How does a life without a luxury feel?

The parcel was almost bigger than us. We would dive into it and we would fish out the fabrics and get more and more excited with each item of clothes that we pulled out. We were not poor, we were never destitute but we were, in the early years of our childhood, growing up in Communist Poland, in the country that, although rich in culture, human spirit and intellect, did not offer much or rather nothing to its citizens on the goods front.

We relied on those parcels to be sent to us from our family in Switzerland. They would last us and frequently also our cousins and neighbours for a long long time. We would swap, lend, borrow, alter and exchange clothing with others. Very rarely would my mother get us something new. There was just no option. No clothes available. We were dressed in second-hand garments from top to toes and not for a minute we would feel worse off because of that. We didn’t really notice it. It was just something that we were doing… how we were going about having things to wear. That’s it. No great philosophy behind it. Just the circumstances.

When I was six I travelled with my mum to Switzerland. I remember seeing many things and not really being able to make a lot out of them. I probably admired some of them… I probably tried to play with them… But clearly they didn’t make a very lasting impression on me because I just cannot remember them too vividly. As if I didn’t really have any emotional response to them. My heart back then was stolen by something much simpler and common, by vibrant and juicy mandarins. For me the pleasure of the open market was concentrated in those fruits. I just loved them. Their sweet, invigorating and citrus smell. Their colour. Their shape. Their delicate skin so easy to peel off with my tiny and dexterous fingers. It was a joy to have one of them, happiness to have two, euphoria to have a full netted bag of them. Yes, yes… they were already packed like this in those days. This hasn’t changed much.

So how does a life without a luxury feel so far? It feels like that visit to Switzerland when my mind and heart decided to be oblivious to the goods around.. not to take much notice of them.. to forget them. Instead I think I am able to see mandarins again… I feel that I am fishing out the real goodies out of the life box… the tastes, colours and textures of the Earth. As if my mind was programmed to seek beauty and pleasure and because it is not allowed to do it through shopping it develops its other ways… it seeks and finds those two elsewhere.

It’s so easy to get used to one source of pleasure and to become reliant on it. To play safe. To always go for the familiar. And then to despair when that source is removed.

My resolution of not buying left me a bit uncertain about what I should do with myself after meeting an important deadline. In the past I would have gone shopping in town to treat myself to something nice and new. I really wanted my reward for all the hard work that I did. I needed balance. It’s really interesting to see it in yourself that you were used to rewarding yourself materialistically, with a physical object. When did I learn that? I thought to myself. It wasn’t my default behaviour a few years ago. Or maybe it was?

Now I am beginning to see that my hard work can be rewarded through many other ways. Time for myself, a book, a film, music, a winter walk, crazy dancing with my child, a conversation with a friend, a comedy performance? And you know what? It’s so much nicer to find yourself lost in giggles than lost in a shopping centre!

Just a photo

I know Autumn is over but I just couldn’t resist posting this photograph. Just love this colour. I’ll be talking about different views on buying second-hand goods in my next post and I’ll give you an update on how a life without a luxury feels so far. Till then my friends.

What Has Happened To This World?

Weather-wise, it was a typical day for England. A little foggy and drizzly. I arrived with two bulky suitcases that did not actually contain too much. Some clothes, some shoes, some documents and notes. Most of the space in one of the suitcases was occupied by a massive and very heavy Oxford English Dictionary – a symbol of my dedication to mastering the English language and a continuous and nagging reminder of how much I still need to learn. At the time, this dictionary was the only materialistic possession that really mattered to me and regardless of its weight I had to drag it along with me.

I was never a very practical type. More of a dreamer, adventure-seeker, hungry to see what’s beyond the horizon of my little but picturesque village in Poland, hungry for knowledge and new experiences, always thirsty for doing things by my own, finding out the truths for myself. I wanted to experience life elsewhere with my own skin, touch it with my own hands, enjoy it with my own soul. Just to live and pursue the dream of learning and finding out. Speaking English was not just a symbol of freedom and adventure. It was a swipe card that opened more than one world and enabled me to explore more than one reality. Amazing things happened ever since I put my foot beyond our Polish boarder. I looked after two Nigerian children while working as an Au-pair, wore a pink Thai dress while a waitress at a Thai restaurant, poured Fosters while bar-tending with Australians, celebrated the year of the Dragon with my Chinese students, devoured pieces of Black British writing at university, dipped bread in a fragrant curry while sitting on the floor with my Afghan friends, I sang nursery rhymes in Greek to my son’s best friend and celebrated my son’s baptism with our dearest friends of other beliefs.

