Category: Rozmowy z Johnem

Walk with my Eurydice

Walk with my Eurydice

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

Every day starts with waking, and getting up from bed. Doesn’t matter if it is noon or 5 in the morning. Time is a very subjective thing. On days I don’t have to go to work (most of the time, since I officially stopped working for any company more than six years ago) and don’t have any appointments – I don’t look at watches or clocks. I do things when it is time to do these things, without assigning any number to that time.

Besides, time has stopped for me in November 2022. On the first night (was it night?) I fell asleep after You were gone. I wish I had not woken up. Waking up after that very first sleep is a daily routine of terror. The few seconds before you are certain that it is reality, that you are awake. When I am forced again to know that You are gone. Not to the kitchen to make us a fresh morning coffee, which you did every morning religiously for more than three decades. No – You are GONE. I have to go through that terror every single day while getting up. For 467 days, as of today.

Sometimes, just before I finally drift off to sleep, I wish, I pray, that it is the last time. That I don’t have to wake up again.

When I sleep I often meet You and talk to You. I think, sometimes I make love to You. That we are watching TV or go for a drive in the countryside.

You are my Eurydice, for whom I went to Hades to plead, to argue with the God of the Underworld, that he made a mistake. I beg him, I threaten him. I offer him love and hatred, devotion and disdain. To no avail – he is unmoved. In my dream, I write a poem to You in Italian. When I get up from my sleep I remember that poem and copy it, surprised that I retained more of my old Italian than I thought.

Dove sei, Euridice?

Dove sei, Amore mio?

Mostrati e parlami d’amore.

Ricordare! Non fermata

e non guardare indietro.

Ricorda, mio caro …

ricorda, ricor… , ri…

e piango, perché so

che ti volterai.

Ogni volta.

Today I stopped in a little park De Volf in Bedford. We used to go there many times and both liked it. It is a small park but there is something sweet and romantic about it. It offers a nice view of Halifax, our bridges, and Dartmouth.  Next to it is a big building of the company that you worked for – The Berkeley. You didn’t even have that much time to work for them, yet You did leave a special mark on the senior residents of that building and all the staff. Your innate goodness emanated from you as everywhere you worked before. I will never forget and still am moved to tears how they organized a special memory meeting for the residents and staff in their main hall. It was full of people. Wonderful people, who came to share their memories, and their sorrow and offer their support to me and Your siblings, who came for Your final journey.

It was a cold but amazingly sunny day. I really enjoyed the walk and reminiscing about our strolls there. For a short while You – my Eurydice – walked with me. You didn’t turn back, didn’t look back. You walked with me. Maybe I even felt Your hand in my hand.

I know that the terror of getting up will come back tomorrow. Then again, and again for the rest of my days. But the walk today was good. Thank You, Babcycake. Gracie, mia Euridice.

Anguish, the price of Love

Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski

The first panel of marble triptych by Hildreth Meiere representing The Pillars of Herakles (Centre for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC)

Love is a strange thing, and the price you pay for it is enormous. But you pay. For a dream that is priceless. The higher is the heaven, the bliss of it – the higher is the cost. Have you known – would you have asked for it?

Let me tell you a story. There was a young man, who wandered the world from the high peaks to the deep valleys, and even deeper than the valleys. He went to the abyss of the underworld, the dark caves full of desires, hunger, and thirst. Long hands and longing eyes followed him there in the caves. The caves were like a labyrinth, one leading to the other. There, he saw a silhouette of a boy crying for love not found, for a dream not fulfilled yet. That silhouette, the shadow was – he knew it instantly – his own dream. A dream that did not want to be a dream anymore. It wanted to be born. To live. The young man heard the plea of this boy and the plea of his dream. He ran after the boy, grabbed his arm, and didn’t let go.  It is a long story re-told many a time. It was said that they lived happily ever after for a long time.

Like any long story, sometimes they are too long. People heard of the ending from others and never bothered to read it to the end themselves. But re-told stories change, and people soon forget where or from whom they heard it. They stopped reading it altogether, relying on the version they had heard from others. As the others relied on those, who told them. Over time the story changed, becoming a different one.

No one truly knew what happened to the young man, when he was not young anymore or what happened to the boy rescued from the cave.

