Lisbon is chaotic, boring, overflown with sun. My legs, especially feet are sunburn, and sore from the plastic flip-flops. The longest, laziest vacations of my life are going through their third month.
I miss Leiden so dearly that I cry, and open the box of cosmetic jelly that I once bought in Haarlemerstraat, and sniff it to feel, at least for a brief moment, the luxury, the abundance, the cleanness of the Netherlands. There is practically no more jelly in it, just the smell of a better life. I miss reading books in Oriental studies, theological treaties, things deep and complex, stuffed with Arabic terms transcribed neatly, with lots of dots and diacritics. 
I restored my relations with Poland, since the predictions for the country are a whole lot better than they were only a fortnight ago. There is an upward surge, and the things might take up a new turn as soon as the coming month. Yet another mirage? 
In any case, as I restore those relations and make new projects, I feel an etching. I was elated with them only for a brief moment. But when I get down to the street, I feel confusion (in strict, psychiatric assertion of the term). I suppose it is an intuitive indication coming from the depths, telling me something is wrong, I've taken up the wrong turn, I've messed things up.
What I actually want to do is something else. To delete my Facebook contacts completely, make a blank page. To remove all the e-mails from my inbox. Except those few coming from Leiden and Oxford. 
I feel restless like a migrating bird in a cage, when its time comes to fly south. I want to go home. Home standing for the world of those big universities where I belong. With different kind of people, different kind of social relationships, different kind of friends. Different kind of knowledge. Different kind of writing.
I remember from old times having read that the consummation of any success depends on whether or not the person in question is able to modify radically her social network; it is the condition of a true change. If the high achiever fails to do this, she will remain in her old context, working below her possibilities, bitter and frustrated. Which seems to be my case.
There is a chance that, after all those adventures, all that heroic effort at acquiring competence and scholarship, I might return to Warsaw, the city I hate, the city where I couldn't live, the city where I couldn't even breathe. For another ten years, like those at "Artes Liberales". And after those ten years, it would be game over for me. I would be old, frustrated, bitter, worn out, beyond repair. 
There is that tale of Kafka, about a man standing in front of the Door of the Law. And the angel saying: it was open all the time. And now it is too late.
This is why my skin etches, and I feel confusion when I get down to those Lisbon streets, so familiar to me for 27 years. 
Overall, this is a march against reality. I have a very nice stay in Paris in front of me, and a fancy plan to go to Bucharest later on. Everything is just hunky-dory. I have time to ask for new opportunities, including Oxford. It is feasible to return to Leiden, buy a house in Leiden, even if it would mean getting on slowly paying for it. Everything is feasible. 
So what is my problem? Lacking faith in me? In my talent and competence? Lacking determination?
I shouldn't have left Leiden, in the first place. I should have remained there in December. I should have stuck my claws in that Batavian earth.
And now I cry: home, home, co bitterly homeless. But home is no more. There is no home in Poland any more, even if Trzaskowski wins. 
There is only one direction to fly, as my inner compass indicates. The only home is the one to be. 

My dreams have been so clear and well-defined since a long time. A house with a garden and a library in Leiden, Oxford, travels, various universities of the world for my research stays. Beautiful books in English, somewhere between two G's, George Steiner and Giorgio Agamben. 
The only difference is that now I open my wings to go for them. Embrace them, accept them to come. 
Old writings are about to be published, one by one, across the coming months. Nothing, or very little, on stock. I'm ready to open a new chapter, as I contemplate the waves, splashing, building up Turner's maritime mists. My right arm is sunburned, and aching in spite of various layers of argan oil. 

