Plums in Poland

This time of year, plums abound. I love a fresh gooey plum cobbler or plum dumplings. In many a backyard garden, plum trees are fully of heavy ripe fruit. I just loved to go on a walkabout and pick plums from the paths where they fell and made themselves readily available to the passing public. Or, wait for a family member to pick from their tree and make dumplings which are best served with a heavy cream sauce on the side and sprinkle of sugar.

Surprised and Not Surprised When in Poland

Just back from Wisla!

I love Polish Mountains and though Wisla is not as high in terms of elevation as Tatry, they are beautiful, peaceful and truly Polish. I read fancy articles that talk about Poland's transformation and I can agree a lot has changed due to foreign investment and EU membership but somethings just don't change in Poland and in Polish hearts and minds especially in Polish Mountains. Its all about being Polish. I wish more countries in the world including this one would take note that cultural homogeneity is a good thing.

Of course, there is always the good, bad and ugly of that kind of homogeneity but so is there more within a diverse mixed up culture where people pass each other smiling as if they understand something exists between on a very deep level... and it does not. It could not and they know it. Yet, they keep smiling because they think it helps to curb that pain of difference and it does to a certain degree. They keep smiling because of the agreed upon social contract which means that each one has the right to pursue his/her own happiness. Which sadly has nothing to do with securing the happiness of someone else and this is what gets lost in their pursuit. When it is realized, there is nothing that can be done about it ...as in a diverse culture there is no means to truly secure one's own happiness among so many different views of happiness.

What is Polish happiness? Family first (Polish mothers) and foremost, followed by good bread, and good friends together celebrating being Polish. Being together, being in the same soup, being in the same place, enjoying the good bread, and some bad and some ugly.  By having the good, one is not afraid of the bad and the ugly because today we have good bread ~ today, "we are Polish and tomorrow we will be too".

What is good? - Bread! What is bad? - Driving way too fast for conditions and people selling mushrooms or blueberries on the road side and taking way too crowded slow trains! What is ugly? -  smelly crowded trains, trams and buses, nails popping up on the swimming deck, holes in the swimming deck, drunks pissing themselves in front of you, Poles always being right and getting their way if you let them dictate and they will, hoping for short lines everywhere you go....


...hoping that they will finally ban post office workers who slam down their stamp like a gavel and of course the dog shit and empty plastic water bottles just about everywhere. They don't and won't print this in the travel magazines...

But hey, I love Poland because its Polish and I am part Polish. In saying that, there is great comfort in such belonging.... like nowhere else in the world on this 'globe' the earth!

Poland ~ What Poles are Passionate About

Poles are passionate people about family and their identity. At least that is how I remember Poland. It has been awhile since I lived there. I visit from time to time, but visiting is not the same. You have to live that reality... being Polish. My first impression was that everyone was a clone, mostly dressing the same, having the same names, eating the same food, remembering events the same way. Americans don't do that... not really. We remember things differently and are proud of our individualism, our relativistic point of view.

We don't bond with each other the same way Poles do and I miss that. Here, I don't feel or think I can say that I know my neighbor. I don't know what they are doing, eating, thinking. Poles know and I hope still have that wonderful privilege ~ that Polish closeness, which forgives, which loves even the unloved, the hater and the beggar because they are Polish.

My grandmother was Polish. Her family came from Znin. They left Poland when it was not Poland. It was Prussia, divided by 3 occupants: Russia, Prussia and Austro-Hungarian empire. Yet, Poles never lost the sense of who they were and what they were about. Largely held together by language, faith and family.

Poland became Poland again after WWI and then it was lost again after WWII. Not too many people know that Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt caused that to happen. Poland survived being a communist country and you might even hear some people who were born and raised in that reality say they miss it. What they probably miss is the closer Polishness they had during those harsh times which allowed them to survive and retain their identity.

I hope that Poland can retain its identity in this ever growing global reality where people will be made the same by commercialism, politics and economics.

