Friendship

                                                                   

I am reading a great book; A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.  Not and easy book to read but a book that is moving steadily to the top of the list of the best books I have read so far. It has been again recommended by the husband of my best friend Basia. Knausgaard’s My Struggle was another one of his recommendations and that book for a while turned into a fascination for me.  I still have two last parts of My Struggle to read. It will come eventually.

                                                                             

For now, my full attention is with A Little Life. Apparently, the book and its author were one of the attractions of this year’s Writers Festival in Sydney. The book was short listed for the Man Booker Prize.  The next year I would like to pay more attention to this literary event. But maybe I will be in Poland then, it is a May event? Both are exciting alternatives so I will not lose whatever I’ll choose. 

The story is about four young men who meet when still in college and then move to New York. Their friendship continues for many years. It is another bildungsroman, like My Struggle. The boys grow into men and all of them are very successful professionally, exceptionally successful, really. They share a very loving and giving friendships. I am not sure if such idyllic relationships exist in real life and last not for such a long time as theirs. The author calls her novel a mix of fairytale and contemporary naturalistic prose. Even if we think that such a friendship is unrealistic and we file it into a fairytale category, it still expresses a human longing for this ideal friendship and trust. We need it to deal with a loneliness of human condition. Wow, I may have gone too far in my homemade philosophizing.

As I am almost half through the book the foursome is shaken already, but the book leaves a feeling that in a case of a real need the men would put all their resources together and rally to rescue if one of them was in trouble. Security coming out of such friendship is overwhelming. The situation may not be realistic but we dream of experiencing something that beautiful. It always has been my dream. Even if it is not likely that I will experience such an unconditional and deep friendship, it is good to have such aspirations and ideals even if it may never happen. The idea is very appealing.

Most valuable and longest lasting friendships usually start early in life. In childhood, or at school or at uni. Friendships starting in younger years often belong to the special category of friends “for life”.  According to a saying in addition to friendships "for life" there are also friendships “for a reason” and “for a season”. I had a number of such friendships and it was always very difficult to accept the fact that some of them had to end. I would think for a long time about why a friendship has finished, was I at fault, could it be resurrected… I found a statement in the book “He has never done it before, and so he had no real understanding of how slow, and sad, and difficult it was to end a friendship.” I have done it before, and it has happened to me before, but each time it was slow, sad and difficult. These days, I do not struggle that much to revive friendships that ran their cause and have completed, but I still am sad when a friendship has to finish and I wish it had been different.  

Picture of a showgirl

We move through life in a hurry. So much work, so much fun, so many problems, so many duties… We live among people and we see them, talk to them, but often we do not see much behind façades often created for self-protection. I just discovered some layers behind the image of an old lady I visit in a nursing home. I wrote some time ago about my difficulties to become an active volunteer and the red tape around it. It finished well and now I visit a place regularly which the local council found for me. I meet one particular lady, let’s call her Daphne. Maybe my visits do some good to my new friend, but I definitely add something valuable to my life by knowing her.

                     

When I met her first, Daphne was not very keen on having any visitors. In fact she tried to brush me off. She expected to get a patronizing treatment and she wanted to protect herself from it. We both were lucky. It is not my way to great people with “and how are we today, dear?” That was perhaps a redeeming point in my favour. I related to her as I do to any other person. I am not good around small children and people who reached childish mental stage. Thanks God, Daphne is not such a person. I am not sure if she has dementia and if she does what is a level of it. We come from different backgrounds so I am not yet able to gauge if her stories are realistic of a figment of her imagination. Could it be both? I must say that at times I loose myself in her stories. She has a need to offload her thoughts so she talks fast and I at times listen but do not comprehend all of what is being said. It upsets her and it upsets me. Luckily this does not happen too often.

