One Year a Pole: Part Trz - Squirrel Sightings

   I had a conundrum when wrapping up my last post. I was recounting the journey to my cabin in the woods. Preceded by a strange day of travel seeded through with tension and the calamitous unknown I had arrived. I wanted to write “I was home”. 

  But I couldn’t write that. It wouldn’t be true. You see I had arrived after dark in a new and entirely unknown place. I didn’t feel at home... not yet at least. The feeling is only true for me now one year later, looking back on all that transpired. And having the feeling that this place was my home. 

 

   The place of course is Żabnica Skałka. I figured that out on my first day there. It was a beautiful and tranquil place to behold, dripping pines, the sound of rushing mountain streams. I wandered through the little crossroads, gandered at the bus schedule. Shopped at the little convenience. I discovered a spot by the side of the road where I could pick up a cell signal. It was only a twenty minute journey to the internet. I messaged my family to let them know I was alright. Made a plan for the next day to walk down to town and shop at the supermarket. I was blessed with one of those Polish spring days which is all sun. The 5 mile walk was a chance to appreciate the local topography and see the sights: a wooden church, a war memorial... well two actually, and always the stream with it’s song. 

   Gradually I settled in. I watched a little Polish TV, and used my smartphone to translate the news crawl. Nothing much was happening, so my tensions and fears began to fade into a default backbase of pandemic life. I made my cabin feel like home. Watched the endless mists and rains. Baked chocolate chip cookies. 

   When the weather was fair I explored the mountains around the bowl I was in. Żabnica ( meaning angler fish in Polish) was technically the village I was staying in. However the center is really a mile away. Żabnica Skałka ( the second word meaning rock in Polish) was a little crossroads where three streams joined together. It was also the bottom of a bowl surrounded by mountains on almost all sides. Only the narrow path carved out by the water led down to the rest of the village. It felt like a good place to be if a nuclear bomb was going to explode somewhere. It was a good place to be during a pandemic too. 

   On that later theme. I had been quick and fox-like in my dash to a burrow.  I was curious to know how the rest of the country was experiencing the pandemic. I’m not sure if I cared so much for me as I wished to tell my friends and family back in The States how Poland was reacting. Life in the mountains went on as usual as far as I could tell. But slowly I became aware that the government bureaucracy was making changes. The schools closed and school-at-home programs filled the daytime schedule on state-run TV. The local bus stopped running. The television clued me in to the latest hashtag and my first few words of Polish #zostanwdomu. (“remaining at home”). By early April we had reached Poland’s most locked down state. Still it was light compared to other European countries, there were no movement restrictions or curfews. 

  My trips to the internet spot every couple days kept me topped up with downloaded podcasts and readings. The embassy kept up a drumbeat of repetitious emails. There were repatriation flights. Occasionally I would be struck by pangs of lonesome homesickness and wish I were on one of those jets back across the Atlantic. But when those feelings passed and I had time to consider things evenly it seemed that the best and safest thing was to stay. 

   I was keeping plenty well in all the most stereotyped pandemic ways. Gardening, tending a sourdough mother, training for a marathon, watching all the neighbors’ business. 

   In fact I became smile neighbors with the people on both sides. A few  brownies and chocolate chip cookies go a long way. 

   I was told that my kitty-corner neighbor was an Australian man. The opportunity to speak English was thwarted however by his reclusiveness. I waited till he was out in the yard on a fine day to stroll over and say hello. That day never came. I saw his car moved and smoke rose from the chimney but I never saw the man himself. Finally I worked up the courage to walk over and knock on his door. . . No response. But wouldn’t ya know it, the very next day as I came back from a run, there he was. We spoke for about 15 minutes and he offered any help I may need, a ride into town etc. Being self-sufficient I declined his offers. That evening I realized... I should have asked for a book! 

   As I settled in more and more the only anxiety in my mind was about extending my rental, bit by bit. I didn’t really know what my plan was, nor when things would get better. So when I had limited vision I communicated what I knew and we pushed back my leave date. But I also recognized that this was a vacation rental cabin, and that the next time I tried to get another month the landlady might tell me that it was already booked! My interactions with her were generally a little awkward and cold. Sometimes her son-in-law translated, but the energy was the same. One time she said to me, disgustedly, “learn some polish!” Fortunately the stepson was around, or I wouldn’t have known what she said! 

   This has the intended effect. I had been dillying in my head back and forth whether or not to learn a little polish with all my stay-at-home time. I downloaded a few audio lessons and started doing 20 minutes of study a day. 

