6. Men fascinate me (or, about my friendship with women)
Translated by Jolanta Czaicka-Kotlarczyk
Men fascinate me. Not all of them, of course. Their words and the way they look at me can make me feel beautiful. Sometimes, they make my heart beat faster; they make me fall in love and I am in a nirvana-like state of mind. They can also cause deep pain; not long ago, I hated them for that. All of them.
Now, when the pain is gone, I am starting to appreciate men as individuals.
My friendship with women feels deeper. I really like them. I know their weaknesses and strengths. I understand their motivations. I am happy to be a woman, and I appreciate femininity in all its variety. The subtle differences between women make me admire them. They make me think, yeah, there is always a way of coping with problems.
Women cured me, cared for me, comforted me. They helped me get through the worst. My feminine side helped me cope with myself, when I thought I could neither walk, nor stand it anymore.
Women sometimes told me their life stories. I found a lot of familiar things in them. They also listened to me. I told my story hundreds of times. Over time, it lost its intensity, and it doesn’t hurt me anymore, and I am starting to notice the positive sides to it. I know the scars will hurt again, interfere with interpersonal relations, block creativity and strength, but I already know my sensitive spots. I know how to avoid discomfort, or how to shield myself from pain.
The women sometimes gave me advice, even when it wasn’t quite necessary. I was telling my story, because I needed someone to listen to it, I wanted to get rid of it, and listen to it myself. In such situations advice is not always needed. Sometimes listening and hugging someone is good enough. It encourages, gives strength to fight the difficulties, and gives a sense of safety.
I really value feminine inner strength. Women in my family have always been strong. They had to be.
When I was a child, my grandma was the most important person to me. She was an incredible woman and had a really strong personality. Her life was tragic, although not unusual for her generation. When she was 36, she was left alone with her four kids. Her husband was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp as a political prisoner and killed in 1941. My mother was two years old, and her brothers were 9, 11, and 13. Everybody thought my grandma would go crazy (people in the village called it “going into the woods”), but she stayed with her four kids, without any money – her husband was the sole breadwinner, working in the dairy industry. They had to leave their family home in Nowogrodek, Eastern Poland (my grandfather was from there). People suggested that my grandma should give up her kids, but she said no. For a long time, they did not have a place to live; they were in exile. Their relatives helped a little. Later, they came to Krakow, and finally, the children graduated college and started their own families.
My grandma and I were good friends. I shared my childhood secrets with her. Perhaps no one else in my life gave me so much unconditional love as she did. When she passed away, I needed many years to find my own way in life.
I also had a paternal grandmother, Maria. I don’t remember much of her, because she died when I was a small child. She ran a dairy farm; her husband was in the army. He has been stationed for over a dozen years, and then sent to war. He wasn’t permitted to visit his family very often. My grandparents had six children, and Maria had to deal with everyday life herself.
I have extraordinary cousins: Emma is a caring grandmother, but she is also a world traveler. After she retired, she traveled all over Americas and part of Asia.
Justyna is a very good psychotherapist, and a dancer. Ilona takes beautiful pictures, Agata is a painter, and Renata is an outstanding psychiatrist. My Mom has been a social activist, helping people for years. My daughter is an actress and founded her own theater.
Unfortunately, men in my family were not equally meaningful as were women. Those who were did not try to connect with me, and we did not have a good relationship. Maybe that’s why I value the world of women. They seem closer to me. It is the women who I learn the most from. They have a lot of empathy, the power of observation, and want to share it with others, and they know how to choose the right words. Thanks to them I finally came to understand myself. I know how to find good friends and how to set boundaries. I learned how to negotiate my terms for everything, giving myself time and space.
When I first met Tünde, an engineer from Hungary, in Camino Portugues, I did not know myself so well. Tünde was my good fairy. (That’s what her name means in Hungarian).
Tünde and I walked together only for a few days, telling each other the stories of our lives. They were very different, although we shared similar experience: we both had gone through the painful struggle with life, and neither of us had surrendered.
Tünde gave me a lot of understanding, warmth, and acceptance. She decided to go alone, faster – she had to catch her plane to Budapest.
Then I walked alone for a while, before I met Joana, a very young but mature owner of a hostel in Porto. Contacts with guests gave her strength. Her life was full of difficult moments, and her recipe for survival was to accept the quirks of fate. She had to quit Camino because of tendonitis. She was inconsolable, because she started the route with her friend from Hawaii, and they couldn’t finish Camino together.