I will tell you the story of the old man, who used to be that young man.

He doesn’t go to the caves, deep valleys, or mountaintops anymore.

The boy became his. He has answered his dream and the dream of the boy. They built a house on a treetop and watched the mountains weaving long shawls of rainbows flowing slowly to the valleys. Sometimes they would climb down from the treehouse and wander in the meadows below, drinking from streams, and singing with birds.

One day, after many years of happiness, the boy went further exploring the valley. The man followed him. They came upon a place where the stream enters a big river. The boy – a man by now himself – said: I will go for a swim in this river and jumped into it. He disappeared under the water and was not coming back to the surface. The man – an old man by now – jumped after him. He has found him ensnared in the long roots of the nenufars. He frantically ripped the snarls and brought the lifeless body to the surface. He tried for a very long time to push the boy’s life back into his lungs, and he screamed to the birds to help him. They came and tried with their wings and beaks to revive the boy. But, as the old man, they couldn’t. The boy was no longer.

From then on, the old man left the valley and wandered for eternity the earth. Looking for the boy, hoping that he appears somewhere. If, by miracle, he has found himself in the caves, why wouldn’t it be possible that he will find him again? His anguish was unbearable. Even the birds couldn’t sing when they flew by him. He came to the Edge of the World and asked the Big Water: why? The Big Water thought for a while and answered him with its own question: your sorrow has moved me, old man. I am Everything, the Past, and the Future. The Present has engulfed you in anguish beyond your strength. If the price of your past is too high to carry, I can grant you a gift seldom given to anyone.

The old man raised his eyes and trembling with timid hope, asked: O, Big Water, would you return my boy to me?

The Big Water answered: there is no return from not being. But I can change the Past, I can change the event that led you to the meeting of the boy. Ever. Thus the cause of the anguish will be gone. You can’t grieve something you have never had or known. That is the price.

The old man looked in horror and screamed at the Big Water: Would you, Everything, ever accept a deal to become Nothing? Your price is too high to pay. I will keep my sorrow and will walk with it till the end of my journey.      

I saw the old man when he turned away from Everything and started walking along the shores of The Edge of The World. With time he slowed down, yet he kept going. At a certain junction, the Edge of The World separated from the Big Water and became the Edge of Non-ending Abyss. There, the cliffs of the Edge were vertical like the Pillars of Heracles.  He knew that he reached the end of his journey. The old man sat and rested a bit looking down the massive cliffs where below a thick cover of white clouds was the invisible Abyss. His arms raised a bit with a sight and he slowly got up making a step toward the Edge. Then he froze for a moment, turned his head, and looked. He saw, far from the Edge, mountain peaks towering above deep green valleys and a forest with tall trees. He thought that he could hear the song of birds flying in the forest. A happy tear rolled down his cheek and a broad smile appeared on his face. And the old man was sure that for a moment he saw a boy waving toward him from one of the tree tops. The boy was singing the song of the birds and smiling at him. He called to the old man: don’t be afraid, come to me, I’ll wait for you!  

Did the old man jump the cliffs, you asked? I do not know. But he anguished no more.   

The Woods – how You led me out of them

The Woods – how You led me out of them

Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski

There are bad days. They come. I didn’t know that my emotional construction was still so fragile. Someone said something or wrote something to me, possibly in good intention – and everything fell down as a house of old rocks tumbling down in a cloud of dust. Cloud of dust and insecurities, despair. Everything I tried so hard to put together on my ocean beaches last summer – was taken away by a wave that came and washed it to the bottom of that ocean.  

One of the very first lines I wrote after You were gone, after I tried to find traces of You, of us, on some trail we used to walk together – and I couldn’t find You anymore – felt like that exactly: insecurity, lost. Maybe even angry – why am I here if you are not?

I have simply called these short lines: ‘Woods’. The woods I ventured in and got lost. Couldn’t find my way back. Last night and today it felt like that – to be back in these woods.

The Woods

I’m in the woods, surrounded by trees. The sun filters through the leaves, creating a dance of light and shadow. The breeze caresses the branches, making them sway gently. The air is fresh and warm, but not too hot. It’s a perfect day for a walk.

