The two mes that meet briefly on the London Bridge train

Every other week I go back to London to my other life. In this other life I do different things and my friends call me Dom. Or Wooden Toys. I have different debit cards for my other life, I use different phone number, read different newspapers and have my own favorites for breakfast. In fact, it almost feels like there are two ‘me’s’ living this weird parallel life.

(I have one husband though - just to preempt all the helpful comments!)

I am really curious about this moment when the transformation from one 'me' to the other 'me' happens. Wish it was like Alice in Wonderland entering the other side ...

But yesterday, like in any other week, I woke up at 4AM which does not quite sound like a fairy - tale. It’s this time of night that makes me feel like my life is actually the most miserable of all lives I could imagine. I feel sick, like every week, and the smell of the taxi doesn't help. By 5AM I reach the airport, where I head directly to duty free to buy a carton of marlboro red for my friend Marine (I don't do lights, she would scream otherwise). The London-Luton sign on the departures screen always makes me uneasy and at that point of the day I start daydreaming about actually going somewhere nice and hot. Nevertheless  I bravely jump into the always random looking pink aircraft.  A bleak thought crosses my mind around ‘I know these set of stewardesses’, and next thing I know is touching down in London. Which I utterly hate.

Ever since I moved to London (and subsequently moved out) I really disliked landing there. There is something really cold and unpleasant about arriving to London no matter which airport it is (well, not entirely true, London City has pretty spectacular approach, but this fancy experience dates back to my past corporate life so does the outdated frequent flyer card that I still use to avoid the queues ). Arriving in London I feel stressed, in a rush and out of place. Always unfamiliar no matter how familiar this journey is. I want back home.

Usually my morning travel from the airport entails taking a train that goes down to the London Bridge Station and than, after changing, further to New Cross. At this time of the day, the train is full of sleepy commuters that are fully immersed into their own worlds, trying to read their kindles, playing with their smartphones or starring at the undefined point of the train. And I stare at them trying to figure out if I am one of them. Or if I would like to be one of them. Or how I miss not being one of them. By that time I have already drunk the skinny latte from coffee nero which I got at the airport and I might have glimpsed through headlines about new cuts announcements made by George Osborne.

When I reach Farringdon (heart of Clerkenwell where we used to live) life in Warsaw already feels like a deep past. When the train enters the Blackfriars bridge and the amazing view of the City emerges to my left and Southbank to the right I always feel ...‘woooh’ - I can’t resist wanting all this to be mine again. Finally, there there is this last bit, when the train goes along the Southwark, very close to offices and houses that have been set in the old docks and magazines. I love watching the life that goes on inside. People sipping their morning coffees, starring at their monitors, talking on the phone and laughing, smoking cigarettes at the emergency exits. Signs of the yet another morning at work. Signs that life has been happening there with or without me. Only by looking at the Shard building that rises in front of my eyes as the train approach the London Bridge Station, I feel the passage of time. It rises taller every time I come.

And this weird transformation between the two ‘mes' must have be happening on this very train. This mixture of nostalgia and smile to my life there. Because, by the time I reach London Bridge, I feel completely ‘in place’. Back in my London skin. And than the sound of my mobile (UK one) takes me away from my dream- like journey. It’s Aallaa ringing to ask me if I think that turkey for the postponed Thanksgiving dinner should be 12 or 14th kilos.  Nice to be back.

I will miss my London life. And this other ‘me’.

Ortalionowy namiot na salonie. Lista grzechów głównych demonstrantów sprzed Św. Pawła

Po tym jak przez cały tydzień pojawiały się głosy o zbliżającym się siłowym rozwiązaniu problemu sunięciu namiotów demonstrantów sprzed Katedry św. Pawła w Londynie, ruch protestujących odniósł niespodziewany sukces. Korporacja londyńska, która zarządza londyńskim City, zapewne w obawie przed obrazami policji usuwającej pokojowe zgromadzenie sprzed świątyni, pozwoliła demonstrantom zostać na miejscu aż do Nowego Roku. Protesty, zupełnie niezamierzenie,  zmusiły też podzielony Kościół Anglikański do zajęcia jednoznacznego stanowiska  - nie tylko w sprawie samego obozu u stóp najważniejszej londyńskiej świątyni - ale w sprawie potępienia ‘niektórych najbardziej ekstremalnych praktyk neoliberalnych’. To całkiem dużo, jak na ruch, który media nazywają ‘obozowym festiwalem, którego uczestnicy nie mają nic innego do roboty’. 

