Stanisław Barszczak, Wyznania belfra…

Przedstawiamy kolejny z naszych lęków: że życie nie będzie jak literatura. Jak często opowiadamy naszą historię życia? Jak często dostosowujemy się, upiększamy, robimy podstępne cięcia? Im dłużej trwa życie, tym mniej jest tych, którzy rzucają wyzwanie naszym relacjom, przypominając nam, że nasze życie to nie nasze życie, tylko historia, którą opowiedzieliśmy o naszym życiu, odsłaniamy rany miłości. Historia jest taka, że ​​pewność powstaje w punkcie, w którym niedoskonałości pamięci spełniają niedoskonałości dokumentacji. To, co w końcu pamiętasz, nie zawsze jest takie samo, jak to, czego byłeś świadkiem. Książki mówią: zrobiłem to, ponieważ. Życie mówi: zrobiłem to albo tamto. Książki są tam, gdzie są wyjaśniane rzeczy; życie jest tam, gdzie rzeczy nie są. Nie dziwię się, że niektórzy wolą książki. Książki mają sens życia. Jedynym problemem jest to, że życie, które ma sens, to życie innych ludzi, nigdy własnych. Uderzające jest to, że może to być jedna z różnic między młodością a wiekiem: kiedy jesteśmy młodzi, wymyślamy dla siebie różne przyszłości; kiedy jesteśmy starzy, wymyślamy inną przeszłość dla innych. Kobiety planują, gdy są słabe, czy leżą ze strachu. Mężczyźni planują, kiedy są silni, a leżą z arogancji. Być głupawym, samolubnym i mieć dobre zdrowie to trzy wymogi szczęścia – choć jeśli brakuje głupoty, pozostałe są bezużyteczne. Na pewno wierzę, że wszyscy doznajemy obrażeń w taki czy inny sposób. Jak moglibyśmy nie zaznawać ich. Niektórzy przyznają się do poniesionej szkody i próbują ją złagodzić, niektórzy więc spędzają życie próbując pomóc innym, którzy są uszkodzeni; i są tacy, których główną troską jest unikanie dalszych szkód dla siebie, bez względu na koszty. A to są ci, którzy są bezwzględni i tacy, w obliczu których należy zachować ostrożność. Największym patriotyzmem jest powiedzieć krajowi w najwlasciwszym momencie, ze zachowuje się nieuczciwie, głupio, zjadliwie. Żyjemy w czasie – to nas trzyma i kształtuje – ale nigdy nie czułem, że rozumiałem to bardzo dobrze. Nie mam tu na myśli teorii o tym, jak wygina się i podwaja czas, lub może istnieć gdzie indziej w równoległych wersjach. Nie, chodzi mi o zwykły, codzienny czas, który zegary i zegarki zapewniają nam, że przechodzi regularnie: tick-tock, click-clock. Czy istnieje coś bardziej wiarygodnego niż wtorne kart rozdanie? A jednak potrzeba nam tylko najmniejszej przyjemności, małego bólu, aby nauczyć nas ciągłości czasu. Ale podobne myśli, uważam, to juz za daleko idące pole ludzkiego wyrazy życia.cdn

Stanisław Barszczak, Chrześcijanin ambasadorem radości.

