Do you know what the bi cuspid and tri cuspid valves are? They are like little doors in your heart that allow blood to flow only one way, kind of like spikes in a car park. Everyone has these, but I have realised I have a theoretical set of valves as well. Emotions such as anger, love, pain, and sadness all enter my heart at different moments in my life. The issue is they can’t get released. I show very little emotion simply because I am unable to release my feelings. I bottle up anger, cling to sadness, ignore pain. Express, a lie. My goal for Poland is to mould what I see and what I experience into a tool which will break down these valves. Allow me to explode in a rainbow of emotions, I want to cry with anger, laugh in pain and feel myself drained of all these stored emotions. I want to see a gas chamber and cry because of how the notebook ended. I want to hear a story of a survivor and feel enraged from when my brother ignored me when I was 12. I want 17 years of emotions to to flood my exterior, like Poland is the master log to the dam of my psyche.
When I rolled my feet over the same uneven ground formed by oddly shaped and varied sized rocks that my people marched on. When I raised m head to see the same rows of shower heads my people saw, I felt them there, beside me. When I looked to my side I saw them there, their heads slowly turn toward me, smile, and look back. When I left the gates of each site, I watched them stop, because they know not the life beyond the prison. When I left the room with my heart still beating, I felt theirs stop. When I touched the walls with the scratch marks, I felt the hand of their pain claw back. I felt a lot, but my expectations for Poland were not reached. Am I disappointed? No. Sometimes life surprises you. Sometimes, the initial expectations aren’t the ‘correct’ or best possibilities. I knew I was embarking on a physical journey in Poland, and so I had physical expectations, tangible, visual expectations. Once here I discovered the ability to transform this into a mental exploration – having Poland simply be the vessel to facilitate my mind. This is, e kvutsah. To bond, to grow, we are one beating heart with 17 faces. We needed not to mould into one face, but to become one set of eyes and ears in which we mutually understand each other. Feel each others pain, and feel each others happiness. It wasn’t until yesterday where I realized this had been attained. I didn’t cry in Auschwitz, norin majdanek. I also didn’t cry in the example I am about to give, but before that I must explain one more thing. Crying is a physical release of emotions. I discovered a back door for this release. I don’t know what it was, I don’t need too, but my pain was lifted and I felt free, without physically showing it. How do I know my updated aims were reached? Because of my brother. A member of the kvutz who broke down. It was that moment of vulnerability, that moment of rawness where Poland became meaningful. Members who hasn’t been touched yet were hit hard by the hand of family pain. I fulfilled my Poland journey. I’m not leaving with my mates, I’m not leaving with my family, I’m not leaving with my kvutsah. I realize now, WE are leaving as one.
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