Tymczasem media konserwatywne (murdochowskie i nie tylko) oraz konserwatywni politycy do znudzenia powtarzają te same argumenty, które w swojej próbie zdezawuowania protestu ‘racjonalnymi’ argumentami, pokazują jak bardzo przywiązane są do bronienia status quo w sposób pozbawiony cienia krytycznej refleksji. Lista argumentów, której używają jest ciężka i niezwykle imponująca intelektualnie:

Po pierwsze, ruch Occupy London, w swojej krytyce kapitalizmu, a w szczególności systemu bankowego, nie proponuje żadnych konstruktywnych rozwiązań. Demonstranci sprzed katedry nie przedstawili żadnego ‘koherentnego’ (coherent - to ulubione słowo mediów) planu reformy globalnej gospodarki neoliberalnej i nie ‘wyartykułowali’ (articulate - jw) jednoznacznego manifestu programowego. Serio? No nie, to skandal! Całe szczęście, że jesteśmy w rękach panów z Goldman Sachs, którzy dokładnie wiedzą jak sprawić, żeby nasz świat był lepszy. A pomoże im w tym Sarkozy i Merkel, którzy rach ciach mają pomysł, receptę i plan.

Po drugie, jak to możliwe, że ci ludzie z tego ‘festiwalowego obozowiska’ w ogóle mają czas na demonstrowanie? Jak to możliwe, że nie są w pracy? Czyżby nie pracowali ciężko na swojego bonusa (tak jak ‘my wszyscy’ - doprawdy dziwi mnie ta symbioza prawicowych dziennikarzy z interesami bankierów)? A może w ogóle nie mają pracy? A jeśli nie mają pracy, to w ogóle dlaczego warto byłoby ich słuchać? Ludzie, którzy nie wiadomo z czego żyją! To muszą być wakacje jakichś hipsterów. Na dodatek, o zgrozo, okazało się, że część demonstrantów nie śpi w namiotach, a cześć z nich wychodzi z obozu w ciągu dnia załatwiać swoje sprawy - odprowadzić dzieci do szkoły, zapłacić rachunki za prąd, pójść do pracy czy na spotkanie. Inni demonstranci za to, pracują na miejscu w swoich namiotach. ‘O jaki skandal’ - wykrzyknęły media - czy można demonstrować ‘na pół etatu?’. 

Po trzecie ten cały ruch działa jak jakaś podejrzana komuna! Mało tego, to okropne obozowisko ze swoimi ortalionowymi namiotami ‘zakłóca’ (disturb) harmonię przestrzeni publicznej i pewne jednak konwenanse społeczne. Coś co estetycznie nie wygląda dobrze, nie ubiera się w garnitur i nie podpiera się wizytówką żadnej ‘szacownej’ instytucji nie tylko jest nieładne, ale też nie może być przecież poważne. Nie ma tam żadnej hierarchii i wszyscy współuczestniczą w decyzjach. No słowem, nie wiadomo jak to coś ogarnąć. Taki różowy słoń na salonie, którego nie da się zignorować, a nie wypada traktować poważnie. I jeszcze na dodatek nie ma się do czego przyczepić - obóz ma własny system sortowania śmieci, latający uniwersytet, i wielowyznaniowy namiot i korzysta z nowych technologii, o których nie słyszano w The Evening Standard.
Nie próbuję tutaj twierdzić, że wszyscy (jak ja - nie ukrywajmy) powinni lubić ruch protestu i widzieć w nim szansę na zmianę świata na lepsze. Postuluję jednak o choć nieco więcej niezależności i intelektualnej refleksji w formułowaniu krytycznych opinii. Więc, jak powiedział Borisa Johnson, burmistrz Londynu, do demonstrantów, chciałoby się rzec przede wszystkim do konserwatywno - liberalnego establishmentu - move on!

Photo by: Andrew Winning/Reuters

Occupy London: we don't need luck, we need love.

Occupy London: we don't need luck, we need love. , a set on Flickr.

It might be a part - time protest, but does it really undermine its authenticity?

I think that it's pretty awesome that people bother to step away from their private lives, get together, organize themselves to articulate the vision for a better society. Despite rain and cold.

I went there yesterday to see it myself, to get beyond the media stories about - 'people who protest because they have nothing else to do'. The mood is of a big sharing - you can get a free meal, hot tea and even use the multi - faith prayer room. But it really is something more than collective camping and a lot fun - there is a sense of very human, very real and authentic desire to take responsibility for making a world more human place to be.


