnic groups intermarry with other ethnic groups -- creating a different and new cultural mix -- and that is the melting pot. And that cultural mix is often very different from "mainstream Middle Americans". I realized from my trip that there is no equivalent to this in Poland. Cultural mixes like this just don't seem to exist. I'm sure here or there they do, but it is not a reality of everyday life. Where America is extreme in its ethnic mix, Poland is extreme in it's lack of it. And by the way, I'm very surprised that you implied that here we try and create a bunch of "identical Americans". Americans do not take well to that kind of reference at all. We wave the banner of our differences proudly and often do quite a bit to preserve what we can of our ethnic heritages.
Now back to the commentary about your blog entry...
My travels with you in Poland made me understand so much about you. I realized that, yes, you are right after all, you are no more an American than the guy across the road. You were totally in your element -- and not the outsider. You have your support system in place there, you have your memories, your place to "belong." You are living, breathing decendant of your Polish history. Your eyes went wide and your chest grew prouder as we walked the halls of the castles and palaces in the land of your birth and your people. You are meant to eat the farmer's cheese, the beautiful fruits in the garden and the ice cream in the town squares. You are meant to bring your children to the historic buildings, the gardens and all the wonderful things that make Poland special. I admire how you strive to balance the rest of your new life with your obvious yearning to be in Poland.
In Poland you were not on the outside. It was pretty great to see you like that. And I'm so glad I got that chance.
C makes some interesting points; the melting process in the American pot takes place slowly, over generations. Yr sons may well marry non-Polish women, and their children wd find a simply 'American' identity less burdensome than a 'Polish-Latino-American' or 'Polish-African-American' or whatever identity. This melting is supposed to be one of the great American virtues, where the cultural & racial obsessions and strifes of 'old' Europe are left behind, and for me it's always been one of the most optimistic and positive aspects of the 'American experiment'.
And one of the biggest problems I've always had with my life in Poland is coping with the overwhelming cultural homogeneity of the country; one census stated 98% of the population is ethnic Poles, 96% (nominal) Catholics - a situation almost unprecedented in modern Europe. The consequent exclusivity of people's thinking, the idea that a 'good Pole' must be a 'good Catholic'... an idea which has found unpleasantly nationalistic expression throughout the nation's history time and again (Kaczynksi, Dmowski, Skarga, the list goes on). When I was in Berlin earlier this year, the racial, cultural, sexual diversity around me shone like the feathers of a peacock - so much so that I'm seriously thinking of moving there, at least for a year or something, to catch me some fresh cultural air. :)
It's not fair because I don't have much time to write today and probably for many days ahead of me. And you should really give me a break from time to time and not treat everything I say in a grandiose nationalistic way. I am speaking, most of the time, about my personal take on things and yes, I have this particular take because I have had these particular experiences and you'll both have a different one because your lives have been entirely different from mine!
You don't need to get defensive about the melting pot thing, C. - I did mention people are starting to see it was an unfortunate name. And believe me the things you write sound for me a bit too much as if taken straight from some book and reality is hardly a book. Life's hardly an utopia...
One more thing - my "chest growing prouder" is I feel a bit missed - I would rather say that as I walked through these halls I was realizing more and more how much more meaning it all has to me than it could ever have for you and that's why my eyes grew wider. I understood I never appreciated all of this, never have been very knowleable about history.
I am different from the guy across the street (especially the one across the street! I know what you meant but you've seen the house across from me!!! A bit of humor here)... you did not get to know any other people around, it's difficult to say anything after a few days spent practically with one person only. It is even more difficult to describe the feelings of an immigrant to her old country and to the new one, not to mention the differences between the places she has lived in (countryside, city, etc.) - being in the middle, belonging to both and to neither at the same time.
Now, Jim. You praise the positive aspect of the melting pot and then say you are tired of Polish homogeneity and praise the cultural diversity of Berlin... all this in a couple of short paragraphs. I don't know, I find it a bit contradictory. But I understand that it's more complex than what you can put in a comment. Still, why did you choose to stay in Poland? Because here you can stand out? I'm being mean...
