Farewell, Kraków

It was very difficult to leave Kraków.

Perhaps it’s getting more difficult to leave each place we stay.

Or perhaps like several of you have told us…

“Every now and then, you’ll just need to stop and rest awhile.”

So that’s what we have done in Kraków.

The crowds and holidays had been exciting.

And we’ve described what it’s meant to be re-connected with our kids and our Polish family.

But now we were on our own again – with no particular place we had to be…

…or time we had to be there.

One translation of the verse on this famous Kraków sundial could be: “Our days are like shadows on the earth, and none is abiding.”

Whether Chris has translated this verse accurately – or composed a new one of his own – this is how we’ve felt in Kraków.

The crowds were gone – and we wandered the streets like Krakówians ourselves.

Perhaps that’s how you really begin to know a place -- wandering without an agenda and without even imagining there’s a need to dream one up.

In the meantime, as Marcel Proust says, habit distills the essence of each moment into its own container – exactly when you might have thought you weren’t paying any attention at all.

Some of our moments in Kraków have been poignant

…and sublime

…while others have been filled with the memory of genocide -- in Kraków itself

…and not far outside of it.

On our last night, we wandered for a couple hours around the Rynek Główny, Kraków’s market square.

By now the details of each building

…had become dear to us.

When you’re sitting at a café or elsewhere on the Rynek Główny, you’re supposed to turn your seat so that you always have some view of Mariatski Church, dedicated to the Virgin.

A trumpeter had once announced the approach of an invading army from Mariatski’s tallest tower. The trumpeter was pierced through the throat and killed as he played, but his warning had come in time, and Kraków had been saved.

On the hour now, a trumpet plays this hejnal out into the four directions once again – and cuts it off short each time – in honor of the trumpeter of long ago.

Farewell, Kraków, the trumpet seems to say.

A few hours later, in the early morning, we crossed the Rynek Główny a final time, made our way to the airport -- and then waited on the runway for awhile.

When the plane lifted off, Kraków fell as far away behind us

…as if it had only ever been a dream.

But Debi wants to remind us that Kraków is a city of angels.

…and that angels can appear at any time and in any form.

We crossed the Rynek Główny at 6 am the day before yesterday.

That same afternoon, we found ourselves walking in an entirely different land.

In the matter of a few hours, we had come from one land of the Black Madonna

…to another

…from Mariatski Church in Kraków

…to Notre Dame de Chartres.

Happy New Year -- from Krakow

Or as it is called here...Sylwester's Day.

Our daughters had flown home in the morning...

...which left Matt and Nate and the two of us to celebrate.

That is, the four of us and 100,000 other souls squeezed into Rynek Główny -- the medieval market square -- in Krakow.

The thermometer said that it was -10 Celsius outside. That's 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

But the crowded bodies, and their internal fuel, raised the temperature in the square considerably.

Hopefully, your celebration was safe and festive as well.

And may your New Year be blessed.