Such is Life

I just finished my February book club reading – Ann Patchett’s – Commonwealth. It is again a book I would not have read if it was not for the fact that I have joined the local library club and followed the recommendation to read it. If I wanted to be critical of the book I would sum it up – This is a book telling us that divorcing is a bad thing, has the destroying impact on families, but let’s face it – such is life! Of course, the book has its enthusiasts who think it is wonderful and beautifully and cleverly written. While I warmed up to the book towards the end of it and I agree that it is cleverly written, I definitely do not think that it is beautifully written. The language, in my opinion, is basic. Maybe it is OK, maybe it needs to be that way telling this particular story, but for me, there is nothing beautiful about the book’s language. Sometimes I think that I am a literary snob, expecting fireworks of admiration for authors of books I read. Perfectionism has always been for me the area needing some inner work. The books I particularly enjoy are the books I can identify with and in which I can find some explanations of my own life dilemmas. This particular book did not strike such a cord with me. The issues that drive the action of Commonwealth do not apply to my own life, so the book could not have the effect on me that other books have. Maybe I can associate with the issue of selfishness. The story highlights the self-centered approach of a couple of parents who want to live their bliss when the earlier marriages lost their lustre. The easy way to solve some of the marriage problems is to marry somebody else and then somebody else again. This I can identify with, and my life experience shows similar approach. If I were deciding now who to marry, I would go about it in a different way than I did in the past. If I really wanted to live with one person till death do us part, that is. I had my share of selfishness both as a giver and the receiver. Hmm… Such is life.

I can also identify with the loneliness of children portrayed in the book. Their parents were too busy with own personal comforts and preoccupation with each other to pay attention to the children who left alone got into activities negatively influencing their future lives. In my case, the parents were not that egoistic, but they were also too busy working. They did not have time to pay attention to me. So, I read, studied harder than necessary and in desperation to get my mother attention I often got sick. This worked well, and I grew up believing that I was a weakling. I was not.

Now, that I took the time to think and write about my impressions of the book, I am able to find more points that can associate with. One of them is the beauty of my mother and its impact on my life. Commonwealth is also about a beautiful and somehow selfish woman who is not a major character in the book. She is self-indulgent and egoistic. Her self-centered ways profoundly and negatively influence lives of ten people. As I just found out the author’s mother is a very beautiful woman. So beautiful that her daughter gave up on considering herself pretty and decided to focus on being clever, successful and a good person. This worked very well for her. Come to think about it, I was in the similar situation and focused on being clever, successful and a good person. Maybe it worked for me as well even if I am not internationally famous. Would my life have been better if I knew I was very attractive and used it to organise my life around it? Not sure, but it would have been a different life. Would I have been a better person? Probably not. It is interesting that even if Ann Patchett in the interview talks about her mother as being the loving person, one gets an opposite impression reading the book (which is supposed to be heavily autobiographical). The last pages portraying the mother as a warm and loving person do not seem convincing to me, they look like an attempt to change the readers’ impression caused by the full story. I can perhaps understand the duality of feelings of a daughter who sees her mother as a female competitor and at the same time wants to preserve in her memory the image of a loving and giving mother.

Ann Pritchard in the interview said about a book she considers a good one, but she did not enjoy reading it. She summed it up: It was not my thing.

My final comment on the book is – I have read it, and it is fine, but it is not my thing

What I will read in 2017

I have been reading lately more books than in the few previous years. I always read quite a lot if we use current average world readership statistics. There were different books I was interested in until now. I seem to have come back to the type of books I was reading when I was a young woman.  I came back to reading novels. There was a time in my life I went through a kind of sabbatical, I was nineteen then. It was the time to learn about life and what choices I should make for my future. One of the main choices I had to make was the direction of my studies. I was good at mathematics, and I loved books. I believed that books had all the answers to my existential questions. I still do and they do. So I read to find the answers. For some years I read the new age type of books, philosophy, spirituality and psychology. They were the books to study rather than read.  I studied them, it took time and sometimes I felt bored. I rediscovered that good novels have many answers and they are served with more elegance and lightness than the books there are akin to manuals, my choice of many years.

