Desert Island Disc *

* For those who don’t know it, the Desert Island Disc is a cult programme on BBC radio 4, where celebrities reveal their top 10 songs and life experiences combined with those songs. The story goes that a lot of wannabes carry their top 10 lists around, just in case they’ll be asked to appear on the programme.

1. Joan Baez - The Crimes of Cain

The year was 1980, Polish population was caught in the middle of the marshal law, following the workers’ strike in the Gdansk shipyard. The country was on the edge of the civil war, but life goes on… My mother would come home with a glint of triumph in her eyes because, after two days of queuing, she managed to buy an autumn/winter pair of shoes. (It was one of the two pairs assigned per person per year. The other pair was officially related to as a “spring/summer” pair). Standing in lines required a certain art, and certain code of behaviour. Usually, you turned up in a line once a day, to tick your name off on a social list. You could bring a replacement for a couple of days/hours, or you could even rent a professional queue stander.

A cousin of my neighbours, who lived in a village, gave them half of a pig. Since meat, as everything else, was rationed, they skinned it and turned into pork cutlets in the bathtub of their studio apartment, under the forgiving wings of the night. My dad got some chops in return for a litre of a potato moonshine (that was my uncle’s production).

 

Room 101:

I would start with fashion industry – utterly irritating, self-cantered breed which thinks they can dictate us what to wear, waste global resources and make people slave away in sweatshops in order to produce some flimsy looking piece of clothing which is then sold for equivalent of my monthly rent; and if nobody buy it, it’s not even recycled- it’s thrown away.

Youth culture- why do you have to look hip and trendy in your 40’s and 50’s. 40’s and 50’s are for you to look and feel your age – you don’t have to spend thousand on botox, breast fillers, fake tan to pretend you are your daughter. In this, I’m siding with the latest Dove campaign and their pro-age adverts.

Celebrities – being famous for being famous doesn’t really cut the mustard with me. I can understand if you have talent to act or to sign, but if your only claim to fame is that your granddad owes a chain of hotels… forget it

 

Too Much Commitment

Years ago, when I first moved to London, lived in a dilapidated Victorian house with four other culprits. The most expensive things I owe was a £80 mattress. I was really proud of myself because it meant I could just get up and leave whenever I wanted. One day, standing it front of a shop window, me and my housemate were admiring beds, spread in front of us on the other side of that window. “They are lovely” –she said- but… We looked at each other and finished together “too much commitment”!

And indeed, that how I could characterise my life. I spent it running away from possessions, romantic relations, family ties. Opening to somebody meant they could hurt you, so I made sure I went out with people who were least interested in getting know me and I could keep it casual. I limited contact with my parents to occasional phone call once a month. I didn’t want them to participate in my life-that was easier.

I’ve strained my memory trying to remember any accident in my childhood which made me so emotionally walled –off. I couldn’t remember anything. I was just this weird creature who could talk about everything and anything.. as long as you didn’t expect her to open up about her emotions.

 

The Adams Family

 

I love a good crime story, but I’ve been always afraid of horrors and spooky stories. It goes back to my childhood, and actually to my dad. He is a very down to earth person, you couldn’t find anybody more level-headed. Yet, since he was a child, he had a six sense and ability to predict people’s death. When he was young, it happened to him on many occasions that he saw ghosts. The scariest of those encounters was when he woke up one night only to see his father-in-law, dead for several months, sitting in a chair opposite the bed and watching him and my mum. (Why would my granddad decide to come back, it was never established, nevertheless, he chose his son-in-law for that last encounter).

 

When my dad tells this story he says that, when he woke up and realised that he was facing a ghost, for a couple of seconds he felt nothing – as if the time stood still – he just watched the man opposite him, until a wave of panic hit him, and he dived for cover screaming and waking up the whole house. There were also lots of stories told by ma dad’s siblings about a hunted house they grew up in after the war. (Dad doesn’t want to talk about it at all.) Supposedly, on several occasions, he saw people nobody else could see.

