Life Changing Experience

Few weeks ago I found out that I am pregnant. Few days before that my at that time boyfriend said that he needs to think things through, which is never a good sign. Then I found out that I am pregnant. I looked at the test in the cinema toilet and I didn't feel anything for a moment, then I let out a silly laugh. I never finished the movie I had been watching. I called a friend. The next day I tired to contact the father but I was told he didn't have time to talk to me and was asked to leave a facebook message instead. I got a reply two days later.

The guy didn't ant the child but was ready to help me to solve the problem. Filled with panic, I traveled all the way back to Europe thinking that I actually might have the abortion. I tried to talk to him but he only insisted on getting rid of it. I was devastated, I still am. I had always wanted to have children but never had imagined that I will have them alone. Well, I will have one alone as I decided not to go to the clinic.

I'm back home. I'm back to my asylum in Bangkok, that I have built with s much effort over the years and now, I will have to leave. It's a scary perspective. I will have to go back to Poland for a while and face my biggest fears and try to use all the knowledge and wisdom I have acquired over the years.  I am scared. For the first time in my life I am so scared that I can't even explain it. At the same time, I have a feeling that it will be a great personal development lesson and I am willing to learn.




I have jumped into very deep waters and now I need to learn how to swim and learn it quickly. I am not interested in drowning.


My heart is broken and I need to heal before this little human being comes to me. I don't want to hurt it but love it with all my heart and might.

I believe it is possible and I will still have a happy life.

Commitment

I have a friend who is triathlete. And very accomplished one. He has been training for more than twenty years: running, cycling, swimming. Every day. No matter what. Unless he is sick. Every day, no matter what he trains. Rain or shine he trains. Happy or unhappy he trains. He is committed. 

He is also fully committed to believing that he can. Two years ago he has started his business. He resigned from a comfy position in a bank and decided to embark on an uncertain self-employment journey. It's been though. It's been rough. It's been frustrating. But he does not complain. For all this time, I have not heard a tiny complaint from him. Instead, each day he gets up with more hope and a wholehearted decision that he will face the obstacles and make the most of whatever hand has been dealt for him. He is committed.

I read:

"Spiritual success is gained by daily cultivation. If you practiced for the day, then you have won. If you were lazy for the day, then you have lost.

Self-cultivation is the heart of spiritual attainment. Gaining insight and ability is not a matter of grand statements, dramatic initiations, or sporadic moments of enlightenment. Those things are only highlights in a life of consistent activity.

Whatever system of spirituality you practice, do it every day. If it is prayer, then pray every day. If it is meditation, then mediate every day. If it is exercise, then exercise every day. only then will you be able to say that you are truly practicing spirituality. 

This methodological approach is reassuring in several ways. First, it provides you with a process and a means to maintain progress even if that particular day is not inspiring of significant. Just to practice is already good. Secondly, it gives you a certain faith. If you practice every day, it is inevitable that you will gain from it. Thirdly, constant practice gives you a certain satisfaction. how can you say to yourself that you have truly entered a spiritual path unless you can look back on years of rail practice and take comfort in the momentum that it has given you?" (from Den Ming-Dao's 'Tao. Daily Mediations)

I read this and I though of my triathlete friend. 

His commitment is a daily spiritual practice. It is a daily exercise of mind and body. It is a daily exercise in faith that what he does make sense and will bring benefits. It's a daily exercise in believing into something that he has no guarantees will work out. He still is committed.

I think of my triathlete friend every time I plunge into the pool and practice my own commitment.