What is "supposed to" happen and what truly happens are two separate things. "Cultural & racial obsessions and strifes" are never left behind because they sit in people and not in the air bound to the land here or there - they add to any new society just as anything else people bring with themselves - religion, traditions, food, whatever you want to name here. Out of this great mess emerge new cutural and racial problems that you can't truly hide under the big words like tolerance and egalitarianism. Why am I the least idealistic here?! I want to believe in these words but I look at the world and I just can't see it, and it's not only about PL or US or GB, for that matter... it's everywhere.
I really have to go now. I need to work on me being a better Catholic. After all, if I am so Polish, I should be the best one I can be - I hate doing things half way. I'm afraid I'm a lost case here...
Sorry if anybody feels offended - I have trouble writing nice rounded words, I usually write much harsher than I mean to... I'm seriously considering quitting my blog because I feel I may lose a friend or two because of my impulsive and blunt writing. Not to mention my moroseness. I know just one or two people in my world who can take it. Or have no other choice. Or just love me and that's why forgive me my faults. I have to think about it more before I say anything.
I am truly sorry that the way I write and concentrate on the pessimistic aspects of my life tends to aim at the values so dear to some of my friends. Believe me, if I lived in Poland my blog would probably aim at something else...
I don't feel like writing any more. I should maybe stop publishing what I write if I really have to put this down.
I'm so distraught right now... don't mind me please.
I knew I was trodding on sensitive territory when I responded to the blog. I hope you'll take what I wrote for it's intended meaning and not read more into it. When you speak in grandiose terms, then I have to respond the same way. And it seems you write harshly because you feel that way and you feel a lot of pain in general, not because you cannot write in nice rounded terms. You are one of the best English writers I know.
So getting back to this exciting dialogue...
Regarding the guy across the street -- yes that was totally a joke. (I built in a few more jokes in there, too.) But I'm not joking about acknowledging that you really are a Pole. You are not the same as other Poles (you are a pretty unique person no matter where you live). I don't know enough about Poles or how the others think. But you are TRULY Polish. I've been telling you for months to face it -- you're a new American. You keep on saying -- "No, I'm not!!" Well, I now agree with you. I've seen you in your element. You were much more comfortable there than I've ever seen you in the US. I thought you would be happy about this.
Life is not idealistic and not like a book. I know that very well. But you can't just create a new definition of an American cultural phenomenon based on your personal experiences and tell an American that that is the real definition for it. Maybe to a different audience that would fly. You must have anticipated that I would respond to that, right?
I also know about your sensitivity to the word "proud." Late last night, I just didn't know how else to describe that type of happiness and wonder that you had in those historic places. You described it far better. It was a wonderful thing -- really. We need to create a new term for you to use to describe nationalistic pride since you hate that word -- maybe like "tennis" or something. We could say, you felt tennis when you walked through the halls. HAHAHA! OK, so maybe tennis isn't the right word. Back to seriousness...
What bothered me about your original post was the implication that America wanted to almost beat you down and make you this mush of some unrecognizable human blob. To believe that, I would need some concrete examples of how American society would make you feel so crushed as a human being (aside from your awful experiences years ago at the Embassy). I may have more sensitivity to other cultures than some other Americans, but I am what I am. We totally have our racial and ethnic strifes here. No one is saying that there is not or that we live in a utopia. But for the incredible diversity we have here, we are unusually tolerant -- more so than any other country I have ever visited. Look at the Irish -- they have two religious groups who for years couldn't get along at all. Look at the Muslims and the Jews in the Middle East. I can't imagine they will ever get along. But you know what, here in the US, the Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants and the Middle Eastern Muslims and the Isrealis all live together in peace. They may hate each other but they aren't bombing each other on the Q55 bus either. To me, that's pretty amazing... (Now I'm speaking in grandiose terms!!)
Ewa, if you are going to throw it out there and invite comments, then I am going to comment. If you get upset when I comment, then I don't want to get you upset. We may have different perspectives, but I love you all the same. I don't think you would like me very much if I just said that I agreed with you all the time and was flowery and didn't challenge you. Then we would certainly get bored of each other.
Peace, girl.
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