JB Polk
Between Vladivostok and Nirvana: A Story of a New Beginning
“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." — Reinhold Niebuhr
Picture this: a cold, windy autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, with eight humans, ages 30 to 60, plus two elderly dogs, spending a long weekend at a mountain lodge. An epitome of Hallmark kitsch—the fire is blazing, raindrops on the windowpanes, and we are making pierogi, Polish dumplings my family makes only for special occasions like this one—my son’s 33rd birthday.
We talk, we laugh, we joke while my daughter, who doesn’t speak a word of the language, finds the folksy Polish hit “W Moim Ogrodeczku” on Spotify, as we create memories meant to last a lifetime. I’m in charge of filming, moving from person to person while they go about their tasks—some rolling out the dough, some cutting the circles for the dumplings, and others preparing the fillings—one meat-based for the carnivores and another with cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, and fried onions for the vegetarians.
Although it is only 11:30 am, a bottle of Argentine Malbec on the table breathes out fruity aromas. We are sipping the garnet-colored wine while the tannins sting our tongues, and the alcohol races straight to our brains. My son frowns—he hates being recorded. His girlfriend looks at the camera and waves. My partner raises his glass in a toast. Blanca, my best friend, leans back in her chair, shuts her eyes, and lets out a contented sigh. The dogs, both 14 years old, pant, hoping to snatch a piece of meat or lick crumbs from the floor.
“Hey, divine presence, whoever and wherever you are,” the lapsed Catholic in me prays while the agnostic keeps filming. “This is what happiness looks like. Please, pretty please, freeze this moment forever— all of it: my family, my friends, and my dogs.”
But even as my heart whispers that wish, my mind knows nothing lasts forever. The love of your life may one day become a stranger. Your children are on loan for a limited time. Your friends move away, and even though they vowed your friendship was distance-proof, you lose touch. And your youth, your body, and your entire physical existence are equally fleeting. As someone wise once said, “The day you are born, you begin to die.”
The video is still on my phone, where it will remain as a forty-second clip saved to the Cloud. It's the modern version of the long-lost 16mm movies our dads used to make in the summer, with us as the stars at ages eight, twelve, and fifteen, captured on a strip of celluloid with happy grins, splashing in pools, and screaming silently because few cameras at the time could record audio.
I was right, of course. Two years later, not a single part of that joyful instant remains. First, we had to put one of the dogs to sleep. Three weeks later, her sister died of what I think of as a broken heart—they’d been together since they were one month old. I mourned their passing as one mourns a family member because, in the absence of my adult children, they had been the center of my life.
I barely recovered from losing my dogs when I lost my daughter, not to death but to something just as painful. When she was fifteen and navigating the awkward stage of middle-teendom, she accused me for the first time of loving her brother more than I loved her. In the years that followed, I heard her say it not twice, not three times, not ten times, but so many times that I eventually stopped keeping count. I tried to explain that I didn’t love him more, but differently, because he was on the autism spectrum and needed more care and time, not more love.
The last time she said it was a few months after our happy mountaintop reunion. The day after, she erased me from her life entirely in one rash stroke, including WhatsApp and social media.
That same year, after my son’s long-term relationship with his girlfriend unexpectedly ended, he moved to another country to start fresh, “somewhere where he could be and focus on himself," where being a neurodiverse computer geek would not be seen as a hindrance but as an asset.
Other personal issues followed, lasting through the rest of the year and into the next, including a huge medical bill, the resulting debt, and relationship tensions. In less than eighteen months, I had lost everything that mattered to me—or so it seemed.
Life felt like a perpetual loop as I swung between inactivity and overactivity, sometimes barely getting out of bed, at other times trying to kill the hours with a million mindless actions.
I started learning German, crocheted 242 granny squares for a quilt (though they still sit unquilted in a box in the attic), met friends for coffee, lunch, and dinner, binged on TV series, tried baking sourdough bread from scratch, and threw myself into traveling. It helped for the duration of the activity, only to resurface when I returned to the dark, deep, and slippery void that took up all the space in the house and inside me. The harder I tried to claw my way out of it, the harder, the deeper, the faster it claimed me back.
I told myself they were minor bumps in the road and that my usual resilience would carry me through them. Because it had in the past, right? I was the girl who left her country at 20, the single mother who raised two children, and the successful professional who carved out a name for herself in a foreign land.
I was indestructible. A Superwoman and She-Ra rolled into one—minus the snug outfit—and nothing could bring me down. I had a positive mindset, and people like me, who know the difference between "I wish" and “I will,” never give up. Right? Right?
Only… this time no one patted me on my back and said, “You've got this."