 

Iconography

This post will be short and sweet. Lately I have discovered an amazing character whom I totally worship- doctor Gregory House. What can I say, I have a thing for anti-heroes.

 

 

- he’s a cantankerous cynic - something I can associate with

- he’s a substance addict – warms my heart to see the weakness befalls even the greatest ones.

- he is a softie underneath all of this – rouge with a golden heart is simply irresistible

- he’s simply sexy and smart, and like good wine he gets better with age.. and he’s in touch with his feminine side

 

 

 

 

Book that Changed My Life

 

 

It happened at the sunset hour at one warm spring day in Moscow at Patriarch’s Pond. Two men sat on a bench discussing religion in general, and Jesus in particular. One of them, Ivan Bezdomny, was a poet who wrote a derogatory poem about Jesus. The other one, Mikchail Berlioz, an editor of a highbrow literary magazine and chairman of the management committee of the largest Moscow’s literary clubs, was trying to convince Bezdomny that the core of the problem is not that Jesus was evil but that he didn’t exist at all.

In the fervour of the discussion that didn’t noticed when they were joined by a stranger. The stranger wore an expensive grey suit, spoke with a foreign accent and had a limp. He told them that not only did Jesus exist, the proof of this being that the stranger knew him and spoke to him, but also; to emphasize the proof; the stranger told Berlioz that he will die with his head cut off by a female member of a Konsomol……

 

How to Handle a Portable Loo

I have lately slipped in the frequency of writing my blog contributions for which I dearly apologise. Reasons for this being several:

 

- I decided to take a very adult step and start house hunting – a step considered close to lunacy in a property obsessed London

- I went sailing with a group of colleagues in Polish lake district, which almost lead to two deaths by drowning and one death by being knocked down with a portable loo (full to the brim) – more about it later

- I have spent a night in a castle attending a ghost hunting event – more about it next time since I still shudder remembering the experience

 

So, a couple of weeks ago I was invited to join a group of colleagues to sail across Polish lake district. No sweat! We rented a couple of boats, the weather was supposed to be beautiful. I was looking forward to getting away from civilisation, enjoying dramatic sun sets, silence, nature and picturesque landscapes.

 

My City of Choice

I live in London, but if I was to chose one, close to my heart, place it would be Warsaw. I spent my university years then, but back then, I considered it to be a dull, grey city with cold winters and sad people rushing around. It’s only now, that I’m an occasional visitor in the city , I’ve really started to”get it ” .

It first started when, several years ago, I had to climb to the roof of one of the highest buildings in the city, in order to check on some technical issues related to a TV signal transmission, (don’t even ask…..). So here I was, slowly treading in my killer heels around the roof on the 42nd floor of the building - trying to convince my vertigo that it didn’t exist. I carefully examined the view in front of me. To my surprise, I saw colourful building façades of the old town, next to completely new skyscrapers popping up around the city centre. I saw streets lined with long rows in different shades of green, and huge park spaces covered in colourful patches of, what might have been, rose and lilac bushes.

I mentioned to my companions how different everything looked from what I’d remembered. Suddenly there was a piercing sound of sirens in the air. The sound was really haunting. I realised it was the 1st of August, the anniversary of the Warsaw uprising. One of my companions looked at me and commented - ‘it’s Warsaw, we’ll always get through the worst to the other side ‘.

And he was right - Warsaw is one of the most resilient cities that has ever existed. No matter what happens, it always manages to come back from the dead. The 1944’s Warsaw uprising, which was the city’s attempt to get rid of the German occupation, saw 200,000 people killed and over 80% of the city turned into dust. People were travelling through the sewers in order to get out of the city. Whoever survived was taken away to the concentration camps.

 

The Essence of People we Love

This is my second blog on love… or rather on acceptance against all odds. I had a phone call from my sister a couple of weeks ago. She wanted to talk about her daughter. Her daughter is a very intelligent and creative person. She is a very good student, speaks several languages, and is a talented website designer. She’s also very strong headed and opinionated - not an easy person to convince about anything.  She helped my sister through the marriage problems and subsequent illness. Sometimes I thought my sister relied too much on the girl, but they have very close relationship and, besides, who am i to judge?

