Can you count on your allies?

The last days of August, 1939 were gloriously bright and sunny. The always fashion-forward women of Warsaw were home from summer holidays with the latest Paris couture. The streets were filled with color, smiley, kissy greetings, gossipy conversations. But. But. Looming just over the horizon, an ugly storm was brewing. An undercurrent of fear and impending doom frazzled nerves from Gdansk in the north to the Czech border in the south. And most especially along the western frontier with Germany. Hitler had already claimed the Sudatenland. Furious conversations flew across the continent, attempting to stave off the impending war. There were signs. Signs pointing to trouble. Disaster. But what could you do? Do what you could. That's all. Poland was counting on England and France. They had signed treaties, promising to come to the aid of the Polish nation in the event of a Nazi attack. Would this be enough to intimidate Hitler? Now, please. Don't ever misunderstand me to equate the magnitude of evil events in Poland, especially during the War, with the experience I had while a pastor here in Littleton. I only seek to make some extrapolations in order to help me, and perhaps help you, make some sense of basic human behaviors and events. Having said that.... It was gloriously sunny and bright here in the last days of August, ten years ago, 1999, as I prepared to move my family and to take up the responsibilities of serving as pastor of a local Lutheran church. No Parisienne fashions for us but we all had new clothes. I bulked up on clergy collars and skirts that work with black shirts. The girls prepared for a new school year, and a move. Dave started packing away his suits and ties, preparing for a more casual lifestyle. There would be hikes and trips to see golden hillsides of aspen, easy visits with extended family. But. But. There were signs. Not far over the horizon were disturbing signs of trouble. The allies I had to depend upon, colleagues in the regional offices of the church, were evasive, not altogether forthcoming, or even honest. It was worrisome. But I held off judging, and hoped for the best. Frankly, I hoped I was misinterpreting or misreading what I heard. What could I do? Be wise. Be open. Be careful. I did what I could do. I had promises, assurances of support. The question was, could I count on these allies? I believed I could. I believed them, believed in them. With all my heart, all my might. Poland learned in the long, awful month of September, 1939, that England and France were not jumping to their defense. It was disaster. I learned a little later that my allies would betray me. It was disaster. Devastating. Poland's allies came late to the war but they did come. And, while the alliance was fraught with difficulties for the duration of the war, they did work together. I wish to heaven I could say the same about the situation here. Not only for my sake, and my family's, but especially for the sake of God's work in the world.

"Is there any chance....."

I had x-rays on my bum foot the other day. I will forever remember the technician with gratitude. "Is there any chance you may be pregnant?" The last time I was pregnant was in 1992. August 19, 1992, to be exact. I was pregnant on that day for ten hours and four minutes. And then, and then, and then, Annika was born! Seventeen years ago today. The birthday bagel has been lit and the candles blown out. Birthday bags have been opened, oooh's and aaaah's have been expressed, the singing card has sung, the gifts have been gathered up and thanks for them has been given. The birthday dinner is being digested and the birthday girl has now gone to bed. Her alarm clock goes off in the morning at 5:15. We've hugged and laughed and been glad together for this amazing gift of Annika in our world. So, no. I'm not pregnant. Not a chance. Not even. But, oh, it was fun for a moment, to ponder the question. No, not of how it might feel to be pregnant again, to await another birth. But of what it might be like to be young enough again so the question could be something other than ridiculous. I took my time answering. And didn't say what I was thinking then, "are you kidding?" "Hell, no!" "Not on your life, sister!" I smiled sweetly. And gently said, "no." It's a little bit like getting carded, for an ID, when buying beer. Could I, really, look young enough? No.

Collateral Damage

Violence takes its toll on a much wider swath of the community than simply the few persons directly, and physically, harmed by attack. It is an oddly sad day for me. I've listened this afternoon to the live stream from the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, to which I belong and which I serve (albeit passively now) as an ordained minister. The annual gathering is in Minneapolis yet through the magic of internet technology, Twitter, facebook, and several blogs, I can feel as if I'm in the convention center. (And, at the same time, eat an ice cream sandwich and, more importantly, pet and comfort my dog, Daisy, who is terrified of the ongoing thunderstorm.) I watch my friends make speeches on the video screen that introduce the Lutheran Malaria Initiative, our partnership with the larger UN Foundation's "Nothing But Net" campaign to provide malaria nets to everyone in Malaria-prone areas of Africa, Cindy, Andrea and others. This is the same campaign that Bill Gates, Ashton Kutcher, and Bono champion. We're part of it. $10.00 from you buys a net. Saves a life. We Lutherans do this sort of thing really, really well! We get resources on the ground and with less overhead than almost anybody else -- including organizations such as the Red Cross, national government, and UN aid. In the aftermath of the tsunami in Asia, Hurricane Katrina, and other disasters, we had money and supplies in people's hands within hours. Our ten bucks a head will go directly to purchase the nets. We're very efficient at this sort of thing. Besides buying "nothing but net" we are very good at delivering medical care, training medical professionals in Africa, and promoting the development of essential infrastructure that brings long-term, self-sustaining progress in Africa and elsewhere. It is moving and wonderful to learn of this activity. It makes me proud of our church. It may be just about the best thing we do. My daughter plans to become a medical doctor, her special interests are public health and medical care to underserved communities. This initiative is something I could easily imagine her getting excited about, and perhaps even committing her time and talent to. Sadly, because of what happened to me, and the church's response to it -- this same larger church that does some things so well -- she will have nothing to do with it. Of course, my daughter's vocation will be carried out in fulfilling and important ways. And the church will find the personnel required to deliver the care it seeks to offer. But I always rather expected, and imagined, that my daughters would also serve through the church, in part because, in this arena, it does such a great job. Not only my daughters and husband are lost to this church, but scores of others. And not only as a consequence of my experiences, but in relation to hundreds of other instances where the church has failed to care for victims of violence within the church. There are millions of Americans who have become estranged from churches, ours and others, because of the crass, self-serving, and mean-spirited actions of its leaders. I respect their decisions, especially as many of them are deeply spiritual persons who have found creative and meaningful ways of serving the world and honoring its people. They are often profoundly compassionate, humble, and hard-working in the ways they do divine work, even without so naming it. My family has taken other paths over the past several years, ones in which they have discovered new ways of engaging their values and commitments. I am so proud of them. I honor and respect them more than I can tell. The world will be grateful and make excellent use of their gifts. And they will find exciting ways to give. But on a day like today, I'm reminded that we have come out at a very different place than I expected years ago. And I can not but feel melancholy and a bit sad. There is never a containment policy for violence. It spills out. In ways we could not have imagined. Beyond boundaries we could not have predicted. We need to count these costs. The church can get along much more easily without me than it can without all these others. And they are legion. Legion.

Don't Get Even, Get Odd

I am exhausted. A broken-down treadmill, a spindly-legged white wood table, a conical -- and comical -- yellow metal Christmas tree and two very large boxes filled with junk blocked the driveway when Annika got home late last night from time out with her friends. She entered laughing. And texting. Seems the friends decided to deposit a load of leftover garage sale junk at our house. A prank. A very funny prank, to my still juvenile mind. The kids came over soon after and -- isn't this nice? -- put all the stuff back in Tyler's truck. Good guys. Then they came inside. "Mom, we have some hungry teenagers here." We offered string cheese, Doritos, and popcorn. Easy crowd. "This is so great," I told them, "because I've been wanting to do just this very prank to some people and now I've got the stuff to do it with." Matt looked at me as if I were joking but I assured them I was not. Oh no. I'm serious. Very serious. PTSD does funny things to people. It left my brain with a hankering, no, a craving, an almost uncontrollable urge to do mean pranks to mean people. It started soon into the recovery period. "Let's deliver flaming bags of poop!" my friend suggested, joking. I wanted to do it. The very first reading I did as I started to think again in coherent passages was to surf the internet for "Prank and Practical Joke" threads. I printed out a few hundred pages of possibilities. It occupied my mind -- and offered the sweet promise of revenge -- for months. Eventually, I compiled a book of my favorites. My family got worried. Insomnia was also part of the package. I was awake long after everyone else had gone far far away into REM sleep. What if I took the car one night and did these deeds? What if I did post crime-scene tape and leave a chalk drawing of a victim on the sidewalk of someone's house? What if I had a load of sand delivered to the home of the man who stalked me? I am proud, I guess, to tell you now that I never did a thing. Not one. I helped my friend teepee her neighbor's house one night a couple of years ago but that's it. That wasn't even on my list. I've been very good. All things considered. No prank phone calls, no tomb stones on the church lawn on Halloween, no loads of crap in anyone's driveway. But, oh the temptation. Last night. Here was a ready-made opportunity. And I had six teen-agers all hepped up and dying to do the deed for me. "Just give us the address," Tory begged. "We'll do it!" "Ah, c'mon!" they urged. "We won't get caught. And you won't even be involved." I tied myself to a chair and put a sock in my mouth. This is so hard. My fictional alter-ego will not be so pure. She is going to haunt and annoy the perpetrators of dastardly deeds, relentlessly. Maybe. But not me. Not the real me. I did get odd but I can't even imagine how I could ever get even. Ever. I can't do it. I think this is a sign that my brain is healing. I hope so. Impulse control. A good thing. But, exhausting. I am, according to my family and friends, less odd every day. It does occur to me to wonder, do you think nations could ever get to this point? Maybe a few pranks (more of these another day) would be good. Just don't ask Cuba to do any teepeeing; they have a critical shortage of toilet paper at the moment. What if Poland left a pile of junk on Russia's driveway?

