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for your health!, 5m23s, 2021
"In Polish, 'Na Zdrowie!' (pronounced na-zdro-v-yey) translates to 'For Your Health!'
The phrase 'Na Zdrowie' is so heavily ingrained within my Polish culture, it's second nature whenever I hear it. It was said for toasting at my cousin’s wedding, coming back from church, praying, taught and learned by every visiting tourist and at every one of my birthday parties. Paradoxically, “Na Zdrowie” is the shock of seeing unconscious bodies laying in front of me on the dance floors while the folk band from Zakopane plays each song. Then, those bodies go to church for “confession” before going back to their routine of clinking shot glasses. The priests do the same thing. So do the shrinks.
'Na Zdrowie' brings up the memories of the same parents teaching their children to have a sip of Tyskie beer when they reach twelve-years-old, and their first shot of Żubrówka at seventeen-years-old. It becomes a generational routine for a ritual act of drinking. A generational ritual of normalizing this act of drinking could lead to something worse. Addiction. Or, more like, inherited addiction.
But on the other hand, I love Poland. I love MY Poland. I love her mountains, her folk songs, her smoked cheese, her sense of family, her warmth, her safety, her reassurance, her spirituality and how nurturing she is to me. She reminds me of my recently passed-on maternal grandmother. She raised me and my brother as her own, while both of my parents worked to make ends meet. I looked to her for understanding what it means to be open-minded and willing to unlearn.
Right now, I think it may be time to confront these repressed memories of the drinking culture that is prevalent in my family."
- Introduction excerpt taken from my thesis paper From Grief and Mourning to Reclaiming and Reconciliation (2021).
The phrase 'Na Zdrowie' is so heavily ingrained within my Polish culture, it's second nature whenever I hear it. It was said for toasting at my cousin’s wedding, coming back from church, praying, taught and learned by every visiting tourist and at every one of my birthday parties. Paradoxically, “Na Zdrowie” is the shock of seeing unconscious bodies laying in front of me on the dance floors while the folk band from Zakopane plays each song. Then, those bodies go to church for “confession” before going back to their routine of clinking shot glasses. The priests do the same thing. So do the shrinks.
'Na Zdrowie' brings up the memories of the same parents teaching their children to have a sip of Tyskie beer when they reach twelve-years-old, and their first shot of Żubrówka at seventeen-years-old. It becomes a generational routine for a ritual act of drinking. A generational ritual of normalizing this act of drinking could lead to something worse. Addiction. Or, more like, inherited addiction.
But on the other hand, I love Poland. I love MY Poland. I love her mountains, her folk songs, her smoked cheese, her sense of family, her warmth, her safety, her reassurance, her spirituality and how nurturing she is to me. She reminds me of my recently passed-on maternal grandmother. She raised me and my brother as her own, while both of my parents worked to make ends meet. I looked to her for understanding what it means to be open-minded and willing to unlearn.
Right now, I think it may be time to confront these repressed memories of the drinking culture that is prevalent in my family."
- Introduction excerpt taken from my thesis paper From Grief and Mourning to Reclaiming and Reconciliation (2021).
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2023 Veronica Spiljak, All Rights Reserved