Dear Stranger: My letter to the world on the theme of happiness (Mind Charity)

"Dear Stranger is a collection of inspirational, honest and heartfelt letters from authors, bloggers and Mind ambassadors to an imagined stranger. Insightful and uplifting, Dear Stranger is a humbling glimpse into different interpretations of happiness, and how despite sometimes seeming unobtainable happiness can, in the smallest of ways, become and achievable goal..."

...And when I read that summary provided on the Penguin website it seems that with the positive messages in the book, provided by the collection of writers, many of whom I greatly respect, that happiness which – to me – so often – does seem unattainable (or it does when I define it as being the end of depression) – starts to feel less vaporous.

Click here to buy Dear Stranger on Amazon.co.uk

Reading further on Mind’s website, the book describes the letters as a collection of the thoughts of a number of (named) authors, who “offer their innermost thoughts on what happiness means to them.”

After a lovely meeting today with someone who represents one of the clients which the company I work for works with to talk about what we are doing as a firm about our approach to raising awareness and lessening stigma around mental health, I offer this small missive to the world of the city, as my wish for happiness in the strange world in which I work.

Dear stranger,

This is a story about two little girls who grew up. Both began life as little girls who liked running around, reading stories and singing nursery rhymes. One of the little girls had bad nightmares, though, and found sleeping often terrifying. The other little girl loved imagination and reading and creating stories, and could sing nursery rhymes with all the actions almost as soon as she could talk.

The little girls went off to school. One of the little girls loved school, she loved painting and writing and playing hopscotch. She learned to wink from the dinner lady Mrs. Keene and loved using it as part of her cheeky personality. The other girl cried when she was dropped off at school. She didn't want to leave her mother and spend the day in the company of other children or adults who were not safe. She sometimes got horrible headaches and couldn't wait for the day to be over so she could go home.

The girls went to junior school. The first little girl wrote a poem about a daffodil which was put up on the wall. She learned to play the piano and the trumpet, she sang songs in the playground at break time and played ball games and elastic band games and cats' cradle. She made lots of friends and had great fun learning to roller skate, ballet (and then giving up ballet because it was boring to "point and close" on and on), ice skate, horse ride and take part in the school's winning speech and drama group. She could run and swim really well. Breast stroke was her best stroke. Once she showed all the other girls how to do it because her teacher singled her out as one of the best swimmers.

The second little girl was scared of the playground. She was made to stand on the playground wall all break time by three older girls and wasn't allowed to get down. It happened every playtime and in the end, she pretended to be ill and asked for permission not to go to school. She didn't say why. Her parents didn't find out for a while that she was being bullied. Aged nine it happened again with a different bully. The second little girl thought it was probably get fault, because she had, after all, been bullied before. She started to believe there must be something wrong with her. She also couldn't breathe very well and often felt too tired to go to school. Eventually she was diagnosed with asthma and started to have trouble with sports.

At senior school the first little girl made more friends and enjoyed the new clubs, the different subjects and the new uniform. She made sure she understood the right tights to wear, the right shoes, bag and everything else. She went to sleepover parties and pool parties and all sorts of other parties. She met boys at the boys' school, and enjoyed life in the "big" school. She found it exciting to be growing up. She enjoyed swimming and drama, she loved going to the cinema. She didn't always work hard at all her subjects but she still did pretty well in her school exams, especially in English and Latin, her favourite subjects. Her teachers told her she was doing well and could do very well. She knew she could do well enough in the subjects she cared about and she didn't try too hard at the other subjects because she didn't want the teachers to push her too much and stop her having fun.

The second little girl found it hard to adjust to big school. She got very tired and overwhelmed by all the new teachers. It was hard to learn every different teacher's sets of rules. It was hard to manage all the homework. She found it frightening and tiring to be growing up. It was hard. She found homework confusing and exhausting at times. She didn't get top marks in her exams. Sometimes she did badly. Her teachers told her she wasn't working hard enough. She needed to work harder. She tried to please the teachers but sometimes she found it too hard and because she didn't concentrate in lessons or understand everything, and because she was often too ill with asthma she had to go to hospital and she fell behind.