In Portugal, I also met Marina, a Scottish woman with paranormal abilities. She was also a Reiki master. Marina talked to the trees and could sense their “emotions”. She cooperated with the forest rangers, pointing towards the trees which required treatment. She healed people using bio-energy therapy and massage.
She helped pilgrims on their way to Camino. Silently, she was approaching people and put her hands on their heads, legs, hands – depending on what they complained of. People did not explain anything to her; she spoke English only, but not all Camino pilgrims did. Marina just sensed human pain, she read it from people’s faces, eyes, gestures and body. She walked with her daughter, Sharma, who claimed she could see an aura around people’s silhouettes. Both women looked for me every day, and our conversations were little explosions of joy.
This year, I met Tong at a women’s hostel in Rome. She is a housewife from Beijing, and lives with her husband in a 200 sq. meter house. She speaks fluent English and travels Europe on her own. She turned out to be a charming person, open to cultural diversity, despite the fact that some crude Europeans asked her if she actually knew how to eat with a fork and knife. She seemed to know a lot about “European” matters, but was very fond of Asian culture and cuisine. “Do you like Chinese food?” she asked me. “I don’t know if I have ever eaten anything that was really Chinese,” I answered. “Then come to Beijing, and I will cook for you,” offered Tong.
There is something like a mysterious bond between some people. It can be sensed behind the words, and we can be sure that there is a special connection between us, and the person we have just met. It doesn’t matter if this person is a man, or a woman. We are just very close to each other. When she was leaving, Tong said, “See, it is so amazing. We met only few days ago, but we understand each other as we were old friends.”
I met Cristina when I bought a macramé bracelet with a South American stone in Pisa. I sat down next to her and listened to her life story. She is from Venezuela, and lives in Amazon jungle with Miguel, who is an anthropologist and a guitarist. She says Miguel is protective of her, warm, and can always see the brighter side of things. And he plays samba for her in the evening. “Tell me, where one could meet such a man?” I asked. “In Brazil, of course” – she answered. They met when Cristina, after her difficult divorce, went to visit her sister. Miguel works in the jungle in the summer, mostly for free. A lot of people want to hire him, but none of them actually pay. There Cristina makes her jewelry, working all days. Later, in the winter (when it is summertime in Europe), they both go to Italy and sell the jewelry. Cristina fascinated me with the story of her life and vibrant personality.
In Italy, on Via Francigena, I met Renza at the Valpromaro refuge. Renza walked Camino from Rome to Santiago (2200 km), and from Canterbury to Rome (about 1700 km). Renza is 65, and walks 5,5 km per hour with quite a heavy backpack. She tried to talk me into walking from Canterbury to Santiago (1700 km) with her, but I joked she would have to carry me on her back. We made an agreement: I promised to get more in shape, but she will have to learn English. Each of us has two years to do this (in two years, when we hope to have more vacation time).
The most of Via Podensis I walked with Michele. We met on one of Eiffel’s bridges, where the view was amazing. I normally don’t enjoy such situations, because of my fear of heights. When I was crossing the bridge, my posture was very rigid, and I focused my eyes in one direction. I know it may have looked funny, and the laughter turned out to be the good beginnings of our friendship. We ended up walking together for next ten days. We sometimes separated, only to walk together again, with the same rhythm and speed. We talked, or walked in silence. Sometimes we stayed together at night; sometimes we preferred to spend time with other people.
It is really hard to find a person who is such great company as Michele. She started Camino after she had retired. Before, she had managed the Department of Social Security in Rennes, France. She decided Camino was the beginning of changes she wanted to make in her life.
Her enjoying the Camino and unreserved attitude towards the world we had encountered captivated me. We separated in Conques. She continued to Santiago de Compostella, about 1600 km further. She arrived there at the end of October, after more than two months of walking.
I met a lot of women on the Camino Roads. Each of them had an amazing story to tell. I admire their courage, for both travel and life.
Tünde
Portugal, Caminho Portugues, 2012
Joana (right) and her friend from Hawaii
Portugal, Caminho Portugues, 2012
Marina and Sharma
Portugal, Caminho Portugues, 2012
Tong
Rome, Via Francigena, 2014
Renza (right) and Moira (left)
Italy, Via Francigena, 2014
Michelle
France, Via Podiensis, 2013
Men fascinate me. Not all of them, of course. Their words and the way they look at me can make me feel beautiful. Sometimes, they make my heart beat faster; they make me fall in love and I am in a nirvana-like state of mind. They can also cause deep pain; not long ago, I hated them for that. All of them.