But I’m not here to enjoy the scenery. I’m here to find you. You ran away from me, and I don’t know why. You didn’t say a word, just took off into the forest. I followed you as fast as I could, but you were always ahead of me. I called your name, but you didn’t answer. You didn’t even look back.

The terrain is rough and uneven. The ground is covered with dead wood, roots, and rocks. I’m not as agile as I used to be. I’m not a young buck anymore, confident in my strength and speed. I stumble and fall, scraping my hands and knees. I get up and keep going, hoping to catch a glimpse of you.

But you are nowhere to be seen. You are hiding from me, or you have already gone too far. You are out of my sight and out of my reach. I don’t know where you are, or if you are safe. I don’t know what you are thinking, or what you are feeling. I don’t know if you still love me, or if you ever did.

 Maybe it wasn’t even an actual walk in the woods? Can’t remember anymore. Maybe it was a written record of one of my many nightmares, being half awake and half-asleep? Don’t know – there are days from these early times that are gone from my memory altogether, weeks like that. I know that they were, that I was there, too. Remember every detail, every second of You collapsing in my arms, the ambulances rushing to our home, every day and night in the hospital – and not much more after that. Just pieces of existence like a broken string of pearls rolling on the floor.

That’s that dark place I crumbled to last night and this morning. And You were not lost and gone, not hiding from me. You were right here and You guided me to a memory. The memory of a trip we took in 2016 to Alberta, our last trip to Alberta (apart from the huge trip across the continent to the shores of the Atlantic). We took a different route, a longer one, the one leading up North toward Valemount and through Highway 16 toward Jasper. But first, before reaching Jasper, one has to drive with the view of the massive, majestic Mount Robson. The highest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. Many, many years earlier I did a little climbing on this giant. Never reached the top, nor did I attempt to. Just wanted to do a bit of climbing on it and remember reaching some shelf-ledge on its steep wall, sitting on that ledge, and be amazed by the panoramic view in front.  In 2016 we reversed the roles, we were the ones at the bottom in some valley, and the huge giant was looking at us from high above.  It was amazing, the day was sunny, and practically there was no traffic. Remember embracing John and we both just admired the view.  It felt good. We both liked going back on many visits to Alberta, especially John. After all, it was his home, where he grew up, where he went to school, his adolescence … and us at the end. We met there, and fell in love. That memory of that trip lifted me from that awful pit I fell into again.

Nasz świat alternatywny

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

Zagubienie

Dużo tego wokół.

Coś stale się dzieje,

jakieś dni mijają,

kolejne nadchodzą

w dziwnym marszu

brzasków i zachodów.

Przyzwyczaiłem się już

i do smutku i do żalu.

Ale dalej nic z tego

zrozumieć nie potrafię.

Coś kiedyś zaczęliśmy

i mieliśmy gdzieś skończyć,

dokądś dojść. A nie doszliśmy,

nie skończyliśmy. Dlaczego?

Byłeś i nie ma cię.

Brak w tym zupełnie

jakiejkolwiek logiki,

sensu lub choćby

symboliki czegokolwiek.

Po co ja zostałem?

W rozgardiaszu rzeczy ważnych

zapomniał Los o takim drobiazgu?

Jak jedna litera

może być słowem?

Jak słowo może być

zdaniem o czymkolwiek?

To obcy mi język

i niezrozumiały.

31.01.24

Świat stał się czymś spoza, jakby zaistniał obok. Widzę go przez okno, czasem wychodzę do niego jakieś sprawy załatwić, coś zrobić, pojechać na jakąś plażę, pójść na koncert lub wystawę.  Gdy wracam do domu gdzie on nie istnieje, zostawiam go za drzwiami i za oknem. Nie potrzebny mi do niczego. Tylko przeszkadza swoim tłokiem, gadatliwością i kompletną powierzchownością. Jakby tym całym i stałym ślinotokiem słów usiłował nadać pozory ich głębokości, ważkości. A w sumie to kompletna płycizna ledwie stopy łechtająca. 

