on sufficiency and continuing on

The first thing you should know about Poland is that on their street signs that list where a road is taking you, you will often find orange tape crossing out cities. On some signs, every single city has been crossed out by orange tape. These signs were built for more permanence than roads were. When I first saw this, I burst out laughing. I didn’t quite know what it meant, but at the same time I knew exactly what it meant: these roads don’t go there anymore. (And we will indicate this with tape because we can’t be bothered to make new signs reflecting our new paths and our new directions.) When I asked Mateusz about this, he smiled, but didn’t quite understand the hilarity with which I viewed the seemingly unofficial treatment given to rather important roads. He told me that they are constantly trying to change (and theoretically, improve) the roads that cross the city, but that they weren’t really able to keep up with themselves.

Didn’t people get mad that one morning they could wake up and the road leading to their workplace, the grocery store, their grandmother’s house, had just been eliminated with no further explanation than a piece of tape? Furthermore, I have tape. I have time on my hands. Could I just go out there and really mess something up? I know that where I’m from, people take their commutes to work seriously. They have them planned to the minute. But Mateusz didn’t seem to think this was an issue. So it takes longer to get somewhere than you expect. So a strip of orange tape has now changed the course of your day. Figure it out. Move on. Get where you’re going.

By this point, I had already grown accustomed to this way of continuing on. Sometimes, you’re walking down the street and it just ends with no warning, not even an orange tape. It’s not a big deal, you see, as you walk back from where you came and start again. You simply continue on. This sort of adaptability was one of the most important lessons I learned from traveling in eastern Europe. Buses and trains were on a time schedule, so they say, but I was the only one who ever seemed surprised if they didn’t come for a half hour. In the sometimes mind-numbing waits, images of home would hurtle across my memory: jumping off the bus and running through the train station only to miss the train by 30 seconds. There would be less of that here.

I still remember my first moments in Warsaw. I stepped out of the plane and panicked. Instantly. I think that was one of the more terrifying moments of my life, including the time that a fake patient I interviewed for practice started crying when telling me that her husband left her. Including that. For the journey to Warsaw, I had put on a USA shirt with the five Olympic rings because it is one of my most comfortable shirts, but had a few moments of regret over it. Like, great job assimilating with the global community, self. But as the plane landed and I speed-walked to the exit of the airport, I was glad I was wearing it. I knew nothing about Milena, but she knew I was from the United States. I made strange eye contact with everyone walking into the airport hoping they would come save me from a month of destitution in the streets of Warsaw, languageless, until I could fly home 6 weeks later. I couldn’t find anybody. I decided to try and find another exit. Although I turned the corner and eventually saw a crowd of people waiting where I assume was the official exit after landing. Being in the right place didn’t help me much with my problem of not being able to recognize Milena, but I decided to let my shirt do the talking. Sure enough, a guy with an Italian accent came up to me and said Milena was getting coffee and would be right back. I know, this is probably somewhere in the plotline of the movie Taken, but it turned out that Kamil was not Italian, but Polish, which was shocking, and his girlfriend, Milena, really had gone to get a few cups of coffee. 

From that point forward, every day for the rest of the month was about being completely open to making adjustments and really learning how to go with the flow. Streets ending, trains stalling, waiting for people. Actually going with the flow, not just pretending to. Every now and then I’m caught up in being a control freak. Every now and then meaning all the time. Every now and then I’ll go to the gym and look out the window from the third floor. Every now and then meaning, just yesterday. My gym overlooks the city skyline and expressway. I saw that there were some large green signs that appeared to have fallen over. I looked closer, thinking those signs should have been built to withstand more. Then I realized, they were packed up in carts. The new signs directing the highway had already been put up. I couldn’t help but think, what a waste. Wouldn’t a simple piece of tape crossing out the old sign have been sufficient?