What do we truly want from our lives?

I took a break from writing this blog to fill myself up with good experiences and as I was resting, exploring and nourishing myself and my body I’ve realised how depleting our current lifestyles are – those ways of life that we choose to live in our Western society: choosing walls instead of being outdoors, choosing screens instead of faces, choosing plasticated and pre-prepared food instead of a wholesome self-made dinner, choosing an additional cup of coffee instead of additional two hours of sleep, choosing to race through days instead of experiencing them… The body registers those choices and so no wonder it relentlessly directs us towards other ones through aches, pains, and tiredness – the signals that we should be thankful for as they remove the guilt for wanting to rest, for wanting to go against the mad and pushy current of modern life, for wanting to opt out.

Having a break is a good thing, taking the time to look after ourselves, our health and our family’s health is a good thing. It reminds us what a good life tastes of, how meaningful our interactions and relationships with people are, how our family life should look like, how our spiritual life should be. We begin to recognize again which truth comes from within us and not from adverts or some silly peer pressures. It has got this power to free us from dubious and shallow chatter that we, willingly or not, witness, hear or participate in, from those conversations that take our attention away from what we really love, from what we really believe in, from what we really want to do and what we really want to be like.

I think we really and truly want to be good people. But maybe sometimes we forget that this is the ultimate aim of our existence here, maybe sometimes we are told that there are other things that we should be fighting for and we allow ourselves to be persuaded by this stupid, manipulative and limiting narrative which tries to convince us that no one cares anymore and that the way to go is not to care, which, of course, is a total nonsense. So many people care! So many people give! So many people love! So many people share! So many people give their best out of them! So many people forgive!

I took a break from the fishy narratives and I’ve braced myself with goodness, with wholesome treats of my mum’s thinking and cooking, with refreshing fruit of my dad’s orchard and the calming vastness of the meadows and fields in my Polish village.

It’s been a month of detox for me, detox from false believes that as an individual I cannot make a difference, that I don’t have enough to make a difference, that I don’t have the ability to do it or that the world will go its own way even if I try to go the opposite direction. The world is not a hostile place that mysteriously turns its back on us just because we try, the world responds to our attempts, watches them carefully. It just needs time to be persuaded. The difficulty with doing what you believe in is in that the world, general public or even our friends, are often not persuaded by the process, but by a result. The process takes time and without support it’s difficult to have the endurance, strength and resources to complete the work. There are now so many people that are ‘in that process’ of making the world a better place, of making sure that we live in a cleaner, safer, and more equal planet – we should support them with our time, money or at least a good word. It takes time to create something good, something of value. It’s the process that needs our cheering and patience. The result will speak for itself.

To make the ground firmer

A while ago I travelled to my little village in Poland, to the place where I grew up. Going back to Poland used to mean refreshing my old dreams, things that as a child I promised myself I would do in life; it meant checking up on those aspirations that in my teenage years I drafted for myself, it meant going through some sort of evaluation process that I usually didn’t score that well against or getting a reminder of where I was meant to be going.

The last visit was different. I didn’t hear the voice of my old self – that voice has nothing to say. It was as if I’ve eventually become the person who I always wanted to be or maybe I’ve eventually become happy with who I am and what I am doing. It was as if I’ve pleased my old self and now it’s chapter two… not yet written.

So it’s time for a big move and other life-changing experiences, I thought to myself. It’s natural to crave for them and I do see that many of my close friends are getting ready for those moves so I quite naturally wonder if those changes are also for me. Would I like to move from where I live and from what I am doing here in our little town in the middle of the UK and would I like to start building our family life elsewhere? After a long internal conversation, self-questioning and heart-checking I’ve decided I don’t, at least not now. My heart does not crave for a new-starter-sort-of-change. I think I am passed that step. I am really longing for deeper community, for closer friendships, for stronger engagement in the life of my town and my neighbourhood. I want to be more involved in what’s happening at my son’s nursery and other places that we visit and go to. I think I want laughter and jokes and stories and food eaten and cooked together. I think I want to build bonds and be more present in the life of others. I see many opportunities for my family here. There are many friendly people and many friendly spaces in the Midlands, I just need to learn to drive to them…

Problems, Apple Mousse and Sugar

The promise of warm lunch used to make me walk fast from school. My grandmother would cook something nice for us. Pancakes, carrot soup, potato dumplings or at times very apologetically she would serve some fusilli pasta with cinnamon, apple mousse and sugar. She didn’t need to apologize of course, we devoured it in seconds. We would exchange a few stories with her, have some tea and then run upstairs to our rooms to do our own things. Every so often I would complain to her about something, maybe about the lack of time to do what I need to or want to do, to which she would just utter her simple wisdom: “You know, child, sometimes you just need to wake up earlier.”

I don’t always wake up earlier. I stay up till late or even till after the sun rises when there is something that I feel the urge to complete. What struck me was the straightforwardness of my grandmother’s phrase: “You know, child, sometimes you just need to….” This is how she fixed problems, in this easy, plain and unproblematic manner. Of course, this would make me a little upset at times because when I was a teenager my problems were unsolvable, greater than the Earth and too important to be ‘belittled’ like this… but it was only when I left home that I learnt to appreciate her attitude and admire it in a way as well. Her plate was always full of responsibilities. There was a lot that she had to manage. The house. The children. The farm. The hay selling business. The orchard. The cleaning. The sewing. The preserve-making. The roses. The vegetable garden. The laundry and the ironing. She did it. She did all these things. Sometimes with help. Often on her own. She did it all.

Her workspace was clean, spaces uncluttered, and the floors washed. She made her life clear and manageable. She made her rooms bright. She had many dreams and passions when she was young. She loved music and learnt to play the violin. She loved German and was able to hold a conversation even in her old age. She enjoyed maths, geography and had an impeccable aesthetic sense. She was feminine and graceful. And although she was all these things also when I knew her, her life was so tied to her responsibilities that all her passions became secondary to them. My grandmother pushed herself too hard, there is no doubt abut that. Partially it was a survival tool developed during the war and after, but I think that largely it was who she was. When there was work to be done, she would just do it, without dithering, without a second thought. There was a lot of dignity in the way she led herself. There was character and eminence. There was elegance and style. Maybe there was a little bit of pride in her as well… pride of having survived…. or maybe inner gratefulness that she had survived. But to me her attitude to work and effort and her decision to look for clear solutions to her problems was most prominent. This is an attitude that I’ve been traveling with ever since she directed me that way. Thus, the day I left my country, despite being an enormous and relentless dreamer, I was not confused over one thing… it was perfectly clear to me that adulthood is full of those days when I just need to wake up earlier…

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