Friendship: Eating a bushel of salt - correspondence with Alicja Gaszta

Kinga:

Even when my salty tears trickle down from my cheeks into my ears, every tickle on my skin reminds me of the land, soil, fire, and water. They seem to move across my surface. I have soil under my nails because I was digging for too long in the wetlands. I’m thinking about crystals - pink, silver, black, and white, like salt. They remind me of the experiments we did in secondary school: a thread placed in a jar of salty water, slowly gathering crystals along its entire length. I couldn’t tell if those crystals were strong or would crumble under the slightest pressure of my fingers. Once, my mother’s sister told me that I had become an authority figure for my younger cousin. I was surprised. “No,” I said. “That’s impossible. I’m too irresponsible to be anyone’s role model.” But she simply replied, “You already are, at least for her.” Every second, I dig deeper. How is it possible that the salt I’m inhaling from the graduation tower doesn’t stay inside my nostrils? What if tiny crystals are forming in the fine hairs inside my nose? We scatter salt on our feet, share it with neighbours, and sprinkle it on wounds. Sometimes I think about my guts. The complex system is holding me together. The water within me flows slowly, like the salty seas. I come from the mountains, but maybe that’s why I long for the sea so much. Now I live surrounded by the cold waters, but I’ve never really felt at home here. I was named after Saint Kinga, the patron saint of salt miners. She became engaged at the age of 5 and married at twelve. Saint Kinga is one of many other historical figures who were briefly mentioned during the history classes. But in religious classes, her devotion and the miracles she did by bringing rich salt mines to Poland were cited as evidence of her holiness.  As I dig deeper and deeper, I pass through layers of subsoil - a mix of sand, silt, and clay - searching for water. I imagine being placed into this hole, letting seawater surround me. With each warm water current, I turn my head toward my friends gathered on the sandy shores to celebrate the beginning of spring. The air is getting warmer. Sweaty, salty crystals stay on my skin, clinging to me. 

Alicja:

When I wake up in my childhood bed, I always try to keep my eyes closed for as long as I can. In those moments, I imagine myself floating on salty waters. The waves flow through my veins, so I can carry them back to the second, the third, or even the fourth home. The emptiness of the concrete walls of houses scares me there, yet I am one of those who left them like this. Sometimes, I return to my estate and call out the names I remember, like “Marta”, “Julia”, but only the echo answers, carrying those through the entire street before losing them in the nearby forest. Even when I shout “Filip”, no one replies. But I know he sits alone in his mother’s flat, number 13/41. And no one calls my name, I think. I can stare at those post-communist buildings for hours and cry, simply because of the nonsense of my comebacks and the sea breeze, which carries tiny grains of sand from the neighbourhood sandbox and throws them into my eyes. Then my salty, salty tears merge with the salty, salty sea, and I know that I am one of the daughters of the vast waters. I remind myself that I am never truly alone. I dive, but only briefly. I feel a soothing warmth as salt crystals form on my skin, drying under the sun after emerging from my mother’s waters. I lie on the wet sand, listening to the songs carried by the waves, moving back and forth, bringing and taking, bringing and taking. But even when the Baltic stirs, the horizon remains to me as flat and untouched as ever. And now it’s all so familiar to me. Yet, even though the water stretches open, in its steadfastness, the sea remains deeply secretive. The horizon always looks the same, but what if there are other voices hidden within? What if Julia or Marta call my name from the depths, their voices echoing back from the heart of the sea - living in a castle made of salt, on an island cradled by the gentle arms of my mother?  In my hand, I hold a few little houses made of salt crystals. I can hear the laughter of their residents, a sound I haven’t heard in many years.   I wake up in my blue room. I can’t hear any wind. My walls are concrete, just as they were before, and there’s no trace of salt houses or the Baltic here. But I won’t come back.