 When I was nineteen, I must have read books about obedience to parents as my choice of professional direction turned out to be mathematics. I elected to live the dream of my father and forget my literary inclinations. No regrets, except for the very difficult five years when I studied pure mathematics. It was not the domain of my talents, but I got my fancy diploma of the Master of Mathematics that made me think that from now on nothing is going to be difficult to comprehend. I was not really right as human nature still puzzles and intrigues me. It is fun to explore it, though, and I love this process.  Now, I am again on a sort of sabbatical and have plenty of time to read and learn. I started to really like this part of my life.

 As I always been a planner I am planning what books I want to read this year. My book club has a list of books we will read and discuss and they may not all be the books of my choice so I am adding the ones I would like to read. It may be a bit presumptuous to assume that the readers of my blog may be interested in my book choices, but I can think of at least one who is an avid reader and in the past gave me good reading suggestions. Even if I may not have followed the advice it was only for the overload of my reading time. My reading appetites are always bigger than my ability to read all I would like to. This is a long introduction to my call for reading suggestions from those of you who are reading this post.

 I am reading now Henry James - The Portrait of the Lady. I had the book on my bookshelf for many years. It is a Polish translation, and so far I am disappointed and even wonder if I am going to finish it. The American ladies are so irritating; I have a problem to even think of them as ladies. And here I consider myself to be a feminist while confident young women irritate me and even seem to me obnoxious. Maybe this is a function of Polish translation? I am only 200 pages down the track so my impressions might change.

The first book of my book club Ann Prichard’s – Commonwealth seems to be an easy read, I wonder how I will feel about it. I will not read all the book club book as I am planning 3-4 months sojourn in Europe. This will be the time to read books in Polish, and I have already a little pile of books waiting for me there. I do not remember the titles exactly, but one of the books is about a woman who was associated with Bruno Schutz, there is also Knausgard book number five waiting for me there. I a looking forward to coming back to reading the book about writing 3600 pages book. I hear the book number five is the best of the set. I will read at least one book by Jacek Dehnel, one of my absolute favourite young Polish writers.

Before I go to Poland, I intend to finally finish Adam Phillips – Missing Out. Thank you Ramana for the suggestion. I already ordered Peter Nadas – The Book of Memories. Another writer considered being a Marcel Proust. Hungarian Marcel Proust, hmm…. Then Hanya Yanagihara – The People in the Trees;  Siri Hustvedt – The Blazing World;  Julian Barnes – The Noise of Time and Polish Jerzy Pilch – Portrait of a Young Venetian (in Polish of course). There is also this book about Lynton Strachey on my night table. Maybe Siri Hustvedt book that has references to the Bloomsbury will re-ignite my interest which in this past was my main literary interest.

Wow, I have rather specific plans, and I am looking forward to exploring new choices.

What do you have in your reading plans? It would be fascinating to hear about it.

2017 has started - Happy New Year!

So, it is already 2017. One wonders how this year will pan out. I hope it will be good. The last year has been a long year for me and marked by some departure of friendships. But it was a year I put in a good year category. The friendships which went away were not real friendships and the fact that I eventually open my eyes to see the reality made me feel lighter. It also meant that I had the courage to say NO, to my illusions and longings. I feel that it was a long year as a lot has happened; there were many uncertainties that turned out positively, many activities and new interests that absorbed my attention. Bridge, Book and Probus clubs added a lot to my social life and gave me a sense of belonging. There is this new kitchen in my place now, not perfect but good enough, so cooking is a pleasure now. I have not written about my concerns regarding Poland after the latest election, but they are considerable. European, especially Polish politics took a lot of my thoughts, attention and worries.

I am starting the New Year promising myself to follow the philosophy of Stoics. The book by Piotr Stankiewicz about “how to live wisely, well and happily” is still on my night table and I keep reading it reflecting on the messages, often taking them to heart and practice. One of the advice I will follow this year is to watch how I spend my time with the intention to reduce wasting it. This, of course, means that I have to have a good knowledge of what is important to me and I think that I am quite clear here. There is considerable room for improvement in my habits and the ways I spend my time. Some computer games will be cut down together with listening to Polish political commentary while solving sudokus.