I met there George and Paul ( guys with the paper on the photo) who were sharing the big news with me - apparently a top person (forgot the position) of St Paul's said yesterday he would resign his post if police will move a camp. A nice little victory for the protesters - I wished them luck, but they responded: - We do not need luck, we need love.


Murdoch media said that they were there because they had nothing else to do. I saw many different people - students, NGO activists, people working from their tents and cute ladies who could be my grandmas - different age, color and background.

This is what a Big Society is Mr Cameron. Society that cares. The society I feel proud to be part of.

Welcome to your broken society, Mr. Cameron

The wave of unrest on the London streets might be nothing else than just uncorked vandalism and furious anger. Still, it does tell something about a society, even if, at the margins - as you would say, prime minister. Damaging own backyard and looting own high-street is a sign of a complete alienation - from state, from community, from space these people inhibit. There might not be a great cause engaged, but there is a great lesson to take about people fears and anxieties.

Welcome, Mr Cameron to your broken society. You wanted to see Britain as broken. So it is indeed becoming broken. Aggression bursts out not when people are poor and lazy. It bursts out when people are hopeless, when they no longer feel part, when they no longer belong, when they no longer see that there is a future.

You divided Britain, you disconnected people them from the government, you made them torn apart from state. Not by introducing the cuts, increasing taxes and university fees. But by refusing to bother you to explain, refusing to bother engage people, refusing to recognize large parts of society as needed and wanted. You said that 'we are all in this together'.. and than you you left many British people for themselves.

No, I am not saying that the wave of violence is your fault, prime minster. What I am saying is that you cannot just sum up what is going on in London as 'criminality' and leave it to the police. If you want to go on with business as usual, you need to open up your business not to Murdoch family but those who looted the shops and to the frightened Londoners.

Drunk, hopeless and compelling: A short guide to a collective suicide in a good style. Polish docs @ Open City Festival in London.

Watching Polish films with foreign public always makes me feel uneasy. I hate this weird fear of finding myself in the position of having to act as a translator of what might have been lost in (often beyond verbal) translation . I hate this terrible moment when somebody nods with politeness and I know that he/ she has no clue whatsoever of what I (or the film) are talking about.

Needless to say, the potential embarrassment is even bigger, when it’s about films that I have not seen. And that is the case with the Polish shorts we are bound to see. With bunch of friends, artsy London crowd and skeptical and slightly hangovered Tadek (this detail will prove important later on).

Just on a footnote, a night before five of my six friends leave the cinema during the Czech screening of the film called Cinema-therapy. Gunes, who almost made it till the end, told me later that she had stayed so long as did not want to leave me alone.

My slavic soul already cries.

Anyway, here we are, I take a deep breath ...

The first film, is called, The Forth Man and tells a story of a guy who works in a deep forest in Bieszczady (end of the world sort of place), works not really to make a living of his work, but to make a drinking.... (denaturat it was). Soon we realize that alcohol is important in forgetting and reliving what our character cannot deal with ... the story of the fourth man, his son .... (can’t say what happens cause this is a proper film review!) To this beautifully depressing setting arrives a black guy, a medicine student as we learn, who needs money to continue studies and .... obviously Bieszczady is the first to go ...

Tadek whispers to me, that if the next one will be about alcohol he will cut his vains...

The next one, Out of Reach tells a story of sisters from Ruda Slaska, abandoned by their mother at childhood and disenchanted by their ignorant father. In the desperate strive for warm and family they decide to find their mother hoping or wanting to hope that this time she will act like a proper mother ...

At which point I am searching in my bag for antidepressants ...

Third film, The Doghill, tells a story of shepherds in Tatry mountains, who, surrounded by nature in its full sexual exposure with constantly copulating sheeps, dogs and horny cows, talk about their women who remain down in the valley ... yet, there are some existential forces that prevent them from getting down to see their wives and overcome own loneliness .

At this point I promise to my friends (who are - surprisingly- still around) that the last film owill surely be joyful and fun. I completely do not believe in what I am saying.

Fourth film, Honeymoon starts at a marriage ceremony (this is a good sign, gloria, I think). The place looks doggy and the braid’s dress cheap, but there are some signs of happiness. The joy does not last long as we soon realize that we are in the prison and soon after the ceremony the happy couple splits, the wife, back to her cell, the husband back to the Polish ‘normal life’ which appears to be driving him inevitably to pathology with sea of hopelessness, bureaucracy and vodka around

All of the films are actually very good ones. It is just that they are terribly sad. Interesting also, how from London perspective they all look actually quite similar. There is this overriding sense of melancholy in them. Life is an existential struggle and hope does not come easy. And there are characters that live the life as it is, that face the conflicts, do bad things (mostly alcohol related) and struggle. And somehow the seem to be grand in their own humiliation. And the dark sense of humor that exposes the everlasting pessimism, where vodka is the only cure.

