So here I sit, back in Krakow. Curled up with a comforting cup of French press coffee with a splash of soy and a poppyseed pastry from the market down the street. I love this city – it fills me with life and giddy little girl glee as I traipse continuously ah-inspired through the medieval streets, amazed with my new findings of old city charms that have been walked by, unnoticed a million times before. I am constantly in a state of wonderment and enchantment here. Magical gardens hidden away behind nondescript brick walls, meldewy smelling monasteries and cold, enticingly dark churches lure you into their comforting... well, oldness. The history of this city is what has kept me for so long. The old Jewish quarter with its vast array of hole-in-the-wall cafes, wafting in smoke and intimate vodka laced conversations. Many a night I have wasted away engrossed in stimulating drunken dialogue or danced away in musty cellars to everything from gypsy punk to the sounds of ABBA on repeat. I called this neighborhood home for two years, brooding in the beauty and tragedy of a past that is everywhere yet simultaneously deceivingly allusive. Here I step out my door and am swept down the banks of the Wisła river, carried either by my Nike runners or one of my many stolen pink, blue or silver bikes. I can ride for miles out of the city, past monasteries and quaint village houses I dream of someday calling home, surrounded by nothing but fields of green and rolling hills. The Tatry mountains taunt me in the distance, reminding me of a home long left, at which point I've gone far enough, and turn back to the embrace of my ancient city walls.
It's not all white swans and tulips however. This city does have its downsides, although as I contemplate writing them down, I roll my eyes at their seemingly ridiculousness. No, no place is perfect, and if it were, no one would ever leave, and what fun would that be? No complaining about the weather, annoying cultural miffs or brain dead politicians? How boring! While my heart will always rest in the United States with my family and history, my soul sleeps the quietest in Eastern Europe.
So what do I have for the Middle East? My liver perhaps? Regardless of what my future attachments to a new home will be, leaving a much loved old friend is never easy. It's like finishing a marvelous book that you have dreaded completing... as your page turning gets slower and you begin to re-read passages two, three times before moving on to the next paragraph... knowing all too well that the inevitable end is near. Why so nostalgic for a city that you haven't even left yet? And if you love it so, why leave? The first question is relatively easy to answer, but the second I will have to address at a later date, when perhaps I have figured that out. Krakow is a healing city. As new agey and cheesy as that may sound, it's the best I can come up with. This city wraps itself around your soul, blanket like and whispers sweet nothings into your ear until you are able to breathe steadily again. It has saved me in many ways – much like rehab or religion does for some, yet I find strength in the energy of places; the darkness of a forest, the soothing rhythm of the sea and the hidden memory and unknowable number of untold stories of old cities.
The battles I fight here are of my own making, and I will pack them along with my many pairs of shoes on to my next destination – where I will inevitably continue the good fight. However, for now I remain cozy in my friend's loft, waking each morning to delicious fresh coffee, fruit and pastries, meeting friends for a mixed assortment of more coffee, ice cream and cocktails, and finishing up most evenings with too many glasses of wine, beer or vodka. I walk about this city perpetually captivated, yet the prying feeling of having to leave is ever-present and I can no longer ignore the pestering call to uproot.
