Jaana

As written in previous entry I gave one of Rothko's reproduction poster to Jaana. The artist turned out to be one of her favorites. And she gave me once postcard presenting Klee's reproduction. She did it not knowing that he was my favorite one. Isn't it special?


Jaana. She wasn't in my team. She was in Kathrin's one – foreign affairs. She has sent me an invitation on Facebook once. I accepted, sent some short message. She replied with an e-mail, asked for having coffee together and it went by, it didn't go by smoothly though. I had my reservations. You know, she was an official... Besides it was already time when I generally was troubled with establishing relationships there, didn't want any. I was rather avoiding people, wanted to be left alone, became very unsocial those days. I had to deal with my problems (really serious ones) and couldn't manage someone who seemed to be disturbed themselves.

She was persistent though. She wasn't stopping to invite me to meet and assuring of her good will. We've met few times and I finally gave up and agreed to pay a visit at her place. It was impressing and overwhelming. I experienced many situations for the first time being in Brussels. It was one of it. I believe I have been never before in flat as huge as Jaana's. I remember I felt kind of awkward, uncomfortable, like being in place which I don't belong to. But on the other hand I felt welcomed and was interested in the place, willing to discover it, to accustom to it. Jaana was lovely, she was calling one of her rooms as mine, she wanted me to stay at her place after finishing my traineeship. The visit brought the poster of "Besieged" by Bertolucci on my mind. Those stairs... like in Jaana's place. Her flat was like having four floors...



The thing that made making friends particularly difficult in that environment was time, short time. I got used to have plenty of time so it was new experience for me to make friends in few meetings. But that's how the life looks like there.

I will definitely think of Jaana as my friend for the rest of my life. Even though it's very likely we won't meet ever again (which may seem to be contradictory). She wanted me to live at her place, she wanted me to visit her in Finland. But it was clear to me it won't happen. I'm poor polish guy. I don't have money to for trips like that. I went abroad twice and in both cases EU paid for it. It was the only possibility for me to make such journeys, to experience this kind of adventures. I couldn't even invite her to Poland since it cost too much to have guests, much too much for people like me. And you know, I didn't send letters since I came back depressed. Neither did her since she was busy. Then she's got some troubles herself... It made me worried...

It's difficult to make friends on distance and it's even more difficult with those people. Many of them don't even bother to try since they know that people they meet will probably be gone soon. Jan explained me once his attitude on this matter and I would call it consumerist one. Let's get together, let's have some fun but not get deeper. Getting involved would be waste of time and emotions. Commitments seem to be waste of sources, some kind of luxury to them. I can understand their point of view. It may be seen as pointless to make friends with people one doesn't intend to stay in touch with. And it's not possible to stay in touch since one is short timed. However, this line of thought leads to become lonely and unhappy eventually which is wrong too. Life can not be based only on temporarily things, human beings requires permanent basis to achieve psychological balance. They want people and at the same time they don't allow them to grow closer. The second contradiction in this entry. Let mi finish with it.

I bought book about Toruń for Jaana (as an invitation) but I've never send it.

What I've written here seems to be so meaningless. Even meaningful things become like that on paper (unless one is a writer of course). Besides it's difficult to write about something which you are not allowed to reveal really. I don't have problem with making everything public but that's me.