Many of my
posts are about travelling. There is a Polish saying – Travels educate. Yes, they do and I like to travel maybe
because I like to learn new things. Learning according to some psychological
test is one of my core strengths. I also like to experience new things. New landscapes,
unseen before art, food not yet tasted, new people . I have rather eclectic
approach here. And now when I came to my Australian home and will stay put for
a while, I still travel. Recently, I have been travelling in time. To my
childhood holidays with my grandparents.
It was a
village in the eastern part of Poland, not far from the Russian border. The
times when I visited my grandparents distance felt different to how it is now.
Everything seemed so much bigger than now. The village seemed like a whole universe to me.
I did not have an idea that the Russian border was so near. To me it was not.
The
distance from my grandparents house to the church seemed like a really
significant one. Minutes seemed longer than they feel now. At that time I did
not try to achieve in the same way as I leant to expect of myself over the
years. With my current expectations I feel each day that I do not measure up to
my life appetites. Something needs to be done here, but this is another topic. At
the times when I was spending long months with my great parents, the days were
full of activities and new experiences but I never had feeling that I should
have done or achieve more. I might had plans for the next day, I might had been
nicely tired after a full day but I did not think I felt guilty that had not
done enough.
Now when I think about those blissful times I often
think about my grandpa. Lovely man, a bit of a softy when dealing with his
grandchild. I felt really loved by him. He was not an ideal man, of course. He
suffered of asthma but smoking was one of his pleasures he could not resist. However
there was a very energetic and bossy grandma in the picture. According to her,
smoking was strictly forbidden so my grandpa had to resort to deviousness. He was working from home so my grandmother
kept an eye on him during the whole days. I was sometimes sent to buy him
cigarettes at the kiosk next to the church at the other end of the main street.
It was a special village. It had a main street, a church and a school.
My grandparents lived opposite the school almost
at the end of the main street.
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| The village has only 6,000 people but the pupils come from the whole district. Such a small Polish Oxford on a grammar school level |
The very end of the street was a couple of
houses further and was marked by a cross. As I am writing about a catholic
country it was only fitting that the church marked the other end of the street.
That was my destination when sent on the mission to supply my grandpa with his
poison. I am not sure how he organised his private money, grandma was very
bossy and wore pants in the household. I suspect that she took care of the
family finances. But we are able to do even seemingly impossible things if we
really want to. He had money to buy cigarettes. My very gentle and honest grandpa was able to
skim to protect his moments of pleasure even if he was damaging his health. Well, we not always do what we
should.
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| Strange country Poland, such a big church in such a small place |
On reflection I was getting rather bad lessons
in lying with and for my grandfather and supporting his behaviour which I
should had been condoning. Hmm... But I
still love the memories of those days and my disobedient grandpa.