Letting Myself Be

revelations come to me usually after some sort of a crisis. This time it wasn't any different. The crisis has been going on for few months. I felt that I was missing something, that something wasn't right. I was looking for something/somebody to blame it for. My work, my family, my partner, my genes, my upbringing, my  situation, the world and so on. Something wasn't right, something outside me. Something didn't allow me to move on, get out of my shell and go to the world. Yesterday, I found what it was: it was me. Not my work, not my family, not my partner, not my genes, not my upbringing, not my situation, and not the world.
I sent my Songkran holiday at home, doing a bit of work, but mostly pretending, exercising a bit, and enjoying my wine. Enjoying? Not really, to be honest. I was pouring it down my throat because it was just too painful to bear my feelings and emotions any more. So I used alcohol in order to ease the pain. Ease? Not really. I hate hangover and prefer being normal, and functional. Last night, I did the same. It was just too much to sit here and be alone, I wanted to be with people and drunk, and careless. And so I went out. But I wasn't neither with people, nor with myself. Surely I was drunk and still alone.
I woke up today, my head spinning. I dragged myself to the pool. In the pool or maybe in the elevator it dawned on me why I have been doing all these things to myself. I did them all because I didn't let myself be the way I am sometimes sensitive, vulnerable, unsure, sometimes lost, sometimes lonely, sometimes insecure. For weeks now I have tried to play a role of a person I'm not: on top of everything, with all answers. And for what? To get the approval, my own approval and allowance to be and feel worthy.
In the pool I decided that enough was enough.
I realized that I don't have to prove anything to myself or to anyone that I'm worthy. I feel it stronger than at any time before that I am worthy. Something inside me whispered to me: you are enough, you are worthy, you don't have to prove yourself, and then be exhausted, and turn into an emotional zombie. This voice whispered to me and I decided to listen.
It's not coincidence that all this happened on the Easter Sunday. I feel I have resurrected today and have started a new chapter of my life in which I will practice letting myself be.

Not Enough

After two years of being away I landed in Poland and immediately I knew that twenty-six days will not be enough time. And It won't be enough time to see everybody and everything. And it won't be enough time to visit all the places and people. And it won't be enough time to hear all the stories and add some of my own. It won't be enough, I know. And it won't be enough time to see all the faces I would love to see and hear all the voices I had missed so dearly. It won't be enough time. It won't be enough time to go for walks and immerse into the atmosphere of my childhood places, it won't be enough!

I'm torn. I haven't had enough.

Much Ado About Reading Lists. Happy Going Back to School Everybody!!!

I have read a moment ago that the obligatory reading list for the Polish language classes have been changed for both primary and middle school. The changes will be liked by some and criticized by others, normal thing. I don’t intend to argue here with anybody’s decisions. I would like to use the decision of the Polish Ministry of Education to think about reading in general, to think about reading as a process and how this process can be encouraged or discouraged.

Getting Into Reading

We are surrounded by text. There is always something to read, every step we take: labels on boxes, signs in the streets, headlines in newspapers, imprints on clothes and books which are the ultimate celebration of text. Text is omnipresent. Children are naturally curious, so I can imagine that when I was a child I couldn’t wait to start reading, to be like these adults around me who read.  Unfortunately, I can’t remember that but as children imitate adults, I assume that I wanted to read as well when I saw people around me reading. And I did see people reading around me – my brothers obsessed with Ludlum and Clancy, my dad re-reading Sienkiewicz’s ‘Trilogy’ for twentieth time, my mom reading contemporary Polish authors. My home was full of books and not only did they decorated shelves but also they were put into their use and were read. It was only natural for me, I think, that I wanted to read when everybody around me did it. I wanted to have access to this written on paper world. Now, of course I had somebody who taught me how to put letters together into words, then words into sentences. It was my mom who read to me. At the age of 5 I was quite an accomplished reader, and an avid one as well. It didn’t happen because I was extra smart. It happened because I have very good assistance and I was well motivated to do it.

I hear many people complain about their children not reading. They will say their children are lazy, that they choose TV reading, that they choose computers over books and so on. I am sick and tired of these adults who put the blame on children without reflecting for a while upon their own reading. Reading is a habit and children need to get into this habit early in their lives.  They will get into it through the positive assistance and encouragement from parents. As children imitate the significant adults around them, they will observe if books are read at home and by whom, and if they conclude from adults’ attitude that reading is a useless activity, they will probably not want to read. It’s then not enough to tell a kid that reading is good and send them off with a book. No! A kid has to see that an adult reads as well. If an adult says that reading is important and then I never see this adult doing what they say is of value, I will think what the adult says is important really isn’t because they don’t do it. So, before cursing children for not reading, I would encourage adults to check and see if somehow they don’t prefer a game of Angry Birds or a Facebook session over some time with a book.