After Party for the Madonna

My fifteen seconds are up. That's how long Kaia was willing to listen to my explanation of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. When we got to the word "concupiscence," she bailed. You may wonder what prompted this explanation in the first place. That's easy. The Feast of the Assumption of Mary. And, should you wonder about that, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary is a national holiday in Poland. And it's today. "You have got to be kidding," she says. We say that a lot in this house. There are an awful lot of outrageous things said around here and most of them are not true. So, when someone says, "You've got to be kidding!" chances are they are. But not about this. Today, August 15, is a national holiday in Poland. That's right, on a par with Independence Day, Easter and Easter Monday, Corpus Christi, two National holidays (May Day, and May 3), New Year's Day, and the first and second days of Christmas (December 25 and 26). Tell me Poland is not still very much a so-called Catholic country. At least on the calendar. Mary, as in The Virgin Mary, is often (and still, though more rarely) referred to as the Queen of Poland. You may remember the late Pope John Paul II's reverence for Mary, and perhaps you saw Lech Walesa back in the day, never seen without an icon of the Virgin on his lapel. Mary saved Poland. In a most famous battle with the Swedes, in 1655, the Poles were pushed back to their battlements on the hills of a small village called Czestochowa. To make a long -- and lovely -- story short, a miracle occurred in the night. The Swedish army was repelled by a small band of monks and local volunteers. The Jasna Gora monastery itself at Czestochowa was saved and along with it, Polish sovereignty. A beloved icon -- portrait -- of the Virgin Mary presided over this monastery in Czestochowa and it was to her the Pole's had prayed in preparation for this monumental battle. The portrait had become darkened over time and was known by all as The Black Madonna. She is still there, a gorgeous painting, a mystical icon, revered by Poles, including some who are not even religious. She saved Poland. The Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, interceded on behalf of the fervent Polish nation and they were saved. Throughout the Roman Catholic Church communion, today is celebrated as the day Mary was assumed into heaven. And, in gratitude to her, and in her honor, today is a national day of celebration in Poland. There are some who will be celebrating a bit differently this year. In fact, it is not likely they will be paying much attention to the Virgin Mother, Queen of Heaven, at all. Madonna is giving a concert in Warsaw tonight. And not only was I invited, I'm invited to the After Party at You & I club. Irony of ironies. There are a lot of ticked off Polish Catholics today. "How dare she?" Today, of all days. And it wasn't even planned by those infernal communists. They're gone. Nah, it's those capitalists who set this up. Music as business. Madonna as a hot property. That's the way it is these days. It's all about the dollar. Isn't that the meaning of freedom? About the party...shall I go?

To Tell the Truth

...is boring. Truth, apparently, is too plain. Mousey, limp-haired, dull, flat-chested. Dull brown eyes, gangly, washed-out. Truth is boring. It must be. For all the dressing up it gets. I can't listen to the news anymore. I get apoplectic. Congressmen hung in effigy. Death threats. Loaded handguns at town hall meetings. The health care reform debate has degenerated into gutter-snipe. I'm scared. The truth of the matter at hand is boring. Thousands of words typed in eight point font, subjunctives, and subordinate clauses. Complex ideas and proposals. All of which is reduced to provocative slogans. That mislead. Misrepresent. Misinterpret. Slogans ginned up to excite and disturb, adverts paid for by stakeholders. Elected officials sounding more like two-bit pundits. Scare tactics. Fear-mongering. There is more obfuscation than clarification coming from the -- yes, I'll tip my hand -- right side of the aisle. "Obama will kill your grandma." "Mandatory abortions." You've heard them. I'm waiting for somebody to announce that frontal lobotomies will be required for the parents of teenagers. Or teachers of grammar. I'm not here to argue about health care. I've already got the best health and wellness insurance policy in the world (seriously) so I really don't give a damn about the rest of you all. No. Just kidding. In fact, because I do have the best health care one could possibly hope for, I believe I should not be especially privileged. You should have it too. I'm here to advocate for telling the truth. And specifically, to not shroud it in lies. Truth can be boring. And inconvenient. Not always but often, and especially for those who like the status quo, who have something to hide, something to gain from keeping the lights off. The guy who attacked me in the church parking lot was egged on by folks who were afraid that I was about to tell some inconvenient and upsetting truths about the history of the congregation I served, to disclose hidden information that had been poisoning its atmosphere for decades, about clergy sexual abuse. They stirred up an enormous fuss about the dangers of, well, me. I ate babies. I pooped bunnies. I cooked up cauldrons of toddlers for lunch. I don't really know what all was said, but it was ridiculous. I was a monster. I was dangerous. I had to be stopped. The issue at stake was not the threat of universal health care but a threat that I could disclose dangerous, old, and some not so old secrets. What if I told the truth? I had to be stopped. Ironically, I didn't even know all of the dangerous secrets at the time. I learned them afterward, from colleagues who helped me to understand why I was targeted and why the attacks were so vicious. It is true that sometimes, people will stop at nothing. And distracting lies get the mob stirred up. In that situation, as in the current one, the real perpetrators, those who have the most to lose, are in shadows, hidden behind preposterous accusations lest the real issues come out. I woke up trembling again this morning. Another nightmare. I don't have them as often as I used to, not even close. But they still come and they are debilitating. It takes hours, sometimes a day or two, to shake off the terror and devastation I feel afterward. When this page is not updated for a few days, you may assume this is the cause. Evil has faces, and voices, in those nightmares. Deceptively sweet smiles and smoothed, coiffed hair, pious words, disarming goofiness. Diabolical determination to mask the truth, to twist and hide it. It's an old trick that magicians depend on. Deflection, distraction: look here so you don't notice what I'm doing over there. It is dangerous. It was for me. But it was dangerous to the community too. They too were harmed and perhaps in some instances, more than I was. And it is dangerous now. For our national community. Let's debate the real issues. Starting with the truth. Meanwhile, move aside, Warsaw. We got you beat. Poland has a reputation for contentious politics. It is well earned. There are days when headlines in Warsaw remind me more of middle school than national government. Feuds over chairs -- who gets to sit at the head of the table and, literally, on what kind of chair --and crude accusations of collaboration with Communist era secret police. It is ugly. Has been for centuries. The Poles are said to do much better when fighting together against a common enemy -- Russians, Germans -- than when stuck with the tedium of getting along with each other. In twenty years, they are still waiting for the cooperation required to build a decent long-distance expressway. Too much sniping. More of that later. For now, though, they can't hold a candle against the deliberate efforts we've got going to keep the health care debate away from the real questions, the workable ones, the problems that a consensus can come up with solutions to resolve. It is dangerous. To public leaders who are being targeted. And to us all. Telling the truth seems dangerous sometimes. But not telling it is far, far worse.

"Dear mom, Please send blankets. And mittens."

And a warm coat. "We just crossed the border and saw the gigantic red CCCP and a sign that said, I think, 'Welcome, crazy Americans!' "And now we've stopped to let a squadron of Soviet soldiers onto the train. The scene outside my window is peaceful, a blanket of snow, frosted drifts piled high against the pale pink horizon. Russia is simply beautiful. We just saw and heard the romantic chuffing of a steam-engine go chugging off down the track, huffing, puffing, and belching smoke. Forgive me but, as I peer out past these red velvety curtains, I have the sense of being in Dr. Zhivago's world. Cue music. "We stopped a few moments ago at the edge of a woods, birch and fir. So clean, clear, and fresh. The air looks chilly but not frigid. Darkness comes quickly now, creating a stunning contrast between the wide expanses of brilliant white snow and the deep dark trees. Long shadows are fading into the night. "On the hills beyond us an occasional spotlight casts a purple glow, glistening crystals of light, frozen snowflakes caught in slow motion. We heard the boots of the soldiers squeaking, even through the glass windows of our sleeper car, as they approached the train. Maybe it is colder than it looks. "Schmaltzy, I know, I know. But arriving in Russia, the Soviet Union, but really, this is Russia, in this way feels hopelessly romantic. This beautiful, snowy countryside is breathtaking. I am sure the reality will strike sooner or later. Perhaps if I paid more attention to... Ah, whoa, it is time for reality therapy: they've told us to get off the train. Here we go." It was November, 1980. Entering the USSR for the first time. Fences, gates and spotlights and uniformed guards with flashlights and dogs checking under the train. A lone soldier standing guard at his post at the frontier, rifle in hand, spotlight trained along the concrete wall alongside the track...that is the reality. Before the curt announcment, "you must go out now," there were border patrols on the train, politely -- politely! -- asking to see our money and to go through our bags. "You will open, please," she said pointing to my ugly hard-shell, yellow Samsonite case. She actually seemed more embarrassed to have to do it than I was to have her spend several minutes carefully pawing and sifting through my clothes, papers, electric rollers. Those puzzled her. There was no station in sight as we climbed down the metal, grated steps off the train and began our forced march through the snow. An icy path was stretched out before us. Our motley crew of six slipped and slid and grabbed on to one another for support. And not only to stay on the track. We walked on in silence at first. Then, as there seemed to be no end in sight, we got a bit jittery. A few nervous jokes. Ed got us singing, "We are marching to Siberia. Siberia. Siberia. We are marching to Siberia. Siberia, ola!" More than a mile. "Dear mom, please send mittens," Fran joked. "Dear mom," Steve continued, "please send dollars. In small bills." Bribery came to mind. A faint light in the distance, finally. But what kind of building was it? Where were we going? To what fate? Seriously, we had visas, official initations from high-placed officials. What could be wrong? We slid down an incline and trundled through a narrow tunnel under train tracks and struggled up a steep flight of 30 stairs into a brightly lit, huge room that was filled to bursting with the most gorgeous men I'd ever seen. Over 300 Soviet soldiers, officers, decked out in full winter dress uniform, long wool coats with epaulets on the shoulders, shiny black boots, and hats, oh, my god, the hats. Furry Russian hats with striking red insignia. I swooned. Seriously. They stood as one, all eyes on the six of us, and Harris, just behind me, mumbled, as if to the assembly, "I suppose you're wondering why we called you all here." They parted to make way for us to pass through and Ed began to hum in my ear, "Hail to the Chief." I started to snicker. Then to giggle. And then I just lost it. As we walked through the stately gathering, a formal old-European high-ceilinged train station with curled sculpture on granite pillars, under the gaze of the Soviet Army, I began to laugh absolutely uncontrollably. Out of control. We've all had those moments. At the worst possible time, high pressure, terribly serious. A friend had a fit of uncontrollable hilarity at his doctoral exam. Another at his wedding. Another on stage. It happens. But in front of a regiment of Soviet military officers? Not good form. But I couldn't stop. Could. Not. Stop. We did not get marched off to the gulag. We did not languish in a Soviet prison. I was not lashed about the knees for my insubordinate behavior. Turns out, we had to get off the train because Americans were not allowed to witness in any fashion the mechanical rite required whenever trains from outside entered into the Soviet Union. The wheels have to be taken off and new ones put on. I thought this was a joke the first time I heard it. But it's true. The gauge is different between Europe and Russia, always has been, to thwart invasions by rail. We were ushered into a warm, comfortable room where we had light refreshments and watched two ancient babushkas mop the floor. "I can't decide which method I like better," I wrote in my journal, "one wets a rag in her bucket and wrings it out over the floor to dampen it, then mops with a big wide push mop. The other method is more entertaining. She walks along flinging water out of the pail with her hand, then goes back and mops it up." They were the quintessential peasants, old drab dresses with rips in the seams and black cotton tights and wooly scarves. No teeth. But very smiley and friendly, "grateful for our putting our feet up as they mopped under our seats. The one in front of me is chattering away to herself and I am dying to know, what is she talking about? What does keep all these round old ladies chattering and puttering?" After a chance to read Pravda and Izvestia and look at a photo exhibit of the boycotted Moscow Olympics from that summer, we got an escort for the walk back through the snow and across the slippery path back to the train. The Soviet officers had gone, too, on their own troop train. Later, I learned that they were preparing for an invasion of Poland. I have no idea what Laura Ling and Euna Lee endured through their months of North Korean captivity. But I cried as I saw them come off the plane this morning. And I remembered that night in Brest, "Dear mom, I am in the gulag. Please send boots."