Jest bardzo prawdopodobne, że ciągle są ciekawe indywidualne światy innych ludzi, ich prywatne kosmosy. Ciągle poeci publikują wiersze, malarza pracują przy sztalugach, filozofowie – tak mało tych prawdziwych się ostało – szukają sensu bytu i dotknięcia jego paradoksu, kompozytorzy komponują. To mnie trochę zajmuje jeszcze, ciekawi czasem. Bardziej z ciekawości niż autentycznej potrzeby. Dla mnie już wystarczy tych kilka tysięcy lat poprzednich badań badaczy i twórczości twórców. Kolejne niewiele nowego i odkrywczego prawdziwie już mi nie zaoferują. Po oswojeniu się w wiekach XIX i XX z myślą, że jednak wszystko jest możliwe, a nic definitywnie określonego początkiem, kształtem, formą i końcem nie ma – filozofia umarła, a sztuka jest wszystkim i niczym jednocześnie.

Pozostali jeszcze bogowie i wierzenia. Ale z tymi zerwałem wszelki kontakt już dawno.  Zbyt wiele świństw zrobili lub pozwolili na zrobienie w swoim imieniu, bym jakąkolwiek na nich uwagę zwracał. Zakładam zresztą, że ich nie ma. A jeśli są – niech się kiszą we własnym sosie samozachwytu.

Po prawdzie nie jestem zadowolony kompletnie z faktu, że żyję jeszcze. Tak, jak z tymi nowymi badaniami i nowa twórczością – do niczego mi już to niepotrzebne. Pewnie jest jakaś doza lęku egzystencjalnego. W końcu życie to najstarsze chyba tabu tego zwierzęcia zwanego homo sapiensem. Ale przede wszystkim niechęć zrobienia przykrości wielu osobom bardzo bliskim, a zwłaszcza tym, którzy w jakiś sposób fizyczno-prawny musieliby konsekwencjami się zajmować. Byłoby to poniekąd świństwo z mojej strony, taki trochę nihilizm moralny wobec nich.

Nie. John mi nie zrobił świństwa. On sobie tego nie zaplanował, przeciwnie – żal  mu strasznie było odchodzić, nie chciał. Jeszcze chciał byśmy doszli dokąd nie doszliśmy, by był pewien przedsmak dokończenia, epilogu.

Może więc zbuduję świat alternatywny. Nie ten sam który był, a już go nie ma bezpowrotnie. Ten, który mógłby być. Będzie tylko wewnątrz naszych czterech ścian. Będę wychodził po zakupy i gazetę i po powrocie będę ci opowiadał, co nowego się za oknem zdarzyło.  A wieczorami będziemy robić długie podróże do miejsc, w których kiedyś byliśmy.

Kto wie, może uda mi się cię namówić na nowe dalekie trasy. Pojedziemy do Paryża. Kocham Paryż! Oprowadzę cię po znajomych uliczkach, posiedzimy na schodach pod Sacré-Cœur i wytłumaczę ci całą panoramę w dole. Potem oczywiście na Montmartre, w kafejki, w sprzedawców obrazów, w ramiona gawroszy. Wieczorem pójdziemy na nocny długi spacer bulwarami sekwańskimi. Od Île de la Cité aż pod Łuk Triumfalny. Tylko się nie wyrywaj i nie śmiej się – będę musiał cię całować. Bez całowanie się nie ma najmniejszego sensu iść nocą tymi bulwarami. A inni? Daj spokój. Czy naprawdę nie zrozumiałeś jeszcze, że tylko my ich będziemy widzieć, a oni nas nie będą mogli? To takie proste, Babycake!

The seed of grief is love

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

I have watched two movies recently. Very different and very powerful on a very personal level. Stirring emotions, and memories. The Spanish “Society of the Snow” produced by Netflix and directed by J. A. Bayona, and the Canadian production of “Good Grief” directed, produced, and written by Dan Levy. Dan Levy also played the main character, Marc.

The “Society of the snow” – let me take you on a journey in time. At the time of the catastrophe, I was 14 years old. A year later a book by British writer Clay Blair “Survive” appeared. A well-known Polish writer or essayist wrote in a Polish literary weekly “Literatura” a piece about it. It might have been Jerzy Andrzejewski, an excellent writer whose weekly column I have always read – but truly I can’t recall now. Yet the story and especially the dilemma of cannibalism versus survival made me write a short piece about it. By that, I was fifteen and of course, as any fifteen-year-old ‘writer’ had a lot to say about the issues of life and death. I sent it off to the editorial desk of Jerzy Putrament, a Polish writer, who was the editor-in-chief of the weekly ‘Literatura”, a major literary and art publication. And he published it. As it was my second publication in a major Polish magazine (the first one was in “Perspektywy”) it cemented my ‘fame and prestige’ among my teachers in my school, but not as much among my classmates, LOL.