Reading at School

I will reach to my experience at University to share few thoughts about reading at school. In my second year of studying at department of the English language, among other obligatory courses I had to take were the two in the British and American literature. The American literature one I will not forget. And I will remember it not because I enjoyed it so much. In the first lecture we were presented with a reading list – books that the knowledge of would be later checked in the exam. The list was scary to look at. It was so extensive!  I can’t remember how many books exactly we were supposed to read but the number was something crazy, I though. I didn’t understand how I was supposed to read all of these literary works and remember characters, plots, formulate opinions about problems presented in these books. As I was a good student I read what was required of me minus maybe two – ‘Moby Dick’ among them. I then went to a TEST, took the test, passed the test, and that was that. Yes, we did have separate classes in which we would discuss some of the books but these classes were very, very rare and didn’t satisfy me at all. It was too fast and too much, as the situation was with some other courses as well. There was no time to ponder, no time to immerse oneself and share this immersion with other students. It did happen, yes, to seldom for the university, though.

At schools but also universities we don’t read books – we tick them off the reading list. We present the knowledge of the content and we are rarely asked about our opinions. Reciting is preferred – parrot style. There is no time for discussion. Reading just for the sake of reading is not fun. It’s not fun just like other things are not fun when we do and we don’t know why we do them. And that’s what I believe also put off many learners from reading.

Why Should I Read It?

When at school, I rarely was told why I should read a book. I was told that it was obligatory. Not good an explanation for many, including myself. Everybody wants to know why they spend their time doing things. As a teacher in the kindergarten I have to create a positive atmosphere around a topic, I need to make my students want to learn and I need to tell them why what I am saying is worth listening. It’s not always easy but I need to remember that they need a reason to learn, to stay focused and interested. The same apply to any other student of any other subject. Some of the students will be naturally interested because they like a subjects, it’s their hobby or whatever. But there is the whole group of kids who want to know why they are supposed to read what they are supposed to read. A simple explanation that after having read this and that I will be able to this and that and it will be useful in life because of this and that or that after reading this and that I might discover or learn something about myself or other people. I was not told by any of my teachers that even my whole life can be changed through a medium of a book. There are greatly influential books out there, aren’t there? No, I was not told that. Instead I was waved with a reading list in from of my nose, a reading list I had to process in order to pass an exam. That itself isn’t a reading habit shaping incentive.

I am not an expert. These are just my loose thoughts and observations. I have been reading ever since I was five years old and I still take a great pleasure in it. I had been developing this skill for many years, though, and I had a great support from my relatives, friends to do so. I saw the habit of reading in action. It deeply saddens me when I hear lamenting of teachers or parents about their children not reading and not looking where they are with their habits and attitudes towards reading. And it’s not about what the Ministry of Education will put on or take off the obligatory reading list. It’s about how the habit of reading is approached, encouraged or discouraged by educators, institutions and homes.

An Alternative Approach

To finish on a lighter note - I know of a person who was bribed into reading.  There was a time in his life when he didn’t want to read no matter what support or incentive from adults around him. TV was his thing. The a deal was struck. No TV for a year in return for a substantial amount of money. It worked. Today the man watches stuff on TV, sure he does, but also he feverishly endeavours even the most demanding literature. The habit was successfully created.

Wearing a Bikini Is a Sate of Mind

It was a beautiful summer day day.  I was having another meeting with Abbey, my counselor. We were sitting in a park at a picnic table. The air had this particular summer texture in which the sound of children laugh travels in a very particular way. I could hear children laugh in the distance. The summer was in full swing and it was a wonderful time to be in Toronto.

I think it was a meeting when Abbey and I talked about how we narrate our lives, how we ourselves by thinking in particular way about our lives influence them. Then, I don’t know exactly what was the connection with the conversation -  I confessed o Abbey in a desperate manner that I had never had a bikini. I cried, I remember. A lot. I felt so sad about not a bikini in particular but I felt sad about myself: this young woman in my body who for all this time had felt not good enough to get herself a bikini and wearing it enjoy the sun on the beach. For years I had deprived myself of a wonderful feeling of bathing in the sun. I deprived my belly the pleasures of getting tanned. I didn’t feel I deserved a bikini and I felt the belly was too big to be exposed. I wasn’t good enough to be put in a bikini. Thinking and saying all these things to Abbey, I cried even more. The whole sea of tears of sadness about how badly I felt about myself. Abbey asked me to imagine myself being old and wrinkled, when my body will surely be not a pretty as at the age of 28. She asked me to imagine myself being this elderly woman who regrets things she has never done in her life – among these getting herself a bikini and enjoying the sun on the beach. At that time I was sobbing like a baby. Yes, I could see myself as this regretful person and I didn’t like what I saw.  I didn’t like it at all. At the end of the meeting with Abbey, I got an assignment. I was told to go to a shop and get myself the nicest bikini I could find and afford. Upon hearing this, I was hysterical – the sheer thought of going shopping for a bikini scared the life out of me.  How on earth was I supposed to do it? How was I supposed to put this imperfect round body of mine into a skimpy tops and bottoms? I felt it’s going to be disaster.