W styczniu 2019 roku miało miejsce spotkanie młodych katolików w Panamie w Ameryce Środkowej. Informację o organizacji tego wydarzenia podał papież Franciszek 31 lipca 2016 podczas mszy kończącej ŚDM 2016 w Krakowie. Mottem do Panamskiego hymnu na światowy Dzień Młodych stały się słowa Maryi z Ewangelii: „Oto Ja służebnica Pańska, niech Mi się stanie według twego słowa” (Łk 1,38). Andrés Carrascosa Coso (ówczesny nuncjusz w Panamie, obecnie mamy tam Polaka z Gdańska, Arcybiskup Mikołaj Adamczyk zastąpił poprzedniego nuncjusza) ogłosił, że Światowe Dni Młodzieży będą odbywać się zimą 2019. W styczniu 2017 arcybiskup Panamy ogłosił, że 34. Światowe Dni Młodzieży odbędą się 22−27 stycznia 2019. 14 maja 2017 podczas mszy świętej w hali Arena im. Roberto Durana zaprezentowano logo ŚDM w Panamie. Stylizowany zarys Kanału Panamskiego na tle granic tego kraju, krzyż pielgrzymi oraz zarys postaci Maryi z 5 gwiazdami nad Jej głową, a wszystko to ujęte w kształcie serca. Autorką logo jest studentka architektury Ambar Calvo. Logo przedstawia kartograficzne kontury Panamy zaznaczone niebieskim kolorem, czerwony krzyż po lewej stronie symbolizuje pielgrzyma. Całe logo naznaczone jest symboliką Maryi, a Matka Boża – jako Gwiazda oraz Most świata i Serce wszechświata – jest w jego centrum. Nad Jej głową symbolicznie przedstawiono Pięć gwiazd, czyli pięć kontynentów, z których przybędzie młodzież do Panamy. 3 lipca 2017 został zaprezentowany hymn ŚDM „Niech Mi się stanie według słowa Twego”, którego autorem jest panamski katechista i kantor, Abdiel Jiménez. A oto Harmonogram głównych wydarzeń tych dni: 22 stycznia – msza inaugurująca. Mszę otwierającą ŚDM odprawił arcybiskup Panamy José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta na Costa Cintera. Wzięło w niej udział ok. 75 tysięcy wiernych z różnych krajów. 24 stycznia – spotkanie z papieżem na Campo Santa Maria. 25 stycznia – droga krzyżowa na Campo Santa Maria. 26 stycznia – wieczorne czuwanie modlitewne na Campo San Juan Pablo II. 27 stycznia – msza kończąca ŚDM na Campo San Juan Pablo II. I ja tam byłem… Moja pielgrzymka trwała w sumie dwanaście dni, zaczynała się i kończyła w Niemczech: Frankfurt nad Menem, Waszyngton, Panama, a z powrotem Panama, Toronto, Londyn. A potem bus przywiózł mnie do ojczyzny. Piękne i wzruszające przeżycie, młodzi budzili świat współczesny do sprawiedliwości, wierności chrześcijańskim wartościom, do wiecznej radości z racji na podarowane człowiekowi życie… Długo spacerowałem w tych styczniowych dniach po Panamie City. Spełniły się moje marzenia, obejrzałem z wszystkich stron piękne Panamskie pobrzeże, Cinta Costera, zajechałem do Nuncjatury Apostolskiej w Clayton, przeszedłem wzdłuż i wszerz Panamską via Israel i via Espania w centrum miasta, liczyłem siedemdziesiąte piętro Panamskich wieżowców, podzielałem we wszystkim radość młodej generacji Chrześcijan zgromadzonej na błoniach Jana Pawła II. Cztery razy “pokazał mi się” papież Frańciszek, dwa razy w Papamobile na błoniach, następnie w czasie zakończenia Światowych dni młodych przy olbrzymim a wydętym maszcie Panamskiej estrady, podczas sprawowania Mszy świętej przy ołtarzu polowym, wreszcie w czarnej limuzynie zdążającej do centrum Panama City. Młodzi Hiszpanie, Francuzi, Polacy, Hindusi, wspaniała organizacja. A słońce było z nami. Panamczycy mają dziewięć miesięcy, kiedy pada deszcz. Ale życie w Panamie należy do “łatwych”, są tam i Polacy. A po spotkaniu na Statku “Dar Młodzieży”, który “pojawił się” w Panamie, było ich jakby jeszcze więcej. W Supermarketach jest kapitalne zaopatrzenie, nigdzie nie widziałem tylu gatunków kiełbas i serów jak w Panama City. Wyobraźcie sobie, że mieszkacie na 30-tym piętrze Panamskiego smukłego wieżowca. Ale teraz już powróciłem szczęśliwie do ojczyzny, zaraz też sięgnąłem do Amerykańskich wspomnień Sienkiewicza, z sprzed 140 laty. Podzielanie uczuć ludzkich a polskich, umiejętność ukazania ich w literaturze, to olbrzymia zasługa naszego Noblisty. Jak wiecie, Polaków, moich rodaków, spotykałem już na wszystkich pięciu kontynentach ziemskiego globu. I mówiłem im: Człowiek powinien świecić chrześcijańskim a swoim światłem, w każdej erze zaświadczyć o wielkości ludzkiego ducha. Nowela Sienkiewicza “Latarnik” jest według mnie apelem do człowieczej sprawiedliwości, a której nie sposób w pełni zrealizować na przestrzeni pojedyńczego życia. Plastyczność stylu, poszukiwanie poetyckiego wyrazu dla ludzkich przeżyć, pozostają aktualnym zadaniem dla nowych adeptów pióra. W noweli Sienkiewicza opisy krajobrazów są bardzo plastyczne i niezwykle poetyckie. Tworzą nastrój w utworze, stanowią tło przedstawianych zdarzeń. Wspomnienie tropikalnego lasu wprowadza do utworu pierwiastek egzotyki. „Dalej, między Aspinwall a Panamą, widać było ogromny las, nad którym co rano i pod noc zwieszał się czerwonawy opar wyziewów – las prawdziwie podzwrotnikowy, zalany u spodu stojącą wodą, oplatany lianami, szumiący jedną falą olbrzymich storczyków, palm, drzew mlecznych, żelaznych i gumowych.” Wokół tego przepysznego zakątka rozciąga się niezmierzony ocean „podglądany” przez parę strażniczych oczu patrzących z latarni morskiej. Owa latarnia rysuje się na tle błękitnego nieba. Lecz cóż znaczą te piękne pejzaże dla starczego serca, które rwie się na wspomnienie sosnowego boru, obrazu rodzinnego domu, krzyku żurawi, jęku studni i młyna; „(…) z cienia wychylają się lasy, zarośla, szereg chałup, topole. Studnie skrzypią (…). Jaka ta ziemia kochana, śliczna w różowych blaskach jutrzni!.” Wyzyskując efekt przestrzeni, oceanu, autor zaakcentował samotność starego emigranta i odległość, jaka dzieliła go od ojczyzny. Latarnia morska znajdowała się na maleńkiej wyspie położonej niedaleko portu Aspinwall: „na całej zaś wysepce, mającej morgę rozległości, nie ma nikogo.” Już sam fakt zamieszkania na tak niewielkim zakątku izoluje człowieka od świata. Skawiński po trudach życia potrzebował samotności i odpoczynku. W ciszy i spokoju pragnął przygotować się na spotkanie ze śmiercią. Pełniąc służbę latarnika, popadł w stan odrętwienia. Bywały dni i tygodnie, kiedy nie widywano go w miasteczku. On również przestał widywać ludzi. Zespolił się z otoczeniem. „Nie rozumował nad tym, czuł tylko bezwiednie, ale w końcu zdawało mu się, ze niebo, woda, jego skała, wieża i złote ławice piasku, i wydęte żagle, i mewy, odpływy i przypływy, to jakaś wielka jedność i jedna, ogromna tajemnicza dusza; on zaś sam pogrąża się w tej tajemnicy i czuje ową duszę, która żyje i koi się.” Jego stan przypominał indyjską nirwanę – uczucie wyzbycia się wszelkich trosk, cierpień, całkowitego zapomnienia. Żyjąc na krawędzi jawy i snu, mimo samotności czuł się szczęśliwy. Znajdował w niej ukojenie. W czterdziestym dziewiątym roku (patrz 1849 rok) wyjechał do Ameryki i w awanturniczym życiu, jakie prowadził, prawie nie spotykał Polaków, a nigdy książek polskich. Z tym większą też skwapliwością i z tym żywiej bijącym sercem przewrócił kartę tytułową. Zdawało mu się teraz, że na jego samotnej skale zaczyna dziać się coś uroczystego.” Skawiński to człowiek w podeszłym wieku. Po wielu latach tułaczki pragnie odnaleźć spokój, ciszę, prywatną przystań, gdzie będzie mógł przygotować się na spotkanie śmierci. Śmierć nie kojarzy mu się z unicestwieniem, ale raczej z tajemnicą, nieskończonością. Starość traktuje jako czas zasłużonego odpoczynku. Samotna latarnia jest dla niego wymarzonym miejscem, by wskrzeszać wspomnienia, oddawać się kontemplacji, snuć refleksje. „(…) być może, że gdy się człowiek zestarzeje, woła także na niego inna nieskończoność, jeszcze ciemniejsza i bardziej tajemnicza, a im jest bardziej zmęczony życiem, tym milsze są mu te nawoływania. Ale, by ich słuchać, trzeba ciszy. Prócz tego starość lubi się odosabniać, jakby w przeczuciu grobu.” W punkcie kulminacyjnym obserwujemy Skawińskiego pochylonego nad biblią emigrantów – „Panem Tadeuszem”. Wzruszony starzec pada na ziemię, wezbrana w jego piersiach fala tęsknoty znajduje ujście w potoku łez, w gamie rozpaczliwych łkań i przywołanych w pamięci obrazów z przeszłości. Tłumione latami uczucie miłości do ojczyzny kontrastuje z pragnieniem spokoju, które narastało w mężczyźnie wraz z upływającym czasem i zbliżającą się starością. Silne doznania sprawiają, że Skawiński zapomina o swoich obowiązkach, i zostaje zwolniony z posady. Ponownie „otwierają się przed nim nowe drogi tułactwa”.W czasach romantyzmu i pozytywizmu łączono patriotyzm z walką o wolność, wiązano go również z tożsamością i świadomością narodową, istnieniem w danej kulturze i języku. Skawiński mimo licznych wędrówek po obcych kontynentach nie zapomniał o swoim pochodzeniu. Ale jakby tłumił jednak swoją miłość do ojczyzny i tęsknotę za nią. Jakkolwiek stale oczekiwał wiadomości o wyzwoleniu Polski, „odczytywał sobie hiszpańską gazetę (…) lub newyorskiego „Heralda” (…) i szukał w nich wiadomości z Europy. Biedne stare serce! Na tej wieży strażniczej i na drugiej półkuli biło jeszcze dla kraju…” Przesyłka z polskimi książkami, wśród których znalazł „Pana Tadeusza” na nowo obudziła w nim tęsknotę. Stało się tak w chwili, gdy znalazł już ukojenie w pustelniczym żywocie latarnika. Lektura poematu przeniosła jego „duszę utęsknioną” w rodzinne strony, do ojczystej ziemi. „Oto czterdzieści lat dobiegało, jak nie widział kraju, i Bóg wie ile, jak nie słyszał mowy rodzinnej (…). We łkaniu, jakie nim wstrząsało, nie było bólu, ale tylko nagle rozbudzona niezmierna miłość, przy której wszystko jest niczym…” Sienkiewicz napisał Latarnika w 1880 roku, w czasach, gdy wiele podróżował. Długa nieobecność w kraju i liczne wojaże – do Stanów Zjednoczonych, Włoch, Francji, rozbudzały w pisarzu wielką tęsknotę za ojczyzną, myślami wracał do stron rodzinnych. W Listach z podróży zanotował: „Siedzę na pokładzie, bo mi się nie chce iść spać, a nie mnie z mego nocnego siedliska ani wiatr, ani zimno. Noc jest cicha, ciepła, pogodna; Ocean ciągle gładki. (…) Powoli przychodzi mi na myśl kraj rodzinny. U nas teraz zima, robi się właśnie ranek, może mroźny, ale różowy ranek. Wioski zasypane śniegiem; dachy białe, sine dymy z kominów wznoszą się prosto ku górze; po ogrodach gałęzie zasnute szronem rysują się nieruchomo i milcząco; przed chałupami skrzypią zamarzłe żurawie studzienne, a stada wron łopotaniem skrzydeł i zwykłym budzą tych, co jeszcze śpią(…)”. Czytanie Pana Tadeusza wprawia bohatera w zadumę, wywołuje wspomnienia. Opis tych wspomnień nawiązuje do fragmentu Listów z podróży, jest podobny i sugestywny: „Zaszumiały mu w uszach lasy sosnowe, zabełkotały rzeki rodzinne. (…) Obrazy przesuwają się przed jego oczyma szybko i trochę bezładnie. (…) Wkrótce świtanie wschód ubieli: jakoż i kury pieją już w zapłociach. Jeden drugiemu podaje głos z chaty do chaty; wraz i żurawie krzyczą już gdzieś z wysoka. (…) Ale już świta, świta!. Noc blednie: z cienia wychylają się lasy, zarośla, szereg chałup, młyn, topole. Studnie skrzypią, jakby blaszana chorągiewka na wieży. Jaka ta ziemia kochana, śliczna, w różowych blaskach jutrzni!” Inspiracją do napisania noweli stała się dla pisarza notatka pochodząca z korespondencji Juliana Horaina. Dziennikarz przytaczał w niej losy niejakiego Sielawy, podróżnika i tułacza, ale swego czasu także strażnika latarni morskiej w porcie Colon – Aspinwall. Otóż Sielawa, pełniąc obowiązki latarnika, pewnego razu tak zaczytał się w lekturze Murdeliona autorstwa Zygmunta Kaczkowskiego, że zapomniał zapalić latarnianą lampę. Jakiś okręt zaczepił o skały i omal nie doszło do katastrofy. „Murdelio” autorstwa Z. Kaczkowskiego opowiada o dziedzicu sławnego i bogatego rodu – Ignacym Pawłowiczu, zwanym od rodzinnego herbu „Murdelionem”. Kanwę powieści stanowi wątek miłosny wypełniony elementami grozy. Jest to typ romansu awanturniczego. Powtórzmy, „Latarnik” i „Wspomnienie z Maripozy” stanowią cykl nowel amerykańskich. W „Liście Litwosa” (Litwos – pseudonim literacki Sienkiewicza) z grudnia 1877 roku, adresowanym do „Kuriera Codziennego” twórca Potopu wspominał dzieje Sielawy. Pisał wtedy: „Kraj ten, w którym nikt niczemu się nie dziwi, sprzyja rozwijaniu się oryginalności. Dlatego też oryginałów między naszymi rodakami, zwłaszcza starymi, tu nie brak. Umarł tu niedawno człowiek nazwiskiem Sielawa. Był to człowiek bardzo nieszczęśliwy. Gdzie nie był, jakich kolei nie przechodził, trudno by wyliczyć. Tułał się między Indianami; rozbijał się na wszystkich brzegach pięciu części świata (…). Ale miał dwa lata w życiu szczęśliwe. Został latarnikiem w Aspinwall, w Nowej Grenadzie, niedaleko równika. Siedząc na samotnej skale, nie widując ludzi po parę miesięcy, czuł się stary człowiek szczęśliwym. Zdawało mu się, że to już koniec jego wędrówek i że spokojnie dożyje wieczora życia i chwili, w której przyjdzie mu się wybrać w ostatnią podróż, wieczystą. (…) Pewnego razu znalazł między paczkami z żywnością paczkę z książkami. Stary na ich widok upadł na kolana i płakał. Kto mu je przysłał, jakim sposobem dowiedział się ten ktoś o jego adresie? nigdy nie mógł odgadnąć. Porwał książki do swej wieży, otworzył pierwszą z brzega i począł czytać. Był to Kaczkowskiego. Stary czytał, czytał, nie tylko oczyma, ale duszą i sercem. Ściemniło się, zapalił lampę i czytał dalej… Nazajutrz odebrano mu miejsce i oddano go pod sąd: zapomniał zapalić latarni! – skutkiem czego jakiś okręt uszkodził się o skały. Latarnik Sienkiewicza jest niemal więźniem. Z wyjątkiem niedzieli nie może on wcale opuszczać swej skalistej wysepki. Łódź z Aspinwall przywozi mu raz na dzień zapasy żywności i świeżą wodę, po czym przewożący oddalają się natychmiast, na całej zaś wysepce (…) nie ma nikogo.” „Był to człowiek już stary, lat siedmiudziesiąt albo i więcej, ale czerstwy, wyprostowany, mający ruchy i postawę żołnierza. Włosy miał zupełnie białe, płeć spaloną, jak u Kreolów, ale sądząc z niebieskich oczu, nie należał do ludzi Południe. Twarz jego była przygnębiona i smutna, ale uczciwa.” Skawiński wierzył w przeznaczenie: „Wierzył, że jakaś potężna a mściwa ręka ściga go wszędzie, po wszystkich lądach i wodach. (…) gdy pytano, czyja to może być ręka ukazywał tajemniczo na Gwiazdę Polarną i odpowiadał, że to idzie stamtąd…” „Miał on nieszczęście, że ilekroć rozbił gdzie namiot i rozniecił ognisko, by się osiedlić stale, jakiś wiatr wyrywał kołki namiotu, rozwiewał ognisko, a jego samego niósł na stracenie.” „(…) być może, że gdy się człowiek zestarzeje, woła także na niego inna nieskończoność, jeszcze ciemniejsza i bardziej tajemnicza, a im jest bardziej zmęczony życiem, tym milsze są mu te nawoływania. Ale, by ich słuchać, trzeba ciszy. Prócz tego starość lubi się odosabniać, jakby w przeczuciu grobu.” Kiedy jest się już dojrzałym mężczyzną, po pięćdziesiątce, który pojawił się przed laty na świecie w basenie Morza Bałtyckiego, na ziemi Polan, gdzie spędził bogate w przeżycia dzieciństwo i młodość, instynkt podpowiada człowiekowi uwielbienie dla tej ziemi, która go zrodziła. Tak stało się w życiu “latarnika z Panamy”. „Oto czterdzieści lat dobiegało, jak nie widział kraju, i Bóg wie ile, jak nie słyszał mowy rodzinnej, a tu tymczasem ta mowa przyszła sama do niego – przepłynęła ocean i znalazła go samotnika, na drugiej półkuli, taka kochana, taka droga, taka śliczna! We łkaniu, jakie nim wstrząsało, nie było bólu, ale tylko nagle rozbudzona niezmierna miłość, przy której wszystko jest niczym…On po prostu tym wielkim płaczem przepraszał tę ukochaną, oddaloną, za to, że się już tak zestarzał, tak zżył z samotną skałą i tak zapamiętał, iż się w nim i tęsknota poczynała zacierać.” „Nie rozumował nad tym, czuł tylko bezwiednie, ale w końcu zdawało mu się, ze niebo, woda, jego skała, wieża i złote ławice piasku, i wydęte żagle, i mewy, odpływy i przypływy, to jakaś wielka jedność i jedna, ogromna tajemnicza dusza; on zaś sam pogrąża się w tej tajemnicy i czuje ową duszę, która żyje i koi się.” Latarnik był rozkochany w przyrodzie polskiej, a teraz przelewa to uczucie na cudowną przestrzeń Panamską. Jeszcze raz czytajmy te słowa;„Dalej, między Aspinwall a Panamą, widać było ogromny las, nad którym co rano i pod noc zwieszał się czerwonawy opar wyziewów – las prawdziwie podzwrotnikowy, zalany u spodu stojącą wodą, oplatany lianami, szumiący jedną falą olbrzymich storczyków, palm, drzew mlecznych, żelaznych i gumowych.” „(…) wieś, jakby ją wczoraj opuścił: szereg chałup ze światełkami w oknach, grobla, młyn, dwa stawy podane ku sobie i brzmiące całą noc…” Jak powiedziałem Latarnik jest niemal więźniem. Los tak chciał, mówimy. “Z wyjątkiem niedziel nie może on wcale opuszczać swej skalistej wysepki.” “Był to człowiek już stary, lat siedmiudziesiąt albo i więcej, ale czerstwy, wyprostowany, mający ruchy i postawę żołnierza. Włosy miał zupełnie białe, płeć spaloną jak u Kreolów, ale sądząc z niebieskich oczu, nie należał do ludzi Południa.” “Oto są świadectwa. Ten krzyż dostałem w roku trzydziestym. Ten drugi jest hiszpański z wojny karlistowskiej, trzeci to legia francuska, czwarty otrzymałem na Węgrzech. Potem biłem się w Stanach przeciw południowcom, ale tam nie dają krzyżów – więc oto papier.” “Jestem bardzo znużony i skołatany. Dużo, widzicie, przeszedłem. Miejsce to jest jedno z takich, jakie najgoręcej pragnąłem otrzymać. Jestem stary, potrzebuję spokoju!” “Teraz wydało mu się, jak owym żeglarzom wśród nocy, że coś zawołało na niego po imieniu głosem bardzo kochanym, a zapomnianym prawie.” “On po prostu tym wielkim płaczem przepraszał tę ukochaną, oddaloną za to, że się już tak zestarzał, tak zżył z samotną skałą i tak zapamiętał, iż się w nim i tęsknota poczęła zacierać.” We łkaniu, jakie nim wstrząsało, nie było bólu, ale tylko nagle rozbudzona niezmierna miłość, przy której wszystko jest niczym…” Jestem jak statek, który jeśli nie wejdzie do portu to utonie… (…) wiatr porywał znowu ten liść, by nim rzucać po lądach i morzach, by się nad nim znęcać do woli. Pewnego razu zdarzyło się, że latarnik w Aspinwall, niedaleko Panamy, przepadł bez wieści. Oby nigdy nie zdarzyło się, że odchodzi po pracowitym życiu człowiek- i nie ma kto zapalić świeczki na jego grobie. “Latarnik” Henryka Sienkiewicz stawał się w kolejnych latach arcydziełem polskiej literatury. Rzeczywiście losy ludzkie wydają się nieprzeciętne, bo każdemu z nas pali się świeczka osiągnięcia kiedyś chrześcijańskiego spełnienia życia i podążania najwłaściwszą ścieżyną ostatniej wieczności. I do tej chrześcijańskiej radości moich Czytelników serdecznie zapraszam.

