The Dichotomy of Being

By: J.B Polk

“Immigration is an act of great courage, facing unfamiliar lands with the resilience to build anew.” – Isabel Allende.

This year’s trip was different. Not better or worse. Not more gloomy or joyful. Just different. Introspective, for the want of a better word. Throughout the trip, it felt as if that particular aroma of lime trees blooming at the end of July reached deep into your lungs and squeezed—squeezed tightly. As if that peachy pink-and-cornflower blue, with strands of violet woven into the clouds, descended on your retinas and scraped—scraped hard, leaving wispy trails when you were about to return.

You were finally back there, to that special place—down by the Nogat River in Malbork, or as some still call it, Marienburg—where you used to spend your holidays when you were a lass of twelve. You remember the girl with blonde pigtails, green eyes, and baby fat still round her waist and hips, but already with small buds for breasts. The one who wore stone-washed jeans with daisies haphazardly embroidered along the hem, and who was kind of pretty but had a nose that was a little too big, and whose smile revealed a crooked incisor. The one on the left…

It was 1976—the year was full of promise. Nadia Comaneci scored a perfect ten on the uneven bars, and you sang Elton John’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” to a dog chained to a kennel all year round. That summer, you set it free every morning for two weeks and took it for a swim in the Nogat. And while it chased ducks and fat, squawky frogs, you chased dreams and pictured a future where anything was possible. For two weeks, both of you ran unchained, believing that your freedom would last…

You wanted to live somewhere with palm trees and white beaches, where the sun always shone and the water was crystal clear. You daydreamed of exotic adventures far from the familiar sights and sounds of Marienburg. Only, you didn’t realize that just up the road, on the Baltic coast, the beaches were white too, and the sun shone as well. Not always, but often. Just not often enough for you. Because you always craved more of everything. More sunlight. More excitement. More independence…

And then you left, first for the misty and green and wonderful island of Eire, where the wind whipped through your hair that you no longer wore in pigtails, where the waves crashed against the Cliffs of Moher, and where you chanced upon goblins and faeries after a glass, or three, of hot whiskey in Johnnie Fox’s pub. Where you once jigged starkers, wearing only knee-high boots — in the middle of January, on Glendalough’s heather and ferns, watched by an owl and a frightened rabbit. There were no palms or sandy beaches there, and your boots got soaking wet after a few minutes. But that’s where you met him, over a pint of stout and a slice of soda bread with butter… And you believed he was the missing piece to your adventure.

He wasn’t from there either. A refugee, he told you, from a place where the sun always shone but which also had a desert, fjords, and the majestic, mystical snow-capped Andes. So, you convinced yourself that true adventure wasn’t about the location, but about being with him, and that you could find happiness anywhere as long as you were together.

Together, you ventured even further, crossing the ocean, to where palms did sway in the breeze and the water sparkled like diamonds. And you believed you had arrived. And maybe you did, but not for long, because you realized he was not the sunshine you were seeking but a destructive tornado. But then it was too late… The kids had already come, so you battled on, trudging through life to the rhythm of the palms and the murmur of the sea, hoping that one day you’d find your inner sunlight to guide you through the storm.

Sometimes, you saw that light in your children and the dogs you promised never to keep chained. You also found it in someone new who might — just might — be the one to light the way ahead.

With him, you watched dozens of sunsets, hoping that perhaps this time, the light would stay. Then, one Monday morning, as you were driving to work, they called to say the torch flickered for one last time and then went out, leaving you again in the darkness. And just as Malbork is sometimes called Marienburg, the thing that turned off the torch is called cancer or a tumour. But you called it the thief of light because it stole the rare spark of brightness and left only shadows behind.

You plodded on and said, “Oh well, that’s just the way things are.” But no matter how far you travelled or how many times you stumbled, you always went back to that special place on the Nogat. For a long time, you only indulged in nostalgia from afar, in your mind, because you couldn’t afford more. Not with the kids to raise, a mortgage to pay, and unchained dogs to walk three times a day. So you kept yearning.

You visited every now and then, but never the riverside spot. Instead, you visited your mother to ease the guilt of leaving her behind. It was nice, but it wasn’t the Nogat or the lime trees in full bloom or the peach-coloured mists that you used to watch when you were a lass of twelve.

And just like that, you barely blinked and opened your eyes to see wrinkles around them, as if a flock of crows had trampled on your skin in a wild flamenco. Your blonde pigtails had turned grey, and your left knee felt all wonky and painful when you knelt. Sir Elton John sang “Never Too Late,” but you found it hard to relate to it.

You finally returned to the riverbank after four decades, where the clouds and lime trees were waiting. Of course, the dog on the chain was gone — for years, it’d been running wild and free over the rainbow with all the other dogs you loved — the unchained dogs that made your life so much better.

You drove for hours, looking at how autumn splashed auburn and caramel and bronze on the birches and poplars and limes, and you thought, “Why did I wish for palms and beaches and permanent sunlight when this beauty was right in front of me all along?”

But it was too late. It was no longer your place. Sadly, the other place, the one at the foot of the Andes, wasn’t yours either.

So you sang again, this time Facundo Cabral’s tune, “I wander between two worlds, belonging neither here nor there. Ageless, I roam, unbound by the clock; in hues of joy, my essence unlocks.”

And you cried, realizing you didn’t recognize any of the songs playing one after another on the radio. There was a forty-year gap in your memory between the music you grew up listening to and the songs on the radio. They were not your songs. Or your singers. Because you left your songs and your singers across the ocean. In the country that wasn’t yours either and where nothing belonged to you either, and although familiar and nearly instinctive, the whole place was only loaned to you.

Nothing was truly yours. You were out of place—a living example of the dichotomy of being. Or not being… Caught between two worlds, feeling alien in both.

You kept crying and drying your eyes with a piece of tissue so soggy it nearly dissolved in your hand. You cried for what you had. You cried for what you’d lost. You cried for the sunlight and for the palms and for the dogs… You mourned the man whose torch was extinguished too soon. You wept for your children who did not speak your language, recall the scent of lime trees, or love the Nogat as much as you did.

And then you stopped crying because you understood how lucky you were to have not just one but two places to call home. And that growing roots in two countries meant embracing, not resisting, the dichotomy of being…

You turned the car around and headed back to Malbork, or Marienburg, as it is still called by some. You sat on the bank of the Nogat, played some music from that place across the ocean, and felt at peace, knowing you belonged in both worlds at the same time.