During my trip to Bali, I rekindled my interest in Qigong and renewed my regular practice. I realised some time ago the value of discipline in my life; the energy and good feeling it gives me. Qigong is already back in my daily routine, and I will add to it meditation as well.  Writing my morning pages has been valuable to me in the past, but it seems to take that much time that the whole morning can easily become one long morning routine. So, my morning pages are still under consideration.

Friendship has always been one of my core values. Sometimes I was led astray, by relationships that I wished were friendships, but they were not. I think I am better now in the friendship selection process and do not get too upset when I come across a disappointment. I hope that this year will bring me lasting friendships, be it face to face or the internet based. I will definitely treasure and cultivate them.

There are some projects which I am planning for this year. Bathrooms project will be the main one and being burnt by the turbulent kitchen installation, I am hesitant and apprehensive. It will require some self-work to move to a positive mindset. I do not think it is going to be easy, but I will do my best.

Bridge, reading and writing are my pleasures, and I intend to continue all of that. They are pleasures, and I also put them into “important” category.

The trip to Poland with a detour to Berlin and Madrid is in my 2017 plans, and I trust I will be able to make it happen.  Another trip I would like to make is to Tasmania to visit Mona and catch up with a friend I have not seen for many, many years.

I have some health checks planned which emotionally are not easy to go through and here I will use my stoic teachings not to worry about potential problems and take things as they come, knowing that some life events are outside of our control and that sometimes things happen unexpectedly.

My goals for this year are less aggressive than they have been in the past and at this stage of my life, I like it that way. 

My Memorable Christmas times

It is the morning of the Second Day of Christmas. I feel in a particularly reflective mood. This has been a very good Christmas and I say it before it is actually over, but for me, the festivities are done, and now it is time for some reflecting and reminiscing. This Christmas was unusual from one perspective. I have not experienced any sadness that typically came over my Christmas moods. The sadness related to changes, departures and missing something. At times I could not understand myself as such moods came over me at the peak times of my life, times when actually nothing was missing. Maybe I have eventually accepted the rhythm of life, its seasons and reasons? Maybe I do not desire my life to be better than it is as it is actually as good as it gets? Anyway, it has been a very good Christmas without a feeling of loneliness that I experienced in the past.

I reflect on the memorable Christmases, the ones I not only remember but the ones I treasure and the ones that shook me up n some way, not necessarily positive. My first memory of Christmas is not particularly happy, I was very small then, and according to some psychological science, I should not be able to remember it. I must have been about two years old, and I got a big teddy bear as my Christmas present. I should have been happy, but the cuddly toy seemed to be too big and scary. My parents put it in my arms for a photo, as they thought that he will be my friend. I endured the process, but I do not look happy on the photo. Do I really remember the event? I think so when I think about the big teddy I the feeling of terror arises in me.  Not too brave girl, hmmm…

The second memory is almost a spiritual one. I was in my early twenties, and after the family dinner at my parents on Christmas Eve, we all decided to go to the midnight mass. My parents, grandmother,  brother and my husband Ryszard. My family was never particularly religious or musical, and I am not sure who made the suggestion to walk to the church for the mass and singing Christmas carols, but it was a brilliant suggestion, and the event stayed vivid in my memory till now. It was Poland in winter, the fresh snow covered the streets and that brought this very special peaceful silence of placed muffled by the snow cover. One has to experience this type of silence to understand my spiritual feelings while walking across the little park to the church. We were all silenced even if a moment earlier we talked and joked being bouncily happy. The only sound was the crispy sound of our steps in few centimetres deep snow. Nobody but us in the streets and this absolutely white and sparkling snow around us. Silent night…

Forgive me for being maybe even pathetic in my writing, but this is such a special memory…