Stanislaw Barszczak, The successful Pole (epilog)

Annette gives me a freedom in choosing a time of job. And I may write to you about my journey around the world. So,
and now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. What makes my spiritual desert beautiful, is that somewhere it hides a well… I am looking for friends. What does that mean? It means to establish ties. To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a boy like a hundred thousand other boys. But if “you tame me,” then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…. People have forgotten this truth. But you mustn’t forget it. You become responsible forever for what you’ve tamed. You’re responsible for your rose. You alone will have the stars as no one else has them…In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night… Only you – will have stars that can laugh. Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with big butterflies… You’re beautiful, but you’re empty…One couldn’t die for you. An ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass, since she’s the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed myself. Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose, my cornflower. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her. You see, one loves the sunset when one is so sad. Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence. Even eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers… A goal without a plan is just a wish. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure… It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh. Then you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, “Yes, the stars always make me laugh!” Maybe they will think you are crazy, but not all. Believe me. Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. True love begins when nothing is looked for in return. When you tell them you’ve made a new friend they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies? Instead they demand “How old is he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make? “Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him. A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. When someone blushes, doesn’t that mean ‘yes’? Beloved friends, once day knew I a rose. In my youth, in those days, I didn’t understand anything. And I should have judged her according to her actions, not her words. So, she perfumed “my planet” and lit up my life. I should never have run away! I ought to have realized the tenderness underlying her silly pretensions. No single event can awaken within us a stranger whose existence we had never suspected. To live is to be slowly born. I have no right to say or do anything that diminishes a man in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him but what he thinks of himself. Hurting a man in his dignity is a crime. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world. If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. So, I went to America over ocean now. I saw the World Young Day in Panama City. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists. Now am I who I am and I have the need to be. But I always was looking for a friend. To forget a friend is sad. Not everyone has had a friend. What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. No one is ever satisfied where he is… But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you. Please “tame me”. I want to, very much. But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand. Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me… You must be very patient. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day…
Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are. Wether the stars are set alight in heaven so that one day each one of us may find his own again… For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he’d doing. If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that’s enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself ‘My flower’s up there somewhere…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it’s as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. Of course, I love you, the flower said to him. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom. Happiness doesn’t lie in the objects we gather around us. To find it, all we need to do is open our eyes. He who is different from me does not impoverish me – he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves – in Man… And nothing, in truth, can ever replace a lost companion. Old comrades cannot be manufactured. There is nothing that can equal the treasure of so many shared memories, so many bad times endured together, so many quarrels, reconciliations, heartfelt impulses. Friendships like that cannot be reconstructed. If you plant an oak, you will hope in vain to sit soon under its shade. For such is life. We grow rich as we plant through the early years, but then come the years when time undoes our work and cuts down our trees. One by one our comrades deprive us of their shade, and within our mourning we always feel now the secret grief of growing old. If I search among my memories for those whose taste is lasting, if I write the balance sheet of the moments that truly counted, I surely find those that no fortune could have bought me. You cannot buy the friendship of a companion bound to you forever by ordeals endured together. So, the time for action is now. It’s never too late to do something. The only things you learn are the things you tame. If you come at four in the afternoon, I’ll begin to be happy by three. At the end I’ve put surprise for you. I have been an owner of a small airplane thirty years ago. Evert week I am leading him from a hangar to fly. I take out and arrange a reconnessance of my little homeland. Today with me is a Student girl. Night, when words fade and things come alive. When the destructive analysis of day is done, and all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions. It is idle, having planted an acorn in the morning, to expect that afternoon to sit in the shade of the oak. So, look at the sky. Ask yourselves: Has the sheep eaten the flower, yes or no? And you will see how everything changes… People have stars, but they aren’t the same. For travelers, the stars are guides. For other people, they’re nothing but tiny lights. Look: you see the grain fields down yonder? The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back to the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wheat in the wind… He who must travel happily must travel light. I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind. Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than itself. I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things. No one is ever satisfied where he is… No destiny attacks us from outside. But, within him, man bears his fate and there comes a moment when he knows himself vulnerable; and then, as in a vertigo, blunder upon blunder lures him. A civilization is built on what is required of men, not on that which is provided for them. It’s all a great mystery…Look up at the sky and you’ll see how everything changes. In the arching immensity of the night, each tells the story of his life, each offers the other the burden of memories in which the human bond is discovered. Here two men can meet, and they bestow gifts upon each other with the dignity of ambassadors. And at night you will look up at the stars. It’s too small, where I live, for me to show you where my stars is. It’s better that way. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. So you’ll like looking at all of them. They’ll all be your friends. And, besides, I am going to make you a present. Where I live, everything is very small. For true love is inexhaustible; the more you give, the more you have. and if you go to draw at the rule fountainhea, the more water you draw, the more abundant is its flow. So, wait for a time, exactly under the sta (fin)

