Cemetery in Kraków

One of the things I both love and resent about my job is the sense of discomfort I have on a fairly regular basis. It's not really a problem, and it doesn't interfere with my work; it more or less becomes like white noise after awhile—buzzing away in a space that I choose to ignore. It simply comes with the territory of being an outsider.

For example, I recently told a friend that "I'm so sick of hot women." Although this isn't really true, as there's nothing wrong with hot women, it was prompted by a moment of weakness amidst a sea of mini-skirts and 6-inch heels. It's enough to make me mildly self-conscious in my make-up-less state of winkled-dress-that-I-threw-on-after-picking-it-up-off-the-floor, but not enough to prompt me to join in. Ukraine has really helped me embrace my masculine side, which I consider something of an achievement. Soon I'll be watching wrestling, spitting publicly, and wearing leather jackets. Lock up your sons, America. 

But the discomfort does something important, and it's what allows this experience to be so meaningful and transformative: it facilitates a space in which I not only can, but must come to grips with my actions, my reactions, and—on an even deeper level—my own sense of self. 

Last month, three dear friends and I visited Krakow, allowing for one of the more transformative experiences of my time here. And I'm going to choose to be vulnerable here for a moment, as recently I decided this is a good practice for me. 

When I was sixteen, I was introduced to the poetry of Wisława Szymborska, and her poetry not only encouraged me to pursue literature, but it also ignited my desire to write. Her work gave me the sense that I could find a voice, my voice, and that it exists within my capacity to seek it out. 

While in Krakow, I decided to pay her a visit. My friend and I found the cemetery. And we walked and walked and wandered up and down the rows of graves. I think I half expected to stumble upon it immediately, magically, or that I would have some intuitive sense of where she would be. After about an hour, I knew that I would have to ask someone or I would never find her. So I found the porter.

"Excuse me, do you speak English?"

"nie"

"Українська мова?"

"nie"

"Wis.....ława........... Szy....mbor...ska?" (in my worst best pronunciation)

"Wisława?!?"

He jumps up, grabs a map, and motions for me to follow him. We walk for a little while. He mumbles to himself, checking and re-checking the map. My heart is racing. I don't know why my heart is racing. We're close. 

See that flower by her name? It was the prettiest one I could find
by the side of the road.

"Szymborska?" he asks two women passing by, and one points about 10 feet to my left. He walks me over to her grave, and I can't remember the Polish for "thank you," so I just nod and smile and try to fight back tears, but it's just too special. And in that moment I recognized that the search itself intensified the significance of the experience. I had to thank her. So I wrote this.

Cemetery in Kraków

for Wisława Szymborska

When Anne Sexton wrote “and what of the dead?”

I always assumed she meant that the dead don’t care.

They don’t care, for example, whether God really is a man,

or a divine, hulking fog in the sky,

Or maybe just something to be felt under the soles of my feet,

Or why so much pain can mean so little.

But that day when I walked, searching the rows and rows of the dead,

I listened to Sunday’s Mass float above me in the air.

And I wanted so much to find the place where your bones and words stopped,

Where I could ask you the questions I couldn’t even ask myself.