I don’t recall if I have read the book by Clay Blair. Not sure if it was translated into Polish. Most likely I never did. But I have seen years later the first movie about it based on that novel. And I wasn’t impressed. Yet the Spanish “Society of the Snow” impressed me very much. The screen-writers (Bayona, Vilaplana, and Marques), the director, and the actors were superb in their austerity of dramatization. Everything was left to the minimum: air, food, movement, and words. Years later, while visiting Mendoza in Patagonia (the ill-fated plane took off from Mendoza on its last tragic leg of the flight to Chile), I took a special bus tour to the Andes and was able to do some hiking at the base of Aconcagua (almost 7000 meters, one of the titans of the world). The outmost desolation of that place there is amazing and overpowering. As far as you can see is a frozen horizon of white peaks and valleys. Can’t imagine surviving there with hardly any provisions for longer than a few days. I felt that the movie captured that feeling very well.

“Good Grief” by Dan Levy. Who doesn’t remember and didn’t love that sweet, funny, and almost useless in practical skills young gay guy in the now iconic CBC series “Schitt’s Creek”, with his father, great Canadian actor Eugene Levy, and fantastic Catherine O’Hara? But Dan Levy playing a grief-strickened, middle-age man in serious drama, tragedy actually? Can he carry it? He did.

I shouldn’t have watch it. But I did. I had to. As I watched his grief, as I travelled with him in his yearly journey of that grief of losing the love of his life – I went through mine. Every silent moment. Every object in his and mine apartment, photographs, furniture. At times I didn’t know if it was Dan Levy or me on that screen. If it was a movie or my memories of last year. No, I didn’t go to Paris and there was no surprise in finding ‘the other lover’. But these are just details, unimportant almost didaskalia of the drama. The differences between the lives of me and John and that of Mark and Luke are just a different shade of the same colour.

As I watched that movie sitting on my (on our) sofa I felt John taking my hand into his and squeezing it gently. I heard him saying I’m sorry, and I wanted to grab his hand, to cover it with kisses. But I didn’t, I knew the hand, his voice would dissipate into the air. So I just sat quietly, didn’t even turn my head, and continued watching the movie. With him undisturbed sitting next to me. As he always did. It felt good. Sad but good. The next morning I went for a drive to a little town called Fall River. I took him there in 2019 to a little Provincial Park, with a forest, by a long, wonderful lake. This time it was wintertime, windy and cold. The gate to the park was closed for the season. I left my car and walked the long trail on foot. The sky was splendid with clouds and sun in crispy air. It was my trip ‘to Paris’. Thank you, Dan Levy, for letting me submerge myself in that grief again.  Grief is hard, is sad. But it also is beautiful, because the seed of grief is love.

After

I couldn’t sleep.   

Didn’t know how to

console You.

How to tell You –

it’s all right, Babycake.

I have survived.

No, it wasn’t Your

fault.

You tried,

You tried so hard.



Do I lie, when I say:

‘it’s all right’?

Yes, I do.

It was

so fucking hard.

I knew it would be

if and when,

but had no clue 

how hard it is.

Didn’t know 

that grief

could be like 

hot lead 

slowly injected 

into your veins.

Like the disappearing

bubbles of air

you have tried 

to squeeze into your lungs

nailed to the heavy

cross of impossibility.

As I watched with terror.

So what was

really the weight

of my grief

compared to that?

How do you compare

the pain of life

to pain of death?

How do you?

What’s the balance ratio

of life in grief

in one hand,

and no life

in the other?

Does a man know?

Does God?

Thy Kingdom comes,o Love

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

January in 2024. First time this year I have come to see your ‘home in Pictou’s cemetery, at Stella Maris.

I know you are not there –it is just a place, just a stone with your name on it. Like the stone tablets of Sumerians, and Acadians, like the stone tablet given to Moses a few thousand years later. These letters, and symbols left on them by the Old Ones are not alive anymore. No ancient gods lay claim to them, not from Ur, not from Babylon, not from Sinai. What’s left in these letters are hidden stories of love, of passion.

