VODKA & APPLE JUICE

LESSONS

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Many people experience imposter syndrome when starting a new career (including Jay’s husband, Tom, after he became a diplomat for the Australian embassy).

 

“‘So how’s being a diplomat so far?’ I asked.

 

…Tom took longer to consider my question than I had expected. ‘Actually, so far I feel like a bit of a fraud,’ he finally said. ‘All these clever, interesting people want to take me for lunch and talk to me. They all seem to think I’m someone important. I worry that they’re expecting a diplomat and they just get me.’

 

‘I’m proud of you, Tom. You know that, don’t you?’

 

‘You don’t wish I’d just stayed in IT?’

 

‘I love that you took the risk. Most people wouldn’t have.’

 

‘Yeah, well, let’s hope it’s a risk that pays off!” (23-24).

 

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Adjusting to a new country can be difficult, but it helps when you know other people in the same boat.

 

Despite the Polish classes Jay took, she wasn’t prepared for the unstructured conversations required for buying train tickets, scheduling doctors appointments, or booking hotels.In addition to the language barrier, some customs were unfamiliar (such as having to weigh fruit and vegetables at a separate place of a grocery store before checking out).

 

Luckily, Jay befriended other couples who were also assigned a posting in Poland (such as Shannon and Paul from the Canadian embassy).

 

“I had sometimes gone days without speaking to anyone else other than Tom. …It was nice to have someone to know here, to run into. Especially someone who was going through so many of the same things I was. I’d tried sharing my bewilderment at Polish supermarkets with Tom. ‘It’s a supermarket, what’s so hard?’ he’d said. But the one time I asked him to bring home milk, he came home with kefir -- soured milk. Shannon understood only too well -- Paul had got mad with her when he’d used handwash instead of moisturiser on his face, not being able to read the labels. He blamed her for not putting it in the right place in the bathroom” (39-40).

 

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Jay was able to befriend more ladies (and learn about Polish literature and cinema) by joining an International Women’s Group (IWG) book club.

 

“An Estonian woman… was leading the group discussion on today’s book, The Zookeeper’s Wife, about the family who had looked after Warsaw’s zoo during the war. Their lives had revolved around the animals, and they tended their charges with warmth, understanding and love. They even named their son after a favorite animal -- Ryszard, from ryś, the name for a lynx. When the war broke out, their home and lives gradually emptied of animals and filled instead with a growing menagerie of Jewish families, seeking protection from Nazi occupiers. The book charted the family’s efforts to get its non-human and human charges alike to other countries for safekeeping. // I’d thought in the most superficial terms about the moral questions posed by war. How far would I have gone to save the lives of others? What - who - might I have sacrificed? But I’d never thought about the practical ones. When war breaks out, what do you do with the animals in the zoo?” (52-53).

 

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Jay learned a lot about Polish culture from the immersive experience.

 

• Jay met a lot of Polish ladies named “Agnieszka”. The lack of name diversity in Poland is due to the fact that most parents name their kids after saints. Because of this, “name day” (or “imieniny”) is more special than birthdays.

 

• Mushroom picking is common, so many kids are experts at identifying which mushrooms are poisonous, which ones are good to eat, and even what dishes they can be best for! 

 

“I don’t think she’d ever met an adult who knew as little about mushrooms as me” (140).

 

• Polish people tend to be honored to have guests over.

 

“Gość w dom, Bóg w dom” means “Guest in the house, God in the house” (141).

 

“Więcej gość w cudzym domu przez godzinę niż gospodarz za dzień ujrzy” means “A guest in a foreign house sees more in an hour than the host sees in a day” (141-142).

 

• As Jay learned from a conversation with two men who survived the Warsaw Uprising, Polish people tend to be proud of being part of a nation who courageously fought for its freedom time and time again. This is why they still talk about the war and make movies about it.

 

“To me, it was a photograph of people who’d died. To him, it was a photograph of people who’d lived. … // ‘The young people these days sometimes say to us, we’ve heard enough about the war. Why do you still have to talk about it? But if you had survived a plane crash, wouldn’t you be telling everyone you met that story for the rest of your life? And that is just one moment in time. This was two months. Not a plane disaster, but a historial one… Why do we still talk about it? Because we are still alive.’ // Yes you are. And because of that, Poland is not dead” (282).

 

• Polish people tend to be more guarded around strangers, but that means that their affection is more genuine.

