Character building holiday

I just came back from bridge holiday and I am still recovering. In fact, I am recovering from a cold as well as from psychological effects the holiday. Two recoveries wrapped in the same time period. No wonder I am struggling. The bridge holiday was my third experience of this type of the event and I must say again that this is not for a faint hearted especially if one is a beginner at bridge. I knew it was going to be challenging and I went anyway. Was I glutton for punishment? Maybe a bit, but in spite of some stress caused by my insufficient knowledge and novelty of the exercise I really enjoyed big parts of it. The people who organize the holiday are really very special people. Their bridge game is superior and this I find rather appropriate and I would not expect anything else from bridge directors. What I find impressive and surprising are their exceptional diplomatic skills. At bridge emotions fly high and there are plenty of opportunities for some exchanges to erupt into unpleasant situations, but this happens extremely seldom, at least this is my experience. This I attribute to calm, tactful and very sensitive approach of the directors who dissolve the fires not even acknowledging them as fires. Unemotionally, with a smile and kindness towards all involved.

                                                                         

The bridge room in Dormi House Moss Vale

Even if I considered the last event and in fact each one of them as rather traumatic, I am writing it with a smile on my face and that means that there were many good points in my experience as well. The first time I really did not know what to expect and quickly realized that I was out of place. Very much out of place. The people were kind and helpful though and I managed to go through four or five days packed with bridge games, lessons and clinics. I was scared, tired and I definitely did not know what I was doing there with all those clever bridge players who talked in the language I did not understand. Bridge language has many dialects called conventions and this is mainly a written language. The only conversation that is allowed in serious bridge company concerns alerts of unnatural bids. Except for that, one can say: “hello”, “thank you partner”, “thank you” and calling a director. I actually do not mind the shortness of conversation around the bridge table as there is so much to think about while bidding or playing that I am happy to concentrate only on that. One is supposed to be friendly and this means smile nicely at everyone around, not offend others by gloating, criticizing, instructing, offending. They are the general rules, as I understand them. The reality is a bit different. The room needs to be silenced from time to time as talks may get out of hand. Partners may get upset with each other game or game of their enemies and express their frustration. We are all human after all and bridge players can get emotional about the game.

I am told that it takes years and years to learn to play bridge well. There is a popular story told as an example of bridge realities and told to relatively inexperienced but ambitious players (maybe like myself?) to settle their expectations of themselves.

A lady proud of her progress and level of her game when asked how many years she has played, proudly and somewhat condescendingly answers:

     - I have played four years, dear.

And hears in reply:

- Oh, I have played eighty-four years, dear.

As I have been playing only two years after many years of the break following my student time bridge and I do not have eighty-two years of possibility to really catch up I need to dismiss the story and conclude that the second person must have been simply repeating the same year for many, many years.  

Remarkable lady 101-year-old on her way to the bridge room. She is the living proof of how true the story really is. She may not have been the best player in our group, but she displayed a really fighting spirit

Confused

Sometimes people ask me what my nationality is. Officially, I have the dual nationality and this is how it is also, on average, in my mind and heart. I say, on average, because there are periods I feel more Polish and there are such periods when I feel exclusively Australian. But, there are also times I feel confused about the subject and my own feelings. In such times I label myself – cosmopolitan or it would be more accurate to say - European. It also means - at times, I feel a bit confused about it. In my experience, the world is limited to Australia and Europe. The rest of the world I know from literature, films and news. Not even that much from geography as this was my weakest subject at school.  

I have seen recently two films made in Europe – Mustang and The Wait. It hit me how different the films are from the recently seen films made in the USA. The distinction that hit me is an apparent lack of action in the two films, especially in The Wait. Mustang is a Turkish film and The Wait – Italian/French with Juliette Binoche playing the main role.

I have also seen recently God Willing, an Italian comedy but it did not make much impression on me, but Mustang and The Wait did. They are two very different films, but, in my perception, there is a common denominator. I would say they both have the European flavour. I am afraid that I am not able to explain this distinction all that well, except to say that both of the films are slow in physical motion, but with deep running and action packed emotions. I need to decouple the two films as they are really very different.

                                   

I saw The Wait yesterday so it is very fresh in my mind. The film has contradicting reviews. Some very critical, ridiculing the film and some more kind and forgiving. My assessment is high – 8 out of 10. This is mainly for mastery of expressing emotions by Juliette Binoche; her face moving minimally while her body not even moving at all. My favourite scene from the film is the part  when a young woman dances a seductive dance with practically a stranger who  happens to be invited to a dinner.  The dinner is at the home of the mother of the girl’s boyfriend.  The two dancing young people are beautiful, their movements are beautiful and delicate, and they dance together but do not touch each other. They dance to the music of Miracles to Come by Leonard Cohen. The mother knows that her son is dead, she is watching the beautiful dancing youth thinking about her son and the girl, about of what could have been. She smiles… and then the reality hits and her face changes. This is a masterpiece of expressing deep and complex feelings with very little.

