Feministic Observations

There are a couple of reasons why I intend to write about feminism and explore my own feelings and thoughts about the subject.

For some reasons, not that clear to me any more I read many books about Bloomsbury group and books created by its representatives. Virginia Woolf is my main object of attention. I say that the reason of my interest is not even clear to me. It has lost allure in my eyes some time ago but I still read Virginia Woolf’s letters, stories, novels and diaries. There was a time and this was some years ago when I was fascinated by the people belonging to Bloomsbury literary circle. It all stared with the film about Dora Carrington and her love for Lytton Strachey.  It was 1995. I still think that the film was very good and Jonathan Pryce who played Lytton Strachey even got a British Best Actor Award for the role. Then I read a book about Carrington and Virginia Woolf’s name came to my attention. I recalled reading To the Light House in my early Polish times and after seeing the film I decided to read more. At that time I was not particularly interested in her feministic bias. I was too busy working away in the men’s world with no thought that I may have been professionally different to my male colleagues or disadvantaged by being a woman.

Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf. Maybe this was the time when they were engaged, as surprisingly they were for a while.

                                                             

I was brought up in communist Poland and one positive aspect of the political system was that it considered everybody equal. Women were riding tractors, worked as bricklayers and moved up in business hierarchies with the same speed as men did. When I moved into the Western world, I was married to a Swedish person and this nationality also considered women equal to men. I did not have any idea that I may be disadvantaged being a woman or considered being a lesser person. Some sexist comments, I heard in my corporate environment, I considered to be jokes in bad taste and did not get disturbed by them. I was a bit surprised when joining a golf club I was called an associate and my husband was called a member of the club. Somebody said, this is just a tradition, so I let it go without feeling put down. On reflection, this naïve approach of mine might have helped me in my career. I felt more confident than I would have if a thought of not being equal came to my mind.

                                                            

                                         

Then in my corporate world, quotas became a subject of discussions. I felt offended by the idea. I wanted to be assessed on merit, not be patronized by being considered somebody who needs help. You need to help weaker, disadvantaged people and I did not consider women in general as such. Now, I look at it a bit differently. I think quotas are a good idea until such a time when the mindset of societies at large           changes. Women need to catch up at least in some countries and they do need help of quotas.

When, after some years I came back to Poland I realized that women stopped to be equal. They are patronized and considered a second class citizens particularly by the church. Of course, they have their role to play, but it does not involve contribution in the business world. In spite of that there are many successful women in Poland, I am pleased to notice.

With my history and experience, I do not have any doubts that we are all equal even if we have our stronger and weaker points. This however is not related to a gender. There are clever and silly men, there are women geniuses and very silly ones as well.

Reading newly bought Virginia Woolf’s short stories it came to be how recent it was when women were subjected to will of their parents who had “their best interest at heart” when they pushed them out of their homes sending them to a home of a stranger. I know that in some cultures many marriages are still arranged and I even know some very happy ones. But if I could not decide about my life, I would see it as a tragic situation.

                                              

Few days ago, I read a post of Personal Reflections about the Australian Archibald competition winner. An interesting painting even if a bit morbid. The mother of Charles Milsom, the awarded painter, made a remark that it reminds her of Halloween. It was my first impression as well, but the painting is good, especially the straight lines of the face are striking as is the sitter, famous  Sydney barrister Charles Waterstreet. 

All three of them

The post has a link to video with montage of all winners of the Archibald competition.  I watched the video with full attention as the changes of paintings are very fast, maybe even too fast. After a while I started to feel surprise followed by irritation. Majority of the winners depicted men. I mean a serious majority. I asked myself why? Wrote my comment and that triggered off an interesting discussion in which I played a role of a feminist. I never considered myself as such, but I better start thinking of myself as one.  It might explain this rather long post on the subject of equality. 