Stanisław Barszczak, Witness of human faith.
The fact that he had turned onto CINTA COSTERA that day and saw the unfortunate window was a pure coincidence. It rained for nine months, and this week full of sunshine in the heat. However, it could have been a week, a month, or even a year later; and yet no, he went there that day. Of course, sooner or later he would go there anyway – in the end, whenever he visited the new city, he had to see every corner of it. At the beginning he set a very meticulous plan: go through the whole street from the beginning to the end, go back parallel, turn into the next – it was like walking through the avenues in the supermarket – but soon came to an intersection where something caught his attention and all good intentions. That’s how it happened when he got to via Espania, then via Porras (see the Parque Recreativo Omar Torrijos); although from the cities he has visited so far, New York was the most suitable for exploration in a systematic way; at least in the case of quarters north of Fourteenth Street, the chaos of Fourteenth Street South did not particularly bother him; it certainly was not worse there than in London, Rome, Paris, or even the Boston North End, and he loved to visit these places. He started his walk around Panama City from San Francisco district, Centro de Convenciones Atlapa; then he turned west on via Israel, then close to Multiplaza Mall, south on via Italia, until he reached the intersection with Avenida Balboa and then, enchanted by its beauty, he turned right. Basically there were no gardens, fountains or pavements with magnificent trees on the street; nor did it resemble Váci utca in Budapest, Champs-Élysées in Paris, or Lombard Street in San Francisco, but nevertheless it felt its unique character and rich history. It was a narrow, one-way street, remembering many events in the history of the city. On both sides there were low, mostly the multi-storey tower blocks from the second half of the 20th century, referring to the spirit of the era to the Pope John Paul II style. There were narrow fire escapes to the brick facades few houses here with floral motifs, arched windows and stone lintels, while all kinds of premises were located on the ground floor, from cozy cafes to branded clothing stores. There were also establishments with many years of tradition, such as a hair salon, art gallery and a suitcase store. Some of the display windows covered the metal blinds, which meant that the work day had already ended. He walked the middle of the Avenida Balboa, not caring about cars. From here he had the best view of the surrounding buildings; cars were not a problem for him. He could look ahead and sideways, he could also look back at any moment to learn and remember every detail, and if necessary, make a quick move. He was most interested in urban architecture – layout of buildings and infrastructure; but he did not pay much attention to the people he met. He did not want to talk; why should he talk to some young redheaded stranger who just stood on the corner and smoked a cigarette. He did not care what she wanted to express with her dress, consisting of a leather jacket, a short skirt, and probably intentionally torn black tights; he also had no intention of asking an athletic woman in a black baseball cap who had just passed him by going to the other side of the street, as she thought the Panama City people would manage this year. Baseball did not interest him at all. He was also not interested in why a dozen people with guides in their pockets listen to a woman standing in the middle of a group; I guess she was some kind of tour pilot and that’s it. When he reached Old City and Panama City Cathedral, his attention was drawn to the restaurant on the south-east corner of the street. She looked inviting. On the sidewalk in front of the apartment were white tables with yellow, plastic chairs, but no one sat there. “Come in and warm up,” read the inscription on the window at the entrance. He came closer and looked through the glass. Inside, people were drinking coffee, working on laptops, reading newspapers. The restaurant window reflected a car that he had seen before, not once, not twice, during his travels. A non-distinctive toyota car or something like that, with equipment on the roof. If he did not know where he came from, he would have thought that someone was following him. In any case, he did not want to worry about his head any more; he preferred to look at the guests in the restaurant for a moment longer. He wished he could go inside and drink a cafe latte or a cappuccino; he could almost smell the coffee, but he knew he had to go on; after all, he had a large piece of the world ahead of him, and time was short. The next day he intended to go to the Clayton, the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See, and if he could get enough of the city, who knows, maybe the day after tomorrow he could go to the Tocumen airport. And yet he knew that he would remember this place: an inscription on the window, tables and chairs outside, as well as other premises at Cinta Costera and narrow passages between the buildings. He will also remember everything he saw in the surrounding streets: from Calle 24 Este till Calle 45 Este. Everything, without exception. Suddenly, about a third of a quarter from the intersection with Parque Urraca, he looked up. And it was a real coincidence. The mere fact that he turned into Avenida Balboa was not a big deviation from his habits. In the end, he usually looked at the premises, read the inscriptions in the exhibition windows, memorized the house numbers, and often looked at the café’s regulars. However, he did not always look up buildings above the first floor. Sometimes he forgot about it, sometimes he did not have time. He might as well have passed the entire street and did not notice the window at all; just in this, not a different tenement house. What if it was not just a coincidence, just a peculiar kind of test? He knew that he would manage to be ready, but those who wanted to use his talents certainly needed convincing proof before cooperating. The window opened up was on the five floor, above the news-and newspaper kiosk – again the same car reflected in the glass – and a shop with aprons. Half of the bottom part of the window obscured the air conditioner. His attention was caught by something white, just above the air conditioner. At first glance it resembled a styrofoam head that can be seen in a department store or a hair salon. Strange that someone puts something like this in the window of their apartment, he thought. A bald head with no expression, holding a guard over City Costera. He came to the conclusion that absolutely everything can be found in the living windows of Panama City. At the owner’s place, he would at least have sun glasses that would give the head some personality; maybe a bit of eccentricity. Though, on the other hand, he had to admit that people did not really consider him an eccentric. However, the longer he looked, the less he was sure that he could see the styrofoam head. Its surface seemed more shimmering and even slippery. It looked rather like it was made of soft plastic, such as used for bags in the grocery store or matte covers for clothes from dry cleaners. He narrowed his eyes, straining his eyes. The white, almost round object in the window still resembled the shape of the head. Under the plastic sheath, something like the nose, forehead and chin, and even open lips were visible, as if someone was breathing hard. Or he seemed to shout loudly. It was not a white stocking superimposed on someone’s head; the gloss of the material indicated a different type of material. Who would be so foolish as to put a plastic bag on his head? In this way, you can easily suffocate. That someone would have to pull the plastic bag in the back of the head, otherwise the contours of the face would not be outlined. And yet there were neither hands nor arms. Or maybe… Did he become a witness to the murder? Has anyone just put a plastic bag on the victim’s head, wanting to strangle it, cut off the supply of oxygen? Did he see the outline of wide open mouths that desperately caught oxygen? Who was the victim? Man? Woman? Who was the murderer? Suddenly he remembered the two boys in “the window of village,” close to the village beach, many years ago. However, this time he was sure that he saw an adult person whose life was coming to an end. That’s what it looked like. He felt his heart beat harder. He has seen many during his travels; things that should not have happened. However, he had never witnessed a murder before. Yes, murders. He was certain now. He did not shout, he did not reach for his cell phone to call the police, he did not ask anyone for help, he did not run up the stairs to the second floor of the building to stop the drama going on. Instead, he simply stretched his hand shyly, as though hoping to touch the victim’s face from the five floor… He was so absorbed in what was happening in the window that he did not notice at first that someone was coming to the door. The door opened. “Vincent, get your ass and go,” someone shouted from the corridor. -What’s for supper tonight? – He asked. – Grilled hamburgers. “Okay,” said Thomas, the young man indifferently in front of the computer. His friend, Mr. TOMASZ, also had some kind of schizophrenia, he did not pay attention to car horns and people storing the street. Vincent, he got him last saturday. Mr Thomas spun around again in his chair to look again at the immobilized image of the window on the overly large computer screen… Did anyone else see it? Did anyone else look up? No one saw the boy in the window. Nobody looked up. Nobody helped him, Vincent thought. The man left a picture of the window on the computer screen so that he could return to it, in order to be able to return to it after dinner, and decide what to do next. (the story will follow soon)

Stanisław Barszczak, The successful Pole.