The next memorable Christmas was again at my parents. This was a few years later, there was a new man in my life who insisted on marrying me and he wanted to go about it in a traditional way formally proposing to my parents. We were driving from Warsaw to my parents’ place some 200 km away passing the snow covered landscape, both being nervously excited and happy. Suddenly Hans said, give me the ring, give me the ring! I had been already wearing my engagement ring, but now it became clear that it has been premature. So I took the ring off to receive it back after my parents' formal agreement to the marriage with a foreigner! Now, armed with the sign of his commitment and affection with a huge bunch of orchids for my mother my future husband was ready to face the future in-laws. Boy, we were a sweet young couple with the whole happy life ahead of us.  He got accepted, needless to say, the ring went back on my finger a few hours later. It all happened on the Christmas Eve of 1973. Or was it 74?

Even if the marriage ran its course some years ago as the love lasts and passes, I still have this ring on my finger, and I wear it with sentiments of remembering the love of my life.

There have been many lovely Christmases since that time. The Swedish one in Hilversum in Holland, the very hot one spent partly in our swimming pool in St. Ives, actually many hot ones in Sydney, and then another cold one returning to Poland. This was a very special one as well, reuniting with my brother and his family and then moving on to the second Christmas Eve dinner with my best friend Basia, I wrote about before.

I will remember this year Christmas Eve for the mature feelings of acceptance of turbulences and changes in life and appreciation of friendship.

Bali - People

Before I left Sydney, I had to prepare myself for facing the people and the culture I was about to meet, but I had a very vague idea about. The first contact with Indonesia was going to be at the Denpasar airport and then a taxi trip to the hotel. I assumed that the Denpasar airport is like any other airport and I seem to have quite a lot of experience in this field. I decided that once I am in the hotel, I will be on a familiar ground or I will ask for help my friend and the organiser of the Bali activities who should be there before me. So I needed only to figure out how much money I will need for the taxi and where to change my Aussie dollars to Indonesian rupiahs. I googled to find my answers, and sure enough, the answers were there. I am not certain how correct the advice was, but I was warned against money changers cheating but this, later on, was not my experience. I did not seem to observe any underhanded dealings. Maybe they were so good that I just was not aware of their tricks. Anyhow, if I was cheated I have not lost much money in the process, but I received many lovely, warm smiles from the locals as a part of the deal.

Google advised that I will not find the best conversion rate and airport, so I should change only that much money as I will need for the taxi and look for a better rate later on. This sounded familiar, my experience from other countries, including Poland, has been that airports, banks and hotels do not offer good conversion rates. The Goggle article kept scaring that the money changes that offer a favorable rate may cheat you. You are not to hand the money back to them for recounting as they are supposed to be magicians and can spirit out the notes without you noticing that. Hmm… I did find the place with “the best” conversion rate, and it was like any cantor I have seen in the world. The possibility of being cheated was in my opinion not existent. The article, however, created, perhaps wrong mindset of not trusting the locals.

 I must say that I am confused about this issue. I simply like the people. They are friendly, helpful and their smiles are heart warming. To me, their good intentions seem obvious. And how they all smile! I find a few things confusing, though. Let’s take the story of the taxi fares. Another advice of Internet was that I should use Bluebird taxis. I was told at the airport that there are no Bluebird taxis there but Gold Bird taxis instead. I though that maybe a bird in the name of the taxi chain is good enough, so I took a Gold Bird taxi. I paid upfront 285,000 rupiahs, and the transaction was made look credible as I received a very official looking receipt and I and lovely smiles from the girl at the counter and the driver. The driver was very friendly indeed and chatty. Being in a foreign country for the first time one does not have any choice but to go along with what one is told and use the first experiences as lessons. I did just that. The driver drove a “normal route”. That meant not via a long and spectacular bridge for which one has to pay a toll of 11,000 rupiahs, about $1A. I was not really given a choice, and the high number of zeroes made me feel that it was a lot of money. I was not told at that time that “the normal” way takes 40min and “the bus” way takes 20min. Actually, I did not mind going through the longer route as I could observe a bit of a Bali life on the way. The surroundings were not too exciting or pretty, but it gave me some initial impressions.  

