Up

A frequent memory of my mother that crops up in my head is of her being bent over her large table in her bedroom lost in writing or reading. She was a director of social welfare in our area and would frequently write speeches for addressing different organisations and the public. She would immerse herself in other people’s words before the task. Only occasionally would she emerge from her room with a quote or thought that she would find inspiring or that she would like to discuss. Other times I would find my mother focused on her European Union projects that aimed at activating marginalized members of society. The projects would usually be quite small and yet the number of people involved in lifting up one person was mind-blowing but my mum was very determined; she believed in her work. She believed that a person can be lifted up.

My mum wasn’t afraid of heavy-lifting. Sometimes to her demise.

One of the household chores that my mum would have regularly engaged in was bringing wood to the fire to warm up our house. I remember her putting on a warm jacket, leather gloves and an acrylic hat before venturing out and bracing the freezing cold to fetch the wood and coal from our sheds. Until recently I never realised why I felt so distressed when my mum put her jacket on to leave the house and then recently everything became quite clear to me. When I was a toddler and my mum was pregnant with my sister, she went outside to fetch some wood and took my small cousin on a sledge. The ground was covered with shiny ice and snow and I can imagine that my cousin encouraged her to go faster and faster. Who wouldn't like to whizz through the snow? They must have been lost in giggles while she was pulling the sledge with the firewood and my cousin on. It was then that all of a sudden she started bleeding and had to be taken directly to hospital. She stayed there for three months. There was no one to warm up the house that day.

My mum’s knees are badly worn out from the hundreds of trips up and down the stairs that she had to make over the years to keep the house warm. Her wrists had to be operated on too – they also gave in to the weight of the wood as well as those parcels that she delivered to the poor around our area.

My mum wasn’t afraid of lifting things up.

Just sometimes when she was trying to lift up too much, the fire went off and she collapsed.

But in her life, she helped thousands of people. How ironic that one person lifted up on her own so many lives and yet the records she had to write could only be lifted by a forklift truck.

I only wish she had someone who would have helped her pull the sledge. Someone who would lift the lifter.

My mum was committed to social work and literature but she didn't like business or teachers. Ironically these are the two directions that I always wanted to follow in life. It's difficult to disobey one's mother even when you are a mature adult. I often wish for her blessing, for words of encouragement towards my vocations. I'm afraid to ask for them and I still seek her approval but something tells me that perhaps she would like to be freed from that duty. I want to make her free.

I have a lovely green notebook that shows two fairies dancing with flowers and butterflies. One of them is swinging on a stem of a tulip. It's the flower, the nature that lifts her up. I feel I am that fairy. Teaching fairy business woman. Childlike, but no longer childish.

... AND DOWN

Often as children we ask for blessings but what our parents give us sometimes intentionally, other times unintentionally, are curses of sorts; words that stay with us for so long that they determine our fate and disfigure our personalities or stifle our natural talent.

I joined a photographic society a while ago and I was shocked and overwhelmed at how many childhood traumas and memories of being belittled for trying to be artistic resurfaced in me. I do remember that my attempts at being vocal in some manner or other where reproached because they were not perfect, because they showed little precision or were off key or just simply quietened with a frequently repeated sentence in the Polish culture: 'Children and fish have no voice.' or by assumptions, such as 'I don't have the talent so you don't have it either.' These were my mum's favourites.

Shame is often a weapon of choice for many parents when they raise their children. Sometimes it is to control them, other times it is to control the perceived underperforming child or to soothe parental fear of the child brining shame onto the family or the society. Shame though in my opinion is a disgusting educational tool that leaves us more damaged than it makes us grow sustainably, but at times, as Steven Presfield noted in his book entitled 'The War of Art', it awakens a warrior too.

My inner child had to put its foot down and bring the warrior forward by writing this to face all the people that told me that I am not up for that.

The calories of shame

The calories of blame

All is burning now

All is going into flame

Because I won’t believe you anymore

The words are squashed like an unwanted worm

No more lies

No more blame

All this is going

With a burning flame

I won’t believe you anymore

I’m a daughter of God

God is not my foe

He wants me to sing

Your judgement is the psychic pain

Your judgement is going into flame

No more lies

No more blame

All this is going

With a burning flame.

The school has gone

There’s a new one to be built

I am its master

I am now skilled

No more denying

Of one’s strongest powers

I can see it clearly

I can tell my prowess

I am an artist

An artist that would fly

I’ll give it to the people

So they can go as high

And He wishes that they will rise

Above the judgement

Above the lies.

Update: 22.08.2021

Every time when I write here a new understanding of my mother's life emerges and a new understanding of my childhood. Recently something became very clear to me. I remember talking to my mum and telling her that ever since I was 12 she stopped smiling, or she smiled less. She brushed it off with some statement about life not being funny. I have recently looked again into that moment and re-examined her past. The connection became obvious to me. She lost her mum when she was 12, and her dad when she was 14. I think that when I turned 12, she started re-living that time, she started re-living her losses. My grandad was a medical doctor, he couldn't cope with the loss of his second wife. It was too much for him and I was told that he became addicted to the medicine that he had access to as a doctor. He was trying to numb his feelings and his pain and mostly likely his hopelessness. He wasn't able to save his second-wife, as much as he wasn't able to save his first one. Sometimes I thought that my mother couldn't stand me when I was 12 but I think it wasn't me but the memories that were too difficult to bear. I think she loves me. It's the grief that was unbearable, not me.

07/09/2021

I went back to my childhood home and returned with new insights again. My parents house was full of pictures and paintings. Their garage was full of paintings. A memory emerged of my mum returning from a trip to France with a handful of pictures that she bought from a street artist in Paris. My sister's house was full of pictures that she reproduced. Our house does look like a house that appreciates the visual world. So where does my insecurity as an artist coming from? Mum thought she could not draw anything but a poppy. Perhaps as a child I thought that my talents equal hers, that I am not a separate human being. A while ago I sent my mum an abstract photograph that I created. Her utilitarian mindset asked: 'What is it? And what is it for?' I felt a bit dismissed but then when I arrived home I understood a lot. My mum's house is full of abstracts. Her table cloths, her duvet covers, the curtains. My mum loves abstracts. This shows in their designs that she chooses for the things around the house. I pointed it out to her smiling. I can't believe how important my mum's approval is still to me. She didn't know that she values what I value - just in a different form.

Anyhow, my Dear Reader, I must tell you one more thing. I've been terribly stubborn and argumentative over the last year until I signed up for a course with Milan Art Institute to train as an artist. I feel I don't need to argue anymore and that I can soothe myself. Big progress for me. (More on this in a different post, and also soon on my blog at www.acredibledreamer.com).