For a while she was telling me that her son visits her very often, calls her and takes her out. Suspicious me thought that it was only wishful thinking. Like in Chekhov's Three Sisters unrealistic dreaming of going to Moscow. It was not! I was very happy to meet her son during one of my visits. Maybe I was even being assessed by the family? To me it was a good sign and I was relieved to realize my thinking was wrong.

So, our mutual trust is being built. During my last visit, unexpectedly,  she showed me a picture from her youth. When you look at Daphne you know that she was a beautiful woman in her youth as she is beautiful now in her fragile eighties. She dresses nicely and puts a lipstick on before my visits. Maybe this is the reason why she asked me always to call her before I visit her. So I do not catch her unprepared? Hmm… Anyway, regular visits were not what she wanted and I call each time before I go to her.

The picture she showed me was of a showgirl! Top hat, cane in her slender hand, great legs, very skimpy costume and a serious facial expression. It was not a flirtatious girl, just a beautiful young lady a bit scared before her forthcoming performance. It was going to be a song and dance. Maybe I should not call her a showgirl as she was a solo performer. She told me that she performed with a band (visible on the picture) and she called the men behind her “boys”. They were protective of her, I believe. Building my story about Daphne I see her as a talented girl who got permission of her mother to sing and dance in a theater. She called it a "serious theater in the city". Obviously she was not a Kings Cross performer. I know too little about Sydney artistic life of the post Second World War era to put the pieces together and fill in the missing gaps. It may come, though, with our future talks, but Daphne is reluctant to disclose too much. I respect that and even if I write about her I respect and protect her privacy. I feel privileged that she shared with me some of her memories. It took few months before she opened her drawer with the picture. It must be an important memory to her. 

I could not find a picture of a serious showgirl. Daphne must have been unique.

                                                              

Daphne’s room is neat and tidy, very few well chosen possessions taken from a big home she had to leave behind. Already on my first visit I noticed a small paining of a cancan dancer performing her high kick. Pantaloons in full view. Vivid colours, lots of bright orange and cobalt blues. Already then I thought that this painting does not fit my expectations. There have been already few surprises while meeting Daphne, some discoveries and still many mysteries, but whoever you were and are Daphne, I feel honoured to know you.

Sydney is vivid at night

I almost missed this spectacular event. I mean Vivid. If it was not for a friend, more watchful than me, who suggested the night on the town, I would have ignored the snippets of information that I was most likely getting without paying attention to it. Life in suburbs can be alienating. 

This week after my regular bridge session I got myself to the city. Crossing the bridge I noticed that some buildings have unusual colours. I mean really unusual – bright pink, neon green, purple… The city suddenly looked like if it was coloured by Ken Done. Rather cheerful. 

                                                               

Walking towards Circular Quay I realized that not only the colours are cheerful, the people around me looked cheerful as well. As I stepped in to the Vivid part of the town I was surrounded by people who were celebrating the colorful beauty of Sydney so I also got into a party mood. 

                                         

The Opera House and the Contemporary Museum, in my opinion, were the most spectacular. The patterns and colours constantly changed and as soon as I opened my mouse to say “have a look at this one” the picture was already different. Long forgotten German word came to mind.  It was only an “augenblick” and things before our eyes were new. It is strange how some of the words and expressions stay in ones mind. I even do not know German all that well. Maybe my language is becoming a collection of memories. Like this American lady who I spent conversing with for few hours at the swimming pool next to a golf course somewhere South of France. We were grass widows waiting for our husbands to join us after completing their 18 holes round. My English at that time was rather poor, but the lady spoke few languages and she used them all in our conversation. Sometimes few of them in one sentence. It must have been an amusing conversation, but I found it rather stressful. It was a rich people place and I did not think I belonged there. I certainly was not rich. It was just that my husband was a very keen and a very good golfer. The lady was considerably older than myself and was a type of Zsa Zsa Gabor in her fifties. She was very bored and very friendly, so she told  stories from her rather full life. She even knew president Cater! Nice memory…

When the pictures on the Opera House changed in a blink of an eye I pondered on my memories. 