Mr. Tusk - Rejtan in European Union

In 1773, a special session of the Sejm (Polish parliament) was convened in Warsaw, by its three neighbours (Russian Empire, Prussia and Austria) in order to legalize their First Partition of Poland. That Sejm is known as the Partition Sejm. Rejtan was one of the deputies that tried to prevent the first partition of Poland. He was a deputy to that Sejm, and had explicit instructions from his constituency to defend the Commonwealth. His arguments and protest did not bring results. When there was nothing more to be done to protect Poland from partitioning he made a dramatic gesture of baring his chest, blocking the exit with his own body in a dramatic attempt to stop the other members from leaving the chamber and ending the discussion, leaving Poland to be partitioned.

This image of the famous Polish painting came to mind when I heard from my Australian friend about Mr. Tusk’s action at the end of the Sunday night last chance meeting to solve Greece problems and prevent it from leaving the Eurozone. When Angela Merkel and Andreas Tsipras tried to leave the room breaking up the negotiations Mr. Tusk stepped forward saying : “Sorry but there is no way you are going to leave this room”. Just like Rejtan only he was better controlling his emotions. Times are different.  They stayed and reached agreement, Greece is still in Eurozone.

                                           

I also hope that Mr. Tusk’s action will be successful in the future and that Greece staying in the Union will really make sense. While my way of writing about the situation may seem flippant, this is not how it is intended. Mr. Tusk has been my hero for some time and for the sake of me believing in heroes at all, I hope he continues to be an honest, dedicated and clever world politician. I am sorry that in Poland he has been an antihero for some time now.  

As my ability to write political assessment of the Greek situation is very limited I would recommend Jim Belshaw's analysis. 

Story of a picnic and Châteauneuf-du-Pape

It was a beautiful summer of 1976, the year I lived in France. We travelled from Paris to Cagnes-sur-Mer through my absolutely favourite part of the world - Provence.  My journey companion and my life partner at the time had an ambition to start a wine cellar. Passing through the wine district was an opportunity not to be missed. It was a long time ago so I only vaguely remember being in a wine shop where a jovial monk in a brown habit was serving us. He looked just the part, big round man with rosy fatty cheeks and a red nose to keep the uniform colour skin of his happy, smiling face. We landed up with some cases of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape wine in bottles adorned with papal regalia. I still like the look of the bottles very much. For me this is one of the best wines and indeed the wine is generally considered to be good. Not only by me having had had such nice memories related to the time and the wine. We tasted the wines before we bought it and we decided that it requires further checking of its quality. So, we bought a baguette and some soft cheese. It should have been cheddar, gouda or fontina to pair the wine but we were not that sophisticated to know that, so most likely it was brie of sorts as it was my cheesy fascination of the times. I was very slim then but the year in France and its cheeses changed the situation somehow and it seems to be a permanent change.

                                    

The man of my life had a lovely and a bit annoying habit of looking for a long time to find a perfect picnic spot. I remember climbing hills in Swedish Fjällbacka hungry and tired  searching for a long time to find a spot from which a coming up sunset could be well seen. I was so hungry and we had everything needed to change it.  A bag of freshly caught prawns cooked on the fishing boat, baguette and a bottle of white wine. All of that and I had to remain hungry.  This is another story though.

Back to the picnic in Chateauneuf-du-Pape ... We found a nice spot on a hill, the man liked his hills, and I had a great time sampling the wine. I must say that I did not know how to drink at that time and I may have got happier than the situation required.  I recently found a photo of myself at the picnic. I have a glass of wine in my outstretched hand, big smile on my face and it looks that I may have been singing out of joie de vivre. I hope that my vocal production was not too loud as singing is definitely not one of my talents. Let’s say that my soul was singing out of joy. A young head and a young wine sometimes result in  intoxication.

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Many years passed. We did not empty all the Chateauneuf-du-Pape bottles while living in Europe. Many remained and traveled to Australia following us through Trans Siberian railway in the middle of Russian winter. Some of the bottles exploded under pressure of frozen wine, some did not but most of the wine was sour like vinegar when we tried it later in Sydney.