You still know all, I am Vincent and I came home to my Annette. Now she looked through the stack of photographs spread on the desk – all of them the same size, taken with the same camera, bright and hilarious. Annette sorted the pictures into four piles and put them in a thick one cardboard envelope. When they knocked on the door, she slid the envelopes into the bulkhead desks. – Please. Come in, Eve. He has already come?The girl came to the desk before answering her. In a stronger one in the light you could see that your face was tense and your eyes shiny. – It’s some other, alien. He says he wants to see you. – Impossible, Eve. You know who is coming today. – I told him that you can not. He says he probably knows you. – What is this one? – Such a slim pole, a little flooded. He says his name is Vincent. However Annette did not move or make a single voice, Eve she sensed that something was hurting her. Annette’s right hand fingers tightened slowly, and the left stuck like a scrawny cat toward the edge of the desk. She sat motionless, as if holding her breath. Eve suddenly began shake. Her mind ran to the chest of drawers stored in a drawer boxes in which her syringe lay. Annette finally said: – Sit there in a big armchair. Sit quiet for a moment. – when the girl did not move, Annette smacked her with one in a word: – Sit down! Eve cringed and went to the chair. – Do not get your nails. Ewa’s hands hung up and tightened on the arm-chairs. Annette stared at the green glass lampshade of the desk lamp. Later she made a movement so rapid that Eve jumped up and her lips twitched. Annette opened the drawer and took out the four-fold paper. – You have! Go to your room and take care. Just do not take everything at once … No, I do not trust you. She tapped the paper bag with her fingers and broke it in two; it bent the ends and handed one half to Eve, inside it spilled out some white powder. – Now hurry up! When you get downstairs, tell John that he has stand in the corridor close enough to hear the bell, but not conversation. Make sure you do not get stuck closer to me. If he hears the bell. No, tell him … or not; let him do as he thinks. Bring to me, Mr. Vincent. – You will not need anything? Annette stared at her, and Eve looked away. When Annette left she called after her: – You can get the other half when he comes out. Now hurry up. She pulled out the right drawer of the desk and took out a revolver of a short one barrel. She opened the eardrum, checked the cartridges, slammed it in, she laid the weapon on the desk and covered it with a sheet of paper. She turned off one lamp and improved in the chair. She folded her hands and rested them before on the desk. When there was a knock at the door, she said: – Come in! – barely moving lips. Eve’s eyes were moist and she was calmed down. There is this gentleman, she announced and closed the door behind Vincent. He glanced around the room quickly before he saw Annette sitting without traffic behind the desk. He stared at her, then slowly approached closer. Annette’s hands stretched out, and she pushed her right to the sheet of paper. Eyes, cold and expressionless, were fixed on his eyes. Vincent saw her hair, scar, lips, wrinkled neck, shoulders and hands, and flat breasts. He took a deep breath. Annette’s hand trembled slightly. – What do you want? He sat on a chair next to the desk. He wanted to shout with relief, but he answered only: – Nothing right now. I just wanted to see you. Samuel, he told me you were here. The moment he sat down, the tremor of her hand ceased. – You did not hear anything before? – No. I have not heard. At first, I was going crazy after this but now it’s gone. Annette breathed, her lips smiled, showing small teeth -long, sharp and white fangs. – You scared me. – Why? – Because I did not know what you would do. – I did not know either. Vincent kept staring at her, as if she was dead. – I’ve been expecting you for a long time, but because you do not you came, so I forgot about you somehow. – I have not forgotten you. But now I can. – How is it? He laughed. – Well, I mean now, when I saw you. You know, it seems it was Samuel who claimed I never saw you, and that is truth. I remember your face, but I have never seen it. Now her I can forget. Her lips tightened and pulled together, her eyes wide the cruel eyes were cruel. – You think so? – I know for sure. She changed her tone. – Maybe you will not have to. If you do not have any reservations, we could reach an agreement. – I do not think so. – You were so stupid! Just like a child. You did not know what you needed to do with each other. I can teach you now. You seem to be already man. – You taught me. It was a bitter lesson. – Would you like something? – Yes. – I feel your breath … you were drinking rum. She stood up and left… But for a while she came in again. -World to know how great You are, You came to the world as a little child, she then mentioned something like this. -Find out how large the Milky Way is, Vincent had spoken that. As you were born in Ontario, how big was it for you to join that team? So, the wound in his most gentle Heart, he said to her: “consider the immensity of my love: if you want to […] you will ask yourself: how big are these pieces I keep […] – What are the chances you will stick around and help […] -knowing / where you are, nor how, / you return with no path, […] – Annette, thank You that You came to show us how big and powerful and loving our God is. As one Little Vincent noted, “Something about living in a big city like New York makes you miss the stuff you grew up with, and in our case it was some of these songs. -No, by the time you’ve grown up, your doctor will be able to treat you on holiday using the latest technology…-You know now that we look into our own heart and realize that time with Trumpet will truly revive us as well as the Jewish people. Now that in Your love, wisdom and might You are about to open Gilgal in order to fulfill Your Word, will we not open our heart and give Israel some extra attention therefore raising Your name before her eyes […] For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy, Vincent seemed to continue…-You once said that, as an art historian, you grew up in an atmosphere in which breaking open a very specific paradigm was crucial, […] Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou [art] as a whale in the […] on you, with this virtue; you endured great trials for the sake of Our Name; and many who contradicted you were not able to break you; although from the exterior you appeared frail, I rendered you strong from within, proof that I am well within you, and that your virtue is indeed rooted in the Truth; as I have said, if you are rooted in Me, who am the Source of Divine Love, you will obtain the virtue of love, then[…] energies, for now you are being actively enlightened to discovering the unlimited potential of your emotions, your relationship with Spirit and with nature and this is how you continue to advance yourself in understanding the process of building fluid boundaries and merging all aspects of your consciousness with the great heart, mind and soul of Spirit. -Annette, You with that pure unconditional love, an energy that you are unfamiliar with in human form yet the very essence of you […] how thou hast left thy father and thy mother, and the land of thy nativity, and art come unto a people which thou knewest not heretofore.- Beloved kid!? “What do you want to be when you grow up? Delinquent children are not easily intimidated no matter how big you are. You are comfortable – just like a light summer breaze, ideal for a long day in the park or at the beach, with the deuce you are best equipped everywhere. The black sole comes with a strong […] You have to prayer to Jesus now.
A son of God, we acknowledge your greatness: all your actions show your wisdom and love. We are reading your last words, a son of God; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in [… ] so that you may adorn your whole being, within and without, in robes set about with variety, adorned with virtues like flowers and with garments every bit as ornate as those of the daughter and dearly beloved Bride of the Most High King, for this is only fitting. -Annette, you create Christian space. But there are forces in each age…I’m not conscious. My country, Poland allowed me become writer. My story would be impressive always. I wanted to write something what it was peculiar in my life. This kind od prejudices like free press, something od logic enlargement. It’s a seven words by me. The world is thinking… Annette, she got a bottle and two glasses from the cupboard, and when she turned, she noticed Vincent watching her greasy ankles. A sudden surge of rage did not put out the smirk that had she had on her lips. She went with the bottle to the round table in the middle of the room and filled it rum with both glasses. “Come, sit here,” she said. – It’s more comfortable here. When Vincent approached the large chair, she noticed that she was looking at her protruding belly. She handed him a glass, sat down and wrapped her hands on lap. Vincent still kept his glass so she said: – Drink it. It’s very good rum. – He smiled at her with a smile, which she has never seen before. – When Ewa informed me that here you are, I thought at first that I would have you thrown out. “I would be back,” he replied. – I had to see you … No that I would not believe Samuel, but I wanted to prove it myself. – Drink rum. He glanced at her glass .- You do not think I’m poisoning you … – She fell silent, that it was she said. Smiling still, he was looking at her glass. Annette’s anger he repainted her face. She lifted the glass and touched it lips. “Alcohol hurts me,” she explained. – I never drink. It’s for me it acts like a poison. She clenched her lips tightly and her sharp teeth bit her lower lip. Vincent was still smiling. Annette’s rage swelled, out of control. She poured liquor into her throat, coughing, her eyes moistened, she wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “You do not trust me very much,” she said. – Not. He picked up a glass, drank rum, then stood up and he filled both glasses. “I will not drink more,” she said with fear. – You do not need. I will drink and I will go. The burning alcohol burned her throat; she felt that she was speaking again in her something that frightened her. – I am not afraid of you or anyone. She bent the other one glass. – You have no reason to be afraid of me. You can ask for me forget. But you say you have already forgotten. – He got to know the miracle sense of warmth and security; he has not been so good for many years. – I came here for Samuel’s funeral. It was great man. I will miss it… Alcohol raged at Annette. She struggled with him, and the intensity of this struggle was visible in her face. – What’s wrong? – He asked. – I told you it poisons me. I told you that it hurts me. “I could not risk it,” he replied calmly. – It’s only once to me you shot. I do not know what else you were doing besides. – What do you mean? – I heard various rumors. Oh, dirty rumors. For a moment, she forgot her will with the circulating in her alcohol and at the moment lost the battle. It caught her in her brain red, fear has fled, and instead of it appeared obscene nothing cruelty. She grabbed a bottle and filled her glass. Vincent had to get up to pour himself. A feeling was born in him completely foreign to him. He enjoyed what he saw in her. With pleasure he watched her struggles. It was good for him to punish her, but he kept it vigilance. Now you have to be careful – he said to himself. Do not say anything. Do not speak. He said loudly: – Samuel H. was a good friend all these years. I will miss him. She spilled some rum; he dripped from the corners of his mouth. – I hated him. I would kill him if I could. – Why? He was good to us. – Because he looked … he was looking at me. – Why not? He also looked in me and helped me. “I hate him,” she snarled. – I’m glad he’s dead. – Maybe it would be better if I looked in you too. Her lips parted. – You are a fool. I do not hate you. You’re just weak fool. As tension grew in her, Vincent felt a warm calm. – Sit here and chew your teeth! She shouted. – You think that… It’s free now, eh? You’ve drunk a little and you think you’re a man! It would be enough for me to nod my little finger, and you would crawl to me, lapping, on my knees! – A sense of self has become self-conscious strength, she abandoned her fox caution. “I know you,” she continued. – I know your cowardly heart. Vincent was still smiling. He drank a little, which reminded Annette to pour myself again… You were a rag. And when I stopped needing you, you tried me stop. Take off your miserable smirk…(to be continued)