    Learning the alphabet came first, what to do with all those ‘cz’s ‘ł’s, ‘ę’s and so on.  Once I got that down I practiced reading words when I found them, I eventually mastered the name of every side street along my 5 mile bike route to town, even if I didn’t know what they all meant!  Then I started to learn to count, I found a little YouTube video and would practice it when I was down at the internet spot. Despite having learned the alphabet, my mouth was still novice at the Slavic forms, and I practiced 1 to 10 for a few weeks. Lord knows what the locals thought as they saw me pacing back and forth by the side of the road counting to ten again and again. 

    Because the one store in Żabnicy Skałka was a little convenience store with most things behind the counter, words were a big step up on the routine of pointing

saying “Nie”

Pointing again

Saying “tak” 

For every item I wanted. 

  I  distinctly recall one day asking for Jello. When the shop lady responded to ask me which one, I was able to ask for green Jello (my favorite). I was so proud of my new language skills. 

  After the numbers and colors and days of the week, came a few verbs and adjectives and nouns. 

  I was putting some language skills under my belt, but I still had no one to talk to. I was totally alone. A day or two without uttering a word to anyone was common. And phone calls only broke the lonesomeness so much. But still I was keeping well, and through all the experiences I felt more and more a sense of place, a little cabin to call home.

**PS: the title of this post uses the polish word for 3. Trz. This was one of my biggest hang ups in the numbers.  Where’s the vowel sound? Well sometimes Slavic words don’t have any.  T is a soft ‘t’ sound. And “rz” pronounces as the ‘sh’ sound. Try sticking these two sounds together. If you’re adding an ‘i’ sound between the t and the rz your cheating! Try again. Here’s the YouTube video I referred to in the post if you want to hear how it’s done. 

One Year A Pole: Part II - Gingerbreadland

  My digital guidebook recommended Toruń as a charming medieval town famous as the home of Polish gingerbread. Say no more. I was sold. It was a sunny Friday afternoon when I arrived, walking the long bridge across the Vistula from the train station side to the old town. I checked into my hostel which was right on the square (rynek) to discover that I seemed to be the only occupant. 

   When I asked the receptionist Jan about it, he responded that they were open... for now. 

   “The boss says we might close on Monday” Jan told me.

    With only my $10 to show for a days work I could see why. 

    I found the town charming. Though I couldn’t quite get a bead on the gingerbread. I didn’t find any. And the two gingerbread museums were closed. In fact it seemed that everything was closing hour by hour. There’s always the river though! And I found the holy mass that evening a grounding reset for my soul. 

   Shortly after dinner I put down my phone, I had reached my self-imposed daily limit.  But another 40 minutes I went ‘bad’ and picked back up the internet. 

   It was then that I saw the news. Borders were closing... all over Eastern Europe. The time had come for my freak out moment. My brain racing, hands shaking, my only reaction “get out”. I devised a radical plan for Sunday, a 4am train to the airport, a mid-day flight to Ukraine. After paying out my dollars by the hundred I put down the phone. 

   I knew I need to calm down. A walk is always the right answer, no matter the question. Quiet midnight streets soothed. As did a few conversations with wise minds stateside. I got to sleep about an hour before dawn, what little sleep I could manage. 

   Waking up I knew I needed to take care of myself as best I could. I did my full morning routine, went for a run, and took a long shower. 

    Since my expensive escape plan seemed like a foolish endeavor, I decided that a better plan than ‘get out’ was ‘stay here’. If I couldn’t stay in normal touristic accommodations... and it’s a global pandemic, then a cabin in the woods seemed like the obvious solution. I searched google maps for most of the day, interrupted only by my panic shop of stamps, vegetables and a SIM card for my phone. 

   I had a few requirements, the cabin had to be within 5 miles of a train station, a church and a supermarket. That I’m way I could walk to everything I needed!

I lined up a few prospects, a dozen really, google can be quite a hole. But one stood out above the rest. I had a good feeling about it, maybe it helped that it had an English name listed next to its Polish one. 

    On Sunday I asked Jan the receptionist if he would call to try and make an arrangement for me, my Polish skills being nonexistent. 

   They picked up on the second ring and an energetic conversation began. Unaccustomed to the Slavic tongue, it sounded bad. Knowing I was an American they asked if I was sick with the virus. When he hung up, after the longest 6 minutes of my life, I found out to my surprise that all was set. 4 weeks at 200 zloty a night. A bit steep, but being a pandemic I figured I’d be spending zero on bars, restaurants, museums, transport etc. 

    * I knew the pandemic wasn’t going to be over in 4 weeks, but I didn’t want to scare off any potential hosts by asking for more. 

   A little later Jan helped me to find a taxi and discuss arrival details.