Garden of Exile, part one

Exile is not altogether a bad thing. Often, in fact, you land in a better place. Hui looked absolutely radiant in her pink shimmery chiffon dress, a sweet bow sashing her tiny waist, layers of fabric billowing in the evening breeze. A matching ribbon in her hair, a beaming smile on her face. And heels! Glittery patent-leather sandals with one-inch heels together with her upswept pony tail gave this wippet of a girl a regal air. Hui grew up in a refugee camp in Thailand. Ten long years in an ugly, hot, sweaty jungle camp, primitive conditions. In exile. Enduring, with her mother and father and sisters, having escaped from the fighting in their native Burma, (Myanmar). She never looked so lovely there as she does on this Friday night in Denver. "I would like to become a pediatrician," she told me. "I would like to help other children like the ones in the camp where I lived." We first met two weeks ago, across a table here at the toney, private Kent Denver Academy. It was 'practice for the future' day. Hui is not yet a student at Kent itself, but a participant in Breakthrough, this amazing, fantastic summer program for gifted middle school Denver Public Schools students that my daughter teaches in and has given her heart to. Five students came in to a classroom to shake my hand, smile brightly, look me in the eye and tell me, "It is very good to meet you," just as they had been coached. I interviewed them, for practice, as if it were an opportunity for these worthy students to gain a scholarship, private high school or college admission. Every one of them was an immmigrant, and every one of them was in exile. They had ended up in Denver, fleeing from violence and wars in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. Every one of them lived for some years in a refugee camp -- some for their entire childhood -- and every one of them spoke sweet, accented English in addition to at least two other languages. They were 11. And 12. And 13. Hui and Htoo spoke Keran, their native language for me, just a few sentences, so they could express themselves in a comfortable tongue and so I could enjoy the lovely sounds of this Southeast Asian language. I'd never heard of it before. And I'd never heard of the Somalian tribal language spoken by Hawa a few minutes later. I felt like an idiot. How many languages am I fluent in, really fluent, able to carry on a lively conversation? One. Some citizen of the world I am. But I digress. Here in this new world, having been exiled -- sent out -- from their old one, my daughter's young students are finding a new life. Their parents are having a harder time, as one would expect. The kids soak it up. The parents, not so much. I sat next to Hui's mother and father and younger sisters at the Celebration -- graduation -- Event on Friday night as the auditorium rocked with hip-hop music and a sea of gorgeous, deep chocolate faces smiled out at us from the video made of the summer's activities. "What must they be thinking?" I whispered to my husband. There is a world of difference between the quiet Burmese culture and the ones into which their daughter had been thrown. I am drawn to these exiles for many reasons, but in part because I feel as if I have become one too. It is almost seven years now, will be in October, that I was sent out -- that sounds so tame -- in a violent way from the community in which I had been at home for all of my adult life. The church. As several of you kind readers have noted in your messages to me, this is a story that will take some time to emerge, to tell. I thank you for your forbearance. No longer welcome, in fact, cast out -- there! that's the phrase I was looking for -- pushed off the cliff into a completely unknown, or so I thought at the time, new world, I was told to leave and not come back. It is a devastating experience. Time Magazine's Person of the Year, 2002, that year was not one person but three. My friends pointed out that I had a lot in common with them, and indeed, while no great cheese, I did feel a kindred spirit with them. And had paid the same price. The Whistleblowers. Three women. Coleen Rowley, from the FBI in Minnesota who tried to warn her superiors of the suspicious circumstances of young foreigners taking pilot lessons but not wanting to learn how to land their planes. Sherron Watkins, from Enron, and Cynthia Cooper of World Com both tried to warn of the financial disasters about to befall their respective corporations. All were fired. That's as much as I'll say for now about my kinship with them but the larger point is that in the aftermath of a violent attack, I found myself in exile. Not exactly officially. I am still a rostered clergyperson. I am the grateful recipient of the world's best disability benefits, through the church. But in this place where I live and had worked, I am persona non grata. Exile, it turns out, is not altogether a bad thing. It is devastating in a lot of ways. But I have learned some new languages. The language of survivors, from the inside, is different than it was when I spoke it only as a care-giver, from the safe antiseptic distance, outside the gut-wrenched, disoriented, disturbed axis of pain. I didn't want to know that language from the inside-out. But now I am glad I've got it. I'm not ready yet to become again an active caregiver to other survivors of violence but when I am, it will be with a deeper, stronger sense of compassion and with the insights that only come from one's own hard-won battles. It is not a bad thing to understand how servicemen and women coming home from war feel -- not that it is a good thing for one to have the same diagnosis, the same horrible symptoms of distress from a church, for god's sake. And I now understand and am a better friend to my Polish pals and their parents, who came through much much worse. I'm shaking as I write this, here at my favorite cafe, in 'my' chair, where my new friend and writing buddy, Judy, just stopped by to tell me, "you belong here, I expect to see you here, I hope to see you here in the afternoons, writing." Telling truths is still sometimes terrifying. I'm still afraid. But I'm also not going to stop this time. I was intimidated into silence once before. It's not going to happen again. Exile has its advantages. I like this chair. I like my new community of friends, very much. I am all the more grateful for my 'old' friends who stuck by me and with me and continue to enrich my life, in a rather new way. Exile has been good for me. My Polish friends, too, found themselves feeling giddy with their freedom, no censors, no snoops. My new Burmese friends feel fresh and new and light. Light as chiffon, in fact. That lovely pink dress that Hui had on is what exile can look like. I'm going for that.

Under the Mountain

It is not much of a mountain by my standards. More like a big hump, tree covered and climbable even by old ladies in sturdy shoes. There are stairs all the way up, with landings and benches along the way. You can stop and take a rest if you need it. The steps are wide and low, and even a car can drive up and down them. Not good for the suspension, I suppose, but it is possible. Beginning today, and for the next 63 days, a bonfire burns atop this hill. My friend, Margaret, and her family live at the base of the hill on a small street called Pod Kopcem. (In Polish there is a squiggle under the c in Kopcem so it sounds different than your usual c.) It means, Under the Mountain. I assumed you would see the fire burning, or at least the smoke from it, from their big picture window that overlooks a lush garden and the wide mountainside. But you can't. Nonetheless, they are keenly aware that it's there and they know it is burning. And why. Sixty-five years ago today the remaining residents of Warsaw, the ones who had not already been shot by the Nazis or sent off to forced labor or fled to the countryside, or were not Jewish and had by now been exterminated virtually to a person, these remaining citizens of the Polish capital commenced a carefully planned and, frankly, well-executed uprising against their captors. I saw the telex their commanders sent to Polish forces abroad, "we are already fighting." If you can imagine your city, or town, already bombed to smithereens, shells of apartment buildings and offices and hospitals and churches left standing amidst their rubble, you can begin to imagine Warsaw in 1944. The war had been going on for how many years already? Five. Since September 1, 1939. The city was decimated. Hundreds of thousands dead, gone, dying, barely surviving. The shock of seeing the Nazi's brutality against the Jewish uprising the year before was still fresh. The ghetto had been emptied, liquidated. The city itself felt like a dead place, ghostly, and ghastly. But throughout Europe, the tide had turned. Normandy was already part of the vocabulary, hope was rising. Allied forces were gaining ground. The Soviet army had routed the Germans in the East and were now in control of much of eastern Poland. In fact, the Red Army was at the outskirts of Warsaw itself, just across the Hudson -- I mean, Vistula -- River. You could see them. Ready to take Warsaw from the Nazis. The Polish resistance had been active throughout the war, engaging in serious battles and significant acts of sabotage. (More of all of this as time goes on, this is still just the beginning of the story I want to tell you.) And the Home Army was organized and ready to fight. The time was right. It seemed the moment had come. Sixty-five years later, Margaret and her family make the pilgrimage up the mountain behind their home. There is a ceremony today and there will be observances for the duration of the length of the Rising. Her children know this story, it lives within them, in fact, it lives under them. The mountain, under which they live -- at its base, that is -- is a mound of rubble. Warsaw's ruins are buried under the earth that has grown several hundred meters high and is now lovely to look at, covered with gentle birches and quiet oaks. It sounds gruesome, to live with this rubble and ruin. But it isn't. Somehow this mountain is a place of memorial but more than that, a place of resistance, of honor. Margaret has relatives, uncles, aunts, who fought in the Warsaw Rising. So does her husband. They like living here, looking out on the forest now grown up on this mountain. Their children don't think of it as gross, or macabre at all. They see it as another site of Polish resistance, resilience, of determination. Something quite lovely has grown up out of all this rubble. And so life goes on. "You meant it for evil..." From ugly death, life emerges once more. And from where I sit today, on the front seat of the old minivan, I look around at sites once associated with ugliness, deadly deceit and hate, in this town, here in Littleton, where I'm back home now, and I hope for life. I dare to hope, to believe. "Out of the rot and the ruin, comes a rumor of resurrection."* It goes on. *Thanks to James Avery for the quote.

