Walk through time

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski-Graham

We are coming back. Yes, to the very beginning, when our god said: let it be light. And light happened. We were no longer blind. And our god thought for a second: what use is of light if they can’t see Love? And the god said: let there be Love. And Love happened.

Remember? Come, give me your hand, I will lead you to a little night dancing bar in south-west Calgary, close to a bridge hanging above fast mowing waters of Bow River.

But how can you make it happen? – you asked – will god move back time for us? Of course not, silly you – I answered. But our god will let us see through time, see the moment in time when Love happened.

You see My Dear Boy; you don’t have to understand everything. I don’t. But I trust our god of Love. If you are sitting in the car next to me, talking to me – we both know it is strange and not normal –than just accept it. Just take my hand, follow me through the dark 10th Avenue toward the bridge on 14 Street. Recognize the small dark square building? The one with little flickering rainbow. Of course you do. Let’s peak through the dark thick glass at the door. It is almost empty inside. It is not Friday or Saturday night when it fills in with crowds of hungry young men seeking each other to quell that ancient hunger. No, that was a regular weekday evening. There was just three young men sitting by the bar on tall stools.

You were silent for a second. Looked at me with sad smile, looked through the dark glass again and you whispered: that’s you, myself and my brother. I asked: and what do we do? My Boy answered: we talk, then we get up and go to dance floor and we dance. I exhale: Aha! But it only looks like just a dance. In truth we are love bearing. It is a lovebirth. Our god answered yours and my pleas. He gave us Love and we saw it through the Light. He didn’t lie. A promised fulfilled.

Wiping off a tear

A tear runs

through your

cheeks like

a stream of

clear pearls.

A flicker of sad

smile dances

in your eyes.

I kiss and

and wipe them

with a touch

of my fingertip.

No sadness please,

I plead with you.

Cry with happiness,

not with sorrow today.

Rejoice with that

memory, with that

journey in time.

Moment of coming

back to that town,

that place, that night.

Your flesh is warm

tonight, your eyes

are dreaming again,

your lips are trembling

and waiting for a kiss.

Tonight is our time

again, our gods

are giving us the gift

of Love, of promise

eternal to keep.

It won’t be broken

and it won’t be buried.

Just as you are real

tonight, sitting in a flesh

next to me, sending

quivers of anticipation

down my spine

and making me

sing again psalms

of thanks for

passion known

to young hearts

and old souls.

Be with me.

I had so many

long nights

of despair and

emptiness of

that vast bed

left only to

my body getting

smaller by the day,

by the night,

by the hour.

It was vast indeed,

that empty space

of our bed,

that turned into

the desert of Gobi,

the desert of Rumi’s

lover wandering

days on end

and nights under

stars flickering

above – for whom?

I have built

a fort of our Love

on forgotten,

lost and wild

beach of North Atlantic.

Because I couldn’t

look at the vast

empty bed of ours.

Even that was

not enough.

Not even the friendly

powerful waves

I swam in.

Although, they did

took pity in my sorrow

and offered graciously

the peace of cold

vastness of their depths

far from the shores

and noise of human

plights and pitfalls.

I run from them, too.

I run nonstop

for hundreds and

for thousands of miles.

I run the way we came

to these northern shores.

But I run opposite way,

I run back to our home,

and back to the beginning

of our time,

our Love

its birthplace –

where we emerged

from the cool and fast

waters of Elbow and Bow

Rivers, from the singing

mermaids of Fish Creek

at the foot of snowy peaks.

And I found you

wondering aimlessly,

blindly where all the waters meet

to become one.

And I grabbed you,

I hold you,

And I kissed you.

I won’t let go.

We will go again

to the other ocean,

to our home,

our waves,

our lovemaking.

Maybe we will go

On Capitol Hill there,

And walk to the small

trail down to

the inlet and find

the rock we liked

to seat on while

watching passing ships.

And we will plant

our souls there,

by that rock, under

that sky and moon.