Under these letters, under your stone is a small container with some ashes. Gray powder in a box, nothing else. But I can’t stop coming here where I can submerge myself in my despair, wallow in my grief. Here it doesn’t bother anyone. The dead ones are dead. Silent. Sometimes a black bird looks at me from a tree branch and says something in its characteristic low and screechy voice.

It sounds like a song of the Underworld. A poem of decayed generations. Only the bird, the guardian of the cemetery knows that ancient language.

There are no other visitors here, especially this time of the year. Unless it is a funeral. Another wooden box full of bones, or smaller one with ashes, goes to the ground.

Old wooden cross with a white figure of Jesus of Joseph and Mary, who attested to prophesies of Isaiah of Kingdom coming. That cross, darkened by weather and age is strong. He does not attest to anything anymore. He is profoundly sad. Painfully sad. Sorrow emanates from his eyes and from that terrible tool of his death. Still asking: Why? Why did you lead me to this terrible, painful death, o father? What did I do to deserve such cruel punishment? Why did you forsake me, condemn me to this brutal death?

I want to talk to him, help him to quell his anguish. He was still a very young man, and did not understand. I want to tell him – don’t cry anymore. To tell him if he truly found love in Mary Magdalen or any other lovers he pursued, if he was loved and loved – it never died. Not on that cross, nor in this cemetery. That his father, his false friend Judas – they could not stop that Love, they could not erase it. It soared like an eagle, like an Angel through the Cosmos. That love, young man – if you truly were loved and loved – sang songs of Love. Eternal.

The wintery Sun came over the desolate, little cemetery. It flickered in the mud holes of the walkways, it caressed and made bright little plastic flowery arrangements on some gravestones.  Looked at your grave with my inscription: forever in my heart and smiled, too. That’s just for some passerby, maybe long after any memory of both of us would linger in anyone’s life. So he or she would have known that you were loved. And would recognize that love does conquer death. Nothing else. But She does.

Of course, you are not there, under the stone. You are in my heart, with me. All the time, everywhere. Just on that cemetery, on any cemetery, there is a special stillness of air that allows you to have these talks, these thoughts. That’s why I keep coming here. When I was very young I used to visit some special coffee shops in Warsaw, where I would write my poems on white, square, and very small paper tissues.  Now, when I am much older, I like to come to this cemetery or visit my special wild beaches I have conquered in your name and have these talks with you, and still write poems. I like it.

Before I left, went and looked at that man outstretched on this horrible cross.  I thought he wasn’t as sad as before. I hope. I hope that he got it, he understood it. That death is just that – all matter decays and dies with time. But love survives, and overcomes.  The Kingdom came through love.

Pictou

Ostatni – trudny – spacer z Tobą tego roku

Ostatni – trudny – spacer z Tobą tego roku

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

Plaża Tęczowego Schroniska

przyjechałem tu

szukać ciebie

w dzień ostatni

tego roku

roku przekleństwa

modlitwą o zapomnienie

że był

pierwszego roku kiedy

przestałeś być

pierwszego w którym cię

nie było

nigdzie nie siedziałeś

obok mnie

nie kładłem się w łóżku

obok ciebie

nie nalewałeś mi pierwszej

rannej kawy

nie jechałeś ze mną

na plażę

tą na którą przyjechałem

teraz

szukać ciebie za kolejnym głazem

za wydmą porośniętą trawą ostrą

i nie było cię w żadnej

kryjówce

w żadnym zakamarku

wyłem jak wilk głodny

a nie odpowiedziałeś

rzucałem wściekle

mokrymi kamieniami

w drzewa zawieszone

nad urwiskiem

a milczałeś

 nie byłeś

roku potworny

czasie okrutny

roku bogów

obojętnych i głuchych

 na prośby

na plaży Tęczowego Schroniska

która była dziś lochem bez dna

 więzieniem bez kluczy

bądźcie przeklęci

na wieczność

okrutni bogowie

czasie – bądź zapomniany

że byłeś

niech fala porwie z brzegów

wasze świątynie

i wierze kościelne z zegarem

by czas się w niwecz obrócił

jak piasek rozsypał w głębiach

zimnego oceanu

(Rainbow Havens Beach, 31.12.2023)