Minivan at 12

There is talk of replacing the minivan. I don't like such talk, not at all, not now. You would think I'd be eager to see it go. I drove this green minivan to the church on the night I was attacked in the parking lot. I made the mistake of getting out, ignoring the alarm bells in my head, the gut feeling that screamed, "Danger! This isn't right, something doesn't look right." In fact, not trusting my instincts at many points through that long dangerous summer and fall was in itself a cause for anguish and guilt, and self-blame afterward. "If only...." I didn't drive the van for a long time after that night. Can you blame me? In fact, I couldn't drive at all for months, not for more than a year. And it's only this summer that I've really enjoyed driving the green minivan again, as it's back to its role as a mom-mobile. Ten years ago today I loaded up the forest green Voyager with Talbots and Marshall Field's hanging bags holding new suits -- professional clothes -- clergy shirts with new linen collars, and go-to-meeting shoes. We left Naperville at dawn and made it to North Platte just as the night-flying miller moths were flocking to the hotel light. I had packed suitcases with brand-new clothes for both daughters, then 6 and 11, clothes they hated, clothes they would wear to meet-the-Call Committee events over the coming weekend. They had walkmans and tapes and books and games and nestled into their spots in the middle and back seats, pillows and blankets and beany babies at hand. I gave them 'trip presents,' to ward off boredom and to sweeten the deal. Kaia was a goner, hooked on the first Harry Potter book the day it came out. We had a cooler filled with apples and juices and veggies and a couple of Snickers. I had bottled water and a thermos of steaming hot coffee. A sleek leather notebook with notes for my interviews was open next to me on the other front seat, as if by osmosis, while driving, I could continue to focus on the challenges ahead. My mom-book, spiral bound, was checked twice, and then once more, before we left, lists of shoes, socks, jackets, frisbees, Barbies, soccer ball, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Frog and Toad for Annika, and Maroon Five for Kaia. Ready, set, off! We sang along to the Backstreet Boys, Shania Twain, Disney and Bewitched. I kept my promise: I got the girls to the hotel in time to swim. We hit the pool and then slept like fiends. I was up before dawn and we hit the road as the sun came up, racing it west all morning long until we pulled into the parking lot at Denver International Airport just as Dave's plane was landing. Spilled grape Juicy Juice and Capri Sun stained the car floor and leftover carrots were getting soggy but we made it. I remember so clearly that the radio just happened to play my favorite song, Dan Fogelberg's Netherlands, as we made the turnoff. Radio stations never played that song, ever. I took it as a sign: this was the right place, the right time, the right move. Dave had critical meetings on Thursday in Chicago so he flew out to meet us; we picked him up and found our hotel. I switched from mom-mode into pastor-gear, high gear, overdrive to tell the truth. I put on my starched and pressed formal clergy clothes, wrapping a stiff white color around my neck as the rest of my family set out in my brother's Jeep to enjoy an afternoon at Garden of the Gods. I drove the minivan to the church for job interviews. It was the end of something, that afternoon. And, a beginning. This same Voyager was the van I had driven through Naperville to soccer practice and piano lessons and tennis lessons and drama camp and Bible School, to Nadia's house for Battle of the Books and to Julia's house for afternoons of dress-up. This was the same van that made daily trips to Mill Street School and took children to Naper Nuts & Sweets and to Dairy Queen after early evening softball games. This van carried giggling girls to Centennial Beach and to Fun City and Navy Pier. This Voyager knew the carpool routes and could find its own way to Target. It carried bikes and trikes, Big Wheels and Barbie's Magical Motor Home. It sometimes had the sweet smell of grape juice and more often, that sweaty stink of six girls' played-in soccer cleats. Soon after we moved from downtown Chicago to Naperville -- once voted the most kid-friendly town in America -- we pulled into the school parking lot. Minivans lined up as far as the eye could see. A hundred? More? Could there be that many minivans in all the world? Before long we understood the draw and got one for our very own. It carried kids to birthday parties and Girl Scout camp. It brought Christmas trees home from the forest. It hauled skis and skates and sleds. There are milky white stains on the middle seat from the spilling-over, soupy scalloped potatoes that dripped all the way from our house to Urban Peak, the teen homeless shelter in Denver, where we prepared and served the Christmas Eve 2003 dinner. There are taco sauce and barbeque sauce stains on seats and floors and dirt ground in from forsythia and flats of flowers, but, overall, the thing is in very good condition. The floormats are worn out but, heck, those can be replaced. Easy. The '97 Voyager took us from Washington D.C. to San Diego, and back and forth from Chicago to Colorado more times than I can tell. One summer I drove it from here to St. Louis on I-70. A week later, across I-90 and back, from Denver to Duluth. And finally, from our new home here back to visit in Chicago on I-80. The poor thing has been up Trail Ridge Road many times and to the top of Mount Evans, at 14,264 feet, and below sea level through the Salton Sea. It brought our two beloved English Springer Spaniels home to join our family and it ferried my elderly parents to endless doctor appointments. It's been rear-ended and broadsided and totaled and resurrected, twice. We go way back, this van and me. We have seen glorious seasons and poignant times together, and it delivered me daily, for three years, into the very bowels of hell. Three transmissions, two-hundred thousand miles, and a hell of a lot of trauma later, we're still a team. Or rather, we are a team again. We are surivors. I avoided driving this van for the last six years. Too many terrible memories in Littleton attached. But, now, in a new season (it seems to be Fall already here this year!), I'm ready to reclaim my mom-mobile. My own kids don't much need me to drive them around anymore. But Kaia has students who need to get picked up at noon every day at schools from one end of Denver to the other. Maleek and Charlene and Josefyna and Lynea, Jocalo and Brenda need a ride to Breakthrough (more of this soon). The radio is set for hip-hop and I learn about their adventures and lives here and before, in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Somalia and Mexico. It couldn't be better. So. The van is back in business. As a bus. And we are going to keep it. To fulfill the intention to write about Poland I will just say this, this time. There are very few minivans in Poland. But you can bet that every one of them is used as a bus. Like mine.

Midsummer Springs Eternal

Midsummer. July 22. In a normal year, the hills around us are dry and brown. The fire danger is sky high and we are resigned to scorching, relentless heat. The daily storms brew up in a flash in late afternoon and are gone more quickly than they arrive. The sudden downpour is devoured by the parched earth and makes no measurable difference. We must water the grass daily, even if it is against the rules, to keep the lawn green. I’m sorry for tourists who come to Colorado in July. It is not our best month. But this year they are in for a treat. The foothills are still verdant, the land feels lush and full. Flowers are flourishing everywhere and the cattails are thriving. It is still monsoon season, a surprise to most who don’t think that word and Colorado belong in the same sentence. Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific flows in and cooks up spectacular thunder storms every afternoon, as the heat of the day creates the convection that explodes into fifty-thousand foot clouds and the inevitable cloudbursts. Natives know not to make plans for late afternoon picnics, or weddings. By early evening the sky is clear again, a cleansed palate for another breathtaking sunset. And evening baseball at Coors Field where the Rockies continue to hit it out of the park. This last Monday night, the fireworks got a late start. The moisture and a cool front took their sweet time drifting down the Front Range and arrived close to ten p.m. Within minutes, a potboiler of a storm had blown up, creating straight-line winds gusting to 65 miles per hour, unforgettable lightning, deafening thunder and even a tornado only six miles from our house. It was the first time in ten years I had taken a tornado warning seriously. We moved the computers to the basement and were ready to flee ourselves if we heard a roar or rumble heading our way. I heard the roar but it didn’t get louder before it faded away. Daisy the dog, on the other hand, was not persuaded the danger had passed until an hour or so after the last clap of thunder. She spent the duration of the storm on my bed, burrowed into pillows and trembling without ceasing, even as I wrapped my arms around her and tried to cover her ears. Colorado must be a difficult place to be a dog. This is the thing I don’t like about July in Colorado. Humidity. We don’t feel it hanging heavy, clammy and suffocating the air, as it is in the Midwest. What we do feel, we tend to appreciate. A welcome break from the lip-cracking dryness. Our humidity is often in the single digits. No, what I don’t like about our humidity is the way it hides the mountains. They are obscured for most of the day behind a shroud of moisture. The clouds that will become violent later in the day linger as dewy film, a gauzy curtain that keeps us from seeing anything more than a vague outline of the hills and valleys and high peaks a few miles away. It is not a clear day and I cannot see forever. And I don’t like it. I’m used to one hundred mile views. From Long’s Peak in the north to Pike’s Peak in the south, and, in fact, beyond in both directions. It is a distance of more than a hundred miles. In between are the Indian Peaks, the massive mountains that surround Mount Evans, and scores of undulating hills that come in and out of focus, depending upon the angle of the sun. I can see forever. It is a world that inspires big visions, big dreams, a wide-angle perspective on life. On days like this, I’m on my own. I have to envision far more than I can see. I have to see farther than I can, to imagine contours and landscapes that are fuzzy and hidden. On days like today, there is no far horizon to beckon one on, to lure one into a far country. On days like today, I have to trust, to imagine, to believe. On days like this, it is all about faith.

