| I know this column is meant to be a serious piece of journalism, and not an Agony Aunt appeal for help, but I’m in trouble. I’ve just come back from holiday. No, it’s not some summer romance. More than that. Worse than that. She’s head-to-toe beautiful. Summer or winter clothes, she’s a picture, no doubt. Both a city and county girl, though the two don’t mix all that well in her turbulent personality. She loves to enjoy herself, to dance an drink and argue. But then she’s also smart as hell. Loves debating politics, religion, philosophy, literature. She knows many languages, and how to use them. Into studying and sport. Into arts and sciences. Into travelling and staying at home. Keeps talking about herself, but not in a proud, boastful way. Not when sober, at least. Always self-critical, usually argumentative, she’s her own worst enemy. Unsure about her past, terrified of her future, she is the ultimate siren. The perfect nightmare for anyone looking to love and be loved in return. We meet several times a year, a week or two here and there, and the highs are always off-set by the lows. Always. It’s like she’s schizophrenic. When I introduce her to my British friends, she makes the perfect hostess. Generous with her time and “czym chata bogata”, she charms all foreigners. But when you get her alone, the mood turns sour, and all too often nasty. She drinks too much, talks too much, and then there’ s always a bust up at the end. Either an implosion, some kind of inner-fight, or an explosion, a running away, from home, from herself, into the welcoming arms of strangers. I once thought her habit of always being there for others, yet never herself, was a sign of deep weakness. A need to prove something by pleasing the world without. But it’s not that. There is something inherently noble and generous about her. Something that arouses rare emotions, rare loyalties in people. It’s just that she has no idea how to apply the “charity begins at home” principle to her own life. The two weeks we’ve just spent together were meant to be a time of pure relaxation. A break from all the jobs I’ve taken on in the past year. Two weeks without emails or writing or painting or any other demands on my time and energies. And yet the moment I landed at Chopin Airport in Warszawa, got a ratty old bus to the Centrum, sat down in Three Crosses Square, she started on me. Drink, discussions, politics, seduction, tears. It was the 15th of August. A national holiday. The Square was swarming with rich families enjoying the sunshine and local low-lives using the holiday as an excuse to drink to a new excess. Sitting in an outdoor beer garden, I listened to her, watched, took in the mass of contradictions and realised three insane things. That I’ll always love her, no matter what. That she’ll probably never love me back, no matter what I do to try an change that. And that I wouldn’t wish it any other way. Love is a bizarre emotion. Sex I understand. The need to be with others, to talk and do things together. But love? What on earth is it for? I suspect there is a mechanism to it which is very, very simple. Need, and you stick with the animal world. Love, and you show yourself ready for evolution. For something purer, bigger, more permanent. She’s too hurt, too broken, too wild to ever sit still for long enough to take me in. But that’s ok. I wish there was some way of helping her heal quicker. Of calming her down enough for us to have chance to really talk, really come together. But I know that too many experts and analysts and other gurus have tried talking sense into her already. She can’t hear them either. Too deep into herself, too lost in a world she did not design and doesn’t fit into all that well. Not yet. Maybe never. And that’s ok too. There are many summers yet to come. Maybe I’ll spend them with others, once in a while. Others I’ll respect and admire and miss. But to her I will always return. Always belong. It’s permanent, this thing between us. Outside of pain or choice or saner wishes. |
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