at home in the woods

I arrived to Sanok to the warm embrace of my dear mother who I have not seen since my departure so many months ago. there is nothing like the feeling of home. Bykowce lies in southern Poland, not far from the town Sanok where my mom was raised with her 6 siblings and where I spent much of my childhood. my aunts, uncles and several of my many cousins remain in close proximity, and there is much activity and laughter filling this ancestral air. our villa is tucked away beneath the woods, designed and built 13 years ago by my mom and her brother Grzesio who lives here with my aunt Gosia and their daughter Dagmara. it is a beautiful life filled with simple pleasures. when my uncle is not healing the sick at the hospital or at home, he escapes to the woods to hunt, sometimes joined by another uncle Eligiusz, a forester. my hunting consists of picking berries in the garden while the rooster crows...I find refuge in the solemnity of the woods, the same woods where the Jews were saved by the local peasants during times of war, so many stories lay upon these lands...in this time which is told by the rising and falling of the sun, I have found quietude.