I will always have Paris

the city that awakes my Polish melancholic heart and makes it breathe...Only Paris in September, even in just two days, can fill me up with poetry to last. Too little time in between work related meetings but enough to visit my two favourite couples...
One cooks me an evening meal and listens patiently to the stories of my confused heart...I am reminded that American expat women who move from Rome to Paris have depth, courage and wisdom they share freely with younger expat sisters...

I visit another couple early in the morning at Montparnasse..Simone and Jean Paul.

The Death of Lovers
We shall have beds full of subtle perfumes,
Divans as deep as graves, and on the shelves
Will be strange flowers that blossomed for us
Under more beautiful heavens.

Using their dying flames emulously,
Our two hearts will be two immense torches
Which will reflect their double light
In our two souls, those twin mirrors.
Some evening made of rose and of mystical blue
A single flash will pass between us
Like a long sob, charged with farewells;

And later an Angel, setting the doors ajar,
Faithful and joyous, will come to revive
The tarnished mirrors, the extinguished flames.

Poem by Charles Baudelaire
Translated by William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Smell the Spice - Get Over BBS in Turkey

This is in praise of TURKEY which restored my faith in magic. This is my outcry against all of the silly headlines asking holiday makers to stay away from this magical land. If you have courage to go visit London, then trust me, statisticaly you are far less likely to die in a bomb blast in Turkey.

The Blocked Blogger Syndrome (BBS)

I have been recently called the world's worst blogger. Apparently, my attempt to begin blogging and therefore to keep that sacred connection with the community of bloggers, was an unacceptable tease given my inability to update regularly.

Forgive me for occasionaly suffering from the BSS (the blocked blogger syndrome) due to my increased fear of producing too much blogging BS. My "blogging block" florishes in direct proprotion to the intensity with which I live and work. Hence, the "no time to blog" excuse while at the same time the subjects which I would wish to explore further seem simply endless... I dream of running away from my action job at www.actionaid.org and from the endless chaos of Roman streets - naive thinking that in silence of countryside I will find writing time. But what if I will find the time, if I will not find the inspiration?

Obviously there is the problem of being IT challenged as the flat where I currently live is simply not internet connected (here is the picture of my URBAN view with the famous gazometro in the background). As I spend most of my waking hours in the internet/e-mail mania of my office - I feel the need to restore eyesight and sanity by coming back home to stare outside of the window rather then back into the computer screen. As long as I will write from the office you will be forced to read angry venting against inner office politics, staggering statistics of child malnutrition, critiques agains the current food aid system or my outcry about the forgotten rural world, loss of biodiversity and the destruction of farmer's livelihoods in the South by the North's dumping of its subsidized products. I can't resist here to mention that 2007 will mark the first time that the percentage of people living in the cities will suprass those living in the country. No, my dear patient readers, this is NOT A GOOD NEWS. This is not the good news, because the majority of those who move from rural areas into the cities simply join the scores of living in the ghettos, favelas and shantytowns on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kampala, New Delhi or Lagos. Not a good news, because our mode of producing food is no longer sustainable (have you heard of the concept of food miles???) and because IT WILL ONLY EXCEBARATE MALNUTRITION and aid dependency. It will be easier to access "urban hungry" with food aid rather then to invest in sustainable, long term rural development...

You see, I couldn't resist.

As you imagine FOOD, WINE and the problem of HUNGER remain my passion for which I have unexhausted capacity for venting. But I wanted to vent about being an expat in the urban territory of Rome, occasionaly transported to the rural territory of Tuscany. I wanted to vent about the white night of Rome (the official end of the summer), about expats quests for obtaining residence with the Italian QUESTURA. I wanted to write about my FAT TURKISH VACATIONS and about my friend's engagement party..

My BSS syndrome though results from my disorganized mind when it comes to my creative endevours. As my winemaking boyfriend put it (bless him) to compare my mind to a country: "your mind works like India: overpopulated by chaotic ideas, sometimes brillaint, sometimes dramaticaly inefficient"

The best way to get over my case of BSS is to acknowledge the India within and write freely....

......am I over my BBS you think????

Gratitude...

"Spiritual growth is about confronting fear in order to attain wonderment" so says my "women's spirit daily meditation book".
There were days during my one particular work adventure at a certain institution, when I needed my daily meditation book more then a cigarette in order to keep some levels of hope and sanity. It worked. It enbeled me to find something wonderous about each of those days in which my life was going through complete transition and I needed to let go all fear in order to be able to throw my arms around the concept of complete and utter uncertainty. As short time of unemployment followed, I kept on repeating Anais Nin's mantra "LIFE SHRINKS AND EXPANDS IN PROPORTION TO ONE's COURAGE." Now, I am GRATEFUL to have met many wonderous women who perhaps have never read this quote, but lived there lives accordingly. They are my inspiration today, as I am sitting in front of my computer, feeling a bit lost within the matrix of work related e-mails and heavy with the first wave of that true Roman heat. Uncertainty is always difficult...but also liberating not to know exactely what will happen at the next turn...

This philosophical psycho bubble is the result of driving my scooter under 38 celcius midday heat feeling as my brain is risking damage under the 50 celcsius heated up helmet...

but then I got that wind blowing in my face...
and a sense of trust.

This is just to acknowledge how happy I am to be alife, to be where i am, to be in Rome on this warm summer day. Yes, to even be in the air conditioned office.

EAPS one year anniversary since the desert race in Botswana, june 2005

THIS IS JUST TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE 1 year anniversary since the first EAPS MEETING in Botswana, 2005. May we continue spreading the goals of our mission statement with the same zeal in the future years!

