We ran into the Avon Lady again the other day. As always in these cases, I was with her neighbor and – again as always in these cases – we saw her son first. He greeted his neighbor, looked a question at me as though he wasn’t quite sure whether to talk to me or not and then decided to ignore me. He’s a thirteen-year-old boy, so I’m not holding anything against him. 

His mother was a whole different story. Standing on top of the stairs she called out to her neighbor, even though she had seen us both come her way. 

I did what I always do in those situations, and marched straight past her without saying a word. It might seem petty but judging by her behavior the last time I saw her, I wasn’t going to get a reply. She barely paused for air, in the middle of telling her neighbor that she really should go down into the basement to admire the graffiti work her son had left there. Avon Lady practically owned that house, because she had lived there consistently for the past 40+ years. All the other old-timers had already died, so she saw herself as the Queen of the building, by virtue of being the longest-residing local. So what’s a little graffiti on the walls late at night when everyone’s home trying to go to sleep despite the fumes wafting through the doors possibly causing asthmatic reactions in those tenants deeply allergic to paints.

I did have issues in one high school, where the artistic group didn’t exist, so that there was no one to really talk to, or hang out with. And it was the same in Germany. No one was artistic like that around me, but in my middle school years and my last three years at a German school, I had friends who connected with my artistic side and while I was acting and writing, my religious best friend was an amazing artist. She didn’t talk about it much, but the fact that it was there at all was enough. Teens and preteens still have that telepathic understanding, before it gets taken out of them (or in some cases also developed further). 

All of which made me realize many years down the road that I really don’t do well with a conservative mindset where everything is set in stone and nothing is fluid. Because there is very little to no room for creative development unless it fits into the prewritten laws, rules and regulations created by this particular society. And in my experience it is way easier to find a conservative mind(set) in Poland and my father’s cultures of origin. Using the plural as much for the religious aspects as the countries, since my father was born right after his region was ceded to another country, effectively making its people at the very least bicultural. 

Though technically, wouldn’t this mean that the region in question should be more open, considering it comprised at least three main cultures alongside the culture of the land they were in? And yet, the people I’ve met from there – regardless of which culture they identified with – have tended to come down on the conservative side, with very few exceptions. Yet my favorite city in Poland is also a cross-cultural cocktail, like my father’s place of birth, and yet it has struck me as the most progressive and open-minded place I’ve seen in Poland so far. 

Perhaps this is because it set out to spread ideas by attracting thinkers of all directions, whereas my father’s region was built on people lured there with promises of land they could till and live off. Is it really as simple as everything new being scary because  every unknown could spell a disaster and rob you off your livelihood? 

Are cross-cultural regions to which people were lured with promises of getting their own plot of land they can till to their heart’s content and in which people are very connected to their land by circumstance or / and choice really more conservative than cross-cultural regions building on acquiring and spreading knowledge via their universities?

Of course what seems so simplistic really goes deeper. And this is another reason why I really like digging well beneath the surface. What makes your connection to the land so powerful that you distrust outside forces? Is it really the fear of the unknown because you have never (really) experienced it? Can the quest and thirst for knowledge really lead you into dangerous territory that will ultimately lead to your destruction (and the destruction of those around you)?