Visiting My Family's Past

It was four hours into an 18 hour bus ride from Warsaw to Munich. We pulled into a bus station and Meet the Fockers, dubbed in monotone Polish, disappered from the bus's tv screen. I looked outside and saw a sign that said "Koninski". I got up and walked out of the bus.

"Konin" "Konin" "Konin." It seemed to be on every sign. I ran over to a map and sure enough "KONIN" was in big capital letters in the center of the map. I was in Konin.

My grandfather grew up in Konin, Poland before the Holocaust. He was the only member of his family to survive. He never went back to Konin. But he kept a book written in Hebrew about the town with him until he died.

I ran back onto the bus and grabbed my disposable camera. I only had two pictures left. In my excitement\ anxiousness\ nervousness I took one of the ground. I composed myself and was able to snap a shot of a sign that said "Konin."

I put the camera back in my backpack and walked back outside. The faintest drizzle fell on me. I was surrounded by creepy looking people smoking in a bus station. I tried to draw meaning from the bizarre situation. A very attractive girl made eyes at me, but I ignored her, she wasn't my type anyway. Even if she would have been, I still would've ignored her.

I felt trapped. I couldn't wander far from the bus. I couldn't explore my family's past. Or, probably more accurately, I wasn't able to find out what Konin was like without us. I walked back onto the bus in frustration, still not knowing what to do. I grabbed the cd that Patricia gave me of Jewish music in Polish, Hebrew, and Yiddish. I listened to her favorite song first and then the rest of the album.

Soon the bus began moving again and Meet the Fockers came back on the tv.

Now I'm in Munich alone, trying to grapple with everything. It's a horrible feeling to be here. It seems so surreal. Surreal in a nightmarish way. Why do I have to deal with this? I don't want to right now. Give me a break.