These are not the films to enjoy. They tell local and at times provincial stores. In a sense I cannot find many more examples that would be a harsher opposition to British popular culture with the ‘life can only get better’ taste. Even their poetics and style is damn difficult and demanding for the non Slavic public. Yet, they are surprisingly universal and compelling

We leave the cinema and 60 minutes after we still talk about images what we had seen. Gosh, Poles are painful! Sometimes one needs painful.

Storytelling 3.0. Final cut pro is my new powerpoint! Yihaaa

Editing has opened up the whole sea of possibilities I have not thought about before. It’s like going to a hidden place in which you had never been and have no preconceptions about.
Obviously, knowing me, I always find something to worry about. I can already see the risk of over - editing footage to the point where it’s only about form, not about the content any longer. And surely, there’s a temptation … with all the glamorous things that final cut pro can do for you. Surely editing will not replace a good story, but it can still make things a bit more visually bearable and interesting. And there’s this really weird moment where you look at your digitized footage and you know it can travel in thousands directions, you can tell the story of the same footage in unlimited number of ways. It would be interesting to see what different people with different experiences, backgrounds, and interests would do with exactly same footage. But I guess if you know what you what to say in you film, you know exactly what goes with what and how many editing spices you need to add …

On the other note, I am getting ready to shoot the THE FINAL thing. I’ve seen couple of visual references that you recommended, including Chantal Ackerman and Alan Berliner …. In different ways, totally impressed by both of them and touched by it to the point where I am starting to realize the impossibility of the challenge that faces me. OMG, 15 minutes is a really long time to say nothing. I’ve started to shoot couple of little things - like preparing morning coffee, unlocking my bike or opening window to embrace spring. I wanted to work out the style, tone and most importantly, the frame and the angle. And I am trapped a bit in thinking that somehow I need to try to get beyond what looks like just very generic scenes. I should give to each and every on them a special character, so they feel in a specific way, so they are there for a reason… so what I am trying to figure out if maybe I should decide that I do only particular type of shoots - like close ups, extreme close ups and than a wide plan with me walking out of frame…

For a moment, I guess I am thinking that the way to establish my presence is through my hands … hands that do things, hands that show hesitation, hands that take part in life …

Also I already hear the music (which is key since as you know NOTHING is going on in the bloody thing)

And I found a way to communicate my thoughts - though email, blogs, facebook, diary, mobile conversations. And I think that if not overused it can serve the purpose of pushing the narrative somewhere and giving some cues to the viewers about how to look at the film.

It has all quite a funny effect on me as I feel I am ‘narrating’ my life, not only my film…. Very weird feeling.

Photo by Alana Rae

What I am doing if I am not doing what I should be doing. A short guide to the art of wasting time

I am back at school with all the pains and glories of going to school. It means that most of my life I spend in the library, in books, reading and writing and … doing all those other things that keep me wonderfully distracted, completely unfocused and successfully ineffective for the bloody 6 weeks.

Surely there must be really nice ways of spending time nicely, when you are supposed to work and you just do not feel like, like …

… staying all day in bed
… watching all Antonioni collection
… having long sex (with my husband, to be clear!:-)
… reading Three Musketeers all over again
... writing proper letters to old friends

But no. I am not having ANY of those. No of course not. Doh! I am working! My catholic guilt would not allow me to do anything pleasurable, when I have to work. Oh no no no, every distraction is strictly forbidden!

So I write. All day. All night. Almost.

A short guide to the art of wasting time:

1. Start your day with the obligatory walk through facebook, twitter, gmail and pudelek.pl Leave some comments, press some ‘likes’. You see? What a nice productive start of a day. Takes only 20 minutes (Don’t you dare to actually visit proper newspaper websites. You don’t have time for distractions! Already forgot??? )

2. If after first 30 minutes you feel like falling asleep. No! Go for a coffee. Now, that’s called a productive break.

3. Visiting a bathroom is a humanitarian affair. No guilt here. Even if you find yourself breaking a record in ‘brick breaker’ on your mobile every time you visit loo. I’m a new master in brick breaker after having lost my blackberry with the glorious game called ‘word mole’.