For some reason one of the Chateauneuf-du-Pape bottles stayed untouched and forgotten. It was stored for about 25 years in the most appropriate place for wine to mature well even during hot Sydney summers. I do not remember why we did not throw it out. Maybe because we forgot about its existence, maybe because we considered it to be off, maybe because I liked the bottle... The wine stayed and later on went with me to my new home after the man of my life decided that he would like to continue without me. 

                                                   

 I was  more interested in the bottle than in drinking the wine but one lonely Friday night I decided that it would be nice to have a glass of wine and there was nothing suitable at home so I opened the Chateauneuf-du-Pape bottle expecting that I will get rid of the sour liquid rather than drink it. And suddenly a big surprise, a huge surprise... the aroma of the wine was exceptional, the liquid was amber colour, it tasted like nothing I drunk before. Magnificent! I got into panic... this was not the nectar to be drunk on my own; I thought I should share it with someone! It was late however, past 10pm. A cultured person does not call friends unexpectedly for wine tasting at this time of the day. So I did not call anyone. After a while I got rid of the feeling that I cannot enjoy the wine on my own. The new approach to the situation changed my mood and the wine did the rest. I did not sing, but the joie de vivre was in me again. Sharing is a great thing especially with someone close. This is not absolutely necessary though. Mature head, heart and wine result in appreciation and contentment. Another thought – marvelous things come unexpectedly; we need to notice them when they come and not waste them.

Time with my young cousin

I want to write a post, I promised myself to do it today and I can not find a subject that would interest me and consequently my potential readers. If I do not find a subject that I am interested in, I will write about whatever it may be in a wooden type of a manner. This would not be good at all. At the same time my self-respect and self-esteem rest on six pillars according to Nathaniel Branden. One of the pillars is the practice of living purposefully. In my case it is to be aligned with my goal of passing knowledge and experience through writing and coaching. Writing systematically in this blog is a part of it. It is my exercises in writing. Since today is Monday and this is a small New Beginning, I want to keep promises I gave to myself this morning.  So, here it goes…

The last few days were very interesting and full of new thoughts and experiences. I had a young visitor, my nephew, who stayed with me few days. It is interesting and stimulating to observe and talk to someone who is at such a different stage of life. He has great plans for life and is passionate about chemistry. His studies revolve around developing a substance that may be helpful for people suffering from Alzheimer’s. It seems that chemistry may be fascinating. It was not a subject that made me excited when I was at school or at uni. I now realized that the science of chemistry can have many interesting applications if put in service of humanity. I also have realized that good young chemists may use the science in not too much scientific ways and have a lot of  fun with it.

So we talked a lot, walked, watched movies, cooked, tried new beer and wine, exchanged experiences regarding heart palpitations… It was quite a bag of different subjects and activities and it was fun.

Times and ways of young people obviously changed since I was 22, the age my nephew is now. I like the young people of today a lot. Their way of thinking is so different to that I can recall from the past. They live in a different world, of course. The internet and other technologies shrank the distances, things are instantaneous, one can organize the whole summer holiday sitting in the kitchen and drinking tea with an aunt. And the aunt may even not be aware of what is happening in the background during a seemingly uninterrupted conversation.

Interest in cooking spread across the world. Australia has its My Kitchen Rules and Master Chef cooking competition programs, I promise myself not too watch them any more but so far unsuccessfully. The competitors are mainly young people and they have very good cooking knowledge.  Their techniques improve with the program duration and are quite sophisticated. My young nephew and his even younger brother are very interested in cooking and quite often cook family meals. The roles have reversed. I love it! I had an opportunity to savor a great salmon cooked by Piotr. It was marinated and then cooked in a pesto made of basil, mint, limes, pine nuts, peanuts and honey. Fantastic!

That is what this perfect dish looked like. It was accompanied by Hasselback potatoes a Swedish way of preparing spads.

During my sojourn in Poland, I will have some more opportunities to meet young people. I am looking forward to it. 