   Monday morning, closing down the hostel and hitting as many ATMs as I could I made my way to the train station, back the way I had come across the river. My rail journey was pleasant enough. A sunny day, windows that slid down for fresh air, a compartment to myself. But spoiling the pleasure was the fear and uncertainty that was in mind, for me, and I presume, everyone else on the train as well. It seemed as if the world might end tomorrow. 

    When I got to Węgierska Górka, my stop, it was after dark. Well after dark, heck it was after dinner. The station area was entirely deserted. I sent a text to the taxi man, I had made an arrangement, or so I thought. In this rural berg I was at the mercy of the lone taxi. What if he didn’t come, who could I call? I sat there waiting. 

   Eventually he arrived and we made our way up to the cabin. I followed along on google maps, the cell signal faded out. It’s a strange thing to ride through an unknown country in the black of night.  You are curious to know, but only shadows and floating lights come to you, hints, but nothing can be made out. 

  After a brief and somewhat awkward introduction to the cabin, I was... somewhere. After all the tension and travel it was hard to believe it was real.  

One Year a Pole: Part I

  To travel the world as an American in this day and age is still a privileged experience. The world is written in our alphabet. Our fashion is the fashion. And  our occasionally silly domestic affairs make news in every foreign land. 

   The reverse is of course not true. No one visiting New York is offended that signs aren’t written in Mandarin (it is spoken by over a billion people). 

  And so when I was asked what Americans think of Poland, I had to answer truthfully: “they don’t”. I guess for this reason I had no expectations, great or otherwise about this nation. 

   In fact I hadn’t any excitement at all coming here. It was simply an overland route from Scandinavia to the Balkans. I figured I might see a few sights along the way. 

Boy did I! 

  The global pandemic made me an unintentional resident of the land of John Paul II. 

  And you know what I found out? Poland is a pretty darn good place to live. 

   Put most simply it’s the perfect ‘half & half’ of Eastern and Western Europe. 

    I must confess though that my initial impression of this country was decidedly unfavorable. 

   A damp dark lifeless city. Concrete. Hostel guests smoking in the bathrooms amidst multifold signs to the contrary. 

   Daylight brought little change in this perspective. A dull town square, more concrete. 

   Once I got on the tourist trail, so to speak, things got better. Gdańsk is fascinating, even if the March weather was a blend of rain, sun and horizontal hailstorms. At this stage the pandemic panic was creeping into the back of everyone’s consciousness as we maintained our normalcy on the surface. 

  I shared my hostel room with a Pole on a bit of a do-nothing-and-relax vacation. He thought himself better at English than he actually was. Still we managed to converse. He kept insisting that everything was fine, it was all a big scare, and then would laugh the uneasiest laugh I have ever heard. His family must have been practicing that laugh for generations under communism. 

My third morning I awoke listening to a still-in-bed phone call from the next room over. An American, the kind of kid who runs away to Europe because Boston isn’t far enough, insisting to her parents that everything was fine. 

   At the tourist information center they told me that all the museums would be closed from... today. In fact they had already closed a few hours before. Just that morning I had gone to at least one museum in Poland, good thing. 

   The next day the panic hit the populace. I whiled away the hours waiting on the rain. When it finally cleared it was after dark and the moon was peeking it’s head above the horizon. I set out to see the old earthwork fortifications of the city, now a park along a waterway. 

  I walked past 6-story blocks of Soviet housing, across broken cement and past barking dogs. 

  I stopped at a supermarket to buy a donut. The locals were panic-shopping. I watched with serenity and amazement. Their panic shops were so tame, comparing them in my mind to ludicrous American behavior.

I walked into the park. The moon reflecting on the mirrored surface was so beautiful that I barely made it in before I just had to sit and meditate. I sat on a bench, closed my eyes and began to feel the presence of my breath. Then I felt something on my left foot. I startled to my feet. As my vision came to I perceived a fox, just as startled as I, moving away. I grabbed my backpack, said a few exclamations of shock, and carried on my way. 

  Fortunately the fox bite had been of the investigatory type and not an attack. Also I was wearing a shoe. 

  Surprisingly this incident neither rekindled my initial displeasure with this country nor inspired me to consider the spiritual significance of such an encounter. 

It was time to move on. 

Top of The Year

 I must confess. I love to read Wikipedia. I binge read it really. One article to the next, new discoveries, new adventures. 

I’d like to say that this past year of lockdowns has given me more time than ever to read Wikipedia. But the reality is that I read it exactly as much as any other year, it is a constant diversion in my life. 

This past year three articles stopped me cold and blew me away. I was fascinated, sucked into the story, and curious as to all of the side stories. Each of these three kept me busy for days, spaced out over the span of weeks, and to be honest I’m still not done with one of them yet.

