Before You Read

Welcome to The Childhood We Never Thought to Miss.

If you’re new here, I invite you to begin with Part 1, where my journey through childhood in Poland begins. If you’ve read the previous chapter, this story continues from the moment we ran into the courtyard. 

Now, let’s step outside once again…

Standing proudly in the middle of our courtyard was something every Polish child of my generation remembers instantly, even if the rest of the world has never seen one. It was a sturdy metal frame built for hanging heavy carpets so they could be beaten clean with long wicker beaters. Adults saw a practical household tool. We never did. To us it was a pirate ship sailing across dangerous seas before breakfast, a medieval castle before lunch, a jungle gym by the afternoon and, if our imagination happened to wander far enough, even the highest mountain anyone had ever attempted to climb. We hung upside down from it until our heads felt strangely light, practised clumsy somersaults that somehow never resembled real gymnastics, swung from one bar to another pretending the ground beneath us was molten lava, and challenged each other to climb higher with the fearless confidence only children possess. Looking back, I don’t think any of us ever wondered whether it had originally been built for carpets. In our minds, it had always belonged to children.

Not far away, somebody would already be stretching a long elastic band between two friends’ legs, calling everyone over for another game elastic jumping game. The rules seemed wonderfully complicated until you learned them, and then suddenly they became second nature. We jumped, twisted, crossed our feet in impossible ways and laughed whenever someone missed a step. Nobody needed to explain the games. The younger children simply watched the older ones until, almost without noticing, they knew exactly what to do themselves. That was how we learned nearly everything. By watching. By trying. By getting it wrong. Then trying again.

When we grew tired of one game, another one appeared without anybody suggesting it. We balanced along low fences as though they were tightropes suspended high above the ground, leapt from garage roofs that seemed enormous then but look surprisingly small whenever I see them today, raced one another across the courtyard, invented competitions with rules that changed every five minutes and somehow always ended with everyone laughing anyway. Childhood never needed expensive toys. It only needed enough imagination to transform ordinary places into extraordinary worlds.

The greatest adventure, however, always waited just beyond the courtyard, where the park stretched quietly beneath rows of old trees that seemed impossibly tall to a little girl. Even before I understood the names of those trees, I already knew every path by heart. I knew where the ducks gathered, where the swans drifted so gracefully across the pond that they looked almost too beautiful to be real, where frogs hid among the reeds waiting to surprise anyone patient enough to watch, and where red squirrels darted from branch to branch so quickly that sometimes we questioned whether we had really seen them at all. We even discovered little rabbits from time to time, appearing so unexpectedly that the entire afternoon suddenly felt magical.

Hidden among those trees were places that belonged only to us. Low branches became our secret rooms, tucked safely away from the grown-up world below. We climbed into them as naturally as other children climbed onto chairs, settling ourselves comfortably where the branches grew strong enough to hold us. That was where we shared our biggest secrets, whispered dreams that seemed terribly important at the time, argued, laughed until our stomachs hurt and quietly watched the world continue beneath our feet. We believed nobody knew where we were, although I suspect the adults probably knew exactly which tree to look at if they wanted to find us.

Whenever I return to that park now, something extraordinary happens.

The paths are wider than I remember.

The flower beds are more carefully tended.

The benches have changed.

Everything seems a little more polished, a little more beautiful.

And yet, beneath all those gentle improvements, it is still the same park.

The pond still reflects the sky exactly as it always did.

The trees still whisper whenever the wind passes through their branches.

Sometimes I stand there for a moment, close my eyes, and it almost feels as though time politely stepped aside and waited for me. All it would take is one burst of children’s laughter, and I could almost believe that somewhere above me, hidden among those branches, two little girls are still sitting together, talking about things that only children know how to make important.

To be continued…