Set out this morning to visit the Solidarity Musuem and walked around for what felt like an ETERNITY unable to find it. The English girl (Abi) had told me that it was a great museum and easy to find, which made me feel even more like a dolt. But, because of wandering, I discovered a new (to me) poet.

In desperation and frustration (because the city, after all, isn't THAT big and I should be able to find a stinking musuem!) I went into an English bookstore. It was on my list of places to visit, anyway, but I hadn't tracked it down yet. The Polish language continues to be so hard for me. I have walked around the city a lot already, but it is still hard to remember street names because they are so unfamiliar, and I don't know they SOUND in my head when I read them, because of the many complex transliterations from Polish to English.

Anyway, the English bookstore was very interesting and I picked up a few things. (I have been resisting buying books thus far, because I know you are all going to harrass me. But they are cheap here because of the exchange rate with the dollar. So there). I found a copy of Czeslaw Milosz's epic poem about Orpheus in five languages (angliski, polski, deutsch, russki and swedish). That was too cool to pass up.

Then I found a book of poems in English and Polish (translation on the facing page - I love that format) by Father Jan Twardowski. They are religious poems but more refreshing and honest and simple than what I would normally think of as religious verse. His introduction really touched me, just because of where I was emotionally.

I guess I should back up and say that being in Danzig has been super emotional for me. Like today, I visited the historical musuem in the Town Hall. It was very interesting stuff (to me), like old coins, portraits of the old burghers, the original town charter, etc. They also had some armor, including a winged hussar's armor with real feathers that you would have been really interested in, Deb. They forbade photographs, so I tried to sketch it. Maybe I'll find something like it when I visit Marlbork tomorrow that I CAN photograph. We'll see. Then in this section near the end they had photographs of the city, blown up on posterboard. Photos of the town hall itself and the main houses on the boulevard, in recent times, and in 1945. It made me cry! I had to kind of sniffle my way gracefully out of the room and get a grip.

I am not sure why it upset me so, except that the devestation of the city was unbelievable...some of the houses and buildings were just dust. I read that 90% of the downtown area was destroyed, and that sounds awful, but then when you see the photographs, the scope of 90% starts to sink in. Like photos of the churches with the entire spire, the bell tower, completely blown away and just this shell at the bottom...all but one of the churches (and there are a lot in the city - I think at least 9 or 10) was destroyed. There were photos of whole boulevards with most of the houses just nothing but piles of bricks. I've seen earthquake damage (Northridge) and tornado damage (in Indiana just two years ago), but these photos were just awful. And I didn't realize how extensive the bombardment had been. Jack, you were mentioning the naval bombardment. The sign in the musuem listed a timeline of the bombardments during WW2 and it included attacks by the Allied forces, the Germans and the Russians...about a dozen different serious bombardments in all.

I think the reason this struck me is because I have been feel strongly connected to the city since I've been here, despite the language barrier. On the train ride through Poland I noticed that there were lots of gardens. For example, next to a soviet-type personality-less concrete apartment complex, there seems to always also be a huge community garden (like the one in Portland on Barbur, only much bigger) with lots of plots and people out there working. I saw dozens of these on my train ride. Seeing this, and also the older people in the city here and in Berlin, with their dress and way of speaking German (did you know German has changed since the 40s..you can tell a difference...the girl at the hostel in Hamburg pointed this out to me and she is right)....anyway, seeing all this of course makes me think of Oma with her love of flowers and all the ways in which I feel like her and part of our family. That whole sweeping destiny force thing kind of overwhelms me at times. So I guess because I have this strong identification and because Danzig IS a really beautiful city (it just has that spirit - I think you know what I mean - I feel this way about Portland too) it is awful to feel how horrible it was to have the city destroyed by all these different forces.

The horror of war and the utter futility of it and the helplessness that we common people have against it kind of leads me down this path of despair, too. And of course, I have this reservoir of grief that is really close to the surface a lot of the time, not just the fresh grief/betrayal of the last year, but also old grief that kind of clings on, deep down. So moments of despair kind of tap into that and raise a kind of raw awareness of all the things in life that we love deeply and lose.

So, against all this I pick up this book of poetry. In his introduction Jan Twardowski writes:

"I am trying to speak of faith in this world devoid of faith, of hope in this world devoid of hope, of love in this world devoid of love. Poems redeem that which has been trampled upon. They contribute what is human and heartfelt...the selection [of poems] is an excursion through the redeemed world of mine, in which suffering need not be a misfortune..."

And so, reading this in the park in the sun by the river, I was struck with how powerful words are and how much a few lines can lift and not just lighten but transform my mood and my feeling about the state of the world. There is hope in the world, and if for no other reason than that we simply choose it, we choose to hope. And maybe the biggest hope (for me, anyway) is that we are able to create something that goes on beyond us to touch others, even after we are gone.

So today was an awesome day, an important day, and one that I am grateful for. It is quiet here in the hostel as I am writing this, most of the Germans from yesterday that I hung out with are gone now. Which is good, though, as I will need lots of rest for my day trip out to Marlbork tomorrow. I have been staying up pretty late talking to everyone lately, which has been fun, but quiet thoughtful days are good, too. Thank you again for all your comments...it has really felt like you are all with me, as you said, Gina, kind of on a virtual vacation with me, sharing some of my experiences. It is good to feel so loved...thank you, everyone!