Creative Blogger Award

Ramana has nominated me for the Creative Blogger Award.  It was totally unexpected and I am surprised, honoured and challenged by this nomination.  Thank you very much Ramana.

I was informed that, there are rules to accepting the Creative Blogger Award are:

1.             Thank and post the link of the person who nominated you.

2.             Share 5 facts about yourself to your readers.

3.             Nominate 10-20 blogs and notify them.

4.             Pass on the rules.

I will not be able to nominate 10-20 blogs, sorry. I may increase the number over time while starting with a small number. The quality of the blogs nominated by my is, however, outstanding. It should compensate for a smaller number than requested.

Five facts about me.

1.  I have dual nationality Polish and Australian. This confuses me at times as far as my identity is concerned. Today I am more Polish than Australian as for the next three months I will live in Poland. In September this will change and I will be more Australian again.

2.  I love reading and my taste is eclectic as well as Ramana’s. Those days I read and love Karl Ove Knausgaard – a new Proust of Norwegian nationality. He has written a lot so I will concentrate on his writing for a while!

3.  I have been a left brain person with type A personality for many years, but since I saw the light I focus on spiritual side of life and try to cure stress related ailments accumulated over many years of my too busy IT career.

4.  I want to write and publish three books – On Purpose, On Values and Pages of My Life. Ambitious? Yes, too much perhaps but it feels good to think about it.

5.  Sense of Humour is one of my core values.

I nominate the following bloggers for the award.

1. Hans the Hiker – Hans brought hiking to a very high level. He is a serious walker and a serious traveler. He plans to walk Camino and when he goes on holiday it is a whole year affair. His blogs have fantastic pictures of his extensive travels and walks. He publishes several blogs, information about all them is all under the above address. 

2. Personal Reflections – this is a very professional blog, the political and economical posts are very well researched, insightful and objective. From time to time a reader can find more personal posts, the ones related to New England Of Australia have a special personal touch.

3. Child of Comunism  – this is a foreign language blog but I am told that Google automatic translation is very good. Two men are writing separate stories about their early lives in communistic Poland. Their stories should be really read from the earliest post to the latest one as they chronological. When the guys are done with the blogging task, they will publish it as a book. I think it will be very interesting not only for Poles. 

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Gdańsk Cranes

I am going to write about my first impressions after coming to Gdańsk. It is always emotionally confusing when I change the countries. I then ask myself a question - where I belong? When I come here I sometimes feel that this is the place I want to be. Why would I keep changing my mind about selling the Gdańsk place? I know that I should sell it and I go through the motions of preparing for it. I am not stopping it, but I am vacillating. I like to come to this apartment, I like its spaciousness and I like finding my things I left here the last year. They are like nice surprise presents.  I like some Polish ways, they are not my ways any more, but they are familiar and for a while they bring the past back.

When I arrived here one week ago and saw the cranes of the historic Gdańsk shipyard I felt warmth coming to my heart. I felt that I am home. When I come to Sydney and see the Harbour Bridge, I have exactly the same feeling. I feel that I have come back home. This is a very schizophrenic feeling. It confuses me.

Walking through the park this morning seeing the cranes so close I realized that there are similarities between the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Gdańsk Cranes. I did not like either of them at first. They seemed heavy and clumsy. In both cases they overpower the landscape. They did not seem to have anything elegant about them. The design? From a technical point of view maybe even brilliant, functional for sure, but beautiful? No! And then they grew on me and became a part of me. And I started to love them. When you love people and things they do not need to be objectively beautiful, if there is such a thing as an objective beauty. It is in the eye of the beholder. Now, I love them both. They do not seem to be clumsy and heavy. To my eye and heart they are powerful and strong. They are solid and reliable in their character. You can depend on them.