Now, when the pain is gone, I am starting to appreciate men as individuals.
My friendship with women feels deeper. I really like them. I know their weaknesses and strengths. I understand their motivations. I am happy to be a woman, and I appreciate femininity in all its variety. The subtle differences between women make me admire them. They make me think, yeah, there is always a way of coping with problems.
Women cured me, cared for me, comforted me. They helped me get through the worst. My feminine side helped me cope with myself, when I thought I could neither walk, nor stand it anymore.
Women sometimes told me their life stories. I found a lot of familiar things in them. They also listened to me. I told my story hundreds of times. Over time, it lost its intensity, and it doesn’t hurt me anymore, and I am starting to notice the positive sides to it. I know the scars will hurt again, interfere with interpersonal relations, block creativity and strength, but I already know my sensitive spots. I know how to avoid discomfort, or how to shield myself from pain.
The women sometimes gave me advice, even when it wasn’t quite necessary. I was telling my story, because I needed someone to listen to it, I wanted to get rid of it, and listen to it myself. In such situations advice is not always needed. Sometimes listening and hugging someone is good enough. It encourages, gives strength to fight the difficulties, and gives a sense of safety.
I really value feminine inner strength. Women in my family have always been strong. They had to be.
When I was a child, my grandma was the most important person to me. She was an incredible woman and had a really strong personality. Her life was tragic, although not unusual for her generation. When she was 36, she was left alone with her four kids. Her husband was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp as a political prisoner and killed in 1941. My mother was two years old, and her brothers were 9, 11, and 13. Everybody thought my grandma would go crazy (people in the village called it “going into the woods”), but she stayed with her four kids, without any money – her husband was the sole breadwinner, working in the dairy industry. They had to leave their family home in Nowogrodek, Eastern Poland (my grandfather was from there). People suggested that my grandma should give up her kids, but she said no. For a long time, they did not have a place to live; they were in exile. Their relatives helped a little. Later, they came to Krakow, and finally, the children graduated college and started their own families.
My grandma and I were good friends. I shared my childhood secrets with her. Perhaps no one else in my life gave me so much unconditional love as she did. When she passed away, I needed many years to find my own way in life.
I also had a paternal grandmother, Maria. I don’t remember much of her, because she died when I was a small child. She ran a dairy farm; her husband was in the army. He has been stationed for over a dozen years, and then sent to war. He wasn’t permitted to visit his family very often. My grandparents had six children, and Maria had to deal with everyday life herself.
I have extraordinary cousins: Emma is a caring grandmother, but she is also a world traveler. After she retired, she traveled all over Americas and part of Asia.
Justyna is a very good psychotherapist, and a dancer. Ilona takes beautiful pictures, Agata is a painter, and Renata is an outstanding psychiatrist. My Mom has been a social activist, helping people for years. My daughter is an actress and founded her own theater.
Unfortunately, men in my family were not equally meaningful as were women. Those who were did not try to connect with me, and we did not have a good relationship. Maybe that’s why I value the world of women. They seem closer to me. It is the women who I learn the most from. They have a lot of empathy, the power of observation, and want to share it with others, and they know how to choose the right words. Thanks to them I finally came to understand myself. I know how to find good friends and how to set boundaries. I learned how to negotiate my terms for everything, giving myself time and space.
When I first met Tünde, an engineer from Hungary, in Camino Portugues, I did not know myself so well. Tünde was my good fairy. (That’s what her name means in Hungarian).
Tünde and I walked together only for a few days, telling each other the stories of our lives. They were very different, although we shared similar experience: we both had gone through the painful struggle with life, and neither of us had surrendered.
Tünde gave me a lot of understanding, warmth, and acceptance. She decided to go alone, faster – she had to catch her plane to Budapest.
Then I walked alone for a while, before I met Joana, a very young but mature owner of a hostel in Porto. Contacts with guests gave her strength. Her life was full of difficult moments, and her recipe for survival was to accept the quirks of fate. She had to quit Camino because of tendonitis. She was inconsolable, because she started the route with her friend from Hawaii, and they couldn’t finish Camino together.
