An die Freude

(Warning! This post may include political content!)

Last night I switched on the tv and was confronted with the careful tones of Lech Kaczyński (but I had to check the info feed at the bottom of the screen) holding forth against the Lisbon Treaty, against a backdrop of two gay men signing their wedding vows.
Forgive my misinterpretation of his perspective (= treaty >> charter of human rights >> gay marriage >> The Fall of Polish Society): I don't speak heem very good the Polish yet.


'Joyful, Joyful, we adore Thee' is a staple of the Oregon Catholic Hymnal (stay with me). There are several different versions of this particular rejoicing hymn, for each season of the year, and they all fit the same tune (Beethoven's Ode to Joy).

Sitting in the organ loft playing through the hymns for this weekend, I reflected on how many Centre-Right Catholic Poles in our congregation would unwittingly be singing the European Union anthem this Easter Sunday...

Power of Prayer

This morning the sunshine was blinding.

- See?
said the Sacristan as I tiptoed across the nave at St Giles: 'It's warm now. Warm!'

- Not for me: I'm always cold here, I said, hiding my sunglasses furtively in my bag and hoping he wouldn't notice that I was wearing a skirt under my ski jacket.

I think he spoke too soon. Thick clouds have gathered and there's a bitter wind. I predict more snowfall.

Talking of miracles, I have to make the flat look habitable before my flatmates get back from their end-of-sesja holidays...

We need a miracle

Now that I know I might have to leave soon, I'm stepping the whole Polish language thing up a gear. It's not as scary as I imagined. If you try and practice French with native speakers, you are very likely to be greeted with a pitying smile, a raised eyebrow and general Gallic scorn. It's terrifying. You are aware every single minute that your mouth is simply not the right shape for all those nasal vowels and uvular fricatives and you'll never have the casual elegance of expression of the insouscient native speaker.

And you know, instinctively you know that that particular French person has also watched Tony Blair's congratulatory speech to Nicholas Sarkozy on YouTube and that that typical schoolboy British accent is exactly what they are reminded of every time you clear your throat.

Ridicule!

Polish is another matter. I know I'll never speak beautiful Polish. I'll never be trying to work into Polish or to give after-dinner speeches or to impress someone with my eloquence and wit. I have a hard time getting the right case ending, let alone using a pretty expression or developing a harmonious accent.
And nobody here expects foreigners to even try. They certainly don't expect perfection. If you can get the message across in spite of perfectives, imperfectives and a case system of Byzantine complexity, it's already little short of a miracle.

So I've started diving right in. I engage in conversation with everyone. I don't just go to the pharmacy for painkillers: I ask for precisely the perfect kind of painkillers for a splitting headache and I prefer ibuprofen not paracetamol and do you have something like that? Oh fantastic, how often can I take them... i tak dalej ad infinitum.

I am a perfect pain in the derrière.

Today, after a chilly half-hour shivering in the organ gallery of St Giles at lunchtime, my fingers gradually stiffening over plagel cadences and counterpoint, I threw in the towel* and took the key back to the Sacristan.

- It's too cold up there! I said, as conversationally as I could through my chattering teeth.
- Where? In the church?
- No... up there. Uhhh... in the mountains (my Polish is not so hot)... no, no, up the stairs.
- Ah. Well, we'll think of something. We'll have to think hard.

I crossed my fingers, hoping he was about to offer me a spare electric heater for the organ loft.

- We'll pray to God that it gets warmer soon.

- Na prawdę...

*jeter l'éponge- isn't that cool? They chuck out the soggy sponge while we choose to finish washing and get out of the bath before calling it a day. Now what does that say about the Franco-Brittanic collective psyche...

The Amazing and Wonderful Obwarzanki Lady

I now LOVE the Bad Obwarzanki Lady. The thaw began a while ago, when she offered me some helpful advice about the flavours of different apples, and I was delighted to have actually understood her.
From her kiosk she sells the most delicious sok jabłkowo-korzenny (spiced apple juice). It's a kind of pressed apple juice with cinnamon, cloves and ginger, and the only thing I can really liken it to is New England apple cider.* If you combine it with a drożdżówka z śliwkami (plum bun- not a pastry), it tastes like Christmas.
I bought a bottle of the stuff this morning and didn't have the mandatory 5gr change.
- Don't worry. It's a bargain. You can give it to me next time.

- . . . *totally speechless*

NB. When I return to England for the hols next Saturday people will hate me in supermarket queues and at the bar. In Poland, change is worth more than the gold it is named after. The grumpy tattoo girl in the shop next door always says something like 'it'd be really cool if you could find the 8 grosze**'. Woe betide the customer who doesn't have change: floored in one fell swoop by The Mega-Watt Grumpy-Girl Scowl.