1. U2’s Zoo TV Tour — I must admit I’m a casual listener of U2. You know they come on the radio and such... I wasn’t aware of the bands transformation from a politically serious band of the 1980’s to their more familiar incarnation as rock Mega-Stars of the 90s and oughts. This tour was that moment of transformation.  It wasn’t just any rock and roll tour, it was perhaps the maximal tour of any band in history. When you read through all the stories you keep thinking “this could never happen today”. 

Want to know why? (And trust me you do) a weeks worth of Wikipedia awaits. 

2. Sir Walter Raleigh — You’re probably familiar with the name.  He’s one of those captains of the Age of Exploration, right? 

   Wrong. 

    He lived more lives than a normal man might in a hundred tries. The article starts off “He was an English landed gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy, and explorer.” 

That enough for ya? In reading his history, one has to keep going back and forth trying to keep the chronologies consistent in your head. Secret marriages, suppressed rebellions, life in Ireland, Westminster, a stint locked up in the Tower of London... and yes the Lost City of Gold... all this and more... 

3. The Hijacking of the Achille Lauro — straight from the ‘Truth is Stranger than Fiction’ file. Inspired by the success of so many airline hijackings a group of PLO half-wits decided to hijack a cruise ship. What could go wrong? A lot apparently. The cascading series of events has a Tom Clancy feel to it. Except that in fiction we often get smooth criminals, devious plots, and logically ordered events. In real life we got a wide cast of interesting characters, from the bumbling to the crazy. Only Abu Abbas stands out as an intelligent, seasoned operator. The drama escalated until the point where USA’s Delta Force was in a classic guns-drawn Mexican-standoff with Italian Carabinieri. 

Wait Aren’t the Terrorists supposed to be the bad guys?  This geopolitical drama is worth your attention. 

Honorable Mention. Jud Süß —  Joseph Goebbels produces the winter blockbuster of 1940/41. “Based on true events” of an 18th century regal drama, twisted into antisemitic propaganda, and featuring Germany’s biggest stars. 

A letter to Joe Biden

 

Evan’s Coronavirus Celeryroot Soup

   I developed this recipe based on the situation at hand (stay at home, lots of time) and the simple materials available to me. 

  This recipe has a zen quality to it. Do not try to complicate it, this recipe is about letting simple ingredients shine. 

   The key step which requires some explanation is the dice. The celery root must be chopped in a fine dice, less than a 1/4 inch dice, but maybe a little more than 1/8th of an inch. 3-4 mm 

With the other vegetables you can be a little looser with your precision, but basically this is the same dice for all the ingredients. Don’t try and use a food processor, you won’t get the evenness of the cut vegetables. 

As with most soups it’s better the next day, if I make it to eat for dinner I usually try and start in the kitchen 3-4 hours before I wish to sit down to eat. 

Ingredients:

Celery root

Onion 

Leek

Carrot

celery/parsnip/sweet potato/ something else?

Split peas (yellow, dried)

Cooking oil 

Olive oil

Paprika 

Salt and pepper

• Set some water to boil in a kettle

• Clean and chop your auxiliary vegetable, or two, set aside into a med/large bowl as mise en place

• Peel the celery root, use your chefs knife and not a peeler. Turn the root sideways and take a thin slice about the thickness of your dice. Set the root aside and lay the slice down on your cutting board. Make cuts along the root that go 90% of the way through, but don’t cross through the back end. The cuts should be parallel and very close together. You should now have something that looks like a white circular comb 

Now cut cross ways, to make your dice. Voila! You’ll have to cut up that last bit of the slice that the score cuts didn’t go all the way through. 

   Once you’re happy with the contents of your cutting board, transfer over to the mise en place bowl, and work on another slice. 

Yes this takes a lot of time, but you have nowhere to go right?

• Now dice up that onion and add it to the mise en place. You can be less precise here. 

A word about how much.  I usually use one small celery root for a batch serving two. Or a half of a larger celery root, the remaining half will keep well in the fridge. 

(If you make a double batch using a whole large celery root there will be a lot of chopping, consider recruiting help. )

For onion, a small onion or maybe half of a large one. For the other vegetable, just a bit, maybe 1 medium-small carrot, 1.5 stalks of celery, 1 parsnip, use your judgement 

The ratio should be about 

         60       /       20       /        20 

celery root / onion & leek / other veg. 

• Choose a pot (stainless preferred, double walled preferred, any pot will do) at least double the volume of your prepared mise en place. Add a healthy dose of cooking oil ( 2-3 tbsp) and place over medium heat, when the oil gets hot add the vegetables and turn down the heat to med-low, stir every 15-30 seconds for a few minutes. 