But why am I writing this? I’ve been listening to the news and looking at the headlines and I’m getting concerned… it is alarming to see that attitudes against diversity are being promoted and are spreading around the world. For what reason?

The globe has been wounded and scared many times by attitudes similar to those. The trees of our genealogy are witnesses to those events. Many people went through great efforts and reconciliation processes because they wanted to learn to love again. And they did. And they love. And they cherish. And they care. Most of us individually have not experienced severe hatred, we haven’t been exposed to maltreatment at the hands of others – so my questions are: Why are so many hearts around the world closing? Are padlocks in fashion or something?

3 Myths That Block Progress for The Poor: Bill Gates’ Annual Open Letter (Link)

I seem to be coming across very illuminating articles recently. Here is one that is wonderfully enlightening and fully informative. It is a must-read. Please do share it further. It’s good to dispel doubts and clarify confusions: 3 Myths That Block Progress for The Poor – Annual Open Letter by Bill Gates.

Lasting friendships

My friend is moving. To the other side of the big pond. She will take with her caring family, love of beauty and her sensitive and reflective mothering. Her sense of humour, passion for reading and timely wisdoms thrown at me just at the drop of a hat. She’ll move and from then on we will only be able to have virtual cups of tea when the time change or our owl-like natures permit.

This has been happening to me quite often ever since I settled in England. Different characters and personalities cross my life and our living room, share with us their life events, moments of joy and sadness, jokes and frustrations but eventually venture further to explore different realities and live different lives. It’s difficult to nurture those friendships… divided by space, time and daily routines. We try though… by emails, cards and messages sent now and again, occasional get-togethers, chats and phone-calls… because we miss them, those exchanges of common interests and problems, being part of their lives and their contribution to ours. It often takes to be removed from one’s reality to understand how valuable and enriching our relationships were… how much we’ve been learning from them and how much of a better person we became through them.

When I moved from Poland and decided to study here, I was missing my friends so so dearly. All of them… and you know what… this feeling hasn’t changed. I still miss them. They are still in my thoughts and they are still my reference points, I still see myself somehow in them and through them… starting from those in my primary school through to those that I met at later stages of my education and through various other experiences. I just think that it’s impossible to forget a friend. Lose touch with, yes, that’s possible but forgetting is not. And I think that often this is what we are afraid of, of being forgotten, or of being not loved by them as much as in the past. And perhaps they fear that too.

I met once a very eminent senior academic and had a chance to have dinner with him. Over a plate with nice hot food and glasses of wine, he told us stories… of his friends. His whole conversation was filled with friends. You very quickly realised that they were his focus and his life and what a wonderful focus to have! I expected (and feared slightly) a conversation laden with reflections on politics, literature and history or a strong focus on his academic work but no… as he was reminiscing with a pause to smile or laugh, it was becoming more and more apparent to me that this man is just living, breathing and enjoying his friendships… he was with those people mentally as much as he was physically with us…. he loved them dearly… and that love surpassed the distances that he had travelled.

There is a term in psychology called ‘mirroring’ and it refers to us subconsciously (or consciously) copying of gestures, language and emotional responses of others during our conversations. Apparently we tend to see people who mirror our emotional responses as more empathetic. [Therefore this ‘technique’ of mirroring is frequently recommended to parents who want to build a good relationship with their children… not to reject or disregard the feelings but to mirror them.] I am thinking of my close and long-distance friendships and I can see that yes, regardless of the distance, changes in our circumstance, developments, perhaps this is what we still want from our friendships and friends… to be able to ‘mirror’ us somehow. If sharing and being part of daily struggles is not possible, what else remains for us to do?