No one loves you like I do (2023)

10 years later I am returning to the same places, but for me to be recognized in fragments. I am returning to my relatives who live in the Bieszczady Mountains, not far from the border with Ukraine and Slovakia. My plan to photograph everyone I met there in 2013 in the same places again will soon dissolve. Some of them had died in the meantime, others were no longer physically or mentally present and one of them didn’t even want to be found.

In the houses I return to, I am surrounded by crosses, statues of the Virgin Mary and pictures of Jesus. They have turned yellow, covered themselves with an even thicker layer of dust and yet they still seem irreplaceable and as obvious as the wall or window itself. I return to my grandmother’s sister, Lucyna, who turned 94 this summer. I return to hear her laugh and to meet her great-granddaughter Wiktoria.

Those who live here have not so many options. Larger companies such as ‘Stomil’ in the nearby town of Sanok have been bought out by foreign investors, mass redundancies are taking place. Charcoal burning, for which the region is widely known, is becoming less and less profitable. Burning sites are disappearing and an open-air charcoal museum is being built instead. Those who could, have already left. Those who stay here wait. Those who live here try not to lose themselves. It seems that the sense of time is perceived in a different way. The accidents and diseases divide it into the before and after periods, while wolves prowl and dogs get bitten by them.

I return, but my memories lag behind. I don’t remember where Olek was burning charcoal 10 years ago. I remember the hug with him exactly. I don’t remember the place where my father’s cousin lives. I remember Grażyna herself very clearly. I don’t remember her whole house, just the dining room. I don’t remember her daughter Kasia, who was pregnant with Wiktoria in 2013, but I remember it was dark outside. I re-enter the house, which is 150 years old and where Lucyna has lived since 1953. I remember the decorative cloth in her kitchen with the motto embroidered on it, still hanging in the same place as when I first visited in 2013: Nikt Cię tak nie kocha jak ja – Nobody loves you like I do.

My second trip to Bieszczady is difficult for me, I find some things hard to bear. I am no longer envious of my relatives’ sense of connection with their homeland. Taking photos doesn’t bring us any closer. The only one who seems open to me is Wiktoria, we might even have the most in common. So once again I accept the consequences of my absence in Poland. And yet I don’t want to let go of the memories from my first visit to Bieszczady. I decide to open up a space in which time can get lost and chronology no longer has any meaning. Because that’s the only way I can find myself there again, no matter how much we have all changed.