These little girls have different lists of achievements, as you can see, and on they went. One of them went to university and got a degree. She got a job with a prestigious graduate charity and then a job in the city, all in her twenties.The other one had health problems with stress, grief, depression and anxiety throughout her twenties and got a degree with difficulty. They both fell in love with a wonderful man, but one of them - now a young woman - seemed to find it easier to have a great time and enjoy every moment together; the other young woman was plagued by anxieties about herself and worried about their relationship frequently. One was promoted several times at work, worked internationally and was recognised a number of times for her achievements; the other found the depression returning at intervals and spent some holidays resting in bed for fear of confessing her illness to a world she feared would not understand, and because she could not accept the weaknesses and failures she saw in herself.

So, reader, what do you think happened to those two little girls? As you have probably guessed, because you are wise and discerning, and used to stories like these, those two little girls were one and the same. In fact those two little girls grew up to be me.

Now you will say to me, "Writer, you have not told a tale of happiness, which I thought was your purpose?" And I will say this to you: I read my own story back again and again, and I remind myself that I am the happy little girl alongside the sad; I am the confident high achiever alongside the shy, fearful and tearful teenager. I am the woman who has made a successful career in spite of suffering episodic depression, anxiety and trauma. I am she. 

When I need a reminder of the definition of happiness, I can look at parts of my own life. (And when I want a reminder of sadness and hurt, I can do the same, but enough of that for now.) I shall celebrate the happiness when I can, and be thankful for every happy moment past, present, and yet to come. And throughout my life, as you have seen, there have been threads and strands and patches of happiness, alongside any sadness you may see or know of. So, please, dear stranger, remember that. And lastly, I wish a wish for you: yards of happiness of your own, among all the threads of sorrow. Keep looking backwards and forwards for happiness because it can and will find you, somehow, somewhere, and treat others with the kindness that you try to show yourself.

With love, Jessica

Poland. Resilient and Proud. I have a lot to learn.

Palace of Culture and Learning (Pałac Kultury i Nauki)

On arrival in Warsaw I asked Mat how long Warsaw had been the capital. He couldn’t answer (I was sort of expecting this) because a country that has so often been occupied by others, dominated and restructured (read – pulled into pieces and put back together again according to the wills (whims?) of other dominating nations, during frequent periods of war and – in particular – when obliterated by the Nazi occupation between 1939 and 1940.

Some Indication of Changes in Poland over time

One might think that Poland might be a country with an identity crisis, having been subjugated so many times; that it would have lost its personality and its people would have no common features to characterise them as a nation. The opposite of this is the alternative: to cling faithfully to certain features of Polish heritage, and it seems that Poland opted for the latter. If Poland is God’s Playground, then throughout all of the games Poland is resilient and persistent in her will to survive. (And however much I satirised aspects of Poland in a previous post, it is this resilience and survival which stands out as Poland’s most imposing feature.)

St Paul's Cathedral, London. (Rebuilt at least twice, with different designs

in contrast with the Polish reconstructions of their lost cities

In Britain I consider we have a great number of beautiful buildings with truly artisanal architecture. The mighty ones: St Paul’s Cathedral, Hampton Court Palace, Salisbury Cathedral, the great castles of Wales and Scotland. And the humble: Cotswold cottages, dry stone walls throughout the Peak District, alms houses, which can be found throughout the country, and so on.

Warsaw Old Square

The Poles also have their many, many beautiful buildings – the presidents’ residences in Warsaw are impressive, so too the Opera house and the stone apartment blocks (kamienice) and beautiful, colourful buildings flanking the town square. But what sets Poland apart from Britain is that all the buildings I have just mentioned are reconstructions of buildings which were destroyed in the mass assault on Warsaw by Nazi Germany (you’ll also find this in Budapest and much of previously Nazi occupied Europe). The photographs of the (then) devastated city show shells of buildings, their insides brutally excavated and the once orderly, majestic buildings a crematoria and necropolis of shelled ruins, stone rubble in mounds throughout the few surviving partial structures. Would we really have rebuilt all of our structures – rebuilt our history – if our structures and surroundings were wiped out or tried again and again?

Poland in Ruins

Poland is often referred to as God’s Playground because of the enormous struggles it has been through as a country. Mat and I have been meaning to visit for years, since he taught in one of the university cities, Toruń, for a year and loves Poland.