Our souls will stay

there forever,

nothing will disturb them

separate them.

They will wave at

the shadows

of our bodies,

and will smile saying:

thank you. We will stay here.

And now you can go free.

Do you see now, My Boy,

why I did all of it?

The searching?

The running?

The travelling to

the beginning of time,

to the birthplace of Love

and Lovebearing?

Now you can’t

be sad anymore.

I can’t despair, either.

We were just vessels

for our souls

and our souls are

together again

till the end of times.

Our mission is done.

Let the sadness

be happy, fulfilled.

And smile at me once more.

I will kiss your

happy tear, too.

Thus, the saga ends. A saga of Love I had, a saga of Love I shared with My Boy. Or Love he had and shared with me.

I have written about it, that Love we shared, many times on these pages. At times it was a scream of pain and despair; at times pleading with Fates to turn time back, before that tragic day when My Boy died in my arms; at times it was rejoicing the time we had; or proclaiming urbi et orbi that he is alive in me, is part of me. None of that was a lie or imagination. We search for words and ask our imagination to name things we can’t truly comprehend or fully accept.

But the simple and honest answer is that my life have changed few times irrevocably: I was a different person before I met my Lover and become a different one after that meeting, absolutely and instantly understanding that I just can’t exist anymore without his presence in my life; the day My Boy ceased existing in a material world – I become once more a different person. I remembered, I resembled that previous versions of me, shared our common life – but I wasn’t IT anymore. And I know that it never will. Wish that it wasn’t like that – but accept that it is. Mostly – I’m filled with awe that I found my soulmate, soulsharer. A gift so rare and precious it escapes a name. But you do know and recognize IT the moment it appears.

One of the greatest poet of Romanticism, Adam Mickiewicz , wrote in his major drama “Dziady” famous sentence ‘Gustavus obitt – hic natus Conradus’_[i] that begins the spiritual transformation of the main character of his long poem. But that transformation starts and continues for a very different reason and goals. The hero (Gustav) has a vision and proceeds to become a different person. I did not have any visions, nor did I planned to become someone else. Indeed – I never had become someone else. Emotional events have made major changes in and of my life. It changed me very much so, but it did not erased my past. I still carry it with me, the good and the bad. A gift of great love – if you receive one, and it is a rare occurrence – carries great peaks of pleasure and happiness … but it also could carry an immensely deep pits of darkness and sorrow. So dark and so deep it could swallow you whole. Am I advising you not to seek such love, not to try? No. But if I can be bold, I will say that walking up and down pleasant hills is not the same as climbing Mt. Everest. And many who did neither reach the peak nor returned. My climb or rather descent is only two years old. And I am still not sure if I will return to safe shelter.

_{[i] (translation from Latin) Gustav dies – Conrad is born}

In local Native tribes they call it: a place where the rivers meet. Or shortly – Calgary

Bogumił Pack-Gamalski

Olympic Plazza in Calgary

Of all the cities of Canadian prerie provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta) – Calgary is the best known and in many ways perhaps the most influential way (in both: good and bad ways). Many eons ago it used be my first Canadian home for almost a decade. And Calgary’s main walking and social promenade was Stephen Avenue Mall. Roughly speaking a district in the middle of the city, between City Hall and 6 Street S.W. Entertainment and commercial heart of Calgary. Not the only one (17 Avenue SW is also important ) but historically speaking the main one.

Hence my walk ‘down the memory lane’ with a dear friend. Apart from everything else it is a pivotal part of my entire life. Not only my Canadian life – but my whole life. It is where I met the love of my life, my soulmate.

That personal aspect will be explored in a more poetic language in my next post. Now, that walk through the Mall in September 2024.

Journey across Canada – Wielka podróż kontynentalna

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

Another big journey. Fitting in as it was, as it allows me to say slowly a goodbye to my country – Canada. Would have been most likely My Country to the very end, but Fates wanted otherwise. I will be eventually going to the country of my childhood and youth. That is another story though, and a reader who follows my Blog – knows it.