As we spend more time in Bali, we travelled by taxis several times, the accepted way is to bargain the fare or go by the indication of the meter if a taxi has one. My friend struck a deal of 170,000 rupiahs for the trip to the airport. This was a significant improvement on my 285,000.  I was tempted to ask the same driver to take me there, but since my departure time was not certain, I decided to ask the reception to call my taxi when I am ready to leave. To my surprise, my fare was 110,000 rupiahs! This how much the taxi meter showed and I took the “bus” route. Go figure.

Reflecting on the fare differences, which for an Australian are really inconsequential, I wonder if I should classify such behaviour as cheating, taking advantage of dumb foreigners or way of doing business. I decided that it is just doing business and getting the best deal. My warm feelings towards Balinese could be maintained. It made me feel good.

My Bali Adventure - Bali Welcomes

Christmas time is the time of the TV repeats of the “feel good films”. I  think it may be in recognition that this is the time when people get emotionally sensitive, or there may be some less idealistic and more commercial reasons for that. In any way, I   recently saw the repeat of the film Eat, Pray Love. The last part is very romantic, and it takes place in Bali. Never mind the romantic aspect of the film, the place for westerners seems very attractive and close to a paradise. Suddenly a thought of wanting to go there came over me, but I crossed it out as too adventurous for a single woman who even has some health challenges.   A few days later my qigong instructor or should I rather say master and mentor in some areas send me an email inviting to a trip to Bali that he was organising. It was supposed to be a trip to practice qigong, tai chi, kung fu and talk about Taoism. The invitation was very timely, and it seemed like a sign that I need to go to Bali this time. I was strongly drawn to the idea. So I organised the hotel, air ticket and I am now in the Novotel in Nusa Dua, Bali.

The trip was great, I flew with Garuda, and they seem to be to still be airlines used to be some twenty years ago.  The service and food were great, I forgot that I can be treated so well and without a subservient attitude which typically deep down is not that friendly and sometimes covers resentment to those who are being served. Another strong impression was of dignity and friendliness that emanates from the Indonesians I came across. Reflecting on what might create this impression I came to the conclusion that part of it is their body posture. Most of the locals have very straight backs. When I look at them, I also straighten up immediately. Even now when I write about it, I sit straight, not in my normal slouching manner. I hope this new, good practice will stay with me for a while. Another thing is their slow and measured movements. I have not observed any jerky movements around. The hot and humid weather may be the reason for that, I noticed some slowness in my own movements since I have arrived. It is not that hot really, but it is very humid. The rainy season has just started, and it rains almost all the time with short breaks only. For some reason, I do not mind that. The first day here I did not realise that part of my room equipment is a huge umbrella. Which my current experience I know that this is one of the essentials in Bali in December. Before I gained this knowledge I went for a little walk around the hotel compound and, of course, it started to rain. There was a local couple walking opposite me. They had an umbrella so I asked where I could get one. Almost immediately their still not open umbrella was extended in my direction, and this gesture was accompanied by a respectful bow as if saying “namaste”.  I accepted the umbrella with gratitude. Coming back to my room I found my own umbrella waiting for me in the corner of the apartment entrance. I had not noticed it before. I decided then that I am going to like the place and the people. Few days have passed, and I still have this very positive impression and experience. When I walk around the hotel grounds invariably, local people smile and great me. Often they ask questions how I am and how my day has been. They behave as if they were my friends. They do it so naturally, and I believe that this is their way to be. Well, maybe there is a little of hotel training in it as well, but what their behaviour is convincing friendly and I buy it.    

The hotel I am staying in is one of the Novotels, one would think there is nothing to get excited about, but this Bali version of a Novotel is great in many ways. The hotels in Nusa Dua are located behind gates. The gates are rather symbolic as they do not close, but they are gates nevertheless. When cars entering the hotel grounds, the guards check the boots of the cars for the potential threat of terrorism. This is the lesson after the Balinese terrorist attack of 2002.