Stanislaw Barszczak, The successful Pole… In a little village I was watching Lake Maggiore in the snow, lonely shore avenue, nailed the little bar. Lake Maggiore had been before me in the snow, lonely shore avenue, nailed the little bar, where I was with you so many times. I call out to the lake, I’m alone, tell me why? The Laggo Maggiore in the snow, knows what happened, but he remains silent. Lake Maggiore in the snow, oh, the memory hurts. Last traces of the beautiful time, soon they are completely snowed. I call out to the lake, I’m alone, tell me why? Lake Maggiore in the snow, knows what happened, but he remains silent… Starry, starry night: Paint your palette blue and gray. Look out on a summer’s day. With eyes that know the darkness in my soul. Shadows on the hills. Sketch the trees and the daffodils; Catch the breeze and the winter chills In colors on the snowy linen land. What you tried to say to me, Now I understand What you tried to say to me, and how you suffered for your sanity. And how you tried to set them free. They would not listen; they did not know how. Perhaps they’ll listen now. Starry, starry night: Flaming flowers that brightly blaze; swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in Vincent’s eyes of china blue (I sung) Colors changing hue: Morning fields of amber grain, Weathered faces lined in pain are soothed beneath the artist’s loving hand. Now I understand What you tried to say to me, and how you suffered for your sanity. And how you tried to set them free. They would not listen; they did not know how. Perhaps they’ll listen now. For they could not love you But still, your love was true. And when no hope was left inside On that starry, starry night You took your life as lovers often do. But I could’ve told you, Vincent: This world was never meant For one as beautiful as you… Starry, starry night: Portraits hung in empty halls: Frameless heads on nameless walls With eyes that watch the world and can’t forget; Like the strangers that you’ve met: The ragged men in ragged clothes. The silver thorn, a bloody rose Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow. Now I think I know what you tried to say to me, And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free. They would not listen; they’re not listening still. Perhaps they never will… Suddenly this thought was over.

Maybe you’ll let me inside, I heard. The living room was lit by the dim light of the small spherical lamps with pink lampshades. I felt a fluffy rug under my feet. I saw gloss of polished furniture and gold frames of paintings. I experienced impressions wealth and order. A quiet voice said…

– You should have put on a raincoat. Are you ours customer? “No,” I said.

– Who brought you here? – Someone from the hotel. I looked at the girl in front of him. She was dressed for black, without any ornaments. Her face was pretty and sharp. He tried to remember what kind of animal, which nightmaid the plunderman she reminds him. It must have been a secretive and predatory animal. “If you wish, I will come closer to the light,” she said. – No. She laughed.

– Please, rest, here. You’ve come for something, right? If you tell me what you’re looking for, I’ll call the right girl. Her low voice had some precise, dry strength. She picked up words without hurry, just like the flowers mixed in a garden. I seemed clumsy to her. I am Vincent, I want to see Annette I said. – Miss Annette is busy right now. Does he expect you? – No. – Because, you know, I can take care of you too. – I want to see Annette. – Can I know what? – No. The girl’s voice took on the sharpness of the blade turned on the stone.

– You can not see her. She is busy now. If you are I do not want a girl or anything else, please leave. – Perhaps you will tell her that I am here. – Does she know you? – I do not know. I felt courage leaving me. She penetrated me again, old coolness. – I do not know. But maybe you will tell her that she would like to see Vincent. Then she will know whether she know him or not. – Oh. Okay, I’ll tell her.

She went quietly to the door on the right and opened it. I heard a few muffled words, then a man came into the room. The girl left the door open so I would know I were not alone. On the other side of the room, other suspended doors were heavy, dark drapes with on. The girl parted her heavy folds and disappeared. I sat on chair. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that the man’s head had appeared on a moment and she drew back. The private room of Annette was characterized by comfort and functionality. A room did not look like the one his neigbour had once lived in. A room had walls covered with safflower silk, and curtains of grassy color. Silk was everywhere, on deep armchairs covered with silk, lamps with silk lampshades, the depth of the wide bed with the dazzling white satin cover, on whose giant pillows were piled up. There were not any paintings on the walls, no photographs or personal trinkets. On the mahogany table top of the dressing table did not have any bottles or vials, next to the bed its glow reflected in the three-part mirror. The carpet was old, fluffy, Chinese, with a bright green dragon on a saffron background. One the end of the room was a bedroom, a center – a sitting room, and the other end -office; there were binder cabinets there, made of gold oak, large safe, black with gold lettering, and desk with a lowered flap, on it a double lamp with a green shade, behind the desk swivel chair, next to the usual chair.

Annette sat in a chair at the desk. She was still pretty. She was blond hair again, her lips small and firm, her lips bowed as always the corners up. Her silhouette, however, lost its former clean line. The arms rounded, but the hands lost weight and covered up wrinkles. Her cheeks were full, and her skin was chapped on her chin. Her breasts were still small, while her belly was slightly convex fat padding. Thighs remained slim, but legs and feet thickened so that the body over the ankle spilled on the shoes. And by the stockings were showing through the bands of a flexible bandage against varicose veins. Even so, she was pretty and charming. Her hands only really grow old; the skin on the inside of the palm and the pillows of her fingers was stretched and shiny, on the surface wrinkled and spotted brown spots. She was wearing a raw black dress with long sleeves, and the only contrast was the cascades of white lace at the neck and at the naps. Time has made his work imperceptibly. If someone were always with her he stayed, he probably would not notice any change at all. Annette’s cheeks did not have wrinkles, eyes were piercing and sharp, nose delicate, lips narrow and firm. The scar on her forehead became almost invisible…You gave the birth of a tribul child, I’ve told her finally.(to be continued)

Stanislaw Barszczak, The successful Pole… Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month at Carnaval Latino. The vibrant celebration of the National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15) ends in grand style on Saturday, October 13, with the 19th annual Carnaval Latino. The free festival is organized by the Hispanic American Musicians and Artists Cultural Association, and will have Latin music from different parts of the world, food and drink, art, and, of course, a parade. New Orleans has one of the oldest Hispanic communities in the country – which traces its beginnings to the Spanish rule that preceded the French – and all the way to the modern times, as the city is currently experiencing a robust influx of immigrants from Mexico, Honduras, and other parts of the Latin American world. The Carnaval started small 19 years ago as a way to celebrate Hispanic culture in New Orleans through music, food and art. Now it’s grown to include a parade, more food and art vendors, and the internationally acclaimed musicians from all over the world. The Carnaval attracts not just locals but visitors from outside New Orleans and Louisiana, and has become an essential part of the local celebration of the National Hispanic Heritage Month. The festivities will be kicked off with the annual Parade of the Americas, or “Desfile De Las Americas,” a fun and unique way to celebrate the city’s tricentennial and the National Hispanic Heritage Month. The pre-parade party starts at 2 p.m. in the Washington Square Park (700 Elysian Fields Ave.), featuring DJs and authentic Latin cuisine from the local vendors including Los Jefes and Agave House. The parade will form on Elysian Fields Avenue by Washington Square Park by 6 p.m. It’s only fitting that the parade will roll through the historic French Quarter, described on the festival’s website as the most Hispanic neighborhood of a country, rebuilt from the ashes of two great fires by the Spanish Governors of Louisiana in the late 1700s. Just like in the previous year, the Krewe of Quetzal will roll with about 20 floats, many with their own personalized throws. The floats will be accompanied by the marching folkloric groups and bands, all featuring costumes that celebrate national roots. Don’t miss the opportunity to check out the eye-catching handcrafted float designs and colorful pageantry representing various Latin countries like Cuba, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and more. The parade will go down Decatur Street from its starting point on Elysian Fields, making its way to Canal Street, and eventually ending in the Warehouse District at Generations Hall, a spacious event venue and a former sugar refinery built in the early 1820s. There, the festivities will continue with the Latin music concert featuring a lineup of international and local bands that will be playing traditional folk music, salsa, mambo, and more — to get the festival-going on their feet and dancing. For more information on the parade route, the Grand Marshall and this year’s Queen, as well as other special updates and tickets, please visit the festival’s website and Facebook page. Be “en ese número”! How to Spend Valentine’s Day in the French Quarter. This city’s sensual charms are undisputed, as New Orleans had been consistently rated as one of big City arround the whole world. Plan your trip to New Orleans with the official French Quarter travel site. We give you the inside scoop on where to eat, stay, and play. Join us for a good time. You can see BATTLE OF FLOWERS also in Europe, Nice. Saturday, February 16, 2019 PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS This event represents a unique show in the world, it is one of the most famous festivals of the Côte d’Azur. On each float, costumed models launch up to 100,000 flowers to the public. CORSO CARNAVALESQUE ILLUMINE Saturday, February 16, 2019 PLACE MASSÉNA – GARDEN ALBERT 1ER On the Place Masséna, the visual animations are broadcast on large screens. In the evening , all the tanks are lit, the corso then illuminates the heart of Nice…So, you imagine, twenty-seven years ago, I was at the Nice festival. But it could be quite different, another festival, let’s say it, like a festival in New Orleans etc. As I said on another occasion, I was not special in Nice. I just wanted to start living for her … Let me tell you about my meeting with Aneta, my wife in the next future. (to be continued)

