Beer and ice cream for dinner.

At Sigismund’s Column a man and a woman sit on stone steps; she is in a t-shirt and blue-jean shorts, leaning against him, her head in his lap, dazed.  From my distance it is hard to tell their limbs apart.  He bends to kiss her, passionate and prolonged, hand snaking under her shirt, their mouths locked and searching.  Tourists snap pictures of the column, a stroller abandoned at the base; still they perform.  Perched on a stone wall opposite, I am captivated longing for my camera with the zoom lens.  I watch mesmerized wanting to move closer, am disappointed when they get up and walk away.

I want to pose the scene: the Japanese tourists, nonchalant; the lady in the blue-and-white-striped dress; I want to capture the vignette, the passersby detached.  It makes me ache.  I think of the art in Krakow, someone taking a picture, watching me, watching them.

 

At the cafe, a man sits too close to me; I find an excuse to move away into the sun, stretching my legs on a concrete block, leaning my head back, closing my eyes.  Here, they take their time with their coffees, their heavy breakfast of sandwiches with meat and cheese, mayonnaise or mustard spread.  In America everything is eaten on the go, in a hurry to be somewhere else, in the car, driving from place to place.

The street awakens, a few people peeking out, strolling, no hurry to get from here to wherever it is they are going.  In New York, walking fast fast pushing people out of the way, jumping lights at the crosswalks, taxis honking.  No one lazes a morning away.  Still so many are buried, eyes down in their phones, missing it all.

A girl at the corner table observes me observing her.  Both of us scribbling in our notebooks.  I am reminded of the paintings in Krakow by Marcia Macie Jowski; the artist portraying museum visitors pondering paintings, repeated over and over like reflecting mirrors.  The observers themselves become the art, as do I looking at the girl, looking at me.

8:32 Thursday morning, the plaza is vacant, save a nun walking past, the abundance of birds.  I abandon my croissant letting them have it.  I fear disease, whatever else they might carry and leave behind.  Years ago I walked the back alleys of my parents’ house with Kim, summertime, licking our ice cream sandwiches, the cream escaping the sides of the chocolate cake, our hands sticky with childhood.  Mine fell on the littered ground and I picked it up and continued, not wanting to abandon my icy treat.  My flip flops flap-flap-flapping against the pavement.  Me and Kim.

 

 

 

 

 

The pigeons attack my croissant when I go to the counter to retrieve my breakfast of scrambled eggs.  Amazingly they cart half of it off, brazen bastards.  The children chase them trying to catch them, pet them like small kittens, hands outstretched clenching and unclenching at thin air.

I am cushioned, not paying attention to the world beyond this one.

I am reminded of David Mamet’s short essay, “The Rake.”  The end of which reads: “One could have walked in the stubble of the cornfields, or hunted birds, or enjoyed any number of pleasures naturally occurring.”  What could have been is not what was.

I try the pierogis in the square –savory or sweet.  Filled with mashed potatoes and beef, they remind me of the toasted raviolis back home.  I miss home, but watch the square, the people in it; in Krakow there is more street food: brats and kraut, long baguettes piled with sauce and cheese, topped with spinach, bands playing.  I look for solo travelers but I approach no one.  Yesterday, I walked this square, pulling my carry-on behind me, feeling frustrated with no map and no voice for my frustration, save tears.  Eventually I find where I am going, a faded yellow structure where the bathroom smells musty.

The nighttime sky is filled with colors late; I take pictures of the window from my room looking out at more windows.

 

 

The view outside my window is beautiful overlooking Old Town Square.  I will leave neon and concrete to someone else.

I meet Lilian from Brazil who lives in Tucson, Arizona, traveling here with her mother and then on to Switzerland for a cruise down a river, somewhere.  The places run together, all of us passing through on our way to somewhere else.

Everywhere I look there is another window or door each with its own beauty that can’t be duplicated, layers of years.

Each morning I catch my reflection, scrutinizing what I see.  I see in others a grace of years.  In the mirror: a stranger looking back at me.

Lilian from Brazil tells of changes she has made, will make, now beyond mid-life, reinventing, finding someone new: There you are–again–a former self, knocking on the door.

At the cafe, life is teeming.  I eat enough to be sated; back home I devour in greedy gobbles, where more is never enough.

A lone man sits down at a long table for six or eight.  He looks American, taking up space.  I assess who he is, his life.  Time passes, still, and still he sits, alone.

Nine people sit at this cafe on a beautiful cool sunny day, seven lost in their phones, quick to hide from each other, disappear.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever read this carefully, see this clearly again.