Short Review of Year

I dreaded finals. Not for the studying and stress, but for what they symbolized: an end. A conclusion to a year that always felt like a dream, never a reality. Between memorizing dates and formulas, I spent multiple showers mumbling all that came to my mind about all that the world I jumped into had taught me. I found that the most poetic and interesting dialogue came from simply mumbling while water dripped into my mouth and down my face. Only sometimes if the poetry was too powerful did it force me to stop and wipe the water off. 
I started writing this review in November. I had thought about all I would say at the end on the first day of school. All the beauty I would pay tribute to, all the gratitude my words needed to express. I wondered what I would be thinking when there would be nothing left but to click my seatbelt and pull it tight on the plane. When the time came, I thought about nothing.                                                           It didn’t feel like ten months. Perhaps it never will. Still, there were many moments that in their glory I stepped back and observed closely, just so they wouldn’t disappear. Here’s an example that aids the average eye to put it all into perspective:
The knife cuts through the potato but is paralyzed half way, forcing me to pull its blade up towards my fingers. The house is silent. The light of the sun behind a fogged cloud peers through the wide windows that overlook the busy road. The trees dance in wind. Occasionally with a partner, sometimes alone depending on the beat of the wind. The burner flashes dark and bright red intensely as it attempts to boil water. The identical yellow apartments across the road appear dead. It’s a gloomy afternoon, but the echo of the familiar sounds playing from my phone and the chop of the knife on the wooden board illuminate the room with color. I wonder how I will ever leave this place, this peace, this knife and board. I signed up to leave the day I signed to going, I remind myself. My hand becomes almost stabbed as the knife pierces upward through the potato.

Despite what you might grasp from that passage, I don’t think there are words for the feeling. I don’t think I can express how hard it is to talk about my life in Poland in past tense instead of present. I don’t think its easy to understand the strange feeling in my stomach when everyone who smells like SPF 50 and wears an Old Navy shirt with the one and only American flag on the front says “welcome home!” as if they understand my definition of home.

However, I refuse to call this an end. This is not a conclusion. This is a “thank you” in the loudest voice with a smile too, to Warsaw, to Poland, to everyone and everything on this earth that made the experience as warm and delightful as it was. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

Comments

  1. Lindsay O'NeilJuly 9, 2017 at 1:03 PM

    Just because you've left Poland fro now, it does not mean you will never go back. It seems like you are slightly bitter in coming back to the U.S., but just know that in Poland, or otherwise, great things, people, and moments can reside anywhere. (That's so cheesy, but it is true.)

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  2. UnknownJuly 17, 2017 at 8:19 PM

    I think that Lin is right, but only to some extent. Until last summer, Claire was a freshwater fish, feeling good after she moved from a very small lake (I would call it a paddle) to a bigger lake. Over the last year, living in Poland, the oceans of entire world became her home. Sometimes dangerous, but always exciting. She became a saltwater fish. Now he is back to the lake, hopefully big enough for her to swim for a couple of years. Now she knows how big, deep and beautiful is the ocean. Her home is much bigger than it was one year ago. So it is more about environment than individual connections. The strange feeling of a four-hour daylight in winter, crossword-solving flower-sellers, bicycle riding in a crowded city, sailing old sailboats on the lakes, singing to songs on music festivals at old military airfields... and all that...

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