Stanislaw Barszczak, The successful Pole…

Most people were good people if you just treated them well… Time, as far as my mother was concerned, was a gift you gave to other people. From time to time she patiently endured gossip and long litanies of health woes, and nodded knowingly at stories about how money was tight. Though, our stories connected us to one another, and through those connections, it was possible to harness discontent and convert it to something useful, I ponder… In my youth I watched my fellows in the flow of a sweaty game with a group of boys on the adjacent school corner. Everyone seemed to fit in, except for me. I look back on the discomfort of that moment now and recognize the more universal challenge of squaring who you are with where you come from and where you want to go. I also realize that I was a long way, still, from finding my voice… Then I saw Saint parish priest, reverend father E.Liszka. He was not like anyone we’d dated before, mainly because he seemed so secure. He was openly affectionate. He ‘told about me’ I was beautiful. He made feel good on Christian community… For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open then my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice… My mother maintained the sort of parental mind-set that I now recognize as brilliant and nearly impossible to emulate – kind of unflappable Zen neutrality… She wasn’t quick to judge and she wasn’t quick to meddle. Instead, she monitored my moods and bore benevolent witness to whatever travails or triumphs a day might bring… When I’d done something great, I received just enough praise to know she was happy with me, but never so much that it became the reason I did what I did… I wasn’t particularly imaginative in how I thought about the future, which is another way of saying I was already thinking about theology school… Listening to the catholic church, I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck. I was gripped all over again by a sense of how special he was. Slowly, all around me, too, the church ladies began nodding their approval, punctuating my sentences with call “That’s right!” I here knew father S.Konczyk. His voice climbed in intensity as he got to the end of his pitch. He wasn’t a preacher, but he was definitely preaching something -a vision. He was making a bid for our investment. Once day he took me to minor seminary. The choice, as he saw it, was this: You give up or you work for change. “What’s better for us?” Father Konczyk seemed to call to me: “Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?” Then as a priest I traveled abroad. Because I also wanted to make sure that when I visited a new place as a priest, I really visited it -meaning that I’d have a chance to meet the people who actually lived there, not just those who governed them. Traveling abroad, I had opportunities that father Konczyk didn’t. I woke one night to find him staring at the ceiling, his profile lit by the glow of streetlights outside. He looked vaguely troubled, as if he were pondering something deeply personal. Was it our relationship? The loss of my uncle? “Oh,” she said to me. “I was just thinking about income inequality.”This, I was learning, was how Mom’s mind worked. She got himself fixated on big and abstract issues, fueled by some crazy sense that she might be able to do something about them. It was new to me, I have to say. Until now, I’d hung around with good people who cared about important enough things but who were focused primarily on building their careers and providing for their families. Mom was just different. She was dialed into the day-to-day demands of her life, but at the same time, especially at night, her thoughts seemed to roam a much wider plane… And my tante… So far in my life, she’s been like a lawyer, she’s been a vice president at a hospital and the director of a nonprofit that helps young people build meaningful careers… And until recently, she was like the First Lady of the Poland- a job that’s not officially a job, but that nonetheless has given me a platform like nothing I could have imagined. It challenged me and humbled me, lifted me up and shrank me down, sometimes all at once. I’m just beginning to process what took place over these years- from the moment in 1967 when her husband and at once my uncle first started talking about running and finishing for the see. Some people handed over their savings and borrowed too much, ending up with a nice home but no freedom at all. This not a case of my uncle… After my parish work I was in the Convent of the good brothers of Saint John of God several years. I had spent there more than a year writing a draft of the book by Paul Ricoeur during the hours I wasn’t at one of my sacerdotal jobs. I worked late at night in a small room the Convent of brothers of Saint John of Gór had converted to a study at the rear of their apartment. I’d sometimes go in my mind in, you imagine, stepping over the piles of paper to sit on the ottoman in front of his chair while I worked, trying to lasso that with a joke and a smile, to tease me back from whatever far-off fields I’d been galloping then through. The brothers of Saint John of God were good-humored about my intrusions, but only if I didn’t stay too long… I’ve come to understand, I am the sort of person who needs a hole, a closed-off little warren where I can read and write undisturbed. It’s like a hatch that opens directly onto the spacious skies of my brain. Time spent there seems to fuel me. In deference to this, we’ve managed in the church to create some version of a hole inside every home we’ve ever lived in – any quiet corner or alcove will do. To this day, when I arrive at a parish house I go off looking for an empty room that can serve as the vacation hole. There, I can flip between the six or seven books I’m reading simultaneously and toss my newspapers on the floor. For me, the hole is a kind of sacred high place, where insights are birthed and clarity comes to visit. For my friends, it’s an off-putting and disorderly mess. One requirement has always been that the Hole, wherever it is, have a door… As a Christian I always wanted to align myself with different foundations and food suppliers to install thousand salad bars in school cafeterias and were recruiting local chefs to help schools serve meals that were not just healthy but tasty. Though this no matter, because I have had no money to fulfill the chance, no idea of that. (to be continued)

Stanisław Barszczak, The successful Pole (part 3) As you know then I went on the Parish. I met as reverend as jocular Priest there. All this inborn confidence was admirable, of course, but honestly, try living with it. My parish priest, also named Stanislaw Pytlawski, was decidedly less fun to be around, a patriarch who’d sit in his recliner with a newspaper open on his lap and the evening news blaring on the television nearby. His demeanor was nothing like my mother’s. For him, everything was an irritant. He was galled by the day’s headlines, by the state of the world as shown on TV. Then he also mumbled something to himself most often. He shouted at housekeeper in the kitchen, a sweet, soft-spoken woman and devout Christian named also Stanislawa. She cooked his meals and absorbed his barrage of complaints and said nothing in her own defense generally. I will not forget her small figure … and wooden shoes never. I had a grandmother on the parish, Mrs. Helena Giełzak. Once she could not stand it, I remember, she screamed when the parish priest took her bread from her hand. By day, in her off-hours with parish priest, she was reduced to a meekness I found perplexing, even as a young vicar. There was something about my grandmother’s silence and passivity in her relationship with parish priest that got under my skin. According to my mother, a grandmother Helene was the only person to talk back to priest when he yelled. I did it regularly, from the time I was very young vicar and over many years, in part because it drove me crazy that my grandmother wouldn’t speak up for herself, in part because everyone else fell silent around him, and lastly because I liked parish prist as much as he confounded me. His stubbornness was something I recognized, something I’d inherited myself, though I hoped in a less abrasive form. The parish priest was a holistic but very good-natured. He was also deep. For me, coexisting with Father’s strong sense of purpose – sleeping in the same room with it, sitting at the breakfast table with it – was something to which I had to adjust, not because he flaunted it, exactly, but because it was so alive. In the presence of his certainty, his notion that he could make some sort of difference in the world. His sense of Christian purpose seemed like an unwitting challenge to my own…So, there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. And you tell about them. This, for me, is how we become… Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be? It was a phrase borrowed from a book I’d read when I first started out as an organizer, a vicar priest and it would stay with me for years. It was as close as I’d come to understanding what motivated the Pope. The world as it should be. Now another thing. I can hurt you and get away with it. Women endure entire lifetimes of these indignities – in the form of catcalls, groping, assault, oppression. These things injure us. They sap our strength. Some of the cuts are so small they’re barely visible. Others are huge and gaping, leaving scars that never heal. Poland is not a simple place. Its contradictions set me spinning. I’d found myself at Catholic church. For the Archbishop had been an empathic and patient listener, coaxing each of us through the maze of our feelings, separating out our weapons from our wounds. He cautioned us when we got too lawyerly and posited careful questions intended to get us to think hard about why we felt the way we felt. Slowly, over hours of talking, the knot began to loosen. Each time Archbishop and I left his office, we felt a bit more connected. I began to see that there were ways I could be happier and that they didn’t necessarily need to come from Archbishop’s quitting spiritual politics in order to take some happier job. (If anything, our counseling sessions had shown me that this was an unrealistic expectation.) I began to see how I’d been stoking the most negative parts of myself. It was possible that I was more in charge of my happiness than I was allowing myself to be. That time I was too busy resenting Archbishop for managing to fit workouts into his schedule, for example, to even begin figuring out how to exercise regularly myself. This was my pivot point, my moment of self-arrest. Like a climber about to slip off an icy peak, I drove my ax into the ground. That isn’t to say that Archbishop didn’t make his own adjustments – counseling helped him to see the gaps in how we communicated, and he worked to be better at it – but I made mine, and they helped me, which then helped us. For starters, I recommitted myself to being healthy. This new regimen changed everything: Calmness and strength, two things I feared I was losing, were now back. So many of my friends judged potential mates from the outside in, focusing first on their looks and financial prospects. If it turned out the person they’d chosen wasn’t a good communicator or was uncomfortable with being vulnerable, they seemed to think time would fix the problem. But Archbishop arrived in my life a wholly formed person. From our very first conversation, he’d shown me that he wasn’t self-conscious about expressing fear or weakness and that he valued being truthful. I wasn’t going to let one person’s opinion dislodge everything I thought I knew about myself. Instead, I switched my method without changing my goal. Archbishop was serious without being self-serious. He was breezy in his manner but powerful in his mind. It was a strange, stirring combination. Surprising to me, too, was how well he knew Czestochowa and her thumping parishes from the very beginning. His task was to help rebuild neighborhoods and bring back jobs. As he described it, it had been two parts frustration to one part reward: He’d spend weeks planning a community meeting, only to have a dozen people show up. His efforts were scoffed at by diocese leaders. Yet over time, he’d won a few incremental victories, and this seemed to encourage him. Despite my resistance to the hype that had preceded him, I found myself admiring Archbishop for both his self-assuredness and his earnest demeanor. He was refreshing, unconventional, and weirdly elegant. I was deeply, delightfully in love with a man whose forceful intellect and ambition could possibly end up swallowing mine… As mine the parents od mine, they didn’t own a house. I were their investment. Everything went into me. Mom, I don’t think my mother announced whatever her doubts and discontents were to my father directly, and I don’t think she let him in on whatever alternative life she might have been dreaming about during those times. Was she picturing herself on a tropical island somewhere? With a different kind of man, or in a different kind of house, or with a corner office instead of kids? I don’t know, and I suppose I could ask my mother, who is in her eighties, but I don’t think it matters… So, optics would always rule our lives. Though this was not me and never would be. I could be supportive, but I couldn’t be a robot. As a priest I was determined to be someone who told the truth, using my voice to lift up the voiceless when I could, and to not disappear on people in need. There were moments when the beauty of my country and its people so overwhelmed me that I couldn’t speak. Then once spring day it was over. Even if you see it coming, even as your final weeks are filled with emotional good-byes, see Konopiska, Rząśnia, Sosnowiec parishes, Zabkowice village and settlement in Kozłowek, Cracow. One priest’s furniture gets carried out while another’s comes in. Closets are emptied and refilled in the span of a few hours. Just like that, there are new heads on new pillows – new temperaments, new dreams. And when it ends, when you walk out the door that last time from the world’s most famous address, you’re left in many ways to find yourself again. So let me start here, with a small thing that happened not long ago. I was at home in the redbrick house that my family recently moved into. Our ‘new house’ sits about two hundred miles from our old house, on a quiet neighborhood street. We’re still settling in. In the priest room, our furniture is arranged the same way it was in the parish. We’ve got mementos around the house that remind us it was all real – photos of Mom and his child, a hand made pots given to me by wife of a parishman, a book signed by Professor Joseph Tischner. This latter, unspoken was the fact that he could just go. He could walk out the door and catch a cab to the airport and still make it to Vienna in time to vote. He could leave his mother and fretting host of the house halfway across the Mediterranean Sea and go join his colleagues. It was an option. But I wasn’t going to martyr myself by suggesting it… What was strange about this night was that a mother wouldn’t and everyone was gone. It was just me, and empty house like I haven’t known in tventy years. Everything but was not lost. This was the message we needed to carry forward. It’s what I truly believed. It wasn’t ideal, but it was our reality – the world as it is. We needed now to be resolute, to keep our feet pointed in the direction of progress. Archbishop, I wanted to believe that there was a man who’d materialize and become everything to me, who’d be solid and whose effect would be so immediate and deep that I’d be willing to rearrange my priorities. It just wasn’t the man standing in front of me right now… I knew from my own life experience that when someone shows genuine interest in your learning and development, even if only for ten minutes in a busy day, it matters. It matters especially for women, for minorities, for anyone society is quick to overlook… to be continued.