 

“I think Poles and Australians are quite different people. Like you and I are quite different. But it is not really surprising, is it? After all, I am descended from generations of people who risked everything to come to the new world in search of fortune -- and who, by and large, found it. You are descended from generations of people who’ve been invaded and betrayed by your neighbours for hundreds of years. When you look at it like that, perhaps it is not so surprising that we have been taught by our parents and grandparents to approach the world differently; me open and trusting, you guarded and restrained. And while we in Australia show more interest in strangers, I’m not sure it is always genuine or deep.. While if you win the trust of a Polish person, then you will have that forever” (284).

 

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Similar to how English is like French or Spanish, Polish is like Ukrainian or Russian.

 

For this reason, the Polish term “Głuchoniemcy” (for “deaf-mutes” sounds like “forest Germans” (where “Niemcy” = German, derived from “niemy” = unable to talk understandably, and “głuchy” = deaf, which sounds like “głusz” = wood).

 

“To me, Europeans were one big ethnic family. But in Poland, there were more complexities. First, there were Slavs, from słowo, meaning ‘word’: people who spoke one of the Slavic languages, like Russian, Ukrainian, Czech and who could understand each other to a greater or lesser extent due to the common elements. // Then there were non-Slavs. In that group were Germans. The word for German meant ‘mute’ in Slavic. The early Slavs had come across the early Germanic tribes on the plains and, not sharing a language, decided they were a primitive people who hadn’t even invented talking yet” (80).

 

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One perk of living in Poland is that you can travel to other EU countries for cheap (and even without a passport!).

 

“I didn’t know if a Polish person could understand just what a novelty it was for me to be able to cross a national border in a train. Zagranica. ‘Past the limit.’ That’s how you say that you’re in a different country in Polish. In Australia, you say you’re ‘overseas’. Because that’s where you end up if you go ‘past the limit’ of Australia” (144).

 

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Once you live in a place with a foreign language, it can be a relief to go someplace that uses your native tongue.

 

“You could get tickets from Warsaw to London for less than fifty dollars. Or rather, I could get tickets to London for less than fifty dollars! I’d spent five months in my new life now, and it was time for a visit to my old one. …All of a sudden, I could speak again! I could ask where loos were, where I could grab a cuppa, what the best tube transfer route would be and what kind of ticket I would need. ‘No thanks, just having a browse,’ I could say to an enquiring sales assistant, without having to think about whether I needed to oglądać or poglądać for the imperfective aspect of ‘to browse’ (unless I needed the perfective? Was it a one-off action or a process of activity?) and then calculate the present, first-person singular form. By which time, the sales assistant had long gone. Compared to Australia, England was a foreign country. Compared to Poland, I was home” (55).

 

“‘Once you’re an adult, let’s face it, eighty percent of your life is pretty boring,’ I said. ‘Washing dishes, making dinner, and watching terrible if somewhat addictive reality TV. And maybe twenty percent is fun and exciting. Going out with friends, having a nice meal, going on holiday down the coast. And maybe one percent is something really new. Starting a new job, going overseas. Except now it seems like that one percent is the eighty percent. Everything’s new and different and exciting. All the time” (57).

 

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No country is perfect.

 

Australia is prone to shark attacks and natural disasters (such as fires).

 

Poland has cranky customer service, corruption, and smaller homes.

 

“I answered her questions about Poland: the major political parties and the differences between them (including PiS, an acronym for the Law and Justice party that sounded like ‘peace’ or ‘piss’ in English, depending on your political inclination)” (65).

 

“Piotr gave us a brief tour of the rest of the apartment: a bedroom just big enough for a double bed off the entry way, and a combined shower and toilet by the front door. He hadn’t had to leave his chair to do it. So this was what thirty-five square metres looked like. // ‘What happens when you have a fight? How do you get away from each other?’ Tom asked. // ‘Yes, there’s not much room to be mad with each other for long. But you know, we are lucky -- most Polish couples would have their parents living here as well,’ Piotr said. // I thought of our friends back home, the same age and with the same kinds of jobs that Hannah and Piotr had. Usually they had three or four bedrooms, at least one with an en suite bathroom” (104-105).

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The stressful nature of Tom’s new job led to tension in his marriage with Jay.

 

Tom worked long hours and constantly had important meetings with important people. He let off steam afterwards by smoking and drinking, but it worried Jay when he didn’t come home until the wee hours of the morning. 

 

To Tom, it seemed like Jay had no right to complain or show up late to any diplomatic social events since in his eyes, she was free to have as much fun as she wanted during the day. But in reality, she had to do the heavy-lifting of the language learning, the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, the bill-paying, the social scheduling, and even writing some of Tom’s presentations.