                                                              

                                          

Back to Vivid…I particularly liked the drone show that was a modern form of Sound & Lighting.

              

We paid particular attention to the light sculptures as my friend’s son was a designer of some of them. I was impressed. This is one of them.

I promise myself to get out of my suburb more often. Sydney has so much to offer. Somebody even said that if one is bored in Sydney this is not a fault of Sydney.  

The Man Who Knew Infinity

My interest in films returned with more quiet time in the kitchen renovations. Not that the kitchen is finished yet, but we are now into cosmetics and my nervous system is coming slowly back to normal. I started to have better results in bridge and consequently I am back to enjoying it. I still have problems to concentrate on reading heavier books like Adam Phillips (I have his there books on my table waiting for better quality of my concentration) but seeing films is not beyond my current mental capacity, so went to see The Man Who Knew Infinity. I am glad I saw it as the film has not been screen for a long, two days later is off already. This may say something about its attractiveness, but I liked it and would recommend it but not to those who like action movies or love stories. Actually this film is about love but not necessarily romantic type even thought there is a bit of romance as well serving to highlight hero’s life priorities.

The film is about a self-taught Indian mathematics genius Srinivasa Ramanujan who traveled to Trinity College, Cambridge where he stayed five years surprising respectable and famous professors (like Bertrand Russell) with the depth of his conclusions to which he did not think it was necessary to supply proofs. The most involved and revolutionary mathematical theories came to him from nowhere. From God? Definitely from some higher power talking to his subconscious. This is the true story and Ramanujan really lived, albeit a short time and made serious discoveries in mathematical analysis and numbers theory. Most of his theorems have been proven by now and serve us somewhere in the scientific background of our every day life. This is deeply philosophical film, in my opinion, and the question of how Ramanujan  knew what he announced, in such profusion to the stunned professors at Trinity College, does not have an answer. The only answer that comes to my mind is that God exists and is active in our reason driven life. The story of Ramanujan is almost a mathematically based proof of that.

The film is also about an unlikely friendship of two people, an English mathematician G.H. Hardy and mainly self taught very unconventional Indian young man Ramanujan. Jeremy Irons who plays the English professor is absolutely wonderful in this role, but isn’t he in all his roles? He is to me. In this film he is more handsome than ever, but this is rather beside the point.

                                 

Dev Patel is good in his role, but somebody said that it is time he played a villain. I think there is something in it. He is a bit sugar coated in this role as well as he was in Slamdog Millionaire. I still liked his performance a lot, he is convincing playing a young man bewildered by other than his own realities. One can see his growing acceptance and resignation to it. 

One of my detours in life was studying pure mathematics for five years. I did not turn out to be a real mathematician, but these five years were useful and it gave me a powerful message – if I could do that, I can perhaps do almost anything else, it should not be harder than the five years of math. Maybe it was not a detour but an important part of my life education?

I got a glimpse of infinity when a professor presented us with a model of a universe being a circle without borders. My mind went into overdrive and this was my chance to understand the beauty of mathematics. I did not take this chance. Regrets? Maybe…

My talented student fellows were not your conventional people. They were forgetful, eccentric, and sometimes really strange. They loved music and they lost themselves in it. They loved mountain claiming risking and sometimes loosing their lives in the process. They dressed in a most strange fashion. Matching socks were a rarity with some. So when I read that G.H. Hardy was an eccentric, I did not agree with this opinion. He was about normal being a talented mathematician. This is how I know such people. What is in their minds is so absorbing that outside life is insignificant.

The film made an impression on me and woke up memories that had not surfaced for a long time. For me 10 out of 10, but this is a very personal rating. 

George Sand – a strong woman

I am not sure how well known George Sand is beyond France and Poland. I never talked about her with anyone but Poles. However, I hope she is known as she deserves to be. She was as important in intellectual and artistic circles of Paris in the middle of XIXth century as Virginia Woolf and Ottoline Morrell together were important for the Bloomsbury group almost one hundred years later.

