I am in Krakow, Poland again. Yesterday was a slow drudge of a beautiful sunny day. I woke up depressed and needed a shower and couldn’t stop those intrusive thoughts that build and swirl into a current that no one, even those with a sturdy handle on their emotions, wants to withstand. I walked around aimlessly, greasy-haired and empty-stomached for a few hours, just trying to get out of the hostel. I didn’t look up at the beautiful streets of old buildings, I just stared at the cobblestone and asphalt in front of my feet trying to block the thoughts with just another step, just another, and just a few more. Eventually, I decided that I should go on a run and do some pushups and pullups, that maybe intense movement might help. So, I did and it did kind of help. At the very least, it gave me the motivation to shower, because after running and doing pushups on the dirt and pullups on trees and not showering for two days, I looked like I was going to stumble up to strangers in a stupor and ask if Kennedy was still president.
After my workout and subsequent shower, there remained this aching in my chest and this urge to just let myself fall apart for a little while. And I did a little bit because there was no one in my hostel room. That felt nice in a way. It’s something I have a hard time doing–relinquishing my fear of falling apart, of not being able to compose myself constantly. But I think sometimes you have to let yourself crumble, even if only a little bit. Because, at the bottom of the pile of your broken pieces you can find the bedrock with which to rebuild your day, your week, your life. There’s strength in the ground, but you must tear down poorly built walls to get to it. Just take a few more steps, then stop to process it and then maybe build something stronger from the rubble.
I would like to clarify again that I am by no means good at doing this, or allowing myself to try and do this, but I am trying to become more okay with allowing myself a healthy amount of time to not be okay.
As a disconnected note, I wish I had something more convenient to write on than my phone. It’s not as though I haven’t been writing, most of it’s just too short, no more than a few sentences with no real endpoint and that wouldn’t build off of each other cohesively. So, I relegate them to stay as notes to look over on my phone once I’m back in the U.S. and maybe pull inspiration from or maybe baulk at and say “Good christ, I’m a pretentious asshole.” Though, maybe that is what this reads like–disconnected and cyclical and pretentious.
As far as my travels go, since this is partially supposed to be about my travels, I saw Kacper in Warsaw and remembered exactly why I love the man. His single loop earring and guerilla journalist clothing and the way he rasped an “Ahhhhhh!” and charged me when he saw me were so welcome and comforting. As I stated, he is a person knows how to fall in love every day. Speaking of, I also met his girlfriend Rosario, who seems similar to him in this. She is quiet at first, but it is quickly made evident that she cares for everyone, with the grace of her slight smile and involved eyes. I’ve met few people who wear their affections as beautifully as those two.
During my time in Warsaw, about five days, I went to a lot of walking tours and museums. On one of these walking tours, I met a woman from Spain named Nerea who I proceeded to spend three platonic days with before she continued to Berlin to see her boyfriend and I came back to Krakow. Those days were intense, never bored or trudging, though we did unbelievable amounts of walking and talking. We became close friends quickly, as happens sometimes when two people feel lost in different ways (or, in the case of Ross and I, one of them is behind schedule and the other has no solid travel plans).
It felt nice to be comfortably lost with someone trying to find their way again, to finding a friendship like that, where you help one another process the world and yourselves. It makes the world feel less large and ruthless.
In less wholesome fashion, I was also convinced to go dancing at a club by Nerea and a lot of people from my hostel. And it didn’t end up being a morose time of me sitting on the sidelines of the Havana-themed dance club drinking alone and waiting for the night to end, I actually danced. Turns out, with the right about of alcohol in everyone, including myself, I can in fact be a bad dancer.
Moving towards a much more serious topic, in my second visit to Krakow, my main goal was to go visit Auschwitz and Birkenau. I won’t spend much of my time or yours explaining in great detail what it was like, because I don’t know if I have the right to discuss it at length. I will say that you can feel the trauma of the place palpably and everyone should go out of their way in the world to go there. When you have the goal of understanding humanity, you have to understand how drastically and horrifically fast we can be stripped of it. Visiting those places is a harsh lesson in this.
You will not want to talk to anyone afterwards. You will want to process in silence but you won’t really know how. You’ll walk to your hostel or hotel, one foot in front of the other, just a few more steps, and then you will have to let yourself feel the influx of thoughts and emotions that come with that experience.
-Daylon M. Phillips (09/04/2018)
Daylon M. Phillips 