Following the Flow and the Future Features

No. If you hoped that this blog was left off to die together with other crudely abandoned blogs, which started with that sudden courage of exhibitionism in the age of individualism of the masses – you were mistaken. It wasn’t a blog that began with the “oh well, everyone now has a blog, so will I” need to advertise myself. It was just an inner compulsion to find time to write again… To find time to write pieces which do not contain words such as “objectives” or “food security” or “project cycle” as its main vocabulary.

My absence was due to an overly intense engagement with the flow of life. I have myself been accused of intensity many a times, but in this case I have my job, my long distance relationship and searching for an apartment in Rome all to blame… In the past month I went to Liverpool, London, Milan, Riga (yes the amazing capital of Latvia) and to Warsaw. I have also visited my country boy in Tuscany and moved apartments in Rome… Now, it was the moving in combination with my unsustainable workaholic ngo job and travel that simply turned past month into virtual blogging absence…

Not that there weren’t many subjects…The following titles passed through as possible entries to the RANTING EXPAT and some will be elaborated upon in the not too distance future.

“Mourning Testaccio” – on how this Roman neighbourhood and my urban patio have grown on me in the period of past two years. How much I will miss Franco from the coffee bar next door which looks like a 70s disco never mind my old neighbour screaming at her husband each morning “get up before the market will close”. Luckily, the tomatoes stand at the Testaccio market is still only a few minutes away on the scooter…




“Ode to Shriaz Limoncello” – still to come. A short story about a certain Pakistani woman’s legacy of expat bonding through her art of limoncello making. Andi, your limencello is also to blame for my inability to stay late at night to update my so called blog…while in mourning my urban patio with Lynda phase…

Which brings me to:

“EAPS.” It has been a year now since birth was given to this little expat organization during one, long night in the middle of the desert in Botswana (all to blame on Limoncello). The outgoing chairman promised to overlook the making of a webpage, but we were all too busy and frankly too drunk to take proper minutes from this historic meeting and so the organization was left without tools to make the Chairman responsible for full delivery of his mandate. He did send though several “reminder” meetings but it seems that the next reunion will take place under the Tuscan sun… The acronym of the organiztion “EAPS” will not be explained until proper webpage will be developed. For a teaser, yes, the E stands for EXPATand the “A” for Limoncello…but also for beer, and gin…



Which brings me to:

“On Britishness” – just when I began writing this piece when visiting my boyfriend’s family in Liverpool and attending yet another meeting in my beloved London, I realized I was outsmarted yet again. There I was sitting on the train from Liverpool to London reading my favourite newspaper, of course THE GUARDIAN, noticing that certain Lucy Mangan has gotten it all down in her brilliant article “What it realy meant to be British?” Since as a Pole I am unqualified to write on this subject, if you want to learn it all about snobbery, insularity, anti-intellectualism, self-deprecation, humour, repression, politeness, nostalgia and slobbery – just click awayhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,1775681,00.html
All of this in the engaging, elegant style that makes as love (and in my case fall in love) with the British for being so self deprecating about being British. Only nations with a well developed sense of identity and self-esteem can fathom such mature gaze into their own demons. My only note is that I hardly think that anti-intellectualism is a British product – we all suffer from it in the age of mass media, mass blogging age…


Then in the past two weeks I moved my house thanks to the help of my wonderful Spanish roommate (ode to roommates and to Spanish guitars and to American women in Rome to follow), brilliant Ethiopian intern, American friend and English boyfriend. Next day I was boarding a plan to Riga, Latvia (GODDESS BLESS THE BALTIC STATES) to only come back to Milan, pass by my boyfriend’s house in Tuscany and finally steal a moment of time to write this entry from my internet disconnected new home…

Namaste. I didn’t make it to yoga for weeks now.

If this was an intense reading, the moving on my own will hopefully induce a bit of poetry writing attempts.

The Ranting Begins

Expat. Expatriate. We like the sophisticated word "expat" especially whenit is pronounded with the slighly French accent. Makes one feel remotely linked to the likes of Hemingway, Anais Nin or David Sadaris. The dictionary defines the word EXPATRIATE as "2.. to leave one's country and reside in another" and the word IMMIGRANT as "one who leaves one country to settle in another" - I think that Webster's is missing out completely on the subtlelity of perceptions and attitudes conveyed in usage of these seemingly interchangable and yet such different words. To me the word expat on some subconscious level conveys the idea of free will, of choice, of leaving for some personal reason, of not having necessarily been constrained by political or economic necessity... Another words of having been blessed enough to have had a choice or stupid enough to choose for yourself self-imposed exile. For the romantic notion of "expat" is brutally murdered by the first definition from the damned Webster's. It says, bear with me because I am really not obsessed with definitions, that the word EXPATRIATE means "1. to send into exile." Only Poles in the 19th century Poland have created a romantic and patriotic notion of the word "exile" when the country ceased to exist under brutal partition by Prussia, Russia and Austria. So Chopin could get away with living in France as long as he composed Polonaises and still be deemed a patriot. These times are over. Now one has to have a damn good explaination for deciding to live abroad. Great, well paid job is usually what works to assure your loved ones back home that you are on the right track. So I decided to start this website in order to make my motive of moving to Italy official: my utter, irrational love of tasty tomatoes. There are also secondary motives: the climate, beautiful landscapes, the sounds of the church bells, the sense made out of chaos of Roman traffick and above all the other expats who call themesleves expats and understand your lust for tomatoes. These reasons alone are enough to make one endure bizarre living arrangements , frequent moves, Italian bureaucracy and learning how to be comfortable with label of "the other". So here. My ranting is only about to begin... but now I have to get back to my work in order to try to save the taste of Italian tomatoes while officially ranting about the unsustainability of our global food system. aha. And tonight I will have a tomatoe salad.