But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and
when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth
in secret shall reward thee openly.
Matthew 6:6 - Bible
I asked her whether we might step into the closet where it would be a little quieter. When we closed the door in the small, lighted space, it was almost silent.
I suppose asking a woman you have just met to slip into a confined space with you seems a little strange. In all fairness, she was the one who suggested it.
I was on my way to Poznań, Poland, by way of Prague in the Czech Republic. It was Saturday and the conference wasn’t until Wednesday. I still had some time to get ready. The meeting in Prague was Tuesday, so I would have Monday to practice.
Practice, that’s the key to this climbing into the closet business.
A little background...
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to speak at a number of conferences around the world…something for which I am very grateful. These meetings have given me time and space to meet wonderful people and see some exotic places.
Once in a while I chair a conference, and when that happens in a foreign country, I try to say a few words in the native language out of respect for the invitation and chance to participate.
A few months ago, I wrote a very short greeting in English and dropped a note to my friend Beata. She is a physical therapist here in the U.S., and originally from Poland.
When I asked whether she would help with my project she said, of course. I took the liberty of sending her not only the brief English sentences, but a Google Translation into Polish. I am certain it made her chuckle. She sent a corrected copy in Ploska, and we set up a time to video conference, which I intended to record.
After a couple of scheduling misses, we connected and I got to see her smiling face and get the recording done. Running through it a couple of times, I put it aside intending to write the words phonetically, so when spoken, they might be somewhat recognizable to the attendees at the conference. It was left on my computer desktop.
Time to go…
Getting ready to travel is a multifactorial experience. I have done it so frequently over the years that I have the packing drill down. Depending on the time of the flight, it’s done the night before, or sometimes the morning of the departure.
Molly also has a drill. She has me run through a verbal checklist of what I have packed, and if there is more than one suitcase, where things are located. I am sure she does this because she loves me, but it is also a task that she knows, without question, will save her time and stress. The legion of things I have lost or misplaced or not taken, or left behind, boggles the mind. Once, when I had left my wallet at home, she got it to the commuter terminal so close to take off, one of the ground crew actually ran out and handed it to the pilot through the small plane’s cockpit window!
This time, I was done the night before. The flight departed Tucson at 5:40 am for Chicago, where I connected to points east. Everything for the conference was backed up twice on a thumb drive and larger portable drive, in addition to my laptop. Everything except the audio of the Polish for me to practice.
“Shoot,” I said. The word Molly hates to hear on the way to the airport. “Man, I forgot my Polish translation. I didn’t file it in the Poland folder after Beata helped me with it.”
“Too late to go back now,” she replied, and she was right.
So, it was on the flight and off to Chicago. Halfway there, the thought stuck me out of the blue, Wait a minute! Chicago has the largest population of Polish people outside of the mother country! Surely someone at O'hare speaks the language.
The question then became, how to find one.
After landing, I walked up to an information desk and asked one of the women if she might know someone who spoke Polish, expecting a shrug and an ‘I don’t know.’
To my surprise and delight, she said, “Yes, Alex does.”
Alex was the mid-sixties woman talking to another traveler and sitting right beside her.
“Alex, this man needs you to help him with some Polish,” my gal said.
The next thing I knew, Alex was by my side and I was explaining my dilemma. It was noisy and I asked her if there might be a quieter place because I wanted to record her voice.
She pointed to a door behind the desk and off to the broom closet we went.
I opened my computer to the Polish text, pulled out my iPhone as we huddled together in the limited space, and asked her to please read it very slowly. Alex nodded, I pushed the record button and before you knew it, it was done.
It took about an hour and a half to transcribe her words phonetically, and in spite of practicing a few times, I still don’t have it right.
Come Wednesday morning in Poznań, I expect the audience...a very sympathetic audience...to let discretion be the better part of valor when I express my Polish greeting. I suspect some will smile, shrug and whisper to one another: "Jest to myśl, że liczy" It's the thought that counts.
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