I got out of bed at 11 only so that I could say,
“good morning,” without lying. My friend and I have been staying with
four polish girls for the last three nights. We sleep on a futon, in sleeping
bags, and under blankets, and the girls laugh at us because we sleep cocooned,
like Florida Boys in Poland. We wake up to the ambient hummings of the sounds
of easy morning music, wood popcorning in the fire, and small polish feet
carrying giggles around on tip-toes.
*
*
We’ve discovered a similarity of soul, we and these
couchsurfing hosts.
*
*
Snow fell outside, the bathroom floor was
heated, and breakfast was already made: cheese and tomatoes on bread, with tea, and eggs colored by chopped peppers. We decorated the bread on our plates, one piece
at a time. We added hot water to our almost finished cups of tea, and because
it was breakfast, we sometimes laughed about yesterday, and sometimes were
quiet about today.
The polish girls went to class and work. We rinsed dirty
dishes and swept the floor. My friend researched our next travel move, and I
sat on the small porch writing for other travelers. I shaved, and then cleaned my hair
from the sink for twice as long as I had shaved.
One of our hosts came home for lunch, we talked about the
class that she had just been to, and then the one that she would go to next.
Then she read for her next class, my friend held his head in his hand and wrote
in his journal, and I read. One host left for her next class, and two others
burst in the door from their last.
They laughed with each other, chattered in Polish, hurried my friend and
I along, and then, at the door, asked; “Scarf? Camera? Wallet? Cigarettes?
Lighter? And we showed off the one or two items that we’d remembered as we
searched around for the ones that we would have complained about forgetting.
My friend and I walked long-legged through the cold to the
bus stop. Our cute hostesses bounced along, ahead, arm in arm, and turned to
share their polish jokes in our English.
We all crammed on a bus, fell backwards and forwards for twenty minutes,
and hurried off.
The girls led us down a street that remained urban for a
block before developing quickly into woods patched with the season’s first
snow. We climbed a muddy hill, stumbled down a muddier hill, and sat on rocks
over a local secret; a blue-green lake far below limestone cliffs. We sat for a
bit, had a cigarette, and returned without the help of the day.
We took the bus to Krakow’s, “Jewish District,” had a local
specialty snack, (Toast with mozzarella, garlic, tomatoes, and olives on top.
It was somehow great), and then we had tea and coffee at a snug shop where we sat
on wooden chairs with fluffy cushions, and talked about what it feels like to
be a proud Pole.
We went home and ate the pumpkin soup that had been prepared
for us. My friend and I went to a late-night café, and our hosts’ movie was
finished when we returned. We listened to our favorite songs and quietly
watched their videos play through the projector, against a white wall.
Finally, to deter sleep, and so that we might know as much
about the people hosting us as we did about our hosts',
we asked them to tell us what events of the last half-decade had made them into
the people that we knew. This is what they said:
1: “I came back to
Poland and there was nothing for me. My parents were not like they are now, and
home is not peaceful at this time. I had no desire or option, and I was just
stuck with the winter coming, the sky gray, and only fields outside of my
window. Finally, I was with my sister, and she told me about a dream that she
had about me. She said that I was glowing in the dream, and that I was good,
and that I was taking care of her. And then we talked over everything and I don’t
know why but we cried. I told her about a memory I have about falling when I
was learning to walk. It was about when I had one year only, and still I
remembered it, and I fell while trying to walk beneath a tree. I remember still
that the tree and sky were in my sight, and that everything was good. I know
that it was something good. The good was taking care of me, from being all
around me, and I just knew that it was my soul outside of me, or able to be reached from all of the outside of me, and I just know that it was making safe
for me.
We went outside on
the porch after talking over all things, and we knew that we understood
everything in this time. I was 18
and so was my twin sister. We were in the outside of that place, I remember, I
was with my hat against my face for the tears, and my sister for some reason, I
do not know why and neither does she, she went and got from a costume the wings
of an angel and she put them on me. We saw the trees moving in the wind and we
know that they are in pain, but we know that they are good. I say that this is
the time when I say that I know my soul.”
2: “It was in high
school and I was new and I was in the first class and I met a girl who is my
friend. Others peoples say that we seven girls are a group of friends, the first girl
and me and these girls, but there was this situation, and then we were all hating each other. But
we were already by the other people thought to be together as seven, so we were
stuck but we were not kind. I started to party, and change boyfriends, and I
was like you would say a ghost. I fought with my parents, I moved out from with my
parents, and we were not talking for 3 years. I was not happy with myself.
Living alone was not right for me. But I wanted it to change, so I walked the
streets of the city to be out of just being alone. Then I took this graduation
test that I passed very well, and I thought that I could for the first time be
good at something. It was then that I began my university studies and I met
people that were like, “you are as you are.” The people in my studies accept
me. “
And then my friend and I shared, and then we moved chairs
around and made the sofa into a futon. For a few moments 1 took pictures and 2
drew designs. Now they are asleep. It is like the good around a fallen baby.
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