We’re not trying to get anything browned, but we do want the vegetables to get oily and shiny and a bit translucent (for the onion).

After about 4 minutes add the split peas,  at about the same amount as the onion, or a little more. Not too much though! Maybe a half cup?  Keep stirring another minute or two.

• Add the hot water until everything is covered by 1/2 inch of water. Stir.

• Add a tablespoon and a quarter of paprika, and stir. (Optional) (smoked recommended)

• Bring to a simmer and turn the heat down to low, cover and simmer.

• Stir every 10-15 minutes. The kitchen will start to smell wonderful. If the peas absorb a lot of water you may need to add a little more water. 

• After 90-120 minutes the vegetables will begin to break down. You’ll open the lid and notice that there is layer of water that has risen to the top, as you stir you’ll see that it’s drier and gloppy on the bottom. At this point you must stir a little more frequently to reintegrate the water and keep the bottom from scorching. I use the back of the spoon to forcefully press down on the soup against the bottom or sides of the pot to help break apart the vegetables and peas. Then stir again and cover. 

• after another 30+ minutes your soup is done. Add salt and stir in. Take off heat. 

Serve with a drizzle of olive oil on top and sprinkle with finely ground black pepper. Serve with a warmed chunk of hearty bread with butter. Other side ideas, bok choy, potatoes, tomato salad. 

After initial cooling it is a good idea to keep the pot covered and place it in a plugged sink full of cold water to help lower the temperature. Transfer to sealed clean containers. Keeps for about 5 days. Or you can freeze some. 

Smacznego!

Living Life with ‘Mo Regrets

    Often the opposite is said... a trite repetition in The Culture... a misplaced remembrance of a song lyric comes to mind, “Don’t look back”. 

I want to consider the value of regrets. 

There’s a huge asterisk here of course. For most people embracing and sitting with regret is a ripe context for the arising of self-hate, shame, worthlessness, and guilt-tripping. This molasses filled swamp envelops you and causes only pain and turning-away. I don’t condone any of these unproductive yet sticky & habitual mental states. 

But if you come to a place where you can at least recognize and discern what is the constant voice of self-hate and what is your intrinsic emotional flow. And if you can resist the loop of re-hashing the latest example of your worthlessness Then it’s time for you to consider the power of regret. 

Like all of our universal human proclivities, love, fear, gossip, and so on, it exists as a kludgy mental process which serves us in some way. The power of regret is not to mourn or commiserate the past. The power of regret is to help shape our future. 

This week I awoke one morning From an unpleasant sleep and felt a familiar feeling. The comedown from a slumberland sugar-high. Soon I identified within me the feeling of regret for my actions the night before. I am at a point in my life where I feel the winds of change around my main vice of binge eating. Feeling bad the next morning, both in body and mind, is not new. But this morning was different. 

I had the presence to avoid the well trod path of shame. The piling-on my present self for all the unwise actions of some previous Evan. I saw that I regretted my actions. I forgave myself. And I contemplated how I can respond to sugar craving in the future. I realized that this was the healthy path of change. That my regret would help me to make better decisions for myself. 

It was a revelation to see the positive process of regret in action, after so many years of exposure to the opposite message.  

I recalled another example of how regret can help us to make better decisions in the future. A while back I had dreamed to help coordinate a final reunion of my grandma and her best friend when they both were dying. Had I been living close to family at the time it probably would have happened. But I was across the country... and life is so busy as we make it.  When I got an email from her son to let me know that grandma’s best friend had passed away I knew the opportunity for a meeting had passed. I regretted not having tried harder to make it happen. At the time I was deeper in the swamp of self-hate. While I don’t recall how it went at the time, it’s likely those feelings of self-loathing and failure led me to an evening of dullness and binge eating. 

Years later when I was back home I spied an opportunity to help my maternal grandmother. Nana grew up an only child. When her family moved into a new apartment building, Beatrice, the girl who lived down the hall became her big sister. They spent the better part of a century living in the same neighborhood, raised kids, lost husbands; always the closest of friends. As Bea’s health worsened she went to live with her son out in the suburbs. She and Nana often talked on the phone, but they hadn’t seen each other in years. 

  Here was my chance. I had a car, and the nose to prod Nana a little to invite herself out to see Bea. The reunion was a joyful moment for all involved. I have no doubt that my priority and drive to help grew from the experience of regret with my other grandmother. 

So if you can, keep one mindful eye open to look for regret in your life. Watch for that pull towards the guilt trip, stay on center and see what power regret can put into your life. I know that’s what I’ll be doing from now on.