Battle It Out

Poland is a part of Europe. But, of course, you say. Look at the map. And, by the way, haven’t we covered this already? There’s more. Poland is a part of Europe. You would think this is too obvious to mention. But you would be wrong. Poland has been forgotten, ignored, neglected, wiped off the map, and left out of the European self-consciousness time after time after time. For much of its long life, from the 10th century onward, Poland has ended up on the wrong sides of rivers and geo-political divides. From 1945 until 1989, Poland was locked behind an iron curtain, a satellite in orbit around a behemoth that required it to forsake, for the most part, its European identity. It might have been smack dab in the middle of Europe but it surely didn’t seem so. Poland felt more like a back-water, isolated and stagnating while the rest of the world moved on. Even within other European countries, one might hear, “Poland isn’t part of Europe.” Poland has been Europe’s favorite lost-in-plain-sight battlefield for centuries. Conveniently stuck right in the middle, with unimpeded access from east and west, Poland is the place where Europeans have come to fight since forever. Mongols, Tartars, and Turks. Teutonic Knights and Germanic tribesmen. Slavs from other lands, and even the now-taciturn Swedes conquered and ravaged Poland over the ages. More Turks, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Russians. The French marched through without stopping to take over, earning them the Poles’ vote for “Most Friendly.” The Russians attacked again. The Germans invaded again. Then the Russians one last (dare we hope) time. Who hasn’t invaded Poland? And they are coming again. Europe is coming back to fight on Polish soil. But, of course. Poland’s flat, fertile fields and its rich mineral resources have been contested for eons. Anyone who knew of this fecund land and its coal, ore and salt deposits, set in the center of the European heartland, invaded it, or tried to, or allied itself to a nation that did. They all took Poland, or, at the very least, thought about it. And why not? What a temptation. Polish geography, its wide open plains, invited incursions. Without defensible natural borders and a long, vulnerable Baltic coastline, Poland was the natural battle field for Europe and an unimpeded pipeline for the flow of armies east to west, west to east, north to south, and, inevitably, back again. The Poles got it coming and going, and it was even worse when they all came and tried to stay. You may be surprised then to find that the Poles are eager for all of Europe to come back to do battle on Polish soil. Portugal and Spain, Greece and Slovakia will be there. The Swedes and Norwegians are counting on it. Croats and Albanians, and of course, the French and the British will be there. Even the Germans and the Russians will be welcomed back (more or less). Europe is coming to fight in Poland in, as they have done for centuries. But this time will be different. This time they will be fighting on the lush green turf, not for it. This time, the trophy will not be the land itself. Poland and Ukraine will host the United European Football Association (UEFA) championships in 2012. The coveted UEFA Cup is at stake, not Poland’s independence. It is even reasonable to expect that the country will be left in better condition – especially economically – after everyone has gone home. For a change. And what a great lot of change that will be. It is high time that Poland be back in the middle of things, in the very heart of Europe where it belongs. And it is about time for Poland to host a friendly, even lucrative invasion where the battles will be civilized, if not always civil, and the trophy will not be the battleground itself.

This is the story

“I came to Poland because nobody here wants to kill me.” I tossed the comment across the table at Kasia but it came back at me with a resonant power that took my breath away. I meant to pop off with a comment so outrageous that my old friend would laugh and I could move our conversation back to safer ground. I intended to toss off something light and edgy, shading toward the provocative, exaggerated. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t a sarcastic pop. It was the truth. Truth has been known to sneak out without warning, to escape the lips without permission. When it does there is nothing to do but shut up and pay attention. I shivered in the glare of mid-morning sun, once, twice. Truth shivers, I call them. Kasia bit back a tease, “Nobody? Nobody here wants to kill you? You sure about that?” She knew me well enough to expect an irreverent response to her first question, “What are you doing here? Why did you show up all of a sudden?” But this was not my usual deflection. Kasia looked away, unnerved by the raw words I’d spoken, seeing the glistening in my eyes, knowing the truth of it, not wanting to intrude on a confession so primal, so intimate. “My god,” I whispered, after a silence that stretched out beyond oceans and continents and across months, years, pushing against settled assumptions, closed accounts. I was dazed and exhausted. “I had no idea.” “Escape,” I say, words seeping out again, unexpected. I am alone this time, later that afternoon, the usual diet Coke with ice and lemon chilling on the table next to my notebook. The women sitting at the next table next stop speaking, take sidelong glances at my silver pony tail, the gauzy pink scarf wound tight around my neck, my tailored white shirt and blue skirt. Who wants to be anywhere near to a woman who talks to herself! They scooted their chairs ever-so-slightly, an inch or two farther away. Sometimes I too wonder if I’m crazy. “Escape,” I whisper again, unable to stop the word from coming out. That is what I’m doing. Running from the danger, the nightmares, the trauma that waits for me on every street back home. Yes, I’ve come to Warsaw because nobody here wants to kill me. I shiver again, several times. It is the truth. Kasia and I have been friends ever since 1980, my year of post-graduate study in Warsaw, the same year Poland was carried away on a rising tide of hope. We rode a train all the way to Gdansk to stand with a lively group of protesters at the famous shipyard , chanting “Solidarnosc! Solidarnosc!” into the night. We became close friends very quickly, recognizing a kindred spirit, a common quirky sense of humor, similar hopes and dreams, and the same odd ability to care equally about world peace and the latest fashion in shoes. Okay, we cared more about world peace. But still, we were odd ducks in our respective worlds, her’s Polish, mine American, being geeky and studious, serious and sober yet, at the same time, silly and ridiculous. We were the only two women we knew – in any country – who could get derailed on the way to a peace rally by the display window of a shoe store. Or vice versa. What’s more, we laughed at ourselves and at the world around us, a reverent, respectful laughter but laughter all the same. Over years of friendship and even across iron curtains, Kasia and I had seen each other through heartaches and break-ups, professional crises and personal victories. We had been through miscarriages and violent illnesses, we had consoled one another through the dying and death of parents and rejoiced at the birth of children. We whined and complained about said children and about our husbands, we crowed and bragged about those very same souls, and we shared the ups and downs of our careers as they developed, veered off course, and wandered back onto a new path. Before the days of easy phone calls and uncensored mail, we persevered with the sorts of code that good friends figure out, for saying what’s important without flagging extra attention. After Al Gore invented the internet, we used that for regular chats and kept in close touch. Which is why Kasia was puzzled, then concerned when I suddenly dropped from radar in October, 2002. Her emails went unanswered. No one answered my phone. Nobody returned her calls or responded to her voice mail messages. “Where are you?” she wrote me. “What happened?” I finally wrote back. A brief and apparently fractured note that said simply, “I’m sick. I’ve been hurt. I’ll write again soon.” But I didn’t. Over the next few years I sent rambling emails that were alternately chipper and chatty or short and somber. I didn’t want my Polish friends to worry, and anyway, my problems seemed small in comparison to all the Poles have been through. Finally, in a burst of energy, I landed in Warsaw, unannounced, on a sunny day in 2007. I didn’t call anyone for more than a week, just padded around the tiny apartment I’d rented and wandered the streets in search of something, I didn’t know what. Kasia insisted on meeting for coffee the very afternoon I called her to say, “here I am, surprise!” And so we sat down at the round marble tables at the ancient and fabled Blikle Café, me situated so my back was to the granite wall, my face forward to see everything that passed on the street. As she sipped espresso, she asked, “what is going on? Why are you here so suddenly?” I thought for only a second before launching my response. “I came to Poland because nobody here wants to kill me.”

Scones for Everybody!

Annika's cell phone went in to the pool last night. No wonder she didn't text me back. Annika, with phone in jeans pocket, got pushed into the pool at the fireworks party. Can you even imagine -- 16 year old Annika with no phone? Annika, who sends and receives 400 text messages a day? Never mind North Korean missiles, with Annika phoneless, will the world end? We take this communication so much for granted. Back and forth, across town, across oceans. When Kaia was in South Africa for four months, we were never out of touch save for a period when she was living in 'maphandleni' -- the rural areas, with a family, beyond reach of cell or any other phones. When I'm in Poland, we text and chat and Skype as if we were merely a few miles away, or across the room. Now, Annika's phone is dead. How on earth will I know what she's thinking this very minute? Kaia and I were joking yesterday about our goofy failure to comprehend that Breakfast at Wimbledon is only breakfast in the States! It is 3 p.m. in Warsaw, two in the afternoon when the play begins in London. The boys are practicing their serve. It is high time for tennis. It's time for a Corona with lime. In Littleton, the fam is covered in crumbs from freshly baked scones, the sofas basically a mess. Strawberries are being dipped in cream. Dave is sitting in the chair wondering if he should go to church. Kaia is flipping back and forth between tennis and the Tour de France, making everyone crazy. Annika is holding a memorial service for her phone. Daisy dog is crowding Kaia, curled up on one end of the short sofa, snoring but not, the girls can tell you, as loud as me. She's got her head plumped up on the oversize arm cushion, curly ears flopped over the edge. She's given up on any hope of stealing a bite, especially if I am not home to sneak one to her. The coffee is strong, the conversation is sparse, with only the occasional groan or exclamation, depending upon whom you're cheering for. We can chat online in real time. "Did you see that shot?" And they split sets. One all. "Look at Rod Laver's hat! Isn't it cute!" We could speak those words across the coffee table. Or send them through cyberspace. "Andy!" we exclaim, "if you're going to dink a little poof ball across the net, don't hit it right to him." It goes on. Dave is still sitting in the chair, wondering if he should go to church. Annika has moved through the denial stage of grief and is on to bartering. "Maybe it can be fixed; the smart chip still works." Kaia has given up on cycling for the day and Daisy dog has sprawled out on the floor. Roger won the third set. But Andy broke him early in the fourth. Another Corona. Pita with pesto is as close as it gets to scones in the Champions Bar on Jeruzolimskie Street in Warsaw. But the tennis is the same. As is the chit-chat with the fam.

Is it the 4th of July?

Celebrating the 4th of July in Warsaw is a little bit like celebrating Christmas in Tokyo. Not much holiday action going on around you. No bunting, no mylar stars and glittering flags in storefront displays. The American Ambassador has a gathering. Other expat groups have picnics or parties. And, if you're lucky, you get invited to a genuine backyard barbeque. I've celebrated a lot of holidays in Poland but this one is the weirdest. You walk out the door in the morning and life is going on just like it does every other day. Horns honking, taxis weaving in and out of rush hour traffic. The metro is full, the bus isn't running a holiday schedule. All of my friends are going to work. Offices are going full tilt and meetings have been scheduled. Just another day. "Um, that day isn't good for me," I explained to Tad, who works for PriceWaterhouse, which has a significant Polish presence. He doesn't get it at first, when I tell him I have holiday plans. No disrespect, mind you. But the American Independence Day just doesn't register on the European radar. There will be no fireworks tonight. Granted, it is much different now than in the 1982 when, as I remember, there were anti-American goings on that day. It's hard to believe there was a time when our two countries were not allies, not even officially on speaking terms. Which is not to say the Poles haven't always felt friendly toward Americans, especially given that so many of them emigrated to the States. But it was also true that the U.S. was viewed with a good deal of wariness and suspicion, even outright anger, given the historical memory of the Yalta decision to give Stalin control over Poland after World War II. Why celebrate American independence when we had, in their view, given theirs away. There were no fireworks in 1982 either. The expats now living in Konstancin, a lovely suburb of Warsaw, have big homes with big backyards, patios and barbeque grills. There will be brats and burgers, homemade potato salad, corn on the cob, cherry pie and ice cream this afternoon. Lemonade and beer. A friendly game of croquet on the lawn, maybe some badminton, and softball over at the International School field. Rumors of sparklers and Roman candles circulate. But no big parade. My hometown in Colorado is so famous for its big 4th of July Parade it was a featured event in the American Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. I spent every single Independence Day of my childhood sitting on the curb with my cousins, chasing after Tootsie Rolls and bubble gum tossed by rodeo queens and clowns, admiring the serpentine drills performed by skilled horseback clubs and screwing up my nose at the abundance of 'souvenirs,' as my aunts called them, left by the hundreds of horses and cattle. Even today, a herd of longhorns led the parade and old friends sat on blankets they set out days ago, some sleeping out overnight saving favorite spots in the shade. I miss that. In fact, over the years, we've never really developed another tradition. If I can't do that, what else is there? My aunts are all gone, and my mom, makers of the world's best fried chicken and baked beans, potato salad, cole slaw and red jello. My dad's signature contribution, black cherry lemonade, is long gone. My cousins are all grown and we've scattered from coast to coast, and beyond. We won't be sneaking over to plant cherry bombs on the grammar school playground in the afternoon or taking naps before spreading out yet another blanket to watch the fireworks from Mumper Hill. Every year I get a burst of enthusiasm in late May and decide that this will be the year I invite the Anderson clan over for a reunion picnic on the 4th of July. And every year, I don't follow through. Some traditions belong to memory. It seems fitting to celebrate Independence Day in a place where independence is new again and cherished. What a difference! In that sense, barbeques aside, every day is independence day.

