Snots and boogers.

My childhood memories usually have this haze or rather a 'filter' over them which makes it all look as if edited on Instagram or taken by an analogue or a Polaroid camera. They are a bit faded and usually have this orange tint. Those memories are mostly of playful summers when I used to get tanned so much that kids would mock me by calling me a 'gypsy'. I would spend the whole day outside riding my bike, playing with other kids, running around the block, pretending we were characters from 'Sailor Moon', trying to avoid The Evil Twins (actual twins, brother and sister who basically 'ruled' our playground due to the fact that.. I actually have no idea what gave them the right to be in power since they were neither smart or cute). 

It was a small space, the playground, for all of us and very soon I found myself not wanting to go out to play with others that much anymore. The playground was dividing two blocks standing across from one another. Everybody knew everything about everyone, the kids from the playground were the same ones you went to school with, the lady living two stories up was the owner of the grocery store around the corner. All day long the same faces wherever you would turn. Rumors were spreading around with the speed of light. For example, when my sister left for The Netherlands, rumor had it that we, the Kiszko family, are rich now, because we have a relative abroad. So, of course, we think we're better than anyone around. The parents would say things like that in front of their kids and so the kids would bring the news to the playground and turn my life into a living hell. Or if my mother would say something pretty embarassing to one of the nieghbors (my mother has that quality about her- she thinks she's telling a fine story but that story was never ment to be repeated to anyone outside of our family circle), the next day at school all the kids would be pointing fingers, whispering to each other and laughing behind my back.

It bothered me back then because it was a complex problem. I didn't know how do they know all of that, I didn't know how to make my mother understand she should stop spilling the beans without offending her, I didn't know how to deal with the Evil Twins, especially since the girl did a great job pretending she wants to comfort me. She would listen to my frustrations, tell me we're friends, go for ice cream with me and next thing I knew- she would repeat everything to her brother who would tell the story to all the kids from our block.
I see him sometimes when I go to Poland although I can barely recognize him without snots filling his nose. Sweet Jesus, all the way through secondary school he seemed not to have a clean nose, not even for a day and everytime he spoke to me (meaning: everytime he would try to offend/hurt/scare me) all I could to was to stare at his nose and wonder is it a medical condition or is he simply dirty and if so, why doesn't his mother tell him to clean that up?
Last time I've seen him I wasn't standing close enough to check whether his nose was clean but all I know is that he did a fine job pretending he didn't hear me saying 'HI!'.

Aside from that, I wanted to go back to those filtered visions of my childhood. I recall such a day during summer when my parents decided to repaint our kitchen and one of the other rooms too, if I remember that correctly. The guy who they hired to do the job arrived at our place around 11AM. My mother sat him down to a glass of water and discussed with him the details of the whole plan.
I went into the living room and then onto the balcony (see photo) to check the thermometer- it hit 40C while still in shade. I was standing there for a while looking at the neighborhood. I was used to summers in the city. Hot pavements, sticky people in the public transport, overcrowded beaches, smell of fish and chips, ice cram trucks, our apartment which heated up during the day so badly that it was impossible to sleep at night (but then at night we would stay up with my brother, waiting to hear trains departing from the central station. It was quite a thing since the station was 2km away but the night air helped the sounds travel long distances).
All of a sudden the church bells began ringing, bringing my attention back to the street, which was a sign that it's noon. After making noise for about 5 minutes, the church bells stopped and it was quiet again. Quiet like never before..
I have never in my life experienced anything quite like it before. Complete silence, thick air, no wind whatsoever, orange filter all over my vision, no cars, no people, no sounds and nearly no smells beside the smell of hot asphalt. It seemed that even my mother took a break from talking..
For few seconds I felt like I was the only person in the whole world. I could swear the clocks stopped ticking and I found myself supsended in a no- time reality. I loved how hot it was, how quiet, how sunny. And then something beautiful happened. Empty streets have been filled with a lazy sound of a trumpet. The sound has been echoing between all of the blocks around and hitting you along with heat waves, slowly coming and going. I couldn't see where was it coming from but that didn't bother me. Apparently I wasn't alone. Someone out there inhaled the same sensations as me and used this sweaty early afternoon as a background to a trumpet solo, breaking out from a unknown window somewhere in the nieghborhood.

As all good things, this has come to an end when my father's car pulled into the parking lot. Yet still, it was so quiet on the street that when my dad slam shut the car door, the echo sent the sound on a trip and made it travel lazily through the air. I could see my father walking home from the car but he seemed so distant, so unreal that I was very surprised when he actually opened the door from our apartment and stepped in. He greeted me, then the painter and joined my mother in explaining what do they have in mind in terms of repainting the walls.

I have tried to recreate this feeling later on in my adult life but I could never do it with the same effect. The time when I took the tram back home from the city and I was the only passenger departing into the direction of the setting Sun with Buena Vista Social Club playing from my headphones. The time when I was in Italy, standing under the clear night sky, watching the stars (catching some falling ones, too!) being amazed by how they shine and shimmer above and trying to pretend I'm all alone (while my ex couldn't shut up about going back into the house already). The time when, also in Italy, I've been standing in the sea, amazed by how clear the water is, realizing that no matter what happens next I will always have this memory of spreading my arms in the beautiful water, smiling into the Sun, not wanting to get out onto the shore again. Or when we took a ferry with my friends in the summer before the last year of high school and looking into the sea I was thinking to myself 'no matter what happens this year and how hard it might be, always remember this moment when you could freely inhale the summer breeze'. And I did. I remember taking my final exams and in between of one question and another I put my pen down for a moment, looked outside of the window, then closed my eyes and brought back the memory of the sea, waves, seagulls and the feeling of gentle breeze caressing my cheeks.

Those are the 'stop and stare' moments, I guess. The time stops, for a second or two everything around turns silent, you have this illusion of being all alone even if surrounded by a crowd and you undergo this fantasy. It lasts only few seconds but during that time you sense everything much more intensely; the view, the smells, the sounds and before you know it, it's all over.

I will be always finding pieces of that hot summer day in my future adventures. Maybe it will be the orange tint on  a summer afternoon, maybe it will be the sound of a trumpet when listening to live music or a wave of heat on an empty street. Maybe I will never reach that 'high' again, but I will always remember it and the awe it left me in.