At the end of the film, I heard nervous giggles behind me. Somebody considered the film pathetic while I was deeply moved. How differently we can perceive things…

This is definitely not a film I would dare to recommend even if I loved it.  

Differently with Mustang even if it is a feministic film, I would recommend it without hesitation. The trick is to find an opportunity to see it as it is not the mainstream movie and will not be widely screened.

Five young orphaned sisters are brought up by loving, but conforming to village rules grandmother. The girls are bright, boisterous, beautiful and free-spirited. The youngest one Lale is like the title mustang. One can not put a harness on her, not for long, anyhow.  The girls need to get married and for that they need to conform to the rules. They need to be certified virgins, they need to dress in gloomily coloured, shapeless dresses, and they need to have typical, old fashioned women skills.  Future marriages are arranged by village elders.   I can see the wisdom of arranged marriages and have expressed it in my previous posts, but in Mustang this does not come across as a positive, loving choice made by more experienced but as an act of violence. The girls are literally imprisoned in the house of the grandmother with their uncle visiting the older ones in their bedrooms at night. They are waiting for being married off. This is apparently the rural Turkey of today. There is also a different life in Istanbul and other cities and there are people who think differently and yet such stories do happen in real life in Turkey.

                                      

One of my current bridge partners is Turkish and her name is also Lale. We seem to have a lot in common even if our backgrounds are so different. She actually recommended the film and I am glad that I have not missed it. When I reflect on the ability to meet people like Lale in my everyday situations, I feel very much Australian and grateful for the country accepting me as its own.

Conversation

I have been lately a bit sluggish with my writing and I can not even say that I was too busy. Just nothing seemed important enough to write about. Maybe my observations did not bring any interesting subject, or maybe I was preoccupied with thoughts that topic to write about. So I’ll write again about this great book A Little Life.

It has taken me a long time to read it. It provides me with plenty of subjects to reflect on and I take time to ponder on many that particularly resonate with me and relate to my life. The book has a great story, the story that mesmerizes and keeps readers spellbound. One can read it just for the story itself and love it. However, for people who have reflective nature the book may be much more than just a story. It may give an opportunity to see certain things more clearly or see them from a new perspective. This is how it works for me. I have rethought and better understood many important issues while reading the book.  I sometimes think that the book was not necessarily written for the story itself, but that the story provided a canvas on which to paint analysis, reflections and even solutions to important life subjects.

The following fragment for example:

“Relationships never provide everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person – sexual chemistry, let’s say, or good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty – and you get to pick three of those things, Three – that’s it. Maybe four, if you are very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It’s only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But, this isn’t the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for these qualities in another person. That’s real life. Don’t you see it’s a trap? If you keep trying to find everything to find everything, you’ll wind up with nothing.”

Very nice and systematic. A planner in me loves it.  I wish I had such clarity earlier on. It would have saved me from frustration, criticism of my partners and some life disappointments. It is difficult to decide on the three most important things. For me it would be: loyalty, conversation and kindness. I would also like to add appreciation of beauty if I was to be that extra lucky to have four of the things in one person. This is a choice of an older person. Such choices loving parents made when arranging marriages of their children. They were wise choices that guaranted longer lasting marital bliss than initial infatuation, characteristic for marriages made out of love. Not that I advocate arranged marriages, they have their own problems sometimes boarding on breaking human rights. So what’s my point here? I think I lost it a bit, but this temporary confusion brings me to “conversation” I want to explore.

I like this definition of conversation – Talk between two or more people in which thoughts, feelings, and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information is exchanged.

Conversation as a value, mentioned in the fragment of the book, is actually very important to me. It has been important for quite some time even if recently I did not think much about it. Provencal Conversation by Stella Bowen has been one of my favourite paintings, mainly for its subject. Four people engrossed in conversation.  To me it depicts an absolute bliss of friendship and exchange of thoughts.

                                          

Maybe I even blog for wanting to have some sort of conversation. I know, it is mostly one sided, but it happens that my views are challenged forcing me to think more, sometimes I have to change my views, sometimes I have a warm feeling that my views are shared by someone I will not likely ever meet in person.

Type of conversation I like best is a meaningful one, conversation that brings new ideas, maybe even answers to what is it all about, but just a chat is also great especially if houmor and sharp repartees are a part of it. In the recent few days I had some great and memorable conversations. One over a meal and Sangiovese catching up on news and finding out what is going on in Sydney. I may have missed the exhibition of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera if it was not for this particular conversaion. The idea of Camino got also woken up. Who knows, maybe not too late to dream about it?

Talking to another friend the other day, we were really gossiping a bit. I had some question marks over a particular subject. We did not reach any conclusion but a couple of day later the subject became clear to me, I found a solution! Even if it was a delayed reaction, it was a product of this good conversation.

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.