Polish Women Still in the Wimbledon Hunt

Lame, I know. But, hey, this is an angle to the Polish story. I'll get back to work soon. Let's hear it for the Radwanska's!

Wimbledon is the only thing...

...to derail my writing. Oops. Christie pointed out today that I had not updated this blog in a few days. There is only one excuse. Wimbledon. I am a tennis junkie. Two years ago, spending a summer in Warsaw, living without a television (and that is a whole other story), I discovered all of the sports pubs in town. And mooched some viewing time from friends. I even visited the art gallery owned by Poland's claim to tennis fame in years back, W. Fibak, multiple times, to feel a bit of Wimbledon vibe. Pathetic, I know. I'll be back at this now. Just watch.

Let's Hear It For the Ducks!

The Ducks turned 60! Picture your most petulant friend. Temper tantrums. Pouting. Insolent stubborn pettiness. That, unfortunately, goes a long way to describing Poland's President and his twin brother. Polish President, Lech Kaczynski and his mostly identical twin, the former Prime Minister (yes, they were in office at the same time), Jaroslaw Kaczynski celebrate their 60th birthdays this week. Cheers for the Ducks. Yip yip. The evening was settled and lovely, lazy white clouds floating around in the sky, the calm after another afternoon storm. Our coffees were still steaming as we sat around the marble table at Blikle and watched the world go by. Up the street, a sound of two-tone sirens alerted us to the coming motorcade. Three motorcycles led a procession of four black Mercedes, serious cars for serious business. Of course we looked. "Oh," he said, "it's just the Ducks." Presidential motorcades in Poland are not quite the dramatic affairs they are here in the States. No oversized SUV's, no press bus. Just the four Mercedes speeding up Nowy Swiat from the Presidential offices to the Presidential residence, or the Parliament or the opera. So went the Ducks, a twofer, both of them together, off to wherever they were wanted. Which is not everywhere, that's for sure. The Ducks are not terribly popular, especially in the capital. Which is why -- and you may have been wondering -- they are derisively referred to as "the Ducks." It's not a term of affection. And certainly not one of respect. The name "Kaczynski" is very close to the word for duck. Hence, you have it. They were child actors. Think Lindsay Lohen in high office. No, please don't. Lech and Jaroslaw became lawyers and then activists in the burgeoning Solidarity movement in the early 80's. After an infamous falling out with Lech Walesa, having to do with an admittedly crude joke Walesa made about matters pertaining to the brothers' sexual orientation, the twins went their way and were instrumental in the creation of a rival political party that has been consistently consumed with matters of personal morality and, more to the point, vendettas against the more liberal and outward looking politics of a long list of Polish presidents and parliamentarians. Of course there are substantive issues on which their political party, PiS -- and yes, Poles love to refer to it as such, knowing full well the meaning of piss in English parlance -- and other parties differ. Especially regarding the influence, directly or indirectly, of Roman Catholic teaching on issues of sexual morality. But it often seems that the main energy of PiS is all about antagonizing Walesa and whomever they view as allies of more progressive social policies. The pettiness has been laughable. And sad, disturbing and stupid. The Ducks are not in quite the same power position as two years ago. The PiS coalition in Parliament fell apart and new elections were held, from which a new party emerged victorious. Lech is still the country's President but Jaroslaw is only the leader of the minority party. Nonetheless, they manage to keep stirring the pot. Temper tantrums of late have included ridiculous posturing about their role in the celebrations of the end of communism. Several European leaders, including Angela Merkel of Germany, came to honor Poland's role in bringing down the walls around the Soviet satellites. But there was no President of Poland to welcome her. Oh, no. He was off in Gdansk, leading a counter-celebration set up to compete with the official one. Earlier, he chartered a plane to fly to an EU meeting where he was not officially involved because, he insisted, he should be. And the Ducks duo summarily cancelled an important international summit two years ago because they were angry at German political cartoons for making some fun of them. It would be like Bush refusing to go to France because, oh, wait, I think that happened too. Well, anyway. Pettiness and petulance are their hallmarks. And I tell you all this because it has had an unfortunate effect on Poland's continued development economically, culturally, and politically. Poland, twenty years beyond communism, is still spoiled to an extent by the continued suspicions and resentments of the past. Who did what, who was on what side, who got what when the country privatized its huge production plants and corporations? It will take until the next generation is firmly in charge, probably, for all of these old hurts and frustrations to stop standing in the way of basic reforms still needed to modernize the economy. How can you get anything done when everything is hamstrung by bickering, obstinance and stick-out-your-lower-lip, take-your-ball-and-go-home silliness? Poland's remarkable economic success has happened in spite of, rather than thanks to government leadership. So now Poland has only one Duck in high office instead of two. But both brothers keep up the barrage of bad behaviors. In spite of that, and in the spirit of cheesy bipartisanship, let me be among the well-wishers. Let's hear it for the ducks. Quack.

"We are not alone, the world is in Tehran"

The tweets come in at the rate of 2 per second. I would have died for this much information from Poland during its darkest days. As it was, we counted on National Public Radio and the television networks. They did what they could but it was never enough. It was never even close to enough. In the horrible days after Martial Law was declared in December, 1981, there were no telephones, no snail mail and we hung on every word of every foreigner who came out from Poland, "what about this street? were the photographs from the Academy of Science really true, were there tanks?" We were desperate for information about friends, colleagues. Who had been arrested? Where were they being taken? More than anything, I was overwhelmed with grief for my friends, for the trauma they were feeling and facing in the days to come. It was months before I had any useful information. Months. And that was, for then, normal. Now, in the time I've taken to write this, my TweetDeck reports that another 140 tweets have come in. I get a chirp every twenty seconds or so. Since I started this paragraph, I've received 40! And since then, 60 more. It's the middle of the night in Tehran and it's not quiet. Or peaceful. This only serves to remind that the peaceful transformations in eastern Europe twenty years ago were not then, and not now in memory, to be taken for granted. For those who wait here tonight for news from Iran, I'm not sure if it is better or not to have all of this graphic data in real time -- cars burning, gunshots exchanged between police and protesters firing from apartment windows. But surely this is good news, a tweet that just came, "we are not alone, the world is in Tehran tonight." We matter to one another. We do.

Pride

Europe will invade Poland. Again. Poland will host Europride next summer, the international gathering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups and persons who work for an end to discrimination against homosexuality and for protection of human rights. As for this summer, Warsaw's Gay Pride Parade was held on Saturday, June 13, and a smaller than usual turn-out turned out. Nevertheless, it was a vibrant celebration of gay rights in a traditionally conservative Catholic country, which is to say, not the most welcoming of environments. (click on Pride title for link to parade video) It was illegal to be gay (figure out how to comply with that, lgbt friends!) during the communist era. Or more precisely, the topic (and the lifestyle) was taboo. I was invited to a very official high level church dinner in 1986, with local and international guests, including gloriously-hatted Russian Orthodox archbishops and metropolitans, and Orthodox representatives from the Middle East. As far as the other participants were concerned, my presence was the scandal du jour. But to my Polish friends, who drove me there and had to come in to be sure my information was accurate, the big scandal was the choice of Warsaw's leading (yet discreet) gay restaurant as the site for this ecumenical event. In the twenty years since Poland held its first free elections and left the straight-jacket of communism behind, Poland's gay community has been inching out of the closet. The first Gay Pride Parade was more of a huddle. In 1998, three brave individuals with hoods over their heads met at the Sigismund column in Castle Square. By 2003, four thousand marchers carried rainbow flags and demonstrated in favor of protection from discrimination. Then came the return of dark ages, as Lech Kaczynski, then mayor of Warsaw, now the country's President, banned the parade. By 2005, thousands of Polish and international marchers took to the streets in the largest illegal parade through Warsaw's streets, in its history. Clashes with police were tense but not violent. By 2006, ten thousand GLBT persons and other supporters of gay rights were parading peacefully. And so it has continued. But not without strong resistance. While President, Kaczynski was inducted into the Hall of Shame by Human Rights Watch, a group that monitors minority rights throughout Europe. He used "heavy-handed" language to warn of dire danger to the moral order of the country should Poland accede to the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, which does promise protections of human rights. A member of his government, Ewa Sowinska, took the Tele Tubbies to task, famously challenging Tinky Winky's use of a purse -- "a homosexual undertone" -- and warned that his behavior could have an adverse effect upon children. I was glad to see him along with the rest of the tubbies (pronounced tubeys or toobeys in Polish)when I arrived in Poland later that year. Phew! Large parades are back, along with much freer debate and dialogue. Poland's leading news magazine, Polityka, has an excellent article this week, an interview with a leading psychotherapist who specializes in treating GLBT persons. It is very sympathetic and sophisticated, about How to Live in a Homosexual Relationship. You might find something similar in The New York Times or The Economist. It notes that Poland is thirty years behind much of the rest of Europe with respect to GLBT issues, especially in terms of education and tolerance, but credits the internet for the explosion of positive developments. And now this article will be yet another step along the road to legalization of gay unions, protection against discrimination, and good education for the general public about homosexuality. And, meanwhile, as the struggle continues here and there and everywhere, it truly can be said that Poland, now after these twenty years, is normal.

