Making Lists...Checking them twice

So, when I got back to Warsaw from Vienna today, I had the most perfect present waiting for me. Liz! She will be my partner in crime/life coach/spine/crutches until September 9. And I need it! Already, she has done so much for me just by being in my presence. The hardest part of all of this is that I feel so far away from my life -- a life that I feel like other people are busy dismantling, while I am here, unable to do anything. Sometimes I really do feel like I'm caught in a bad dream and it's hard to get a grasp on who I am, where I am, and what is really happening to me. But seeing her, I feel secure and safe again, and I realize that it's all OK. We napped. I wrote. We walked. Ate Thai food. And then Liz gave me a haircut -- the perfect cure, somehow. And now, I'm really ready to put myself entirely back into this project. At least, to the best of my ability. I need that more than anything, right now.

Work is also saving me at the moment. I just got the edits back for the book I'm writing with Steven Tatar for the Ohio Knitting Mills, which will be coming out sometime next year on Artisan Books. The 96-page manuscript is due back by August 31! This should be interesting as I'll be collaborating over Skype. Oh, you modern times! I'm also meeting with the Head Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich tomorrow to talk about all things Jewish! More research...and more writing. Never done. Which is good. It's very odd because, though I've never felt worse in my life, somehow, I'm being the most productive and efficient. I'm going to bed at a reasonable hour (for me) and waking up before 10. I'm eating regularly. Drinking lots of herbal teas. Walking. And writing everyday, which is such a chore for me at home, for some reason. Maybe it's that my body knows it has to be extra good to itself right now. I must say, it does feel like my heart was ripped out of my body -- through my back, to be specific. Massages!

Which brings me to my list. I love writing lists. An excellent day for me starts with a list and then ends with all of my tasks complete. It's my personal OCD behavior...and it always makes me feel better. Shopping lists. Research lists. Gratitude lists. Yesterday, a good friend really gave it to me. "Denise," she said. "You really need to sit down and do a gratitude list, because you're lucky. You've got a lot. You do."

And she was right.

So, Liz and I have written yet another list! It is our sort of bucket list a la broken hearted in Europe kind of deal, with a Jewish, research-y, edge. And a nice lack of self destruction, for once. Nice, right? So, our job is to knock all of the following off our list before she leaves on September 9:

- Visit Krakow for 2 days (when Erin comes in September!)

- Day trip to Lodz (home of the Film School that produced Roman Polanski!)

- Treblinka (where Great-Grandpa died)

- Trawniki (the concentration camp where great-grandma was for a year, before escaping. According to Yad Vashem, she was only one of two women to survive Trawniki)

- Auschwitz

- Get my Polish Citizenship!!! (Thanks Mom!)

- Get our nails did, Eastern Block style

- Massage!

- Get rubbings of the family's gravestone

- Visit the archives for birth/death/marriage certificates for the Rossenwasser/Mesz/Sterenstreit clans

- Visit Old Town and Chlodna 25

- Go to Hoza Street for gallery row

- Visit the old flea market and art spaces in Praga

- Feed old Kaiser rolls to the birds

- Go back to Vienna with Liz!

- Make dresses for Vienna with the awesome African fabrics Liz brought from NYC

- Attend at least one concert in the park -- preferably Frascatti

- Take a bike tour of Warsaw

- Visit the Primeval forest

- Milk Bar X 10! (Milk Bars are sort of the Polish equivalent to American's diners. They are an old Soviet thang, serving up cheap Polish comfort food!)

- Swimming in the city!

- Running in the park

- Picnic in the park

- Find grandma's children's book, Powrot Krasnoludkow, published in 1948, at an antique bookstore (there are so many!)

- The Warsaw Festival of Jewish Culture!!!

- Rosh Hashanah (a time for new beginnings)

- Buy a classic Polish tea set (you know -- the kind with glasses in metal holders? Vintage, preferably!)

- The botanical garden!

- The Warsaw Zoo

I will let you know how we do!