August 16, 2015

August 16, 2015

Noon and afternoon

Who's for herbs? Who's for Krzysztof? Who's for Mysteries of Childhood? Franek? Sergey? Jacek? Gwen? Ornit? All present? Follow me, let's begin.

This is the first day of the Workshop of Herbs and Elixirs. Mariola Mitros, its host, opens the cold cellar and strong, intensive fragrances mix at the entrance.  - Just like in Jerusalem - says Ilan, an Israeli from East Galilee. Strung on a cord and hanging from a wall are dry linden tree branches, long, slender blades of grass, cornflowers and lavender. On the shelves jars and plates. Semidarkness is favourable - the herbalist's workshop smells and looks like an alchemist's kingdom.

Mariola's master is Biruta Raglis, a local elderly lady, herbalist. She taught her all she knows about herbs. And she will take us for a walk one day, but we need to get up pretty early, just after dawn. She will tell us about the plants we'll have to bend down to gather. She'll lead us into the woods.

But, that's still not today.  Now we stand around a table. Everyone is equipped with a teapot and a task: compose your own infusion. At our disposal is all in the bowls, jugs and jars Mariola has set before us.

Zechariah puts ground ginger into his kettle, then adds some honey. - Honey? I love it! - says Svieta who mixes in dried petals of cornflowers, and cloves. Ilan adds cardamom to the drink. And asks: what does it have to do with the Invisible Bridge?

Almost everybody joins in to give him an answer. It is all about - they say - mixing, combining. We take, as Krzysztof Czyżewski put it yesterday, from this earth, we draw on where we come from. Everything on the table is local, it comes from neighbouring meadows, and woods. - We add ingredients, pour boiling water and wait what will come out of it.

That's the way they will build the Bridge on Saturday. From things local, from all they brought here, from all records and experiences that accumulate slowly, day after day.

All infusions have been drunk. I'm heading towards the Word Workshop, and here - things look different. The young ones sit around a bench, they work in silence, concentrated. Seeking a universal symbol, a sign that would be readable to all: here is the bridge. That's what they will write after the workshop: reconciliation, connection, crossing over.

Viktoria paints Ukrainian symbols and Roman ornaments on a small, wooden block, but - as if to justify herself a little - she uses Polish colours, her work is white and red. Patricia (local) paints consistently using only black and white. Here - she explains - are the baulks of the bridge. But, you see, they are damaged. - What damaged them, then? - Everything. The same force builds and destroys.

Quite reinforced is Rasa who has just taken a short break from Michał Moniuszko's Music of the Place Studio. - I have just understood what they mean here, in Borderland! To free man's creative potential! You open up and feel alive, you're part of the world, you can feel with your hands you belong. They trigger that in man, just like they triggered that in me during the workshop. Mystical, fantastic experience!

Rasa strikes the vibraphone, little Milenka plays the drums, others play the cymbals and wind instruments, Batia, for the first time in her life, plays the guitar. - I came here with three friends, we're from Israel. I am delighted with what is happening here and I wonder if it could happen in our land, in Galilee, with this melting pot: Could Jews, Arabs, Druze, Russians, Moroccans, Syrians try to build these bridges, too? - wonders Batia when we go down to the shore of the lake to Bożena Szroeder and the Mysteries of Childhood Workshop.

It's a strange place, here adults become children again and try to spy on children to discover what this adulthood means.

It is not easy, Bożena helps. Transcend your own limits, try to experience something new. - Show me a gesture that expresses closeness. Do not be afraid of the person who stands before you. Close your eyes and let yourself be guided, have confidence. Try to imagine your life, the process of becoming adult. More difficult still: go back to yourselves of yore. Twist this path around, think about the last stage. Now you have a choice: how do you wish to pass away? Quickly and painlessly or gently? To just close your eyes, or even when leaving having a good look at the world? Show me this with your bodies, try it.

Krzysztof freezes, he doesn't want to leave. Magda tries to wrap her arms around him, she cries. Gwen tries to make herself comfortable in dying. Batia prefers it decisively and fast.  Zuzia tells it: No.

Bożena also ask other questions: about the saddest event of childhood. The little Milenka has to be explained: it's about the time when you were even younger than you are now. Do you remember anything? She answers cleverly: - Last year I was at the allotment, and when I was playing on a swing, I tasted dills for the first time.

- Your first times, remember them well, dear - insists Bożena at the end of the workshop. - Jerzy Ficowski once wrote a dedication for me in his book: "so that you will never forget how good it is to be a child." Because, it's true happiness to experience something for the first time: how something tastes, its shape, no matter whether we feel good about it or not. Remember adults about it, and - turning to the younger ones - enjoy it.

Just like the sounds that were being recorded at the time under Patryk Masłowski's supervision by the participants of the Sound Workshop. Clatter of stones, creaking of doors, rubbing of moss, water they hit with their feet, shuffling. The purpose of the workshop - explained Patrick - is to listen to each other and to reality, to tune your ear to what is lost in the noise, to what we do not pay attention to.

And they walked like this, in twos, threes and fours and put their ears close to the bark, pier or grass.  And they registerted a minute recordings, sometimes longer ones, catching what is difficult to grasp.

Evening

A meeting at the end of the day. This time, the tale of the bridge will be given by Lidka Ostałowska, reporter and writer (of such books as: "Gypsy is a Gypsy," "Watercolors"), since 1989 associated with "Gazeta Wyborcza". Krzysztof Czyżewski asked her about this association.

- "Gazeta", when we created it, used to be a symbiosis of readers, writers and editors. Those who listened to our tales wanted to learn from us what was happening around, they chose us as their guides in the world, that after '89, changed very quickly. We were to explain those changes to them.

It still perceives its role in this way - and reportage still has this task. - I used to be then and still am a delegate of the reader. In the period when "Gazeta" was being formed we undertook topics that for the first time managed to enter the mainstream. PRL (Communist Poland) fed us the vision of Poland as a homogeneous society, and we, after the transformation, began to show that Poland includes minorities. We gave them a voice. There appeared texts about Roma and Ukrainian minorities, we shed light on the difficult moments in the history of the Polish-Jewish relations. There was this need in us - both readers and journalists - to expand the boundaries of the tale about the world around us, and of the choice of topics.

Today - believes Ostałowska - journalists' freedom has been limited. For many reasons: economic crisis, entanglements of the media, their tabloidization. What has not changed is the canon of values such as integrity, honesty and research of the subject which journalists should remain faithful to.  She referred here to Ksawery Prószyński whose reporting craftsmanship she valued highly.

She also referred to the roots of the profession: springing from the simple - in the sense of original - need to tell stories, moving it from place to place for a new reader. - We are readers' intermediaries, their eyes, ears, writing for them about what is happening. We give them a perception deprived of obscureness.

Magdalena Kicińska