Stanisław Barszczak, The successful Pole (part 3)

Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child: what do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end. It’s no matter. My beloved George, if you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others. For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey never does end. Everyone on Earth, they’d tell us, was carrying around an unseen history, and that alone deserved some tolerance. You imagine that, for every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. This, for me, is how we become. Failure is a feeling long before it becomes an actual result. It’s vulnerability that breeds with self-doubt and then is escalated, often deliberately, by fear. So, I write a story. My story is what I have, what I will always have. It is something to own. Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be? The latter one’s would be always my last word… I’d loved my mom. You see, relationships of any woman I will tell you, are built of a thousand small kindnesses… swapped back and forth and over again. Mom had liked to watch television, to listen to radio. Since childhood, I wanted Poles to understand that words matter, that the hateful language they heard coming from their TVs did not reflect the true spirit of our country and that we could vote against it. It was dignity I wanted to make an appeal for- the idea that as a nation we might hold on to the core thing that had sustained my family, going back generations. Dignity had always gotten us through. It was a choice, and not always the easy one, but the people I respected most in life made it again and again, every single day. There was a motto Mom and I tried to live by. Then Mom had died. It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurts to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth. Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you’d otherwise find beautiful- a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids- and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way. Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued, when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness, I sometimes guess. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t “bad kids.” They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances… So, then I knew good men. Time, as far as them was concerned, was a gift I gave to other people. Professor of the russian language, he’d been a citizen of Warsaw. His money went largely toward books, which to him were like sacred objects, providing ballast for his mind. At seventy-four, he’s still in progress, and I hope that he always will be. I also had met the women, for example emotional Professor of mathematics. It’s remarkable how a stereotype functions as an actual trap. How many “Polish women” have been caught in the circular logic of that phrase? When you aren’t being listened to, why wouldn’t you get louder? If you’re written off as angry or emotional, doesn’t that just cause more of the same? When it came to the home-for holiday, I installed new boundaries, ones that worked better for me and Mom. It went back to my wishes to grow up strong and centered and also unaccommodating to any form of old-school patriarchy. We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient. In my childhood I’d stared at my neighbourhood, people of village. Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different. In church of ours once day I wanted to say to them: Let’s invite one another in. Maybe then we can begin to fear less, to make fewer wrong assumptions, to let go of the biases and stereotypes that unnecessarily divide us. Maybe we can better embrace the ways we are the same. It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about where you get yourself in the end. There’s power in allowing yourself to be known and heard, in owning your unique story, in using your authentic voice. And there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. So, this may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path (the my- isn’t -that-impressive path) and keep you there for a long time. For this I battle in my mind in order to get people good. We all play a role in the Polish democracy. We need to remember the power of every vote. I continue, too, to keep myself connected to a force that’s larger and more potent than any one election, or leader, or news story – and that’s optimism. For me, this is a form of faith, an antidote to fear. As a priest I met then the Pope. I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stick place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck. The Pope Francis intrigued me. He was not like anyone I’d dated before, mainly because he seemed so secure. However, the Pope and his house in Rome, he was openly affectionate. He told me never I was beautiful. He but made me feel good. To me, he was sort of like a unicorn – unusual to the point of seeming almost unreal. He never talked about material things, like buying a house or a car or even new shoes. He would read late into the night, I ponder, often long after I’d fallen asleep, plowing through history and biographies and John Paul II, too. He also would read tweeter on internet, and several newspapers daily, cover to cover, and kept tabs on the latest book reviews. He could speak with equal passion about the Polish elections and which movies had panned and why. I love people. I didn’t want them ever to believe that life began when the man of the house arrived home. So, Mom came back home after her work in factory od glass. We but didn’t wait for Dad. It was his job to catch up with us. He’d been Profesor of agriculture in Cracow, had remained so far from us… Years later, after I’d met a Catholic church, Poland, my homeland would bring to me the same questions you are unconsciously putting to me that night on this chinese stoop: Are you what you appear to be? Now you see, I exactly want to establish myself for evermore. You don’t really know how attached you are until you move away, until you’ve experienced what it means to be dislodged, a cork floating on the ocean of another place. In my blinding drive to excel, in my need to do things perfectly, I’d missed the signs and taken the wrong road. But my first months at Caritas house gave me a glimpse of something that had previously been invisible – the apparatus of privilege and connection, what seemed like a network, ready to connect some but not all of us to the sky. I don’t belong under minority and underprivileged people that rise to the challenge all the time. But it takes energy to be the only one person trying out for a play or joining an intramural team. It requires effort, an extra level of confidence, to speak in those settings and own your presence in the Czestochowa diocese room. Which is why when my friend and I found one another at dinner time each occasion, it was with some degree of relief. It’s why we stayed a long time and laughed as much as we could. It’s also a sensation I’ve come to love as I’ve traveled more, the way a new place signals itself instantly and without pretense. The air has a different weight from what you’re used to. The same sun comes up, but looking slightly different from what you know. Here’s a memory, which like most memories is imperfect and subjective, collected long ago like a beach pebble and slipped into the pocket of my mind. Dominance, even the threat of it, is a form of dehumanization. It’s the ugliest kind of power. So, in different moments, I’d felt overwhelmed by the pace, unworthy of the glamour, anxious about the Christians, and uncertain of my purpose. There are pieces of public life, of giving up one’s privacy to become a walking, talking symbol of a Christian, that can seem specifically designed to strip away part of your identity. But here, finally, speaking to myself I ask you: Are you good enough? And I answer this question, at once I’m not. Another day I am speaking: Yes, you are, all of you. I told the friends that they’d touched my heart. I told them that they were precious, because they truly were. And when my talk was over, I did what was instinctive. I hugged absolutely every single Christian I could reach… My Mom, she taught me to work hard, laugh often, and keep my word. My mother showed me how to think for myself and to use my voice. Together, in our cramped apartment on the district of Dąbrowa Górnicza, Mom, the Priests of village, Professors and their love of books, they helped me see the value in our story, in my story, in the larger story of our country. Even when it’s not pretty or perfect. Even when it’s more real than you want it to be. Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own. I’ve been lucky enough now in my life to meet all sorts of extraordinary and accomplished people – world leaders, inventors, musicians, astronauts, athletes, professors, entrepreneurs, artists and writers, pioneering doctors and researchers. Some (though not enough) of them are women. Some (though not enough) are black or of color. Some were born poor or have lives that to many of us would appear to have been unfairly heaped with adversity, and yet still they seem to operate as if they’ve had every advantage in the world. What I’ve learned is this: All of them have had doubters. Some continue to have roaring (sic). The noise doesn’t go away, but the most successful people I know have figured out how to live with it, to lean on the people who believe in them, and to push onward with their goals. One summer day when I was about ten, I sat on a stoop, chatting with a group of teenagers my age. We were all very young, in shorts and basically just killing time. What were we discussing? It could have been anything – school, our older brothers, an anthill on the ground. At one point, one of the boys gave me a sideways look and said, just a touch hotly, “You must get up earlier.” The question was pointed, meant as an insult or at least a challenge, but it also came from an earnest place. It held a kernel of something that was confusing for both of us. We seemed to be related but of two different worlds. “I don’t,” I said, looking scandalized that he’d even suggest it and mortified by the way the other boys were now staring at me. But I knew what he was getting at. There was no denying it, even if I just had. I did speak differently than some of teenagers my age. Though we were taught to finish off our words. Mom bought me a dictionary and a full Encyclopaedia Polonica set, which lived on a shelf in “our apartment,” its titles etched in gold. The idea was I were to transcend, to get myself further… Then mid the eighties last century my Seminary was over. I went on the Parish. I met as reverend as jocular Priest there. All this inborn confidence was admirable, of course, but honestly, try living with it. For me, coexisting with Father’s strong sense of purpose—sleeping in the same room with it, sitting at the breakfast table with it – was something to which I had to adjust, not because he flaunted it, exactly, but because it was so alive. In the presence of his certainty, his notion that he could make some sort of difference in the world. His sense of Christian purpose seemed like an unwitting challenge to my own…So, there’s grace in being willing to know and hear others. And you tell about them. This, for me, is how we become…to be continued.