The challenges kept piling up, and the facade of invincibility I had built for myself began to crack. I was no longer a sprightly lass of 20 but a 62-year-old, whose future was more pebble-strewn than ever.
“Where the hell am I going, and what is the purpose of it all?” was my daily mantra.
At night, I relied on prescription pills, only to wake at 4 am to a train of thoughts as long and heavy as the Trans-Siberian Express, pushing its way through snowdrifts. I’d reach for a book, but the words would turn into black mush, and the train I’d thought had finally reached Vladivostok, with its locomotive and twenty loaded wagons, would puff its way into my mind again and again.
I tried watching cheerful movies on Netflix, HBO, and any other streaming platform I could access on my smart TV. The romcoms failed to make me laugh, and the action movies stirred up a storm of impatience. Desperate for some peace, I turned to YouTube podcasts. You know, the ones that tell you to relax in a soothing voice to the calming chime of Tibetan singing bowls: focus on your mind, do a full-body scan, and breathe in and out.
And it was on a night like that, flicking from one podcast to another, that a message came through—the only constant in our life is that it changes. It sounded appealing, so I clicked the picture of a cross-legged Buddha with a smile.
Several hours later, I was an expert on impermanence and the importance of embracing change to attain inner peace. Nirvana, which I had thought was a band, was, in fact, a state of enlightenment attainable through meditation and self-reflection. And if I let go of my attachments, or as the podcaster called it, “my clinging,” I could find contentment in the present.
“Buddhism is my thing,” I decided, because its philosophy satisfied my intellectual curiosity and my deep-seated sense of justice through the idea of reincarnation! No use trying to escape your responsibility for Grok’s sexed-up images, Elon! In your next life, you might come back as a lowly earthworm rolling a ball of dung instead of being the Earth’s first trillionaire.
What I found most appealing was the idea that I did not, in fact, have to believe in a higher entity or succumb to religious dogma. I did not have to keep the Sabbath to keep the day holy. I could also make carved images and worship them!
But above all, I could find meaning in the cycle of life and death, free from the constraints of traditional religious beliefs. In other words, I could be wholly spiritual without a deity to answer to. Even more, I could pick and choose what resonated with me personally, creating my own unique mystical path.
I spent the next month listening to hundreds of podcasts on Buddhism (which, I decided, was not for me after all), gradually moving on to neuroscience, Jungian theory, cognitive practices, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)—all of which assured me that the other approaches to finding the real me merely scratched the surface or were outright wrong, and that the one and only method to "Prometheus Unbound" was theirs.
I was fed and willingly swallowed a plethora of contradictory information, such as that there’s no “self,” that the self is an illusion, or, to the contrary, that one should “observe self” or mind “self-as-context.” Jung told me that not only do I have a “self,” but also an “ego,” and that both are located in the collective unconscious. Neuroscience directly targeted my brain, locating my "self" in the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporal junction, among other areas.
The algorithm flooded my social media feeds with mystic retreats, 3-day immersive mind-plasticity workshops, holistic spas that would cater to both my body and spirit, and a whole host of other self-improvement opportunities promising to unlock my true potential and help me achieve fulfillment—for $300, plus a voluntary contribution to a local dog shelter! Infusions and healthy snacks were included.
Urged to become a better me, I initially became a mindful Jungian neuropractitioner of Buddhism, committed to the ACT therapy, and aware of my mind’s plasticity. However, I eventually returned to being JUST ME—with all my flaws, fears, and uncertainties—when I realized that self-discovery is a journey with no one-size-fits-all solution and no fixed destination.
So, the ultimate question you might be asking is, “Did I or did I not reach Vladivostok and Nirvana?” The truth is, I landed somewhere in between, at a station called "Shithappens," where the only option is to patch myself up as best I can and damn the rest.
And my personal issues? Still there. I have two new dogs, and I know they will be as impermanent as the ones I lost. My son has found a new partner and isn’t thinking of coming back, at least not in the foreseeable future. I’ve somewhat patched up my relationship with my daughter, but the roots of our rift remain. And no, I do not love her brother more than I love her.
On the upside, I have learned to embrace impermanence as a constant, unavoidable reality, even if that sounds contradictory. In other words, a new beginning sprouts from the end of something else. From now on, I will simply grab moments of happiness as if I were picking cherries, knowing they won't last but savoring them anyway.
Picture this: a cold, windy autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, with eight humans, ages 30 to 60, plus two elderly dogs, spending a long weekend at a mountain lodge. An epitome of Hallmark kitsch—the fire is blazing, raindrops on the windowpanes, and we are making pierogi, Polish dumplings my family makes only for special occasions like this one—my son’s 33rd birthday.
