Basia Unleashed

Once upon a time there were three little girls (well, there will be four involved but that comes right at the end, just to keep you reading). Two of them grew up with nothing but love and hard working parents; the third had a fairytale princess childhood with everything a girl could want - but did she? The first two, Irina and Anna, knew the third one, Helena, because Helena's nanny lived in their tenement block. Helena's father was a pharmacist - they had a big house with a garden and she had all the dolls a girl could want. Anna and Irina's parents were just shopkeepers and factory workers, but that's childhood for you, no one's counting the pennies when you are just a girl. They were all nine years old.

Then one day, not to put too fine a point on it, shit happened. Helena disappeared. Anna and Irina did not understand why. And then Irina disappeared. And Anna was all alone. Anna was alone for the next sixty years.

So here comes the fourth girl. For her to be introduced at such a late stage of the story requires artistic license, so you are just going to have to bear with me and accept that as circumstances go, she got involved. Here's where it gets interesting: Helena hadn't disappeared, well not literally, someone had saved the day and saved her life.

And girl number four found her. After sixty years, after being hidden in a wall in a house in Lodz, after displacement and a lifetime of wondering, she had been found. Helena was alive and well and suddenly, thanks to girl number four, on the phone to Anna, crying and laughing and talking like nothing had happened to spoil the endless summers and the ice cream and the music.

So what about Irina? The missing girl? Well girl number four tried her best; she asked everyone, the saints, the scholars, everyone who might know. Until she went to the place where the ultimate truth lies and asked: Where is Irina Borenstein? But they had never heard of her. No one had ever heard of her, it was like she had never existed. So, that's six million and one.

Helena and Anna met up again. Girl number four never saw either of them again but she thinks of them all the time, like she did today for some reason. And at least three people know that a nine year old girl growing up in the Warsaw ghetto did exist and deserves to be more than a name that never even made a list.

__this was first posted in September 2006 but Irina will soon have made the list at Yad Vashem. I promise.

Posted by Basia at 1:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

New Year, new me, new you, new everyone. New hopes for you, me, world peace and Manolo Blahnik drastically reducing the price of his shoes. Every year it is the same, every year we say "ah but this year I'll make it so" and every year we realise that we haven't done anything.

Taking a chance seems the biggest risk imaginable, especially when it means giving up your comfort zone and striking out into the unknown. Jumping into the void with your eyes shut is, however, the biggest thrill that thrill seekers experience. Regret is not a word in my dictionary - especially when it comes to regretting things I have never done. If am lucid enough on my death bed, I do not, actually I refuse, to be thinking "what if I'd gone to....what if I'd done....how would my life have been?" Imagine ending your life with regrets.

Of course, wearing your heart on your sleeve ensures more than the average amount of heartache. Being open to the unknown brings with it a set of keys that can unlock unbelievable experiences of pleasure and pain. But eventually, the sleep walking through year after year, has to end.

As it is written, so shall it be...

Those of you who know me well will know that when it comes to upping and going, I am pretty good at it. My life has changed in ways I never imagined because I just did it. A holiday is nice, going to France and Ireland and catching up with those I love will be wonderful, but I'm talking about what I have realised is my life's work and maybe why I am here in this lifetime. I had an inkling of it on my first visit, on the second, something in my soul rang like a bell and now I wonder what took me so long to realise this.

And when I realised where I wanted to be, the soul bird, for so long curled up tight, huddled inside me, turned its face east to welcome the warmth of the rising light, spread its wings and it smiled....

Posted by Basia at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)