Longing and belonging

So what are the quick fixes if someone misses Poland?
Well, obviously they can go to Little Poland i.e. Polish shop and buy anything from herring in cream to Kasztanki.
They can hang out with other Poles and slag off English sausages*, which are, I admit, a very easy target, and not only because they don't go well with strong spirits.
They can, if they live in Northamptonshire, go to Towcester and drive through Marlow Road a couple of times. It definitely makes me feel like I'm on my way from Krakow to Katowice. It also helps to keep my Polish fresh, although not of the most presentable sort.

Or they can brood, which inevitably at some stage happens to almost everyone even if they don't admit it.

You can only discover if emigration is for you once you do it. And what is even worse, there's no real coming back.
Iwona, my friend from Krakow, who was born French in a Polish body told me after spending 2 years in Paris that the most difficult part is that you neither fully belong here nor there anymore. And I thought then "Ah well, yeah". But yes, it is like the original sin - you can't pretend you haven't eaten the apple. You have, and as much as you can evangelise that the Paradise is in the UK or the Paradise is in Poland, the truth is, it's neither here nor there nor anywhere.

You can see it time and again: all those threads on Polish forum by people who feel trapped in their circumstances, whatever they are. "How do you deal with this longing?" they ask.

Sometimes you ask yourself this question for a year, sometimes for 3 years and sometimes forever. The road to "integration" is not a prescribed one and you can't really tell how long it's going to take.
Some people hate it here and they will go back quickly making sure to paint the worst possible picture of the UK and other immigrants.
Some will come to conclusion that it's been ok but they want to be closer to their family and move back to Poland.
Some will dip in and out on short term contracts, leaving the family in Poland, earning money and going back.
Some will keep moving with the job from the UK to the US to France to Hong Kong until kids, exhaustion or whatever else makes them face a decision about "home".
Some will slowly blend in and maybe, eventually, after a bazillion years lose the accent altogether.
Some will not only love their English children but also learn to accept that those children are not Polish.
Some will discard their Polish heritage completely and without regret, like a spare clothing you give to the charity shop.
Some will never stop to dream about life in Poland even if everything - family, career, prospects, mortgage and pension - keeps them here.
Quite like the British, really.

One way or another it's quite a solitary road, because there's a hell lot of judgement on one side and constant proving of yourself on the other. You can't blame immigrants that somehow they want to stick together. Every oddball needs respite from time to time.

Do I miss Poland? No, I miss my past.
I miss climbing trees in my aunt's garden and helping her during harvest. I miss the time when I was 7 and my parents took me on one of these pilgrimages from Krakow to Chestochowa doing about 20 km (that's roughly 16 miles for you) on foot each day for a week, sleeping in barns or in tents. I miss going to a disco to Jaszczury with Skowron, my fellow bonkers Agnieszka. I miss going rollerblading in Summer till 11pm on Blonia with Siwa (her name also is Agnieszka, honestly, there's lots of us). I miss getting merry on Cashel's cider thinking it was beer that tasted a bit like champagne, with Gosia and Beata (yeah, there are other female names in Polish). I miss early mornings one Summer when my brother was away and I used to drive his Passat, waking up at 4.50am to pick up my sister-in-law from work in a hospital and take her home across the town quickly to free up whoever was childminding that night.
Of course no amount of sausage or even Zubrowka is going to help with that. Although I do occasionally have them.
Luckily, I'm not ill with my nostalgia. 

Do I hate Poland? Well, I hope it shows that I'm very passionate about that country even if I don't want to live there and I don't accept many aspects of Polish reality.
The people who change that country are my friends who decided not to emigrate. They live in and out of the shadow of absurd political debates, conspiracy theories and more or less open phobias against various minorities. They successfully run businesses there, get married, get divorced, have children, take on new hobbies, start new social campaigns, buy houses, get ill, get well. It's all more or less normal back there. I just feel I belong here.

I left. My passion hasn't. That doesn't mean I will never integrate. It might mean I will never lose the feeling that I'm a stranger. But there's only so much an immigrant can do.


Edit no. 1 . I forgot to mention a reference and don't want to do it just through a link.  Dara O'Briain wrote a very amusing book Tickling the English (buy it where ever you want, I'm not linking to Amazon. Better still borrow it from your local library :) On many occasions this book made me think how similar the experience of being an immigrant is not matter where you come from.
So anyway, one of the chapters is titled I will love my English child and I had it at the back of my mind when I was writing the thing.

Edit no. 2 re: *. To prove that I allow that I might be wrong and also to give justice to my Polish friends who stood up in great number for English sausages, I take it back. Although with a huge sigh. I'm allowed to perpetuate some stereotypes, too, you know.