The Story today is Canada, it’s nature and huge expanse. It started by driving from Halifax in Nova Scotia, through New Brunswick, and finally to grand old Montreal. A city built at the mouth of powerful St. Lawrence, surrounded by smaller rivers and water channels. The proper old Montreal was itself an island of land (not a very large one) constricted from all sides by flowing faster or slower water. Hence the grand city is very dense, streets are narrow. It reminds me a bit of an old Paris, an island around Notre Dame, and on the other side closed by the old medieval Royal Seat of Louvre as it was, long before becoming one of the most famous museum and gallery.

From Montreal the highway took me through the capital, Ottawa. It has changed tremendously since I have been here about seven years ago. Not that long ago – but it did. A maze of new skyscrapers.

Pass Ottawa and Petawawa (a city of storied military history) the highway takes us through Ontario’s Cottage Country and numerous small towns and settlements. A glorious Fall colours od forest and Laurential Mountains.

But nature’s through splendor awaits us a bit further, the road will lead us through enormous in size Northern Ontario, alongside the shores of enormous Lake Superior. And a visit to an old Polish settlement of Wawa – in shortened version it simply means ‘Warszawa’ – the capital of Poland. We will finish in the prairies of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

(in Polish / po polsku)

Gdy ma się dwie ojczyzny, dwa domy rodzinne, odjazdy z jednego z nich z nich bywają trudne, bolesne. Zwłaszcza, gdy oddzielone są olbrzymią przestrzenią oceanów i pasm górskich.

Tym razem wracam do tej pierwszej ojczyzny dzieciństwa i młodości. Za mną zostaje całe dorosłe – długie już – życie w tej drugiej, w Kanadzie. Więc i pożegnalna wielka podróż przez Kanadę. A podróż przez ten wielki kraj, to podróż kontynentalna dosłownie: od jednego oceanu do drugiego; przez pasma wielkich i mniejszych masywów górskich; olbrzymie rzeki, wzdłuż jezior, które łatwo by nazwać bez zbytniej przesady morzami; przez puszcze niekończące się, prerie wielkich łanów pszenicy, kukurydzy. I prerie białe od potasu i odkrywkowych kopalń. Naturalnie nie sposób takiej podróży odbyć w dwa lub trzy dni. Jest wielodniowa, a powinna być wielotygodniowa. Drugi raz taką tu odbywam. Od Halifaksu do Vancouveru.

Zdjęcia załączone obejmują trasę od Halifaksu, przez Nowy Brunszwik, Montreal i Quebec, rejon Ottawy, Północne Ontario, trasę wzdłuż wybrzeży jeziora Superior, założone w XIX wieku przez polskich osadników urocze miasteczko … Wawa. Tak, Wawa od Warszawy. Z Wawy zjazd w dół kręta szosą wśród skał i niekończących się małych jeziorek (słowo ‘małych’ w kontekście Kanady jest właściwe, ale małymi de facto nie są) aż do Kenory. A potem Manitobą i w Sakatchewan – otwarta, płaska niekończąca się preryjna przestrzeń. I wiatrach (częstych) te morza pól wzbijają tumany kurzu i tumany białej soli potasowej. Inny świat.

Montreal

Northern Ontario, Wawa and Lake Superior

Prairies / Prerie

Moon – once more

Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski

I know I have said in previous post my goodbye to the Moon in Halifax. But today, while sitting at night time on My Rocks, the Moon yelled at me: hey! I have seen your post the other day. If you are saying ‘goodbye’ than might as well take my full portrait, not just part of my face. And he did smiled broadly and showed me his round full face. Wont be any closer soon, so here we go once more and few pics of Halifax’s waterfront as seen from Dartmouth.

Fort Needham – a tribute

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

Fort Needham

It sits upon a hill.

Peacefully, pleasantly

offering a nice view

of Bedford Basin to the left,

and the Narrows to the right.