Warsaw's Old Square, by night

Today, visiting Warsaw’s main ‘old square’ there is no evidence of this destruction, apart from the many stone and metal commemorative plaques to be found frequently at the sides of buildings. After the Second World War, a war in which 1/5 of the Polish population died, I considered whether there was enough left of Poland or the old ‘Poland’ to move forward without losing the history of the place, and its defining features. I considered this, but realised it could not be true. The stunning historical buildings of the town square that were shelled to the ground now stand again. The cornices and details of the architecture have been re-built, the gold and colourful paintings on the buildings have been replaced, the cobbles re-laid. From what I have seen – Kraków and Warsaw - Poland is a phoenix, rising again and again from the ashes of its persecution.

Kraków view from the castle

If I can see anything that can be called ‘positive’ in some way emerging from such horrors as Poland has suffered throughout its entire existence, it is in this resilience and refusal to be maimed by its misfortunes. I have both insufficient room here and certainly insufficient expertise, here, to cover Poland’s many, many struggles; suffice to say that I have now visited the Jewish Museum in Warsaw, Schindler’s Factory in Kraków and the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps, and I need a few years of reading purely Polish history to have a hope of understanding to any full extent the multitude of troubles this country has undergone. But the Poles got up and rebuilt their cities. They applied and have passed on their master craftsmanship to enable them to build the elaborate homes, churches, synagogues, municipal buildings, statue and the furniture and interiors to accompany them.

Warsaw Old Town Wall

I wouldn’t have the first idea whom to ask in Britain to build me a 19^th century style stone colonnade, but I’m guessing there would be many master craftsmen in Poland who could undertake this. Craftsmen in the true sense of that word still thrive in Poland. I guess I have been trying over the last year to rebuild myself; I'm not even doing well at that! I might still be here and look alright on the outside, but I could blow over like a stalk of corn in the wind...

Auschwitz

Mass consumerism is visible everywhere, more present (Mat tells me) today than ten or twenty years ago and there is a culture of hard work (i.e. that work isn't always fun or the ideal) where people take the jobs which are available to support themselves, unlike many Britons who apparently would prefer welfare than a job which appears to them to be degrading or distasteful. Of course, I visited as a tourist, and only saw two of Poland’s major cities rather than rural areas or smaller towns. It's striking and impressive that Poland is carries on, despite its challenges.

Kraków Old Town Square

Some recommended places we visited on our trip are listed below, which you may want to look into if you’re planning a trip to Poland. However, although so many things were fascinating, beautiful and delicious, my main takeaway from Poland is to be impressed by the resilience and ability to be flexible in the face of so very many challenges, and to be regenerating and yet maintaining its chequered history. How many of us could be so resilient and maintain an identity as a culture or as a family, or as individuals? I think not many. I have a lot to learn from Poland.

Museums to visit:

Birkenau

• The Jewish Museum, Warsaw. Allow at least three hours for your visit, wear very comfortable shoes, and plan to do this historical / educational activity as your only one for the day of your visit, as there is so much to absorb in this multi-media, imaginative presentation of the history of Judaism in Poland from the earliest origins to the present day.
• The Uprising Museum, Warsaw. We didn’t get to this, but again, as above, there is much to learn of the role of Warsaw in fighting against the Nazi invasion.
• Auschwitz and Birkenau (two camps, which you visit as part of a single guided tour). You will need almost a full day for this (you'll leave around 9 and return for the late afternoon). I have read and learned a lot of this period in history, and of Auschwitz before. Following so many tourists around the site de-sensitised me to the impact of this place, now not a place where 'work makes you free' but where everyone is free to come and go as they wish. I'm privileged to have been able to visit it. 
• Schindler’s Factory, Kraków. Allow two hours at least for your visit, again, wear comfortable shoes and make this your one educational activity for the day. There is a carefully plotted chronological journey through Kraków’s experience of occupation and persecution and a good documentary film about the factory itself, featuring a handful of survivors who worked there during WWII. I didn’t find there was enough information about Schindler and the factory – I expected much more emphasis on this – but it was still a very interesting museum. There is less translation of various aspects of the exhibits into English, so if possible a guide or audio guide would assist if you want to absorb absolutely everything.