My Bali adventure started well, and I feel that it was an inspired decision to go for a holiday. In the recent years, I have travelled a bit or a lot in fact, but I have not been on such stationary holiday for ages. There is some sort of luxurious laziness about it. No wonder that Italians call it “dolce far niente” – sweet idleness. This is indeed a sweet experience for me. No guilt about doing nothing, just pleasure.

To be continued…  

I remember when computers were huge

I am writing right now on my good friend and companion Sony VIO. This is a small laptop that weighs less than one kilogramme. It is rather powerful; I can download and watch films, write and store any number of documents, communicate with anybody in the world writing emails or skyping, perform complicated calculations, read newspapers published anywhere in the world, listen to radio in any language… The list goes on. There are many functions my computer can perform that I even do not know about and I do not want to know more than I already do.  Enough is enough. And I know that my computer is already a couple of years old and that there are more advanced technologies widely available. We take it all for granted now. But the times when I saw a computer the first time in my life it was a totally different computer.

Was it in the late sixties of the last century or the early seventies? I think it was already in the sixties. I just got my seriously sounding diploma of a master of pure mathematics and did not quite know how this was going to serve me in finding an interesting job. I even did not know what would really interest me as a mathematician who did not intend to be a scientist or a school teacher. I had to have a job, though, and the caring communistic government found me one as a corrector of school manuals for math. It was a boring job and definitely did not require any serious qualifications or knowledge of mathematics. Ability to spell correctly was important here. So I read page after page with a red pen in hand marking my corrections in spelling. One of my colleagues realised that I might not be in the right job. Christine, I still remember the name, had an idea. Her brother in law had some strange job with computers and was looking for people who could be trained to be computer programmers. Would I be interested?  I did not know. Would I? I knew what a computer was; they taught me about them computers at uni, but it was a very vague knowledge.

So one evening, the brother in law of Christine, called me and casually asked if I would like to be trained to be a programmer. He could not tell me much about it as he has only started the job himself. Generally speaking, it was to develop systems for distribution of agricultural machines, combine harvesters and such. Just what any twenty-two years old girl is particularly interested in. Hmm… However, I said “yes”. This was a pivotal moment in my life and the start to a serious computer career that lasted decades. I was to become one of the first programmers in Poland, but that memorable evening when my professional life had started I had no idea what was ahead of me.

I had a right aptitude, but no knowledge of computers. A couple of courses filled the gap, and a couple of months later I started to program. It was great fun; they paid me for something that was akin to solving crosswords, one of my hobbies.

These were early days in working with computers, and the first computer I saw was ICL 1900. It took the whole big, air-conditioned room and only special people were allowed to enter this magic place. The data to be processed was stored on punched cards, perforated paper tape and on magnetic tapes that rotated mysteriously in their boxes the size of a grandfather clock. Scary stuff and difficult to comprehend.

 

There were only a few computers in Warsaw at that time and corporations that did not have their own computers had to hire computer time by an hour from the lucky institutions that had their own machines. My employer was not one of the lucky ones and had to hire computer time. That meant that my working hours depended on computer availability. Typically we were allotted time in the middle of night. I must say that I was a brave and determined girl, getting a taxi at 2:00 am to go to work for one hour. During the hour I was supposed to load a new version of my program stored on punched cards, compile it into the form understood by the computer and then execute it by giving the command: GO 20! With some luck, the program worked and produced expected results typically in the form of a business report.

  

This was the best outcome one could expect, but typically the program had further errors that rarely could have been corrected on the spot. So, back to the office and analysing the program, punching corrections on cards like the one on the photo, slotting them into appropriate places and back to booking a new computer time. Disasters of dropping programs and spreading the cards all over the floor were not all that uncommon. Who would dream of working in such a manner these days? But it was great fun.

Today, life is so much easier as far as using computers is concerned. I can produce any report; do my income tax return calculations using a standard program like EXCEL without any need for debugging. It is just there in my PC. My little computer is hundred times more powerful than the huge ones of the sixties and seventies. There is no need to be careful with my data falling on the floor and getting mixed up. But even if I have the computer all to myself I sometimes get up in the middle of the night and sing into work or play.  Occasional insomnia may be a reason for that, but the nightly computer work is still a part of my life