Reaping the Whirlwind

"Where there is hatred, let me sow love." Why? Why do we hate? Why do we choose to believe the worst of one another? Why do we suspend disbelief and choose to believe what is not true? Three murders in three weeks. Hate crimes, whether or not they will be so determined by the courts. Of course, all murder is a hate crime, in one sense or another. But these three, the military recruiter, Dr. George Tiller, and the security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum this week, have this in common: their killers were not at home with truth. Delusion. Virulent hatred based on the choice to believe what is not true. America is not at war with Islam or all Arabs. Late-term abortions are not frivolous. The Holocaust did happen. We choose to hate. We choose to be intolerant. I don't know why. Do you? Theories I have, of course. Fear. Convenience. Laziness. The need for control. The need for surety. Greed. Jealousy. Poland knows too much about hate. The most hideous hate crimes imaginable were carried out by Nazis on Polish soil. Auschwitz. Treblinka. Majdanek. Sobibor. Those are infamous. They really did happen. The barracks and barbed wire at Auschwitz still bear grim witness to that reality. The crematorium is still standing; you can go inside it. Hate. Our human nature is profoundly perverted at times. Our logic is skewed. Our fears provoke us to irrational conclusions. We choose to believe things that are not true because it serves us somehow. Nazi's chose to believe that Poles were inferior, sub-human, that Jews were responsible for all that was wrong in the world. What to do? Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. was a testament to awful truth. Dangerous, disturbing, disruptive truth. What to do in the wake of this tragedy? Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Tell the truth. Hate kills. It reaps what is sows. In response, I can only think to pray, "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace....where there is hatred, let me sow love."

Bellybutton of Europe

"Pawlak: Poland Can Be Normal." Say what you will, Poland is an exceedingly normal, sometimes boringly normal place these days. The Deputy Prime Minister's headline caught my attention last year and reminded me of the desperate need we all have, to fit in, to be one of the gang, to be, in other words, normal. "We're a normal country now," my Polish friends tell me. "I always wanted to live in a normal country and now I do." I'm not always sure that normal is really all it's cracked up to be but I get the point. It is a good thing that Poland now has the same kinds of problems and issues and successes, too, that other European countries experience. Witness today's news from Poland. E! Entertainment Television is being offered free to analog viewers this month. Normally it is only available to digital subscribers. E! Get your gossip here folks. Level 3 Communications are expanding their network in Poland. Level 3, that's a Denver company. Level 3. Wow. The little village of Podkowa Lesna, near Warsaw, where I lived during my first stay in Poland in 1980, had the highest percentage turn-out to vote in the European Parliamentary elections on June 7 -- 50.86% -- and has been awarded the title, "Bellybutton on Europe." The European average was only 24.5% so I'd say the good folks of Podkowa did themselves proud. And for this they get a commemorative plaque. I can't wait to see it. "Bellybutton of Europe." How can you get more normal than that? Ernst & Young -- yes, that Ernst & Young -- reports from their offices in Poland that foreign investors continue to find the country an attractive place for their investments, even during the recession. The price of mushrooms decreased last week. But the price of tomatoes went up. Newspapers are having a hard time. And you'll find lively discussions about cooking, sex, patriotism, money and banks and finance, and poets. Poland, thank heavens, is normal. And perhaps, we can hope, almost cheerful.

"Prepare thyself to live"

A flash of brilliance. Stunning insight that bursts open the mind of an artist. Inspiration that is nothing short of divine overwhelmed composer, Gustav Mahler, on the morning of his friend's memorial service. Within hours he was at his work table composing music and words to sum up his Second Symphony, "Resurrection." From the moment I first heard this piece I was moved to my core and especially struck by this passage, "Cease trembling! Prepare thyself to live!" How do we prepare to live? Coming back from death to life. How to prepare? I nearly died. Seven years ago I was close enough to death to feel its gravity pulling me down, enveloping me in the sweet potential of not feeling, not hurting, not agonizing any more over the unbearable question, "who would do this? why would anyone delliberately inflict this much damage on another human being?" It was an attack I didn't see coming, leveling me as quickly as I could whisper the word, "help." In the aftermath, the damage to my psyche and my soul was worse than other physical wounds. But even in the moments of deepest suffering, I knew I wanted to live. I knew I needed to live. And, somehow, I knew I would. But how to prepare, to live again? Honest acknowledgement of the worst of the damage was an early step. And rest. My soul needed rest. My body surely needed rest. And my mind, traumatized and injured to the point I couldn't add or subtract, couldn't focus on anything, could not read or write or even follow a simple television newscast, needed a lot of rest. The steps back into life were not linear. And the steps into life rarely are. For any of us. We try this, then that. We go this way, then that way. We organize, plan, execute -- but inevitably something happens and we change the plan, again. Chaos. I've learned to love chaos. The swirl of possibilities. The untidiness of potentialities. Taking this, and that, from here and there, creating a glorious mess that somehow yields a new insight, a moment of movement. One of the reasons I can appreciate the Polish struggle and history so much is that it feels familiar. Especially these days. I look to the Polish stories for more than just an interesting read. In their long, long and seemingly unending experience of dying and rising, I find clues to the way back, for myself. "Prepare thyself to live." It's really not a bad way to start the day, every day. If only I can remember every day to start there.

Chill

The icy vodka went down easy. Very sweet, very smooth. Stories were told. Photographs were studied. Questions asked. Imponderables thoughtfully discussed. History is in our hands. Not every detail, not every moment, but in ways large and small, we are the makers of our days and times. We are invited, challenged, urged to take up the tasks of changing and forging, of building and, sometimes, tearing down. Many friends emailed me with comments about the June 4 blog post. Again and again you wrote, "I had no idea." "Thanks for educating me." I've whined here about this story being lost in the other news of that day twenty years ago. But that's not the main point I hope to make. That main point is this, we can do something. We can do something important together. We can make change. We can change history. In fact, I'm pretty sure we did. The other comment I got from many of you was this, "if only the outcome for China had been so promising." The dangers in Poland and throughout Eastern Europe were serious in those days, perhaps less so by the last years of the 1980's, as the USSR was struggling under a staggering economic load and the "perestroika" and "glasnost" policies of Gorbachev were underway. But there were Soviet tanks on Polish soil the morning of that election and there had been Soviet tanks on the streets of Eastern European cities within the memory of most everyone alive. It wasn't nothing the people of Poland accomplished. It was a defiant and courageous act, built on the actions of thousands over a decade, the wisdom and patience of women and men who took time to carefully prepare for a new era. Providence and good fortune smiled. And June 4, 1989 was just the beginning.

20th Anniversary Celebrations: High Noon in Poland

It went almost unnoticed. Quietly, simply, and not quite believing they were doing it, Poles walked into their polling places on this date, twenty years ago, and elected a non-Communist majority to their Parliament. They picked up pencils, marked ballots and left them for counting. Their bloodless, stealth revolution was all but lost in the horrific news of the day, the massacre in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. In fact, I googled "June 4, 1989" several months ago, just for fun, and had to scroll through over 300 entries before getting to a mention of Poland's first free election. Today, I tried again and got an election anniversary story within the first 125. There is no story about the anniversary in the New York Times. The Washington Post is covering it. Polish friends of mine report going to vote with a sense of hopefulness but still not expecting a decisive result, certainly not the outcome achieved. Solidarity candidates won 99 out of the 100 seats in the upper house, the Senate, and won all 161 of the contested seats in the Sejm, the lower house of Parliament. Round Table Talks earlier in the spring, between the Communist government and Solidarity, set up the election, and reserved two-thirds of the seats in the Sejm for members of the Communist party and its affiliates. Nevertheless, the election was an overwhelming victory for the Solidarity and anti-communist movement and set up the official changes that continued to amend the constitution, to omit the "leading role of the Communist party" and to set up a Solidarity led government, with a non-communist Prime Minister. Posters appeared all over Poland in the run-up to election day. Gary Cooper in High Noon, hands on hips, ready for a showdown, with a Solidarity banner, made it clear that the stakes were as high as they could be. Something had to give. And now. It did. "It all began in Poland..." The Iron Curtain came down later in the year. Events in Poland provided the impetus for the sweeping, historic changes, for the end of the ugly divide in Europe. Angela Merkel, who grew up in the former East Germany, spoke at today's celebrations in Krakow, and credited the Poles for the "decisive victory of democracy in Poland and finally in all of Eastern Europe." She expressed gratitude on behalf of the Germans for the Poles' "courageous stands," that led to the end of communism in her country as well. Vaclav Havel, the Czech playwright and leader of Czechoslovakia's "Velvet Revolution" later that year, also spoke at celebrations and praised the Polish leadership in the movement to bring down communist regimes and reunite a divided Europe. And George H. W. Bush, then President of the United States delivered a video greeting praising the Poles' "irrepressible spirit." It was high noon. The Polish people didn't blink. And that, in fairness, included the communist government. It was time. And they did what needed to be done. Historic, remarkable, and oh, what a gift to the world.

"Let's learn how to be cheerful"

It's true. Poles do need lessons in cheerfulness. Lech Walesa spoke today (3 June 2009) in the Polish Parliament and encouraged his compatriots to be cheerful and to "invite the society to be cheerful with us." Even as they celebrate today and tomorrow their 20 years of freedom, Poles are remarkably grumpy. In the same way that I confess to friends that, as a Swede, I am terminally nice, one of my good Polish friends laments that he is always irritable. Is it congenital? Who knows. Certainly their history gives reason to be almost permanently perturbed. If it wasn't one thing, it quite literally was another. They got it coming and going. I think I might understand this. How do you dare to relax, and be happy? The sky will surely fall in tomorrow. Or if not then, then the day after that. I do hope the Poles learn how to be cheerful. And it wouldn't hurt to start now. They did it! They did the unimaginable. They not only survived the Nazi's determination to wipe them out -- to wipe out not just the political state but the people themselves -- they strategized, got lucky, stuck with it and somehow managed to lead the way for all of Eastern Europe as it struggled to get free of the absurdities of Soviet Communism. Isn't that worthy of cheerfulness? I'd like to see my Polish friends go nuts today, get silly and even downright happy. To look up rather than always looking back, or over their shoulder. We've got vodka chilling and fresh strawberries and we're ready to party. Happy anniversary, friends, and cheer up!