We talk, we laugh, we joke while my daughter, who doesn’t speak a word of the language, finds the folksy Polish hit “W Moim Ogrodeczku” on Spotify, as we create memories meant to last a lifetime. I’m in charge of filming, moving from person to person while they go about their tasks—some rolling out the dough, some cutting the circles for the dumplings, and others preparing the fillings—one meat-based for the carnivores and another with cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, and fried onions for the vegetarians.
Although it is only 11:30 am, a bottle of Argentine Malbec on the table breathes out fruity aromas. We are sipping the garnet-colored wine while the tannins sting our tongues, and the alcohol races straight to our brains. My son frowns—he hates being recorded. His girlfriend looks at the camera and waves. My partner raises his glass in a toast. Blanca, my best friend, leans back in her chair, shuts her eyes, and lets out a contented sigh. The dogs, both 14 years old, pant, hoping to snatch a piece of meat or lick crumbs from the floor.
“Hey, divine presence, whoever and wherever you are,” the lapsed Catholic in me prays while the agnostic keeps filming. “This is what happiness looks like. Please, pretty please, freeze this moment forever— all of it: my family, my friends, and my dogs.”
But even as my heart whispers that wish, my mind knows nothing lasts forever. The love of your life may one day become a stranger. Your children are on loan for a limited time. Your friends move away, and even though they vowed your friendship was distance-proof, you lose touch. And your youth, your body, and your entire physical existence are equally fleeting. As someone wise once said, “The day you are born, you begin to die.”
The video is still on my phone, where it will remain as a forty-second clip saved to the Cloud. It's the modern version of the long-lost 16mm movies our dads used to make in the summer, with us as the stars at ages eight, twelve, and fifteen, captured on a strip of celluloid with happy grins, splashing in pools, and screaming silently because few cameras at the time could record audio.
I was right, of course. Two years later, not a single part of that joyful instant remains. First, we had to put one of the dogs to sleep. Three weeks later, her sister died of what I think of as a broken heart—they’d been together since they were one month old. I mourned their passing as one mourns a family member because, in the absence of my adult children, they had been the center of my life.
I barely recovered from losing my dogs when I lost my daughter, not to death but to something just as painful. When she was fifteen and navigating the awkward stage of middle-teendom, she accused me for the first time of loving her brother more than I loved her. In the years that followed, I heard her say it not twice, not three times, not ten times, but so many times that I eventually stopped keeping count. I tried to explain that I didn’t love him more, but differently, because he was on the autism spectrum and needed more care and time, not more love.
The last time she said it was a few months after our happy mountaintop reunion. The day after, she erased me from her life entirely in one rash stroke, including WhatsApp and social media.
That same year, after my son’s long-term relationship with his girlfriend unexpectedly ended, he moved to another country to start fresh, “somewhere where he could be and focus on himself," where being a neurodiverse computer geek would not be seen as a hindrance but as an asset.
Other personal issues followed, lasting through the rest of the year and into the next, including a huge medical bill, the resulting debt, and relationship tensions. In less than eighteen months, I had lost everything that mattered to me—or so it seemed.
Life felt like a perpetual loop as I swung between inactivity and overactivity, sometimes barely getting out of bed, at other times trying to kill the hours with a million mindless actions.
I started learning German, crocheted 242 granny squares for a quilt (though they still sit unquilted in a box in the attic), met friends for coffee, lunch, and dinner, binged on TV series, tried baking sourdough bread from scratch, and threw myself into traveling. It helped for the duration of the activity, only to resurface when I returned to the dark, deep, and slippery void that took up all the space in the house and inside me. The harder I tried to claw my way out of it, the harder, the deeper, the faster it claimed me back.
I told myself they were minor bumps in the road and that my usual resilience would carry me through them. Because it had in the past, right? I was the girl who left her country at 20, the single mother who raised two children, and the successful professional who carved out a name for herself in a foreign land.
I was indestructible. A Superwoman and She-Ra rolled into one—minus the snug outfit—and nothing could bring me down. I had a positive mindset, and people like me, who know the difference between "I wish" and “I will,” never give up. Right? Right?
Only… this time no one patted me on my back and said, “You've got this."
The challenges kept piling up, and the facade of invincibility I had built for myself began to crack. I was no longer a sprightly lass of 20 but a 62-year-old, whose future was more pebble-strewn than ever.
“Where the hell am I going, and what is the purpose of it all?” was my daily mantra.
