Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Last Friday — New Year’s Day, 2010 — I managed to locate the right platform at Warsaw’s Central train station and stood there waiting for the Intercity train from Poznan carrying my beloved first cousin, Grzegorz Urbanski. I didn’t mind one bit that the train — covered with crusty snow and ice and carrying only a handful of passengers — was late. You see, I had my handy little pocket notebook onto which I’d written words and phrases in Polish, which I was trying to memorize. I walked in circles repeating them, possibly making the few others sharing the platform with me a tad uncomfortable. I was working on random words, beginning with the letter “p” (and in Polish there are many): “Peron” (train platform); “postaram sie” (I’m trying); “powod” (the cause); “pojutrze” (the day after tomorrow).

I have to admit to feeling a rush of pleasure at standing where I did that day: feeling confident enough after three months in the capitol city to greet my Polish cousin like he was the out of towner and I the confident urbanite. Our first stop: a kiosk where I advised Grzegorz to purchase the three-day, unlimited-use Metro pass. Then we hopped onto his first subway ride in Warsaw (and possibly anywhere) and rapidly made our way to my neighborhood in Bielany, where the weekend officially commenced with a dinner party in his honor of cinnamon chicken, rice, vegetables and the world’s most delicious cakes supplied by cousin Monika. Another cousin, Ewa, brought beautiful roses, a bottle of wine and her handsome boyfriend, Lukasz. Monika’s friend Piotr came, along with my landlady Malgosia and her friend Anna.

We swam the next morning (and the next) at one of these popular modern swim centers in the nearby neighborhood of Zoliborz. (Grzegorz, an overworked physician with a family of five and a new house under construction, doesn’t have time for such pleasures, as was evidenced by his reluctance to depart the pool.) After enjoying a spread of cheese and ham sandwiches and hot coffee, we made the rounds in the Old City. The grand finale for our Saturday was a remarkable traditional holiday spectacle and play, “Pastoralka,” at Teatr Polski (Polish Theatre). Our ever-thoughtful and generous cousin Monika had made the arrangements and purchased the tickets.

Sunday was just as rich and lovely and included services at Warsaw International Church, an ecumenical English-language, church in the Old City, with New Zealander Murray Gow as minister — another kind of “first” for Grzegorz.

What I’m likely to remember most though about our weekend was the intensity with which Grzegorz worked on his English notebook, jotting down phrases with which he was unfamiliar, striving so earnestly to learn my native tongue.

“Let’s play it by ear,” I might say. He’d arch his brow, ask me to define that, then write it down. He has been doing this — teaching himself English now for more than 30 years — and speaks better than he’ll ever admit. I wondered more than once, what would our fathers think — those two Polish brothers who were born before the nation was made whole after World War I — if they knew that almost a century later, their two children were stretching themselves to learn their cousin’s language on a bus, in a jacuzzi and on a peron in Warsaw?