Time is dangerous –

First world war raging somewhere in

mud of France and Belgium.

Canadian boys are gassed

to death as they jump

from their trenches

in an effort to gain

few feet of that foreign soil.

If the gas is not used,

they are cut in half by

Mauser machine guns.

Time is prosperous In Halifax:

The Harbour bustling with

sea and train traffic from

all over North America.

Shops are full of local

and foreign sailors,

merchants and buyers,

fishermen sale their

daily fresh catch straight

from their wooden boats.

Powerful artillery guns

protect the entrance

to Halifax Harbour

from any attempt by

Emperor Wilhelm Imperial Navy

to conquer the entrance

to entire North America.

The Fortress of Halifax

safeguards Boston and

the rest of United States.

It is not a bad day

in the Harbour

on December 6, 1917.

The Norwegian ship ‘Elmo’

filled with fresh relief supplies

for the war-torn Belgians in Europe

slowly begins its voyage

from Bedford Basin, enters

the tight waters of the Narrows.

But the war in Europe needs

more than bread and flower.

It needs also munitions, gun powder,

chemicals to make bombs.

Comes another vessel,

the French war supply ship,

– ‘Mont-Blanc’.

Like the snow-covered

peak in the French Alps.

It is sailing from Halifax

to Bedford Basin.

People gather on the Richmond Hill,

on the slopes of Fort Needham

to watch the passing foreign ships.

Fathers hold their children

by hand and explain to them

the colours of the flags,

the foreign ensigns.

Boys are particularly exited.

Scared, but excited even more

when the two ships collide.

As boys all over the world do,

when they see an accident happening.

The ‘Mont-Blanc’ burned for half an hour.

Then the world collapsed.

Upon the ships,

upon the boys on hill

and boys playing in their homes,

in their backyards,

seating on their grandmas laps.

It collapsed on the grandmas

and grandpas, too.

It collapsed on their city.

It is late summer, 2024.

I walk the slope of Port Needham

to it’s flat top.

In the middle seats a large structure

of modern bell tower.

I see the Tower from my window

on the other side of the Narrows.

It’s 2 o’clock.

Time for the Bells to sing,

to cry and to remember.

Every day and every boy,

who perished than.

Every girl and uncle,

and mum an pop.

Even the lonely

older chap, whose name

no one knew and no one will.

All one thousand

nine hundred

forty six.

The largest explosion

Prior to Hiroshima

and Nagasaki.

A poet remembers, too.

_{(Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski, 09.09. 2024)}

Miejsca. Places.

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski-Graham

(in Polish)

Miejsca. Miejsca … to taka specjalna przestrzeń geograficzna i emocjonalna. To tam, gdzie kiedyś ludzie kładli kamienie, budowali kapliczki lub kopce. By odnaleźć potem samemu lub zostawić ślad, drogowskaz dla następnych. Drogowskazy, że tędy droga.

Moje pożegnania z naszym ostatnim domem w Nowej Szkocji od miesięcy wielu do takich miejsc zawsze prowadzą. I zawsze jakiś kamyk tam kładę, jakieś wspomnienie zapisane w notesie, jakiś wiersz. Te literki i słowa to moje kamyki – byliśmy.

Dziś na plaży Conrada, ostatnie chyba moje pożegnanie, ostatnia kąpiel w falach grzywiastych w tej prowincji. Ostatni nasz spacer tam.

Fala

I cóż falo
	ostatnia na tej plaży?
Mojej wizyty
	też po raz ostatni.
Czy zmyłaś
	ze zmarszczek dni klęski
	i dni zwycięstw?
Pocałunki i łzy,
czułe westchnienia
	i przekleństwo bezsilności?

Pieścisz mnie jeszcze
białą pianą pasji
	niespełnionych do końca,
a potem odpływasz
	w swe głębie
znudzona romansem
	nie zaczętym,
nie skończonym.