At night, I relied on prescription pills, only to wake at 4 am to a train of thoughts as long and heavy as the Trans-Siberian Express, pushing its way through snowdrifts. I’d reach for a book, but the words would turn into black mush, and the train I’d thought had finally reached Vladivostok, with its locomotive and twenty loaded wagons, would puff its way into my mind again and again.
I tried watching cheerful movies on Netflix, HBO, and any other streaming platform I could access on my smart TV. The romcoms failed to make me laugh, and the action movies stirred up a storm of impatience. Desperate for some peace, I turned to YouTube podcasts. You know, the ones that tell you to relax in a soothing voice to the calming chime of Tibetan singing bowls: focus on your mind, do a full-body scan, and breathe in and out.
And it was on a night like that, flicking from one podcast to another, that a message came through—the only constant in our life is that it changes. It sounded appealing, so I clicked the picture of a cross-legged Buddha with a smile.
Several hours later, I was an expert on impermanence and the importance of embracing change to attain inner peace. Nirvana, which I had thought was a band, was, in fact, a state of enlightenment attainable through meditation and self-reflection. And if I let go of my attachments, or as the podcaster called it, “my clinging,” I could find contentment in the present.
“Buddhism is my thing,” I decided, because its philosophy satisfied my intellectual curiosity and my deep-seated sense of justice through the idea of reincarnation! No use trying to escape your responsibility for Grok’s sexed-up images, Elon! In your next life, you might come back as a lowly earthworm rolling a ball of dung instead of being the Earth’s first trillionaire.
What I found most appealing was the idea that I did not, in fact, have to believe in a higher entity or succumb to religious dogma. I did not have to keep the Sabbath to keep the day holy. I could also make carved images and worship them!
But above all, I could find meaning in the cycle of life and death, free from the constraints of traditional religious beliefs. In other words, I could be wholly spiritual without a deity to answer to. Even more, I could pick and choose what resonated with me personally, creating my own unique mystical path.
I spent the next month listening to hundreds of podcasts on Buddhism (which, I decided, was not for me after all), gradually moving on to neuroscience, Jungian theory, cognitive practices, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)—all of which assured me that the other approaches to finding the real me merely scratched the surface or were outright wrong, and that the one and only method to "Prometheus Unbound" was theirs.
I was fed and willingly swallowed a plethora of contradictory information, such as that there’s no “self,” that the self is an illusion, or, to the contrary, that one should “observe self” or mind “self-as-context.” Jung told me that not only do I have a “self,” but also an “ego,” and that both are located in the collective unconscious. Neuroscience directly targeted my brain, locating my "self" in the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporal junction, among other areas.
The algorithm flooded my social media feeds with mystic retreats, 3-day immersive mind-plasticity workshops, holistic spas that would cater to both my body and spirit, and a whole host of other self-improvement opportunities promising to unlock my true potential and help me achieve fulfillment—for $300, plus a voluntary contribution to a local dog shelter! Infusions and healthy snacks were included.
Urged to become a better me, I initially became a mindful Jungian neuropractitioner of Buddhism, committed to the ACT therapy, and aware of my mind’s plasticity. However, I eventually returned to being JUST ME—with all my flaws, fears, and uncertainties—when I realized that self-discovery is a journey with no one-size-fits-all solution and no fixed destination.
So, the ultimate question you might be asking is, “Did I or did I not reach Vladivostok and Nirvana?” The truth is, I landed somewhere in between, at a station called "Shithappens," where the only option is to patch myself up as best I can and damn the rest.
And my personal issues? Still there. I have two new dogs, and I know they will be as impermanent as the ones I lost. My son has found a new partner and isn’t thinking of coming back, at least not in the foreseeable future. I’ve somewhat patched up my relationship with my daughter, but the roots of our rift remain. And no, I do not love her brother more than I love her.
On the upside, I have learned to embrace impermanence as a constant, unavoidable reality, even if that sounds contradictory. In other words, a new beginning sprouts from the end of something else. From now on, I will simply grab moments of happiness as if I were picking cherries, knowing they won't last but savoring them anyway.
JB Polk is Polish by birth, a citizen of the world by choice. First story short-listed for the Irish Independent/Hennessy Awards, Ireland, 1996. Since she went back to writing in 2020, more than 100 of her stories, flash fiction, and non-fiction have been accepted for publication. She has recently won 1st prize in the International Human Rights Arts Movement literary contest.
Instagram: @jbp29.01
Facebook: Jolanta Polk
BlueSky: JB Polk (@jbtrans.bsky.social)
Instagram: @jbp29.01
Facebook: Jolanta Polk
BlueSky: JB Polk (@jbtrans.bsky.social)