Marta helped me. I told Marta about my bikini assignment and next week we found ourselves in a shopping mall. I decided not to lament too much and find something. Oh, Marta was a blessing. She knew exactly what I was going through – she knew that it was quite a traumatic experience for me and she just was the most delicate person in the world. She told me: ‘I know exactly what you need and I know what you want to hide and what to expose’. It was very nice and technical without being too emotional about my inhibitions. I got this support from a woman, form a friend who understood. It was so true and full of understanding.

And we made it. We managed to find something that exposes something and conceals the rest. Yay!!! That day, on Marta’s balcony, I bathed in the sun for the first time in my life in my brand new bikinis.

As much as it was easy to undress in front of Marta, the next step was to go to the beach. I did. A week later or maybe sooner I bathed on the beach. And what? Nothing! Nobody screamed, nobody looked at me; nobody even paid attention that I was there. NOBODY. What is more, I felt wonderful. For the first time I felt rays of the sun on the areas of my body which had never been exposed before. I felt wonderfully warm and comfortable. The next step was to go swimming. I did. Oh, how wonderful it was do be touched by water, to be engulfed by it and feel it on body parts on which I had never felt it before. And then I had to get out of water and walk to my towel, and we know what we look like out of water… And nobody screamed again, nobody even paid attention that I was there. NOBODY. I felt comfortable.  I wasn’t ashamed of my body, however imperfect. I have started a new chapter in my life, the one which includes wearing bikinis and feeling good about myself.

Wearing a bikini is a state of mind. It’s the state of mind that allows me to feel comfortable. It’s the state of mind in which I am enjoying myself in my body. It’s the same state of mind which I have when I put on a pair of heels and I feel sexy and womanly. I am grateful that I have women in my life who helped me to discover this comfort and confidence. When I’m elderly and wrinkled I will have this memory of me bathing in the sun and swimming in water in a very skimpy bikini in my beautiful young body.

Canadian Fixation Explained Part 1

I was told some time ago that my bottomless love for Canada, especially for Toronto, is becoming or has already become for some, quite irritating. True. Sometimes when I say, yet another time:  ‘in Toronto this and in Toronto that, in Canada this, in Canada that’ I’m tempted to slap myself and hard. But the truth is that this love is probably the longest I have ever experienced – with problems, but still love.  So how has it all started?

It all has started in circa 1980, I think when my father’s sister and her husband pack up the family having made a decision about emigrating from Poland to the West. I cannot recall the details but after two years or so in Germany and Austria, or maybe only in Austria, my aunt, uncle and their kids, resettled in the oil fields of Alberta, in Edmonton.

Edmonton in Canada. Ever since I have started reading and since I have become capable of deciphering letters, I would read the Canadian address of my uncles with some sort of reverence. The names and surnames sounded familiar but all the rest was as exotic as spices from India. A strange name of the street, a post code comprising of mixture of latters and digits, the name of the city, province and the country. Oh, such sweet literature it was!!!

So much I knew about Canada at that time: that it was big, that it was better, that it produced the cutest two things I had ever had in my childhood. My grandma Anna went to visit her daughter and on her way back from the land of plenty, she brought a white teddy bear and a beautiful china music box for me. The teddy bear wasn’t just a teddy – it was my Canadian teddy, and so was the music box. Both items in a magical way connected me with this unknown world across the ocean. The teddy bear shared my bed with me for a very, very long time and in cases when it disappeared from my sight – I refused to sleep until it was found and brought back to me. It still resides in my house in Poland and has become a very old teddy who reminds me of very happy times. The music box has suffered some injuries throughout the years but it was always glued back and continues to play – though the melody has changed and has become filled with longing even more. So they are my childhood artifacts connecting me to the New World.