^{(Conrad Beach, 01.09.24)}

(po angielsku)

Places. Places are special geographical and emotional spaces. It is where people, lovers, parents with children left stones on the hills, build mounds, erected structures or symbols of their gods in their marches through millennia. So others can follow or so they would find their way back.

My goodbyes with our last home in Nova Scotia took me a long time. Time to trace them back, find my way. But I did it. I have found them for the last time. I have left my ‘stones’ on the shores an on the white pages of my notebook. The ‘stones’ are my letters and sentences written down on the white pages of my notebook.

Today was probably the last one. I went to Conrad Beach for last swim in foamy waves of Atlantic. Our last walk there.

Time of snuggle

Come to the crescent of my arm,

I will place my hand on your shoulder

and we will walk on the shore.

On that line separating

land and water,

the sky and the mountains,

the Moon and the stars,

death and life.

Come. It’s time.

The time stolen from us –

I have found it.

Come, it’s time.

_{(Conrad Beach, 01.09.24)}

Summer, summer … it’s time to slowly close the season of fun on the Eastern Coast of Nova Scotia

Bogumil Pacak-Gamalski

Everything good must come to an end. Summer is receding from the trails and beaches of Nova Scotia. So is my presence in that province of Canada. Time to pack my beach chair … and pack my belongings after six years. For a small province that’s a long time to travel to places known and places less travelled. By now, my Dear Reader you probably know much more about this land from where the entire hemisphere sprang to life under new overlord – the Europeans. But people come and go – the land remains. And the old inhabitants from ancien time remain too – the Lnu People, of which novascotian native Mi’kmaq people are part.

My last hot and sunny day playing among the waves of North Atlantic was on Lawrencetown beach. Place I have visited over the years more than I can remember. After that I went for one more quick swim at Canada’s Ocean Playground beach by Gaetz Lake. And lovely walk to a Wildlife Sanctuary that shows tremendous affection to all kind of native creatures, who suffered some serious problems and can’t survived on it’s own. Such a tranquil place.
In a few days time I will be driving through the entire continent, traversing the same route and highways me and my John took six years ago. Back to where we begun that journey – to British Columbia. Although He can’t be with me physically – His love and spirit will. We will have lots of time to reminiscence the almost forty years of an amazing life journey. The most beautiful Journey of my life.

Next pictures from Canada’s Ocean Playground and Wildlife Sanctuary.

Pride Parade in Ottawa

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been known to be a friend and ally of LGBTQ+ community in Canada. In general, his personal and to a large extend political stance is in favor of inclusion and full participation in all aspects of private and public life of all segments of society. Long gone are old, somewhat paternalistic attitudes of tolerance. They have been rightfully relegated to history. The LGBTQ+ community does not need to be ‘tolerated’. We need and are fully equal parts of all spheres of public life. It is those, who hold the disgusting attitude of homophobia that have finally become the true fringes of society in Canada.

But knowing very well our own, very long struggle against ostracism, against hatred and indeed physical violence, we (LGBTQ+ community) often sympathize with those, who face that hatred, scorn and ostracism for who they are. For many different reasons. None is more for the past months than Palestinian people, their children, the elderly being denied the most basic right – a right to their own country, on land they lived from time immemorial.

They are being slaughter right now, they have become a part of insidious and murderous way of shooting game: the Israelis tell them to move from one spot to the other and as they – terrified – try, the Israeli bombs are being dropped on their heads. As of now the number of massacred Palestinians stands at 40 000. They have no homes anymore, no hospitals, no shops to buy food, no schools. The other day an Israeli Jew (not even a military or police – no, private bandit) just came to a Palestinian home (far away from the Gaza executions of Palestinians) and shot dead the Palestinian owner of the home and declared it to be his now.

So there is no surprise that the LGBTQ+ community feels often and by large, as an ally for the Palestinians. They know the suffering, the persecution. That does not make as an ally of Hamas or advocating violence against Jews. But we will stand with the oppressed, the hunted, the ones, who are subject to the terror of state organized genocide.

