Papa, can you hear me?

Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been almost twenty years. One day it seems like everything happened yesterday and the other – as though the centuries had passed. Isn’t it strange?

I grew up overnight. I like changes in my life as I believe they drag you out of the comfort zone and make you learn all the time, but this time it was too much… I went fishing with my daddy only to come back all alone and get scared beyond imagination.

Still, as the adage goes: what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. The special bond between us, as solid as a rock, came to my rescue. When the ambulance driver refused to help the nurses carry my dad on the stretcher because, as he said ‘there’s no use, it’s going to be over soon. We are in the middle of nowhere, we’re not going to make it to the hospital ’I mustered all my strength to speak politely and very clearly: ‘Please help, this is my dad.’ I was so glad I managed to say it calmly as it really worked – he looked at me strangely but rushed to help. Well, only later did I learn that in fact I was screaming – my friends who were on the skirt of the forest were able to find us after they heard my yells… Isn’t everything relative?

While the ambulance was taking dad to the hospital, I was kneeling next to him stroking his thick, curly, grayish hair and begged, whispering: “Breathe on, please, breathe on…” Late at night, curled on a hospital balcony and smoking constantly, I was praying: ‘God, please, don’t take him away from me… Let him stay here… No matter what condition he is going to be in, I’ll look after him with all the love he has given and taught me. Please, God, please…’ Young people are very selfish, aren’t they?

All the shooting stars
fell down in August
They smashed
So quickly
I didn’t have time
to make a single wish

Now the night is dark
The ships run aground
I’m lost again

It’s funny, but I don’t really remember at least the five years that followed… I was living in some haze, now I can recall only shreds of memories: sleeping a lot, university, exams, my first job, keeping busy, keeping very busy, keeping very very busy… It helped to deaden the pain because tears couldn’t – my body just refused to cry. It was tearing me up inside. Some people said: ‘How strong you are! Talk about it, cry!’ I’m not sure if I really was that strong. There were just so many things I had to take care of. Moreover, I could neither talk nor cry. There were no words to express what I felt. For the first time in my life I ran out of words…

But I remember sitting next to him when he was lying in the hospital bed. I gave the doctors a hard time as actually I wasn’t allowed to be in the ER. Still, there was no way to drag me out of there. Eventually, they gave up as I promised to obey all the rules.

Daddy was unconscious but he must have heard me whispering all the stories and memories of our great life together. His giving me a piggyback ride every time my legs were killing me. The shorts I sewed for him every year. His fatherly pride and admiration when I was wearing the clothes I made myself. His patient voice explaining coordinate geometry to me for the thousandth time and taking me for a walk when I had enough. The blue stilettos he bought me when I was feeling down, just to cheer me up... I have never worn anything blue in my life! Fishing. Singing and playing the guitar by the fire. Our late night conversations about life, school, future. Talking over the problems I was facing, heated arguments about trivial and important things. Wordless communication. His Sunday driving me off to the train station when I was at university an hour earlier because we just wanted to sit in silence and smoke together. Our waltzing at my sister’s wedding reception. Our last waltz, actually…

Then I asked him not to worry about me. I promised that he would be proud of me. Actually, I needn’t have said that. He was always proud of me anyway.

It’s another Christmas without you … But I promised I’d manage the best I could… And you know I have and I will…

Devoted ambers, vivacious emeralds…

‘I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze. But I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.’

Forrest Gump is my hero. The character so simple and powerful at the same time. An anchor for people floating around him though he never realized that. Some appeared in his life for seconds, others for years , all of them were touched by his innocence. A parable of a great human life.

Lately I’ve been devoting a lot of thought to friendship. I’ve been blessed with a great number of friends in my life and this number has increased greatly in recent times. And I will never stop being grateful for that.

Friendship is the core of life. Everything essential comes from it. You make friends with your childhood toys, your pet, the landscapes that surround you, your work. The whole knowledge of life comes from it. Or the lack of it if you don’t…

People are the crucial part here, of course. The anchors. Or the sails. They come and go, some of them stay for life, others just pass by, but never leaving you indifferent. Sometimes you think they are going to be here forever and it hurts when they aren’t but pain is as natural as death as a part of life is…







Looking back, I recall all these faces and all these eyes my world reflected in then. My first high school love… Endless conversations, support, the first sparkles of passion… He dwarfed me and I sank in his broad shoulders when he hugged me and whispered in my ear: ‘I’m sorry, I can’t handle that. You are at least three sizes bigger than I am, I’m never going to keep up with you…’ When we meet now, once in a blue moon, a glance is enough to know that the friendship is still there…

And another friend, a very special one. He has been exceptional for many different reasons. We knew from the start that our time together was limited and very short although I think we both pretended it wasn’t or just didn't want to think about it. And perhaps that’s why we wanted to make the best use of our time trying to learn each other as much as possible. The real kindred spirits. The conversations by the fire, in the cloud of cigarette smoke… ‘God made the world simple, it’s us who complicate things.’ ‘Nothing happens without a reason.’ One finished the sentences started by the other. Jumping from subject to subject as if we’d wanted to cheat the time and manage to share it all. Jokes and fun. And the passion sparkling beneath which exploded afterwards… And later - longing, hankering, and lots of unsatisfied needs which neither of us could or wanted to satisfy… And then the silence came… Predictable, but painful… Still, what I got is invaluable now and experiences enriching your life are worth the high price you pay.


