This is the Time

If you know someone who was involved in resistance of some kind: Solidarność, Black Panthers, resistance movements in WW2, people who hid Jews during WW2, and so forth, NOW is the time to find out how they organized. How they got the systems in place to get people out. How they created the networks of information gathering and distribution.

While I hope that I am wrong, I fear that things are about to become even more difficult for oppressed minorities in the next few months. The global political climate is distressingly similar to the times leading up to both World Wars. There has been a trend towards fascism for some time now, with major political parties veering dangerously right. Essential human rights are treated as negotiable burdens by different governments. Too many people live in desperation borne not out of a lack of resources but because of restricted access with the majority of the world’s wealth concentrated in the hands of a privileged few, and their followers.

We have a new aristocracy, only now we call them CEOs, we call them politicians, and we call them “self-made men”. The sense of entitlement and of receiving what they’re due despite no actual merit remains the same. The greed remains the same, and so does the use of manipulation to convince those they have enslaved that their suffering is caused by those worse off then them. Continue reading “This is the Time”

This is the Time
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The Little Sewing-box Star

little plastic red star
When I was a little girl, I was playing with my mother’s sewing box looking for something pretty. I found this little button or piece of a pendant or something in the shape of a small five pointed red star. At the time I loved the colour red, and I loved star shapes, so I took some thread and turned it into a necklace.

When my father saw it he froze solid. For a few moments he just stared at me, then told me with excessive calm to take it off. Shocked at seeing my father like that, the way his face paled, the way his eyes looked like someone had just stuck their hands directly into his chest and squeezed his heart, made me take it off and put the thing back in the box.

Later my mom told me that the star was a symbol of bad things that had happened to them in Poland before they came to Canada. That it brought back bad memories for them.

It was innocence only, and my father knew that. He didn’t scream, he didn’t curse or yell or threaten. He didn’t even explain. But that star disappeared.

Years later, I learned about Stalin and Soviet Russia and the Communist takeover of Poland. Over the years I learned about solidarity and bit by bit my father’s involvement with it. I learned that my father was blacklisted. I learned that my parents as newlyweds, were separated for 6 months while my father got out of the country and they worked to bring my mother down as well. Continue reading “The Little Sewing-box Star”

The Little Sewing-box Star

Family History

I come from a large family that I have never met.

My parents moved to Canada before I was born, leaving behind everyone. In Canada they knew nobody. My grandfather had 6 brothers, and 7 sisters. Most of them got married and had children. In Poland, we count our extended relations a lot more closely than they do in other places. My father’s cousin is my aunt, my ciocia, she is also my Godmother and her children are my cousins. My cousin’s baby daughter is as much my niece as much as any potential future niblings from my sister.

Growing up disconnected from all that, I felt the lack of family in my life. I was obsessed with having a sibling. I secretly wanted it to be a boy so that someone could continue the “Bula” line in Canada. When my sister was born, I made the decision then that I would keep some form of my name forever. For my father. The hilarious part is my dad has never cared. When I mentioned it to him once, he was confused about why that would matter.

Continue reading “Family History”

Family History