4. Time for lunch, right? It’s been a hard day so far. And it’s so cold and gloomy outside. Everyone needs some nice kick at some point! You still worry that it’s only 11.45 am and you only arrived at 11? No worries. Its food for though. Feeds your brain, can only be good!

5. Back from lunch. You deserve a little update. Facebook. Gmail. Twitter. Skype. Found yourself 50 minutes later watching friend of a friend of a friend photos from his brother’s daughter birthday? Well, let's not be obsessive… who counts little distractions?

6. Sleepy again? High time for a nap. Naps in the library are really healthy. They never take more than 45 minutes.

7. Time to call Michal. He’s also studying hard. So no, actually, no worries, it’s not a distraction. Again pretty humanitarian. It’s always useful to discuss what you haven’t done.

8. Cigarette? Ha, you see, I don’t smoke in the library. Earned an extra time for facebook update, right? Or maybe coffee?

9. Ah now you have an idea! There was this really clever guy the other day? Hmmm? Let’s google him …

10. Hmm, library closes in 20 minutes. You’ve been working bloody whole day and you even haven’t start writing! And you didn’t even call your mum! Call your mum. She’ll take pity on you for the whole day of hard work.


See? Now you see I was far too busy to write blog! ☺ Sweet dreams and lovely weekend!

My Manifesto. The fall and rise of the life 'in between'

As much as I hate the pain of being in constant carousel of people, landscapes feelings and lifestyles I can’t imagine being in one place for good. I am afraid the only meaning that keeps me going is the open door that are left open for my curiosity, escape and love.

Indeed it may seem quite neurotic. It also means complete inability to make decisions that are final and that could anyhow determine other things and other people. Indeed for the last couple of months I have been not only travelling back and forth between UK, Krakow and Warsaw, but also I moved houses in London four times. Crazy. Hate myself for it. So does dear Pawel. On the bigger picture indeed all my life trajectories, and I honestly think there is more than one, are somehow constantly disrupted, interrupted and never set, never planned and always in the process of partly- planned and partly- spontaneous last -minute creation.

I live in a couple of peoplespaces, ideaspaces, culturespaces. London inspires me and drives my constant curiosity, it takes me to mature – land in the independent and not wifely way. I kind of like myself more here. It gives me energy and yes, pretty often takes me to the state of euphoria as well as complete depression.My friends make it cosy and loving for me. Places I love make it exciting, and addictive, oh and very fast. Yet, certainly I am from elsewhere. Not because I feel alien here, but because I want to feel part of elsewhere. When I come THERE, after initial mixture of weirdness, I do feel home, familiar and in the right place - in my place. I switch to „home‘ mode instantly. Mrs Kazia as always sells veggies, saturday newspapers feel like I had never stopped reading them. It all feels like I haven’t missed on anything, nothing has really changed. I switch instantly to my other life – with people I love, places where I meet friends. Back in London, feel alone and alien at first instance, I hate the emotional pain of feeling alone at the airport. Yet it takes few hours to melt into my second life that runs flawless, feels natural, like I had always lived here.

But in between is not only about living in two or more different places at the same time. Life in between is really about not letting to frame you in a one-dimensional way, in one box, in one bubble. I guess first of all is about forcing yourself out of your comfort- zone all the time. For many months I felt so much trapped in the bubble of advertising world – unreal, superficial and workaholic. But yet, certain and comforting in its routine. When I quit Saatchi’s and went back to the university I‘ve suddenly realized that the whole charm of „academic“ looked tempting and fascinating from the outside – deep, inspiring, life and world changing. Inside, I’ve realized that I replaced one bubble with another – claustrophobic, self – obsessed, creating own language and own celebrity culture. Yet, I became a student again, with all exams ahead, with established structure, all the memories of school exams, pain and stress returned. Like Jozek from Ferdydurke. And I cried. And I screamed. And I wanted to get away. I wanted back to my „superficial’ ad world and Ariel brief writing.

So indeed after all this going back and forth I want to officially praise the ‚in between‘ life. Yes it might be annoying for me and Pawel, painful and yes, superficial, cause nothing is for good and nothing is for real. But in essence it helps to draw the most out of my little life, its designed to feed my curiosity. Life in between forces me to look for more and for different, teaches me out –of- the- box thinking, showes the new horizons and indulges my senses to taste the world in all its beauty. It is like a drug that always keeps me walking, sometimes… just for the sake of walking.

Perhaps, I will reach the art of standing still one day. But for now, I need to go.

(to catch 6 am flight tomorrow to krakow)