Polish Easter Tradition

Pisanki: An Ancient Art of Hope and Life

by Lorraine Grochowska-Kiefer

Although the ancient European art of "Pisanki" has become very closely associated with Easter, it first came about more than 2000 years ago when people realized the connection between the egg and spring. (Our chickens always lay many more eggs in spring, when the daylight hours are long, than in fall and winter). After the dark, cold, and death of winter, the egg symbolized rebirth or hope. Even then certain people used wax and natural dyes to decorate the eggs with meaningful symbols. There is also an old legend that says that every pisanki egg made will reinforce the chain that holds an old evil monster in the bowels of the earth.

The "chicken and rooster" were symbols of fertility and grain symbolized plenty or good harvest.
The much-loved sun that gave light and life was often shown on the egg and so was a green bough or bloom.

They used onion skins, buckwheat husks, campion, bark of the wild apple and the flower of the lilac for yellow. For red they used cochinel (a female scale insect), deer horn, sandlewood, or beets. Green came from sunflower seeds and berries of the wild alder. Sometimes hollyhock blooms were used for certain shades, as well as various other blooms, leaves and moss. Today, we buy our dyes for the most part, although one time we tried onion skins, beets and some berries. A thousand years later, when much of Eastern Europe had embraced Christianity, the eggs were still made and considered to be a Lenten project in Poland. They were often made with Easter symbols, as well as some of the natural ones. The sun became the symbol for rebirth.

A way of life I can understand

Not too many people think about living rural and rough which is true homesteading; not what we see on American television. Those people are just wanna be. I don't think that most could get along without a car, without heat and indoor plumbing. Most could get along without electricity but still they would rally behind the use of solar or wind and still think that they were roughing it. I consider myself and my son fortunate to have lived with people who had only a wood burning stove for heat, no indoor plumbing at all, no computer, no cell phone, and only one cow for making their own churned their own butter.

They lived with their animals, a kind of symbiotic relationship of giving and taking life. The made little or no impact on the earth and yet lived a full life. They had friends, family and celebrations when new ones were born and old ones died. They looked up at the stars and watched sunsets and sunrises. They washed in the nearby lake in warm weather and put on the Sunday best only when they went to church.

I ate without a doubt the best bread, butter, pierogi, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, sausages and soups ever when I was there, somewhere by Bug a place where we can still recognize that east meets west.

God's Playground ~ A History of Poland

Poland, where East Meets West

I think that Poland is truly the place where east meets west. Why? Because, we can find different world views meeting in a geographical location that means 'local' as in "I am from here, this place". In all my time spent there, I can tell you that it is true. For me the experience can only being compared to meeting a nearly utopian multicultural community; but only on the local level. Having conducted research on this very idea 'Localness', I learned that differences don't matter as much to people who live together in a place sharing in the same local experience ~ place.  Because of that, for me, everything east of Warsaw in Poland exists as a kind of supernatural experiment.

Norman Davis, wrote the book "God's Playground, a History of Poland", to provide a comprehensive survey of Polish history and to show Poland's importance in European history from medieval times to the present. Abandoning the traditional nationalist approach to Polish history, Norman Davies instead stresses the country's rich multinational heritage and places the development of the Jewish German, Ukrainian, and Lithuanian communities firmly within the Polish context. Davies emphasizes the cultural history of Poland through a presentation of extensive poetical, literary, and documentary texts in English translation. The chronological chapters of political narrative are interspersed with essays on religious, social, economic, constitutional, philosophical, and diplomatic themes. http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780231128193

Would Davis write the same looking at Poland today? As a sociologist, I would. 

Polish Bread

I still need to talk about Polish bread. Why? Firstly, because it is so good. Secondly and most importantly, because it means something. It is not just a 'food' stuff. It is more than that because it is a symbol of community, it is a symbol of wholesomeness as in belonging to a group in a place. I speaking of the full loaves of bread which are nearly impossible to buy here in the States. What has happened to the baker? Sad, isn't it.  You see in Poland, you buy a loaf of bread... a whole 'wholesome' loaf of bread. You gather friends around you and break bread with them. Literally, you tear off a piece and pass it along. At least that was my fortunate experience in many places with friends while I was in Poland. I wish we shared bread like that here, maybe we would be better Americans.