There was a little string in me
tiny
silent
untouched.
One night
it sounded million colors.
Thank you.


Recently I’ve been blessed which other special people who came into my life. Now they are far away from me but it doesn’t mean they are not with me. As one of them wrote: ‘Good friends are like stars. You don’t always see them but you know they are somewhere there just for you.’ Professional acquaintances turned out to be real kindred spirits and the bond between us is the foundation you can build on. For many years to come, I hope…


And there are friends who have just always been and you know that they will. The certainty. The rock. The bond between you is the absolute. Unconditioned acceptance of who you are. Support every night and day. Doubled joy and pain divided into two. There are no words to describe it. Everything would be a cliché. I just want to thank you, Agnieszko…





Friends are like jewels. They enrich your life and adorn it. You can live without them but then you are just plain. They shine in the sun and sparkle in the dark. They can cut like a diamond and make you bleed like a ruby, be soft and warm like an amber or just render you speechless like a sapphire, my favorite. (By the way, did you know that sapphires change color when you have been betrayed?) And there is a long list of them, the gems of different colors and structures, precious stones and talismans which bring you luck and change your life so that it will never be the same. It doesn’t matter how long they will stay, though it's natural you want them to be with you as long as possible. Still, what you get is the EXPERIENCES – the tissue your life is made of.

Feline beauty

They came into my life unexpectedly. Totally uninvited,
they found a way to my heart and soul and conquered me.
I surrendered completely.

Sonia on her observation spot.

I was spending my summer at my in-laws’ summer house soaking up the sun and enjoying freedom. One day I noticed something moving under a thick spruce growing behind a row of roses. I came closer and saw the neighbor’s cat with her kittens settled comfortably on the soft grass in the cool shade of the branchy tree. Well, she was so wise! It was a safe, cozy place for her kids, far from noisy people and the madly barking dog. She looked at me smartly and - believe me! – winked at me and smiled before she stretched herself lazily to let her kids reach her breasts, swollen with milk. I winked back at her, promising to keep the secret and backed down.

I'm soooo tired!

Sonia was the last of the litter. She could fit on my palm. Weak, barely seeing, clumsy, she couldn’t thrust her way through the crowd of her siblings to get milk. While the six of them were running playfully on the grass, she was lying on the side or crawling, moaning or meowing quietly. Your heart was breaking when you looked at it, really. What could I do?

Another observation spot.

First she licked the droplets of milk off my fingertips. Then she started drinking , finally, she was able to eat cat’s food. She was getting stronger and stronger. By the time the summer was over she had gained a lot of weight and looked much healthier.

Well, the summer was almost over and coming back to the city was unavoidable, though I wasn’t very willing to do it. I had to change the spacious countryside to a cramped two-room apartment. The cat was the last thing I should bring there. Still, ”when a Cat adopts you there is nothing to be done about it except put up with it until the wind changes”. It was T.S. Eliot who said that and he was definitely much smarter than me. And if even HE couldn’t do anything about it, I felt completely justified.

I'm disarmed! And disarming...

The moment she entered the apartment it was obvious who was the master there. We, of course! And I learned quickly that dogs obey their masters and masters obey their cats… And it’s been like that since then.

She moves like a queen moves. Dignity and grace embodied. If she chooses to sleep in the armchair, there is no way to persuade her into leaving it and letting anybody take the place. It’s her that decides on the time of playing and how long she is going to give us this privilege for. We can stroke her only when she feels like it and if she doesn’t, she expresses her dissatisfaction as directly as possible, leaving red marks on our hands – the sad keepsake of her sharp teeth and claws.

Kacper in my armchair. Well, I had to find another place...

The following year the story repeated itself. This time Kacper turned out to be the weakest of the litter and needed help, so…

Sonia wasn’t very happy about that – after all she had to give a part of her territory to some younger guy that appeared out of nowhere. She had a very hard time in the beginning but well, she had no choice but to accept the reality.

Kacper's observation spot in the hall.

Kacper is different. Ingratiating, looking for our company. At night I can feel him making himself comfortable on my belly, legs or the side, purring softly. Typical male. The leader. The ruler. Always the first to the bowl while Sonia is waiting patiently for her turn.

I'm sooo thirsty!!!

He loves sleeping in the washbasin and there is no way of getting rid of him from there so we have to use the bathtub tap or the kitchen one when we want to wash our hands. But when he gets stuck in the bathroom because someone has forgotten to leave the door open, the poor thing can’t manage, he just starts meowing miserably and calls on aid. And who comes to help him? Sonia, of course! She just jumps on the bathroom doorknob and saves the poor fellow!

Kacper's highest observation spot: on a speaker, just below the ceiling.

And this is how all of us live under one roof. I can only quote after the Cheshire Cat from Alice in the Wonderland: "You can't help that. We're all mad here."