                                          

She was a writer like Virginia Woolf. Maybe not of the same magnitude, but she was respected and admired as a writer by her contemporary literary circles of France.  Gustave Flaubert and Victor Hugo were admirers of her writing and they knew the writer's métier rather well. Flaubert addressed letters to her “Cher Maitre”. My attempt to write that in English was not very successful. Dear Master? It somehow does not sound right.  

                                                

George Sand was also a society hostess similarly to Ottoline Morrell and they both were famous of having many lovers. The most known lover of ten years was Frederic Chopin. Possibly because of this particular liaison most of Poles know her name and some facts from her life. Chopin lived many years under George Sand roof and was close to her children particularly her daughter, Solange.

                                   

George Sand love affairs were known, widely publicised and often critically judged. I must say that for many years I also disapproved of her conduct. And then I heard somebody say: “Nothing wrong with having many relationships. If love is important to a person, then the person searches for this true love and this close person”. Since one of the most famous quotes of George Sand says - There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved – no wonder she kept searching. Hmm… I thought and changed my mind about her love conduct.

George Sand is really a pseudonym of Aurore Dupin. Aurore rightly thought that signing her work with a man’s name will be beneficial to be treated seriously. She went much further than just signing her work as George Sand. She also dressed as a man and she did not behave in a girlish manner. She even smoked cigars!  All together a scandalous woman and I admire her courage to be so very much controversial herself.

                                                          

As I am out from the closet and shamelessly admit to be a feminist, my admiration for George Sand is only natural.

One of her quotes I especially identify with is:

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

This is not scandalous woman saying, this is a wise human being saying.  

What prompted me to think and write about George Sand is news of recently published diaries of her in Polish translation. I heard that it is a beautiful edition and I would love to have it. If I read it all I am not sure. It consists of five books. On pictures they look so beautiful! There is big part of the diaries that is dedicated to Chopin as a composer and the author’s views about his talent would be most interesting to read. She observed him composing for so many years that I would like to know her insight. I have asked my dear Polish friend and my literary guide Raf to buy the books and hope to read some of them when I go again to Poland. Hope it will be soon.

                                   

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you…

This is what I have been singing to my kitchen last weekend. It is not quite finished yet, but it is useable! After a very long time I can wash up in a normal sink rather than in the bathroom. In fact I even could use the dishwasher. I have not had a working one for such a long time that I will need to get used to this luxury. Things are looking up. I even have a gas stove working and an oven which will cook the way I want it to cook and not according to its own whims. My old one was totally unpredictable. And it is fan forced too if I happen to want to use this function.

My new microwave is also an upgrade on the old one. The old one, in fact, was not that difficult to beat. A friend who stayed at my place during one of my prolonged visits in Poland decided that the place really needed a microwave and got one from ebay paying $A10 for it.  Unbelievably clever girl. It was a rather aged appliance but it was made to last. And it did last a long time and functioned very well to the last day. Times changed and I do not expect my new one to work that long. What a shame I did not take a picture of the old and faithful, one should treasure old friends.

I have used my new washing machine already but I will be singing to the oven, stove and dishwasher in the next couple of days. I never was the one to read instruction too carefully, but I promise myself to do it this time. Maybe not 100%, but I will try to be more diligent about it. I may even discover some unexpected functions?

I must say that the kitchen exercise was a very hard one. I thought I had experience in installing new kitchens but this was the hardest of all. For over a month nothing in the house functioned as it normally does. The whole place was dirty and the thin dust covered everything no matter how often I dusted and washed the floors. The dust will stay with me for a while but I see the end in the tunnel.