This is not antisemitism. It is not hatred of Jews. This is pro-life, pro basic human rights, basic political rights. This is against creation of new Cambodian killing fields of Khmer Rouge. I personally, a Canadian and a Pole, who is still traumatized of the history of Polish Jews during the second world war cannot fathom that their children, grand and great grandchildren, can do toward others the things that – at times – resembled, what was done to their forefathers during 2 world war. Maybe that comparison goes too far, probably it does. But emotions are hard to control, when you watch the news, see the terrified mothers trying to shelter their children, bodies of babies, people lining up to get some scraps of food.

When I read the article in todays ‘National Post’ about Justin Trudeau and his government refusing to take part in Ottawa’s Pride Parade because the Parade organizers have a message of support for Palestinians in Gaza and that he did it because of pressure from Jewish organizations in Ottawa – it makes me mad as hell. I don’t want MY prime minister to be an agent of Israel’s lobby. I want MY prime minister to be on the side of empathy, supporting the oppressed, the ones being slaughtered in thousands. The Justin Trudeau I remember and knew. Justin Trudeau the world fell in love with years ago for being such staunch supporter of the weak ones, the oppressed, persecuted.

And no, Prime Minister you have no right to co-organize another Pride Parade somewhere else in Ottawa by Israeli agents. The Pride Parade is organized by the organizers chosen by LGBTQ+ community in Ottawa. One parade. You are welcome as guest to that parade. You don’t have to come. You can even issue a statement why. But don’t dare to be the emperor, who will divide our community.

I will quote Liberal Party statement of that situation: “In light of recent decisions by the Capital Pride board, the Liberal Party has decided not to participate in Capital Pride events this year, and instead will host our own event to celebrate Ottawa’s 2SLGBTQI+ communities,” by Liberal party spokesperson Peter Lund.

Ottawa LGBTQI+ community organizes and hosts Pride event in Ottawa. One, done by us – not by the government and some Jewish activists in Ottawa. Period.

Natural Gardens in Truro’s Bible Hill, Nova Scotia – Dalhousie University

Bogumił Pacak-Gamalski

Some time, on this pages, I have published a piece about the history of the oldest University in North America, Kings College in Halifax. Kings College eventually become part of one of the largest university in Canada, the grandiose Dalhousie University of Nova Scotia. I have eventually, on this blog, published a photo series of the university.

The massive complex of Dalhousie stretches through many blocks of the city. It brings life and vibrancy to the city’s core and creates many mini-communities of students and faculty. Encompasses the past and the future. Is integral part of it’s life, atmosphere and pulse. Gave me many pleasurable strolls, moments of reading an interesting book of poetry or novel, writing in my own notebooks my poems or musings on many subjects. University campuses do that to you, LOL. And I love it.

But I have always heard of a special, far away campus of Dalhousie. The entire Faculty of Agriculture. It sits somewhere in a community called Bible Hill, part of larger city of Truro. I have past Truro countless amount of times. It sits right on both sides of meeting of two major highways connecting Nova Scotia to the West of Canada and to the South on Nova Scotia. But what you see, when you are passing the city on highways is hardly and appealing site. The ugly big magazines, some big malls. Sort of ugly site of North America with ever sprawling ugly malls without any character or architectural originality.

Yet, I have heard many times of that Bible Hill campus. As I will be soon leaving this province, I had to visit it. Additional emotional reason was also the fact, that a dear friend of my husband and through him mine – was borne in that city, went to school there. But left it many years ago moving to the West (Calgary and Vancouver) and never seen the campus that was built little way out of the main city. So I did and hope that she will appreciate it.

It is a site to behold. Many red brick old university buildings, spread through a large swath of land. No wonder – it’s laboratories are in the fields, in the valley. We are talking of agriculture and botany. Living university. I am so glad that I did.

In no particular order here is the view of this wonderful campus.