Rubles? Who needs rubles?

The tiny white Polski Fiat with a lawn-mower motor putt-putted its way along the leafy lane and sputtered to a stop in front of the warehouse. Only then did we look at the gas gauge and see the needle hovering close to E. Neither of us said a word. It was one of the most humiliating ventures I'd ever been part of. Waiting in that prefab warehouse built with American money were soaps and meats and medicines, all sorts of necessities of life. My hard currency, American dollars, real money had been deposited into an account bearing my Polish friend's name. He could go in now and choose what he wanted, needed, had gone without for months, even years. My friend, a prominent and accomplished writer, with an earned doctorate and years of professional success, was thrilled beyond belief to find soap -- SOAP! -- and rice and tins of sardines. We left with good lean sausages, hams, some basic over-the-counter medicines like aspirin for his father, and probably even a few rolls of toilet paper, I don't quite remember. It was 1982. It was horrible. But wonderful. The Soviet-style and imposed, clunky economy in Poland in the 1980's failed. The country could not feed its people. "This is our last butter," he told me at dinner. And what he meant was, this is the end of the butter. For the month. Until I get more ration stamps. There is no more butter. At all. For two weeks. I stood one day in the market and cried. I wanted to buy bread. There wasn't any bread. Twenty years ago on Thursday, June 4, Poland voted for food. For bread. And butter. For dignity. Their money became real, convertible on the international market, useful. I read two articles today, June 2, 2009, from the Polish press, both from the same publication, Polityka. One is current. Poland is one of the three countries in the European Union with positive economic growth this year. They are struggling like the rest but surviving, holding their own. How ironic. The other article is from 1986. It laments Poland's debt crisis, even within the Soviet bloc. The Polish economy relied on the Russian ruble, and the community of other Socialist nations. I pasted a small part of it here, in translation... (The IBEC was the International Bank for Economic Cooperation, the Soviet bloc's financial connection to the 'outside' world and within its boundaries. CEMA referred to the community of Socialist nations within the Soviet bloc.) Here is an excerpt of an interview. [Question] "What credits has Poland obtained recently from IBEC and what is the role of the Bank in settling the Polish debt?" [Answer] "Because of the economic situation and particularly its complexity early in the 1980's, Poland was not able, and is still not able, to fully repay its indebtedness to its CEMA partners. Our bank assists importantly bygranting planned term credits to balance payments so that Poland's economict ies with its partners can develop normally. So that Polish import, which at the moment still exceeds export, can be paid for without hindrances. On anannual scale, credits for Poland make up 25 percent of the total sum of credits granted by us to CEMA countries. I would like to emphasize that recently, and especially this year, a favorable tendency has appeared, the tendency to reduce Poland's ruble debt to our bank. The basis of this tendency is the growth of export to CEMA countries due to the policy,conducted by the PZPR, of increasing Poland's share in the socialist international division of labor." Huh? That reads like ancient history now. It sounds like gobbledy-gook. To be honest, the response didn't exactly make any sense then either, despite the skill of the interviewer. How do you explain the inexplicable? These days, when I go to Poland, there are no humiliating trips to the warehouse. I buy all the butter I want, at the shop on the corner. (Don't tell my doctor.) The lawn-mower motors are saved for those machines used to cut grass. And the teeny tiny white Fiat has been replaced by a late model, sporty green Nissan with a gas tank that stays full. Happy anniversary, my friends! Ya done good!

Paging Dr. Nowatny

I spent the day today with a friend at the hospital. In less than ten years, a gazillion dollar state of the art medical center has grown up on the prairie near our home, with first-rate physicians and top notch medical care. My friend is gearing up for a new surgical procedure that makes use of technology and materials that have been created only in the last few years. We have got to the point of expecting, presuming to have this high standard of care. Of course, not all Americans can be so hopeful or confident. Or afford to pay. And this is a bad thing. We'd better get cracking and figure it out, soon. I can't imagine having to sit on the sidelines and watch, to see what is possible and not be able to touch it or get access to the life-saving surgeries, medicines, and treatments that are as close as the nearest hospital. It's infuriating, immoral, indecent. That's the way my Polish friends lived for a long time. On the outside looking in. So close, but not available. Medicine, food, homes, diapers, shoes. Socialism, Soviet style, didn't work. Life is not perfect now either, of course, but these same surgeries are as routine now in Warsaw as in Denver. I know a man in Warsaw who has the same kind of internal defibrillator - pacemaker as Dick Cheney. The hospital food is still terrible but the medical care is of the highest quality. When the Poles picked up their pencils on June 4, 1989, they set in motion the final phase of the revolution that changed their world and that of the rest of the Soviet bloc. I don't know if they were voting with pacemakers and CT scans and glucose monitors in mind, but these are just some of the benefits that have come along with the chaotic democracy and new economy. It's just not that far anymore, from here to there. Thank goodness.

Hide and Seek

Poland is part of Europe. But of course, you say. Just look at the map. There it is: Poland. Right smack in the center of Europe. As sixteen-year-old Annika says, “well, duh.” It’s there, all right, conveniently situated exactly where it has been for hundreds of years, stuck right there in the middle of the European continent, offering easy access to armies from east and west. Yes, indeed, that wide open field in the heart of Europe is Poland. Except for when it isn’t. Ah, there’s the rub. Poland isn’t always where it is. Or isn’t. Or was. Or wasn’t. Put simply, Poland has been hard to keep track of. Sometimes Poland wasn’t here. Or there. Or anywhere. There were times, whole centuries, in fact, when Poland went completely missing. Search any map. Look high and low, there is no trace. Poland is gone! Lost. You blink, you turn away for several decades and Poland has vanished. It simply isn’t there. Entire centuries, notably the 19th, passed without any evidence at all of a Polish nation on the map. It disappeared completely. Except that it didn’t. Turns out, Poland was there all along. Hiding. Or more to the point, hidden. Pushed underground, shrouded with obscurity, pounded down and then carved up into three pieces. The biggest chunk of Poland was hidden away within Russia. Another part in Germany. And the third was tucked neatly into Austria. Each of these three countries was determined to hide Poland most of all from itself. Formerly Polish citizens were forbidden from even seeing their own language, from speaking it, learning it and teaching Polish to their children. Poles were deprived of their own culture, history, and traditions; it was illegal to practice and celebrate ancient Polish customs. They were not allowed the basic rights of citizenship in any nation, including owning land and self-government. Ancient and rich Polish traditions of education, democracy, science, music and literature and other arts were hidden from the very cultivators of these precious treasures. Marie Curie, Frederick Chopin, and other brilliant Poles sadly realized they would have to find freer societies for their genius to flourish. For a time, these three partitioning powers tried vainly to disguise Poland, to make it look like another country altogether. Each attempted to dress it up as part of themselves, but the real Poland kept popping out. Even while Poland shared aspects of its identity, its ethnicity, religion and culture with all of these three usurping empires, Poland did not look convincing to outsiders, much less to itself, when fitted out as part of Austria, Russia or Germany. Ultimately, there was no hiding it. Whether disguised or hidden or hunkered down, Poland was unmistakably itself and eventually (after World War One) had to emerge from obscurity and oblivion. Poland also moved. Left, right, up, down, over, out and around, Poland, at least, was a moving target. It did and did not control the Baltic coast, then it did and didn’t again. It was and wasn’t east of the Bug River, west of the Oder, inclusive of Lithuania, Ukraine, parts of Slovakia. When Poland reappeared on the maps again at the end of World War I, its borders were not the same as they had been when it was cut apart, over a century earlier. And Poland at the end of World War II had still different borders, as if the entire land mass had taken two giant steps left (pun not intended, well, maybe, pun intended). The Soviet Union had taken for itself a big part of what had been Poland in the east, enlarging the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and the victorious Allied powers had given Poland parts of what had been Germany in the west. People who had started the war in Germany, ended it – without moving – as Poles. Ironic, isn’t it. Vast numbers, however, of formerly German citizens were resettled westward, losing their lands, their homes, their livelihoods. Polish citizens in Lvov, if they survived at all, now found themselves with the dubious distinction of Soviet citizenship, although some Poles from the former eastern region, now in the USSR, were planted in these newly Polish areas in the west. Confused? Join the club. Which brings us to this. Poles have, from time to time, hidden themselves. Underground. Forbidden to be Polish, to teach or speak, to celebrate and carry on their own Polish customs, Poles of earlier eras took themselves to ground, doing whatever they could to speak and sing and read and teach, to practice their religion, to govern themselves and run their own affairs, tucked beneath the surface of things, away from the watchful eyes of their arrogant, ruthless official leaders. During the period of the partitions, under the Russian, Austrian, and German regimes, the Poles suffered terribly. At the same time, they cleverly outwitted and undermined their overlords. Children were taught in homes, in secret; they learned from an early age the cost of telling tales out of these clandestine schools. Higher education was carried out in what they called “flying schools,” or “flying universities,” a practice revived of necessity at points in the communist era of the 20th century. They operated without formal sanction but continued to provide not only an excellent education but also the various diplomas and certifications that prepared Poles for future service in the medical, legal, scientific and other professions, and in service of a once and future Polish nation. All of these earlier lessons served them well when, once again, in the 20th century during the brutal Nazi German occupation and again at critical times during the post-war Soviet-imposed Communist period. These flying universities and underground schools, press, businesses and professional activities, unions and even, to an extent, small self-governing civic units were reliable sources of social order and authentic Polish life. Poland was there, even when it wasn’t. Poland was on the map at the dawn of the 21st century. But, of course, you say? Consider this, Poland was missing, invisible, wiped off the map when the two previous centuries started. It seems safe now to draw these new, post-1945 borders in permanent ink but Poland, perhaps more than any other European country, teaches one to keep an eye on the horizon. Things change. They come. And go. For good, and for ill. One thing is for sure, nevertheless. Poland is stuck in the middle.