It seems that the concept of having a float behind a till is simply non-existent. Maybe checkout girls are rationed in the amount of shrapnel they're allowed to fling around.
I've learnt to prepare in advance. Now, as I'm approaching the till, I start fumbling in my purse and the bottom of my bag for change and counting out tiny brassy coins. Combine this with the moherowe baret and I'm instantly well on my way to fully-fledged babcia-hood. (Not to mention the fact that last Sunday the inevitable finally happened and I pulled out the 'super-octava' stop instead of the 'Flet minor' at the oh-so-appropriate 'Lord have Mercy'. Cue much tightening of trousers in the congregation. For those of you who don't speak music, that was really really funny.)
Incidentally the dearth of change never affects guys. Car guy always seems to have handfuls of the stuff jangling in his pockets. I have no idea how he gets through airport security. I think said pocket must contain a secret mint spewing out 2gr pieces. Next time I go to the supermarket I shall wear his trousers.


*nb, in the States 'soft' cider is non-alcoholic. I know, I struggled with the concept too.
** I'm sorry, I've forgotten how to conjugate it. Forgive me...

Organ-ization

I'm still going strong (more or less) with my totally organic experience at St Giles'. One problem, however, is that mass is on Sunday morning, and Sunday morning invariably follows Saturday night, and, as a consequence, I often find myself at 10.29am staring at the console wondering how on earth I am to convey the dots and lines from the paper to the keys to the pipes with any degree of success at all.
At this point my head seems to be full of clouds and my fingers clasp helplessly at the keys as if they could stop me from sliding off the bench. Any attempt to sing along throws the whole system into automatic shutdown. And don't get me started on the pedal board.
Up until age 22 I took piano lessons and managed to develop reasonable sight-reading (or at least semi-sightreading/semi-improvisational) competency on the basis that "practice is cheating". This useful transferable skill has saved my skin on several occasions, notably recitals, public speaking and the whole six months since I arrived in Poland.

Today was better than most days: I was about three minutes late but managed to busk my way through everything without dropping anything on the console, forgetting the key signature, pulling out the wrong stops or confidently starting out on the first page of 'Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring' (or the Oregon Catholic Hymnal version thereof) while the second page was still safely tucked away in the accompanist's binder.

Given that the size of the congregation varies dramatically (depending on how many parties of anglophone tourists are passing through in any given week), I often find myself singing along at full belt, just to nudge things along a bit. And also if I simply fancy a good old yell but don't want to make people stare at me in the Planty. Maybe I should give the karaoke on Grodzka another try.
I've given up being embarrassed about my lack of proper Catholic sensibility and have decided that anything weird I might do can be put down to 'mad old biddy' behaviour: this seems to be used to cover all manner of organist eccentricities in the UK (see well known example in the Vicar of Dibley).

Hurray! Today the Sacristan came up to me after mass and started A Whole Conversation about language schools. I think the older generation are definitely the way forward where linguistic practice is concerned. Everyone else has studied (or pulled pints) in London.
I need to work the 'eccentric old organist' look and develop a neurosis about plagel cadences...

NB Sunday was a special occasion for dog-lovers in Krakow: the annual dachshund parade. Owners of sausage dogs dress up their pets and promenade them around the main square.
http://miasta.gazeta.pl/krakow/1,35798,4473176.html

I don't see my spaniel allowing that.

Pentecost

I have inadvertently managed to become the organist at Krakow's American Catholic church, in spite of being neither American nor a Catholic (nor- in truth- an organist: I'm a pianist who went through an "organ phase" in my final year at St Andrews, rather than just using caffeine to get through the exams like everyone else).
It happened entirely by accident on my part: in fact, since moving to Krakow my life has taken on an aleatorical slant, so that I am constantly surprised by things not turning out quite as I might have expected. I think this is due to a combination of culture shock, and the fact that the Polish language and I do not entirely understand each other yet.
My life is like practicing tennis against a slightly uneven wall and never being quite sure which way the ball is going to bounce back.
In any case, one week, when there was no organ music in church, I offered to stand in occasionally when the regular accompanist couldn't make it: only it turns out that there is no regular accompanist. I talk too much, this is my problem. Just go around, opening my big mouth, getting myself into trouble.

So this is how I found myself sitting in the organ loft with the number one best view during the sermon on Pentecost Sunday.
Now, apart from an embarassing habit (inherited from my mother- thanks Mum) of occasionally bursting into tears during particularly rousing hymns or church services, I tend to be fairly down-to-earth about religion (editor's note: for 'down-to-earth', read 'spends a lot of time in the pub at Walsingham'). However, last Sunday, I was really struck by Pentecost and the disciples 'speaking in tongues'. Perfect, I thought, finally the Bible talks about the responsibility of linguists:

“Are not all these people who are speaking Galileans?
Then how does each of us hear them in his native language?

And yet they don't even mention the poor interpreter sweating it away in the Mesopotamian booth...