Camera, poetry, and Yule in Halifax – with John

Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski

Yule is an old Solitice holiday in Norse and Anglo-Saxon tradition. I was going to visit my husband burial place today. But been there a short time ago. Dont really like going there, especially this time of the year, when it is wet, gray, desolate and sad. Entire summer and autumn I spent almost entirely on wild beaches, secluded spots, where I could be just with him. Talked to him, built forts of stones and sticks to our love and passion. wrote poems to him. And I said today – no more cemeteries. You are here with me, and we are going to do some damage at night time in Halifax. And we went and did.

Yule in Halifax

Do  you still notice the odd things

and the normal things, expected?

Did you hear the song of the waves

yesterday – when it came to our feet,

caressing, enveloping them in a soft

foamy embrace like a kiss?

Do you still follow me on these walks,

my walks of our talks, our love and pain?

Forlorn shores of foreign land that

separated us. But it failed, it failed, I say.

I scream – it failed!

The land on the edge of Canada,

precipitously looking at the abyss

of cold North Atlantic waters.

But we walked on these edges

holding hands, touching limbs and lips.

I still pull you, like a fisherman dragging his net

from the bottom of a cold ocean,

and I bring you to my boat and we sail.

We sail, I say.

I scream – we sail!

With the wind in our lungs,

hope in our hearts,

and memory locked forever:

at the sea, in the forest,

on mountaintops and in deep valleys.

Come with me to the narrow streets

of this old town of sailors and soldiers.

Let’s go at night and celebrate Yule.

Celebrate the way we never did

while we were alive!

(Halifax, Dec.26.2023; by B. Pacak-Gamalski)

Symphony of colours, baroque music, and chat with you.

Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski

Today was going to be a nice day. I know, you almost suspect that the next sentence would read: but it wasn’t.  To a certain degree, you are right: it wasn’t a nice day – it was a splendid day.

The next seven days they say it will be very rainy and extremely windy, stormy. Local floods and power outages are expected. But I must go to Pictou and spend some time with you there. It was going to be, after all, our home. Maybe not the epitome of my dreams – but I know it would make you very happy to be next to your brothers, home by home. And my dear, silly Boy – it isn’t Paris, Warsaw, or Barcelona, not even my dear Vilnius or Prague, where I would be happy. I would be happy working on our last home where you would be happy.

I know, in the end, the Fates had other plans, plans that destroyed ours.   But you end up there, in Pictou. With your Mom, your Dad, and now with your older brother, too. It became your home before it had a chance to become mine. Therefore, as Christmas is approaching, I had to go before the storms to be with you.

All the way to Pictou from Halifax, I listened to the best of the best of baroque music. I have said many times that I have very mixed feelings about that epoch in music. I know – Haydn, Bach, Vivaldi, and early Mozart. But, at times it just makes me cringe. It often feels like a tight corset that makes your chest scream for air and freedom.  Then again, at times – nothing soothes you better than old, familiar fugue, like an old shirt or warm morning robe.  Today was one of these days for baroque.  Predictable, well composed, elegant.

Little did I know what you had in plans for me on my way back. A symphony of colours, shades, and hues in the sky I could not imagine possible.

Just one note of my experiences with sunsets: mind you almost my entire life, the adult part anyway, I have spent on the shores of oceans or in the valleys and peaks of big mountains. And many, many years of sailings on ships; I have been to most Polynesian islands and their beaches. In a word – I know a thing or two about sunsets.  Yet, nothing prepared me for the gift you made me today on my way back to Halifax.

And you must know of that special part of Highway #1 from New Glasgow to Truro. It is just like someone was planning a road to be a panoramic exhibition. Almost every season. Particularly beautiful during the glory of Autumn, with the dark hues of evergreens mixed with flames of red, yellow, and gold of other trees. At times it is almost dangerous to drive there as you try to concentrate on the highways and not as much on the panoramas.  Today – you thanked me for our visit and chat with the sky. It was just breathtaking.

There is also something to say about the spookiness of old, local cemeteries that with certain lithing make you feel like watching some old Poltergeist movies. Just saying.