 

Both Jay and Tom felt under-appreciated and not listened to. For some time, it felt like their marriage was a Cold War, where neither one made a move to start arguments nor a move to make amendments.

 

“I’d thought Poland was going to be something we were doing together. It was starting to feel like our Polands were, well, poles apart” (100).

 

“He may have been paid to deal with international conflicts. But his training didn’t extend to the domestic sphere” (194).

 

“Time was like money: you were always just a little short of it, no matter how much you had” (182).

 

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Jay wasn’t the only one with troubles (despite having a “privileged” life).

 

A fellow Australian (named Julie) who Jay befriended at an IWG meeting taught Jay the importance of having perspective about someone’s full story before we judge them.

 

“One ‘Are you OK?’ from Jules was all it took for the tears to come.

 

She reached out and put an arm around me. ‘I know.’

 

‘No, no you don’t,’ I said. I’d intimated a little that we might have been having problems, but now I shared the details. Tom’s disappearances, the fighting and tension between us. So much damage had been done -- was still being done. I didn’t know how we could ever fix it. I wasn’t sure any more if we could. ‘I know it’s ungrateful to be unhappy when I have so much. But my marriage is falling apart, and I don’t know what to do.’ She moved a box of tissues closer.

 

‘And your best friends at home don’t want to hear how miserable you are when you get to jet off to Milan and Paris whenever you feel like it.’

 

‘Sweden and Switzerland. But exactly.’ So maybe she did know.

 

I took a handful. ‘Jules, there’s something I can’t understand. Why are you friends with Dee and Marilyn? They’re just… they’re horrible! They lead these amazing, interesting lives, and all they can do is complain about everything!’

 

‘Do they lead amazing, interesting lives?’

 

‘Of course they do! Listen to them, all the money they have, the travel, the maids and nannies, nothing to do all day but go to the day spa…’

 

‘...can’t communicate with anyone, can’t work, can’t do the simplest things for themselves, don’t know where they’re going next or how long they’re going to be there, have bet everything on their husband’s job… I don’t think they’re leading their lives at all. I think that’s their problem.’

 

‘But they’re so…’ I stopped myself before I could get to ‘privileged’. And you were there for communism and all, she may as well have said.

 

I’d barely lasted two and a half years in their life. And I wasn’t even sure I had lasted. Did Dee have people like Sharon who she knew were there for her? Did Marilyn have anyone like Gabby to bring her back down to earth from time to time? Something told me I had privileges these women would never know.

 

‘You know, Dee used to be a research scientist. Had a very promising career in some kind of bio-chemistry,’ Julie said.

 

‘And Marilyn was some kind of accomplished writer I suppose?’

 

‘No, I think she’s pretty much always been a wife.’

 

‘So where’s her husband then? What kind of saint puts up with her?’

 

Julie took a sip from her glass. ‘The kind that tells his wife that he’s spending the weekend away with his secretary.’

 

All of a sudden, a lot of things made sense.

 

‘And everyone knows, yes. And she knows that everyone knows,’ Julie added.

 

My antipathy towards them fell away, and something else seeped in. Not sympathy exactly. I wasn’t a saint. Their lives were privileged in many ways, yes. But that didn’t mean they weren’t also tragic in their own ways too. They just had a lot of experience at pretending they weren’t. And a lot to lose by admitting they were” (262-264).

 

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We must be willing to put in effort in improving our outlook to improve our lifestyle.

 

Jay went to Jasna Gora to pray in front of the Black Madonna for help (or even a miracle) with her marriage (and successful completion of the 3-year assignment).

 

Only when Tom and Jay truly realized the fear of losing each other (due to Tom catching on to Jay’s plans of leaving him by staying with her friend Gabby friend in London until she figured things out, and Jay almost getting hit by a car) did they agree to put in the extra effort to making their marriage work. This included turning down invitations to social events that they didn’t care about, attentively listening to each other’s days, spending time cooking together, and letting each other know how much they appreciated one another.

 

Now, Jay has a new definition on what it means to live a happy life.

 

“Three years ago, I couldn’t wait to leave Canberra. All I could think of was how much more interesting my life would be in Warsaw. I’d learned since, it isn’t living in interesting places and doing interesting things that makes you happy. Heck, it doesn’t even make you interesting. // Now I could see that living an interesting life has nothing to do with where you are, what you’re doing or the people you meet. It comes from making a choice, every day, to be interested in where you are, what you’re doing, and the people you meet. And if you make an effort to fill your life with people and things that make you want to be where you are, you wouldn’t really need to be anywhere else” (295).

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