 

The girl has grown up and gone to university. She was always a tomboy and last year she cut her hair really short. I thought she was gay but reality turned out to be more complex. My little niece wants to have a sex change operation!

 

When my sister told me, I became speechless (as probably most of you would). You are not really prepared for this kind of announcements in your family. My first thought was – what’s next, is my father a cross-dresser? (That would probably explain it).

 

I went to see niece and to talk to her. I tried to look at it from her point of view. What must be going in that little head to make her so unhappy about herself? When I talked to her I realised she’s very strongly convinced about her decision … and very naïve about it. She’s read a lot on the subject from Internet and she knows really well  how the operation looks. She also occasionally goes  to psychological workshops, what, eventually, will lead to the full sex change operation. Yet, she never met any transsexual person, and she believes her psychologist when he says that, once she becomes a boy, she’ll have to cut herself off from most of her friends and hide for the rest of her life. (My homeland is not particularly famed for a progressive approach towards sex change issues).

 

I suggested she came to London and spent some time in a transgender community here – she refused. She says she’d feel exposed. I tried to at least suggest a meeting in her town with another transgender person, who’s already went through the sex change, and whom I contacted through a friend – my niece went ballistic. According to her I try to meddle in her private life. She’s stubborn, defensive and suspicious. She almost threw me out.

 

My heart goes out to her- the road she’s chosen is so difficult – nobody should travel it alone, and yet she thinks she’ll manage. I just have to be there when she’s ready to ask for help. What else is there to do?

I’ve been going around it in my heads for weeks now. I love her regardless who she is. No matter if she grows a beard or has breasts implants - the essence of her remains the same, doesn’t it?

Kasha, 33, currently in London

 

My Take on Love

I’m sorry for abandoning this page for a while, but I’ve had some family issues to think about– more about it later. Right now I want to write about my take on love. Having read Amanda’s and Angie’s posts, I can really relate to them. I’m 33 - spending my life out of suitcase, chasing new rainbows and avoiding mediocrity (by avoiding mediocrity read avoiding responsibility). I’m postponing the moment of growing up as long as I can. Love is not something I know a lot about , but I wanted to tell you two stories.

I have a friend who was married with children. He was handsome and charming; and he knew about it really well. He didn’t love his wife and cheated on her constantly; and women were falling for him right left and centre. He dated models, lawyers and even his own assistants – it didn’t really matter. Lots of beautiful girls fell for his charms. His wife chose to close her eyes to it. I never had any respect for him until one day he fell in love … and he never looked back. The girl loved him back. She was pleasantly average and didn’t stand out in the crowd; yet, she was different then the others. He divorced his wife and married the girl. They have a child on their own now, and he couldn’t have been happier. He’s changed for good. He worships his new family, his other children took to their step mum and really like her. He’s a really different person.

My second story is about my own experience. I used to date a man who fell in love with me the first time we met. (or so he said). He was charming, intelligent and travelled the world. He pursued me passionately, and I finally gave in. Within a month the charming prince turned into a boyfriend from hell. As I later learnt, apparently he was deeply disappointed in me because I didn’t meet his original expectations. (And he was really serious when he said this to me).

Why am I telling those stories? My own story, (when it was finally over), made me realise that sometimes we are so stuck in our own imaginary world, that we actually fail to notice the real person. We force them to wear an uncomfortable suit called “my vision of love” and we reject people not because they are bad for us, but just because they don’t fit into this particular suit.

And as for the first story- it opened my eyes to fairytales. Love has happened to a guy who deserved it least; a guy who was cynical, selfish and used people. However, love has found him and it has changed him in an unimaginable way.

So we stumble on; we try and we fail, and we try again- as long as we keep on trying, we are fine.. because at least we are getting closer to our destination.. And just like Amanda says, I keep on buying those bloody tickets… if I only knew where the ride is - never mind if it’s the right one or not…

 

Kasha, 33, currently in London