I cannot see the Baltic Sea through the French doors opened up onto my hotel balcony. It is only one hundred yards to my left but there is a small forest between here and the broad sandy beach. I'm near Sopow, the leafy suburb next to industrial and charming Gdansk in northern Poland, where shipbuilding cranes silhouette the horizon like enormous metal storks. There is also a running path between the Hotel Lival and the forest and then the Baltic. It is leafy and well used by walkers and parents pushing strollers, and is most of all, rather lovely. Should I choose to head into the Gdansk Old Town after writing this blog, I will run that leafy path first. I might leap into the Baltic when I'm done, though in a long afternoon of people watching yesterday I saw absolutely zero locals dip a toe into the cold blue water.
How did I get here? How did I go from a man afraid to leave the house one week ago to sipping a cup of instant coffee ("Cup of Respect" to quote the Nescafé package) on an overcast Saturday in Poland? Technically, it began with LOT Airlines flight 24 out of Los Angeles, then two nights in Warsaw, followed by a bullet train to Gdansk (how I love fast European trains). I had an epiphany when I got to Gdansk Glowny train station, not sure how I would travel the fifteen miles to my hotel. Then I remembered a neat little thing called Uber and had a car within 30 seconds.
Why Poland? Well, in this time of high oil prices and higher airfares, this is the cheapest destination I could find. It also helps that Poland is the only country in Western Europe (the Soviet bloc would hate that description) I have not visited. To be honest, I have gazed across the mountaintops down into Andorra but never actually set foot inside its boundaries, so that's still on the list. Yet here I am.
There is no broad tourist arc for this journey. I wandered for miles through Warsaw's Old Town and City Center, not having any sense of purpose other than acquiring random knowledge for some future book. I'm happy to report that the craft beer scene is thriving in Poland, though ordering a pizza is an adventure in toppings unlike any I've ever experienced. I am quite content to spend this afternoon writing if the predicted rains come, preferring the comfort of my small room to the mandatory walkabout in a crowd of tourists downtown Gdansk will provide. A small voice tells me I may never see Gdansk again and to take advantage of the sights. To which I respond that I have seen quite enough Old Towns and World War II museums and bistro menus animated by color pictures of the food so tourists like myself can just point and eat. Tomorrow is a train to Krakow, where I won't have the Baltic or the forest or that lovely running path and will definitely embrace the Old Town. What's wrong with just sitting and catching my breath after a whirlwind few days?
Calene may be gone but she is everywhere inside our home. The thought of taking a trip no longer feels like the escape of my London flight back in March or the Minneapolis adventure to see Springsteen. It feels like I'm abandoning her. These are the crazy thoughts that come as grief twists the knife. The deep abdominal distress of my attempt to drive to Mammoth was one example. I felt just as uncomfortable purchasing the Poland ticket. The day of the flight was deeply unsettling. So I had a couple conversations with my sweetie — one at her grave and another with the lovely headshot of her smiling face adorning our front entryway — and told her I needed to go away for a bit. I told her she was going to be fine and that I would, too. I just needed some time away to sort out this next phase of my life.
I've been carrying a small Rollbahn spiral-bound notebook everywhere on this trip. Making notes about how to move forward. The most random thoughts: purchase pumice stones, frame the Nebraska poster, new glassware, rework the garden to make it calmer, new carpeting? I write everything down. No filter. "Polish people really like their ice cream" prompted me to buy a small wonderful chocolate cone of my own.
Time for that run.