I wrote all the above the last weekend and then on Monday my not so favourite tradesmen came in and we were back to noise, dust and very poor workmanship lasting the whole day.  Why their activities lasted so long it is beyond my comprehension. The results were not that impressive and the list of outstanding tasks is not yet closed. Even a new item has been added – replacement of my brand new, not yet used cook top. It was badly scratched while installing the fan above it. This really upset me and I was definitely not inclined to sing. I am still not singing even if few days later some progress has been made and the promise of replacing the damaged cook top was made; even without any unpleasant dispute.  I was surprised by rather courteous behaviour that was rarely on show earlier. My intervention in the office may have brought some changes in behaviour.

After this experience, I declared – no more new kitchens for me!

What puzzles me still is – who will pay for four or five full days of installation activities that were not included in the original plan. My stove was not exactly cheep either. The future customers of the company that has rather good reputation will have to pay for inefficient and unprofessional work at my place. And how many past mistakes were built in in the price of my kitchen. I am mulling over my duty towards future clients and ask myself the question – escalate or not escalate?

A sincere bitch?

This is another self-indulgent and self-analytical post. Is there going to be anything in this little feuilleton of general interest? I hope so, but can not guarantee it. I will attempt to make it a bit humorous in spite the mood I am in at the moment.

Will this space turn into a kitchen?

I am emerging from a kitchen depression. I was going to have a new dream kitchen but very quickly the process turned into a nightmare. I am just coming to terms with the situation which in fact has improved considerably. It is work in progress and this means my home is disorganized, still dirty even if I clean things every day. Many little and not so little steps are ahead of me and the kitchen. This is the third kitchen I have been installing in the last ten years. One would think that I have the needed experience and should have known what to expect. At least I thought so. I was wrong. This one is going to be the most expensive of the three and the lowest quality of them. Is this the difference between Australia and Europe? Or was it my mistake in making the choice of the company? One of the kitchens was installed in Sydney but it was Ikea, European design and furniture.  Hmm…

Work in progress, future kitchen still in the boxes

Last weekend I left the battle ground of my disappointing kitchen to spend time in a great company of my former work colleagues and now friends to see the Sydney Biennale at Cockatoo Island. Traditionally, I left my camera at home so I do not have any pictures from the event. Need to change this habit of forgetting things.

The three of us had a great friendly time and during the lunch we started to reminisce the old times. Or rather my two friends talked about the times when we all worked for a big bank on critical projects. I mainly listened. Our responsibility was then heavy, mine perhaps most heavy of us three. One of the friends was always saying that her work objective was not to hit the Australian news. She was responsible for production support of critical banking systems. It may seem over-dramatic, but I do not think now that it actually was. Old legacy systems responsible for all accounts of the bank could go belly up one of the nights and the banks could not open the next day.  This would be sensational news in Australia and very bad news for us. I was responsible for it all. Big responsibility and big stress with which we lived every day. During our friendly lunch when the old stories were being recalled the old me was emerging and I suddenly saw myself in a new light. It was not a pretty picture. Command and control manager (me, oh, oh) not tolerating excuses, sloppy work or public service type of approach to work. On top of that I was a successor of person who was nice, friendly and had understanding of imperfect human nature. During the lunch I found out that people who wanted to talk to me always checked “the weather”. Meaning my mood. Talking to me must have been unpleasant and difficult. When I try to look at myself from the perspective of my team, the picture is not that pretty. Demanding, often stressed, busy. One could say – a bitch. To cheer myself up I recalled that at the same time some people considered me sincere. A sincere bitch, then. 

 

 Does not sound any better, hmm… Seeing myself in this new light, I had very mixed feelings. I liked part of the old, younger me, even admired some parts, I had courage, skills and perseverance, but I felt sorry for the person who put her personal life on hold and then lost the most important relationship of her life, regretted the health consequences of prolonged stress, felt sorry that for a long time there was no time for friendships or fun other than work. Then, work was my fun. This may seem questionable, but then such was my way to live. The way I have changed now and if I had a possibility to turn the time back, I would live my life differently. Would that be much better? How could I know?