Would I live in the United States again if I could afford it on my freelance wages? Yes. So would my boyfriend, a native New Yorker, who has worked as a jazz drummer his entire life. We miss our families. We miss our language. We miss our culture. But until a place is made for us and others like us who have fled to Europe in order to survive, that dream is a rainbow that vanishes the moment you think you’ve found it.
Thank you for this article. I also wanted to fill you in on the background of the second photo. The mural in Łódź, Poland is of my dad, Janusz Głowacki, who was a Polish-American writer. The mural was painted by a Polish artist, Andrzej Pągowski, after my dad passed away suddenly in 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/theater/janusz-glowacki-dead-polish-playwright.html. "Głowa" was his nickname, a shorted version of his last name and it also means "head" in Polish. So the closest translation I can come up with is "And how can we keep living without our heads?/without Głowacki?'
Portland is experiencing much of the same problem, with artists/writers/musicians being priced out of the market and being forced to flee to more affordable markets. Political cartoonist Matt Bors comes to mind. He ended up having to move to a small town in Ontario...and he's a fairly well-known name in his field.
I'm fortunate in that I don't have the financial pressures most creative types do, but if I was living by myself, there's no way I'd be able to do anything but work to support myself...and my writing would suffer for it. I'm no Tom Friedman or Eugene Robinson, but I think I have something to add to the public discussion.
The problem is that America is a country that loves and enjoys consuming the work of artists, musicians, and writers...it just doesn't want to pay for it. What if we all decided we want to drive cars but didn't want to pay for them? It's the same thing, yet few see anything wrong with it.
Thank you for this article. I also wanted to fill you in on the background of the second photo. The mural in Łódź, Poland is of my dad, Janusz Głowacki, who was a Polish-American writer. The mural was painted by a Polish artist, Andrzej Pągowski, after my dad passed away suddenly in 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/theater/janusz-glowacki-dead-polish-playwright.html. "Głowa" was his nickname, a shorted version of his last name and it also means "head" in Polish. So the closest translation I can come up with is "And how can we keep living without our heads?/without Głowacki?'
Portland is experiencing much of the same problem, with artists/writers/musicians being priced out of the market and being forced to flee to more affordable markets. Political cartoonist Matt Bors comes to mind. He ended up having to move to a small town in Ontario...and he's a fairly well-known name in his field.
I'm fortunate in that I don't have the financial pressures most creative types do, but if I was living by myself, there's no way I'd be able to do anything but work to support myself...and my writing would suffer for it. I'm no Tom Friedman or Eugene Robinson, but I think I have something to add to the public discussion.
The problem is that America is a country that loves and enjoys consuming the work of artists, musicians, and writers...it just doesn't want to pay for it. What if we all decided we want to drive cars but didn't want to pay for them? It's the same thing, yet few see anything wrong with it.
Stay there....it is just getting worse. I can't wait to leave for Costa Rica and start living again myself. The food is better there too.
How thrilling to learn who is in the mural in Łódź. I got chills reading this and can’t help but think it’s a full circle moment.
Love your work. I always learn something when I read your stories and see your beautiful photographs. 📸