Come to think about it, the whole Gdansk is like that. Germanic in its style, of course. What else? The architecture of many objects is solid with some heaviness about it. The house I live in is like that as well. Walking, from the place I live, towards the Old Town of Gdansk, I see the heavy body of St. Mary’s Basilica, towering over the town. I like looking at it when walking towards it. It seems so distant, but in fact it is not all that far. When I come closer to it, it disappears from the skyline. The next time I see it is when I am almost next to it. Then it towers over me making me feel insignificant in comparison to the reason it was build all those ages ago. And it was built to the glory of the creator and the higher power. This is an intention behind building churches. I have written about the St Mary’s already, some time ago. http://acobserves.blogspot.com/2014/05/sightseeing-in-tricity.html

I think that I need to accept the fact that I can not choose between the countries and that my confusion is just a fact of life.

From Sydney to Gdansk

It has been my time to move for some time to the northern hemisphere. I have rather ambivalent approach to the fact that I move from one country to another like a yo-yo. To some it looks glamorous but to me it is what I just have to do. I even had a tendency to look at it negatively.  It was an unpleasant necessity. This year I have decided that I will take a different approach. I intend to enjoy my stay here, in Europe, from the day one. This means from today. This is the promise given to myself and I intend to keep it.

I am back to Gdansk, in the environment I know well. Not much has changed. Friends who stayed in the place added few towels to my possessions, at least temporarily; the grass in the garden is yellow rather than green, as I saw it last, but the rest seems to be as I left it. I am still taking stock. It is fun; I find things that I forgot about during the time I have been at home in Sydney. They are usually nice surprises. Except for one. I found a rotten fish in my defrosted freezer. My first chore was to dispose of the fish and clean the fridge very thoroughly. It has been a lot of airing in the kitchen but the smell sill lingers. I do not remember leaving the fish to rot; I did not turn the fridge off myself. It was my friend who was supposed to do it. And he did. I think I better leave the fish affair uninvestigated.   After all, it is a rotten business.

                               

The trip was long. It seems to be longer and longer every year as the layoffs are longer.   Strangely enough, I go through it better now than in the past. Knowing that it will take about 30 hours before I will breathe fresh air again, I resign myself to the fact. Arriving at the airport I step in into a travel bubble. For the next many hours things of my normal life will not require any action. I will be only reading, writing, watching films, eating and sleeping. Knowing that relaxes me. This time I was reading Knausgaard second book from the autobiographical series - My Struggle and an NLP book by Richard Bandler himself – Get the Life You Want. I watched three films – Cinderella, Focus and English Vinglish.

 It was so uncharacteristic of me to pick Cinderella to watch, a film  for children but I found it fun and I watched it with interest. One needs to feed the inner child sometimes.  The second film did not require a mental stretch either.  The film is about a con man played by Will Smith and his partner in crime, very pretty Margot Robbie. Interesting thing is that in both of the films, played two Australian actresses – Cate Blanchett as a wicket step mother and Margot Robbie as a skillful pocket thief. None of the actresses got particularly challenged by the roles but both looked fantastic.  

English Vinglish is an Indian film about a woman who is systematically put down by her well educated husband and her daughter because she can not speak English. As Shashi is clever and determined, while visiting her sister in New York, she goes to an English school. Learning the language fast and well in the span of four weeks she gains respect and admiration of her family and most importantly self-respect as well. It is a sweet, funny, uncomplicated film that makes one feel good. It was my definite favourite of the three.

Shashi and her international class

                                         

I traveled from Sydney with Singapore Airlines, absolutely fantastic. Later, I found out that it has been voted #2 in the world by passengers. Well deserved. Changing to Lufthansa was like swapping exclusive comfort and service for no fuss efficiency.

It has not been the first time I changed planes in Frankfurt. I knew that the distances between gates were exceptionally big. This time however I had technology to tell me more about it. My fitbit told me that during the day spent in the air and the Frankfurt airport I did 13,000 steps and walked 8.85 km!!! One can get fit in Frankfurt without leaving the airport. And I did not do any flaneuring at the airport, just walked the necessary distance.