I got up early today, and I wrote a little paper for Sjani, a complit journal in Georgia. Yes, Georgia in the Caucasus. About Ali und Nino. It was supposed to be a relaxing little work, but I feel my bulk heavy, still. The paper is ponderous in style. I will perhaps improve it a little bit tomorrow. Anyway, here it is.
I made arrangements for France. I will stay in a spacious flat in Neuville-sur-Oise, gym, cleaning and fresh towels included in the price. There is RER, two supermarkets, a mosque, and even a lake to swim at a distance of less than 1 km. 
My life is a permanent vacation. I stay in Lisbon now, I spend my days laying in front of Carmona columns on the river. The mimosas are in full blossom. And when this is over, I go to luxurious Neuville-sur-Oise, cleaning, gym and mosque included in the price. And in exchange of all this endless privilege, I am to write complit papers for the rest of my life. 
There was a 19th-century poem in Portuguese, I think they even wrote it on azulejos in one of the metro stations here. How was it?
   
              E se eu não morresse nunca, e eternamente
                     Buscasse e conseguisse a perfeição das coisas...

I've talked about a position of an ordinarius at the University of Warsaw, in 2021 or so. If the country is safe, and it would be a safety net. I give them less than 30% chance that they will actually offer me the job, but there is no harm in talking; at least I will see how exact are my predictions. As I said, I'm actually more hopeful about becoming an Oxford professor than gaining real influence and respect anywhere in Poland. But it hurts me little. Oxford is a nice little place, after all; it has a river just like Oise. I should accept it, embrace it. This is where complit essayists go. 
Who knows, perhaps this vacation will actually never end. And I will live on and on and on upon my complit papers, sort of George Steiner. I remember this is what I wanted, that was my aspiration twenty-seven years ago, when I came to this city for the first time, in 1993. And my complit papers will flow and flow and flow, my English undulating, crisp and fresh and fast, on and on and on, just like Imam al-Ossi's Quranic recitation. I've built up a true attachment to it. It is truly my first language now. I might still make grammar mistakes, or simply built up some idiolectal traits of mine, but I don't care. I am in full possession of it, in full unity with it. 

When summoned in the purity of heart, I never fail to appear, said the Crimson Angel, and took my burden from me.

Today, I have been walking unburdened in the City of Men. Like all cities with an important immigrant population, Lisbon has visibly more men than women, although unfortunately Arabs are very few. For some reason, most of them come from Greater India: Pakistanis, Nepalis, etc., together with the obvious black African population. The natives are sometimes nicely built and big eyed, but they are in general tiny men, too small for me. Some of the Pakistanis might be the best option under the circumstances, but I sorely miss the noblest race (as defined by al-Mutannabi). 
Meanwhile, I still listen to Imam al-Ossi emotional recitation that goes on undulating and fast and crisp like a mountain stream. He has the crystalline voice of a desert shab (roughly the equivalent of the Greek term ephebos), while he actually grew up from shab to the kind of almond-eyed Arab I wouldn't like to meet in a narrow street of Amsterdam - just as I wouldn't like to meet a fully grown tiger, lion or leopard. Various of his pious clips count millions of views. I wonder how many women across the Islamic world see him as the living perfection of a man upon the face of the earth. Perhaps in twenty years, when the Crimson Angel comes for them, those Sekielski brothers from Poland, who now try in vain to scandalise their Catholic public with yet another guilty bishop, might make a more persuasive movie on women who love imams. 
I still dream of white horses. It's a long time I didn't ride and never truly felt I might miss it so bitterly. I dream about white horses in undulating gallop, tails in the wind. 
I dream of swarthy men, galloping in the wind, wild, untamed, beautiful.

Waiting for the Night of Destiny. The sweetest, the calmest of all nights. I wish one of those Islamic, crimson angels comes down to take my burden from me. I kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. That was originally the wish of a son of a drunken father, in a Polish movie. I see it vaster, more general.

Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie.

Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie.

Sylwunio did not actually wish his father die, even if it was of this that he felt guilty later on. Similarly, I do not wish Poland die. I wouldn't bring a foreign invasion upon it. I wouldn't like it to be hit by an asteroid. I do not want it to be sick with coronavirus more than it is. I just want it out of my head.

Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie.Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie.Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie.Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. Kiedy się obudzę, ciebie już nie będzie. 

I will be alone, in my own life, in my own Europe, unburdened. Poland will be just an exotic place in the East where I once travelled. I travelled in many better, more interesting places, Morocco, Ukraine, Malaysia. Empty, sometimes jarzębina and gnarled apple trees. Melancholic landscape of swamps that are no more. Climate change. Nothing but a bowl of dust right now. 

The state of exception in Poland did not happen. Photos from Polish elections found its place in the section dedicated to humorous events. As I heard, a new idiomatic expression is born to the German language: Polnische Wählen, together with the old idiom Polnische Wirtschaft.
Perhaps even the current government will finally smash the wall. The wu-wei approach of the European Union will prove to be the right strategy. The problem will be washed away by Time. Headless, disorganised, frenetic Poland will continue where it used to be. To let it go would mean to open an ugly gap on the map between Germany and Baltic countries. This is why the gaping chaos will be filled with massive transfers of ready money, just like the gaping void caused by the explosion in Chernobyl was once filled with liquid concrete.
The expected catastrophe has failed to happen. Or rather, it did happen, but not as spectacular as expected. A clumsy catastrophe, not a beautiful one. Far below the level that would grant us our own five minutes on Al-Jazeera.
All my predictions were wrong, and in a way they were perfectly true. And here I am, knowing what I knew all the time. That there is no way back. Even if the government is replaced, the mentality will remain. I will find no place of my own in any Polish university. And of course, no sufficient money to live even this hippie lifestyle of mine. This is why I will go to Paris now, and go on with the planning. I will sell my apartment in Kraków, buy a house in the Netherlands, bring my books there. Acquire a citizenship that I might identify with. Become a stakeholder of a solid reality. Such a reality that might frame my work, grant me healthcare, security for my old age, mahogany bookshelves for my library.
And here I am, the erudite, the scholar. The only burden to carry is this, my erudition, my scholarship. The mission of writing. Just this. In a sunny afternoon of Lisbon, marble pavement under my feet.

Yesterday I got the confirmation of my stay in France. Good tidings that made me feel a different person immediately. There will be quail once again, and more, there will be cod fish to eat today. I could even buy another book. 
And more than this, there will be no need to return to the old country. "Gazeta Wyborcza" has loosened its grip on my mind. I ceased to care, ceased to follow every single opinion article. Especially those predicting the emergence of a new class of paupers, of what we would be unable to buy. 
In fact, my life might be consolidating right in the middle of the widening gyre. I might finally be cut from what has caused my stagnation in recent years: the habits of writing in Polish, publishing in Poland, trying to keep the things upright in Poland. No, things will never stand upright in Poland. I always knew it, and nonetheless I tried over and over and over again. In January, February, beginning March 2020, I was falling once again in the old trap. Writing in Polish again, preparing a lecture in PAU again. The virus cut the line in the last moment. If the pandemic didn't happen, all my European career might become an unfulfilled adventure very soon. Unwillingly, they might actually end up employing me at the Jagiellonian University. And I would be bogged, back to the very beginning of everything. 
Instead, I'll be packing for Paris in a couple of months. That's a soft landing. And then I will make new projects, go to Oxford, as I always wanted. Stay in Vienna, in Emirates, even on Iceland. Have the life I always dreamed about, a house in Leiden, OK, at least in Alphen, included in the deal. 
My dreams always used to come so smoothly to me. Because I dream so modestly? No, not at all. Nothing was modest there where I come from. Perhaps because I managed to identify very early the life I want and to which I was born. And I put my hand on it already as a child, in the eighth or ninth year of my life. Books, travels, foreign languages, knowledge and competence. And yes, I do believe I will be a decent Orientalist. That last dream will be fulfilled as well. And I say this after two months in which my cotton brain couldn't digest even a single new word of Arabic. 
But now the ponderous albatross caught the draft under its wings once again. To cross half of the planet in a single flight.