#171: Polish?
A meditation on memory, heritage, and the parts of us we didn't know we were carrying.
Polish?
The question catches me off-guard; it feels overly personal given the context. But reflexively my mind reaches into my memories, digging for an answer:
Pierogis, kielbasa, Pope John Paul II. Lech Walesa and his Solidarity movement. My grandmother and her six-foot sister Bertha, their parents born in Krakow before emigrating to Steubenville, Ohio and opening the White Eagle Tavern.
The backseat of grandma’s baby blue 1978 Buick. A towel carefully laid across the leather so my wet swimsuit wouldn’t stain her seats. The earthy smell of Ohio lake water on my skin. My ponytail dripping tiny teardrops down my back. Watching her navigate the parking lot, pulling out onto the two-lane road. Inside, crooner and ‘Polish Prince’ Bobby Vinton on the radio.
My grandmother held the steering wheel with both hands, long tan arms extended, white bouffant perfectly dry, singing softly.
“Oh, oh, moja droga jacie kocham…”
I didn’t know who Bobby Vinton was. In our burgundy family station wagon, it was all Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel, Jim Croce. But this was her car, her station, her language. And because she was singing — this serious grandmother — I sang too. Quietly. The way you match someone’s volume when you understand, without being told, that this is a rare and careful thing.
Oh, oh moja droga jacie kocham
Means that I love you so
Moja droga jacie kocham
More than you’ll ever know
Kocham ciebie calem serce
Love you with all my heart
Return to me and always be
My melody of love
I didn’t really know my grandma. I was old enough to, observant enough to, curious enough to. My quiet, bookish middle-child vibe suited her quest for calm in what had been a turbulent life. I was the only grandkid making solo visits to her and my grandfather’s Ohio home. My observation tower was a high-backed stool at her kitchen peninsula. I watched her cook beets, burgers, perfectly square scrambled eggs, while pressing the under-counter doorbell my grandfather had MacGyvered, hooked to a hose in his hunting beagles’ outdoor cage. She gave them a spray when they barked too loud. I watched her iron sheets, dust her hummels, and in the evening, switch on Lawrence Welk. “And a one-a and a two-a.” But like any self-absorbed kid, I didn’t really know her.
She died when I was 19, only 63 herself — a stone’s throw from where I sit at 57. The remaining wisps of her hair from cancer treatment barely covering her pink skull. My long blonde locks, now in a French braid, caught her eye as I sat at the end of her bed. “Your hair,” she said softly. I ran my hand down the center of my braid, and saw a faint smile grace her lips.
Forty-five years later, I was on my pilgrimage through Sweden when I walked into a dilapidated hotel, worn down wooden animal sculptures dotting the grounds, in the town of Bracke, rounding a corner and running straight into its proprietor.
Mid-30’s, clam diggers, jet black hair, a slight frame, and a sparkle in her eye. An accent that did not resemble the few Swedes I’d spoken with in those solo days on the trail.
She introduced herself. I leaned in in confusion.
“Can you spell that please?” I asked.
A-g-n-i-e-s-k-a.
“Agnieska? That’s not Swedish, is it?”
She laughed. “Most certainly not, I’m Polish.”
She’d emigrated from Poland, and ended up somehow in this nowheresville Swedish town, taking over a hotel that had shuttered during covid. She was the opposite of my grandmother in every way — spunky, sparkling, take-charge. And yet.
I told her I knew some Polish. A little. From my grandmother. From Bobby Vinton.
Moja droga jacie kocham.
My lips struggled to keep up with the sticky consonants. I said the phrase again, trying to make it sound like what I could hear in my head.
Agnieska cocked her head.
“I think you are telling me… you love me?” She laughed.
“I think I am, even though I just met you!” I replied. “And wait till you hear my Swedish,” I said. “Even worse.”
“I’d recommend against telling the Swedes you love them in your first meeting,” she teased.
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t know how.”
She had to dash. Dinner was coming, the restaurant newly opened, the hotel still finding its feet.
Over the summer, Connor emerged one morning wearing a wrinkled green shirt with an orange fist painted across it.
”That looks like a bottom-of-the-barrel t-shirt selection,” I deadpanned.
“Yeah, I need to do my laundry,” he replied, not giving a damn that he looked like a colorblind tween on fieldtrip day.
“Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun…” I started singing. In our house this is called a jiddy. It’s the random song that comes to mind after you have just seen or heard something obliquely related to it. Beer Barrel Polka by Bobby Vinton had popped into my head.
I was maybe 23 when I heard it last, at a wedding of a friend I had grown up with. Her maiden name was Pryzbyz — the type of name I only realized was unique when I moved out of western PA. There were 400 people stuffed into that Beaver Falls Catholic Church basement, drinking Iron City beer and eating cabbage rolls.
“Do you know what a polka is?” I asked Connor. “You mean like a polka dot?” he responded.
I sighed.
“No, I mean a polka polka.”
He gave me the flat look of a recent teenager.
“Well, have you ever done the Chicken Dance at a wedding?” From his prone position on the couch, he flapped his arms like wings.
“I’ll take that as a yes. The Chicken Dance is a polka. So, you’ve known what a polka is all along.”
I blink, push my glasses up the bridge of my nose, and refocus on my computer screen.
Polish?
Gmail’s AI Gemini had just popped the question, apropos of nothing.
I check the note I was about to send to my tax accountant, scanning for a Polock joke or a reference to the Warsaw pact. Instead it’s W-2s and estimated taxes and pre-paid coupons. How would Gemini know I was Polish?
Ah, you dolt, it’s not asking about my heritage. It’s pixelated Karen inserting itself, wondering if I want help cleaning up my email.
Nope, no Polishing required.
With a face palm and a faint smile,
So sweet, Sue. I think you're lucky to know your grandparents' heritage. No idea about mine except they are likely Scots, having settled where they did in Appalachia. My father's parents? No idea. I had to crack a little smile, myself, about Gemini. Funny. Have a great weekend.