That sort of medley of events attracted me to Cambridge in first place and years later this fragment of the World became my home.
It was a warm evening so I went towards a river Cam for no other reason than to be around, when sun is setting down and mute swans are herding their cygnets to nest for the night. As I didn’t want to interfere in their intimate relation I strolled towards Magdalene College, walking by the edge of Jesus Green. It was then that a man in his thirties, but with long, greying hair approached me. So I stopped, but as soon as I turned towards him, he had fallen into a momentous hesitation, a gap in his decision-making processes. Suddenly, as if pushed from within by a stronger force, he described himself in a most elegant language as a former homeless person who, because of his personal convictions became an impoverished outsider, briefly a drug addict and a very lonely man without love or friendship. He was not overbearing at all, and lapsed from time to time into insecurities arising from our brief relation. He was just given a chance, a chance to have his own bed under a common roof. “This bed is my home”, he said proudly, while giving me a shy, slightly uncertain gaze. “I will settle now and one day I will have a family”, he added, but voice gave away his awareness of the intimidating conditions, he found himself in. On this note he decided to bit me farewell and walked forward with great urgency towards Midsummer Common. I looked at his striding figure, wondering if he would ever be a happy man.
I do not know. But I also knew the intensity of passion, the power, which may help to structure one's life out of bits in hand.
At some point of my life I too was close to sleeping rough, but managed to find a tiny flat to rent, on the very edge of a large estate, in Nowa Huta, home to thousands of steel mill workers, most of whom grew up in small villages near Krakow, in Poland. My flat, on the fifth floor, exactly above the entrance, was placed in a symmetrical centre of that block of one hundred flats. It was perfectly contradictory to my childhood home, which was a street away from the Market Place, the epicentre of the Old Town, but now five miles away.
All my neighbours worked shifts in a vast, monstrous, industrial complex, which bulged dark smog, while I was a rebellious artist and not shy about it. They were for real and I was alien. They did all proper things and I put paintings on a ceiling and windows.
I felt banished from the excitement of all what inspired me at that time, while they often let me know, that I am an intruder in their midst. Yes, I had a place to sleep with five flats above my head, but in my mind I was homeless.
One day my urban friends decided to come over to see my den and to cheer me up. While I was making dark, thick, Georgian tea, Joanna was cutting a chocolate cake, they brought, Mark was repairing a broken toilet and Yola was looking through the window at a green field with one remaining peasant’s shack in a middle of it.
- I feel at home – she said.
- Do you?! – I was astonished.
Later on we went for a walk, towards that dwelling still inhabited by a couple with three sons. Yola talked to them and I took some photographs of Joanna.
Subsequently we ended up visiting Yola’s friends, who just moved into a converted loft in a block near by.
Twelve or so hours later, while I was walking back to my flat at sunrise, I passed a neighbour on his way to work.
- Good morning – he said
- It should be a lovely one – and I nodded my head
It was the day when I took a large painting off the window.
Cambridge: Canon Digital IXUS 100 IS
Nowa Huta: Pentacon Six with Ilford HP4
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