In Portugal, I also met Marina, a Scottish woman with paranormal abilities. She was also a Reiki master. Marina talked to the trees and could sense their “emotions”. She cooperated with the forest rangers, pointing towards the trees which required treatment. She healed people using bio-energy therapy and massage.
She helped pilgrims on their way to Camino. Silently, she was approaching people and put her hands on their heads, legs, hands – depending on what they complained of. People did not explain anything to her; she spoke English only, but not all Camino pilgrims did. Marina just sensed human pain, she read it from people’s faces, eyes, gestures and body. She walked with her daughter, Sharma, who claimed she could see an aura around people’s silhouettes. Both women looked for me every day, and our conversations were little explosions of joy.
This year, I met Tong at a women’s hostel in Rome. She is a housewife from Beijing, and lives with her husband in a 200 sq. meter house. She speaks fluent English and travels Europe on her own. She turned out to be a charming person, open to cultural diversity, despite the fact that some crude Europeans asked her if she actually knew how to eat with a fork and knife. She seemed to know a lot about “European” matters, but was very fond of Asian culture and cuisine. “Do you like Chinese food?” she asked me. “I don’t know if I have ever eaten anything that was really Chinese,” I answered. “Then come to Beijing, and I will cook for you,” offered Tong.
There is something like a mysterious bond between some people. It can be sensed behind the words, and we can be sure that there is a special connection between us, and the person we have just met. It doesn’t matter if this person is a man, or a woman. We are just very close to each other. When she was leaving, Tong said, “See, it is so amazing. We met only few days ago, but we understand each other as we were old friends.”
I met Cristina when I bought a macramé bracelet with a South American stone in Pisa. I sat down next to her and listened to her life story. She is from Venezuela, and lives in Amazon jungle with Miguel, who is an anthropologist and a guitarist. She says Miguel is protective of her, warm, and can always see the brighter side of things. And he plays samba for her in the evening. “Tell me, where one could meet such a man?” I asked. “In Brazil, of course” – she answered. They met when Cristina, after her difficult divorce, went to visit her sister. Miguel works in the jungle in the summer, mostly for free. A lot of people want to hire him, but none of them actually pay. There Cristina makes her jewelry, working all days. Later, in the winter (when it is summertime in Europe), they both go to Italy and sell the jewelry. Cristina fascinated me with the story of her life and vibrant personality.
In Italy, on Via Francigena, I met Renza at the Valpromaro refuge. Renza walked Camino from Rome to Santiago (2200 km), and from Canterbury to Rome (about 1700 km). Renza is 65, and walks 5,5 km per hour with quite a heavy backpack. She tried to talk me into walking from Canterbury to Santiago (1700 km) with her, but I joked she would have to carry me on her back. We made an agreement: I promised to get more in shape, but she will have to learn English. Each of us has two years to do this (in two years, when we hope to have more vacation time).
The most of Via Podensis I walked with Michele. We met on one of Eiffel’s bridges, where the view was amazing. I normally don’t enjoy such situations, because of my fear of heights. When I was crossing the bridge, my posture was very rigid, and I focused my eyes in one direction. I know it may have looked funny, and the laughter turned out to be the good beginnings of our friendship. We ended up walking together for next ten days. We sometimes separated, only to walk together again, with the same rhythm and speed. We talked, or walked in silence. Sometimes we stayed together at night; sometimes we preferred to spend time with other people.
It is really hard to find a person who is such great company as Michele. She started Camino after she had retired. Before, she had managed the Department of Social Security in Rennes, France. She decided Camino was the beginning of changes she wanted to make in her life.
Her enjoying the Camino and unreserved attitude towards the world we had encountered captivated me. We separated in Conques. She continued to Santiago de Compostella, about 1600 km further. She arrived there at the end of October, after more than two months of walking.
I met a lot of women on the Camino Roads. Each of them had an amazing story to tell. I admire their courage, for both travel and life.
Tünde
Portugal, Caminho Portugues, 2012
Joana (right) and her friend from Hawaii
Portugal, Caminho Portugues, 2012
Marina and Sharma
Portugal, Caminho Portugues, 2012
Tong
Rome, Via Francigena, 2014
Renza (right) and Moira (left)
Italy, Via Francigena, 2014
Michelle
France, Via Podiensis, 2013
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