In Poland of the time when I was growing up, we didn’t enjoy the variety of products the Canadian population did. We would have a peek into this abundance though boxes filled with goodies from the West: parcels, which would arrive to Poland from Canada around Christmas of Easter. Parcels filled with bubble gum, lolly pops, maple syrup, Shake’n’bake, salad dressings and what not. All these commodities  in beautiful, colourful packages, with labels written not in one foreign language but TWO. Oh, how wonderful these parcels were!!!  How they played with my imagination, how I saw those shops filled with stuff. I can’t remember which year it was but it was certainly pre-cornflakes era in Poland. No cornflakes for us. I learnt about the existence of this good from one of the Canadian parcels. Kellog’s was its name. Frosty  was smiling from the box. I remember the texture of the box, the milky – murky colour of the plastic bag inside the box. I can recall the smell of the content, I clearly remember the sweetness of the flakes. I was aware of the scarcity of the product and so I used it only on special occasions. The box was mine and it was guarded in the pantry by magic spells and two dragons and whoever would be stupid enough to plunder, they would suffer terrible consequence of beheading and their heads would be on spike in from of the pantry. So nobody came even close to my magic cornflakes box. To my despair, though, I was not aware that these bloody things has the expiry date. One day when with my heart pounding I was just about to enjoy another serving of this delicacy, I discovered that whatever was left in the box went off and was covered with mold. And so my relationship with cornflakes tragically ended and I had to go back to boring porridge. I will not go into the details of using Shake’n’Bake or the orgasmic taste of Kraft Zesty Italian and Cucumber Salad or something of this name.

So much for Canadian processed food.

Then came electronics. It was in 1990 when I saw the first Sony Walkman. It landed on the Polish soil with my cousins and the rest of the family. It was their first visit to Poland since they left. They came in a plane but for me they might as well have arrived in a space ship. Indeed, it was like receiving arrivals from the outer space. They looked differently, they spoke a strange language and everything about them was different. Cooler - for me at least. My cousins must have been cool - they were from another planet after all. I was seven years old and I wanted to hang out with them but… at that time I was just a pain in the ass and we didn’t bond very much. But I remember the Walkman. It was yellow and waterproof. At that time in my house we received the radio waves on a wireless which at that time was seventeen years old, so quite old. A Walkman like this Sony thing was a state-of-the art technical miracle for me. And it basted the Queen’s Bicycle. Unforgettable. The Walkman left with Magda and Irek but the sweet memory still lingers.

Some time later my brother and I, or maybe my brother only, received a discman with out first CD – Oxygen by Jean Michelle Jar and Top Gun. I’m almost sure I’m right about Top Gun. The era of cds started in our household.  I didn’t see any more gadgets, I can’t remember laptops or notebooks but the Walkman and the discman I do remember and I do remember another crucial characteristic of theirs: they came from the Canada Planet.

My love to the country of the maple leaf had been getting bigger and bigger and bigger to find its outlet in the first trip to the North America in 2001.In my own eyes  I could finally see all these things I had been imagining about Canada. Oh, and disappointed I was not. It was just as I expected – big, and different and nobody walked anywhere, and kids were cool, and smoked weed. And everybody spoke English. And oh, West Edmonton Mall – just as it promised on the website – the mall was humongous with everything in it – an ice skating rink, a pirate ship, and a freaking artificial beach with real artificial waves. Luckily for me, I was at the age already when I could appreciate a bit more than malls  - the nature of Alberta swept me off my feet. Among other places my family took me to Jasper, Banff, and Saint Louise. I saw the Rocky Mountains and I swear that pieces of me have never returned from there. Never ever. 

My 2001 Canadian trip was also spiced up with a romance I had with certain James who I fell head over hill for and who had the sexiest eyes ever, whose name was James and who drove a truck. That was enough to fall in love with. And I did. I fell in love with James and with Canada both at the same time.

I had to leave both. It was the beginning of November. My backpack was packed and James came to say goodbye and it was a heartbreaking. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay and live there, and have my life there but I couldn’t. And so I came back to Poland filled with memories and dreams. For a year after that trip, every day I dreamt about Canada. Every day I was there – I was there where my heart truly belonged and belongs.

Ten years later I came back to Canada and for a year I lived in Toronto. Oh, yes… Toronto – another story for another time.

On the 20^th of October, 2013 my Canadian-Polish aunt, Jadzia, died of lung cancer. I can’t express how sorry I am for her loss. She was a brave woman who left her comfort and went to seek a better life. She got me hooked on Canada. My aunt is not among us any more but she is in me every day: through my thoughts, and through my Canadian fixation. 

Dear Auntie, thank you for everything: for your Christmas and Easter cards, for your calls, for your visits, for your love.  You were one of the kind. Rest in peace.