My evening book group met at my house last night. We were to discuss The Zookeeper's Wife and since it's a true war story from WWII taking place in Warsaw, Poland I decided to fix my sister-in-law's famous Polish kielbasa appetizer. So I called her, bought the ingredients and happily sliced and boiled away! Well, it turned out to taste like cooked boots!! Which I pointed out to my friends, is what many did eat during the war. What I had done wrong, as my Polish friend Joey told me, was used smoked kielbasa not fresh! Smoked kielbasa is already cooked and only requires re-heating for 6 minutes or so. Fresh kielbasa needs to be cooked much longer. This recipe required boiling kielbasa in beer and brown sugar until it thickened. Took nearly 2 hours!! So when I say it tasted like boots, you know what I mean!
However, once more, it was an opportunity for me to learn from a mistake. And why does it seem people have become so wary of admitting mistakes?? As a child, and granted that's awhile ago, making mistakes was accepted. Many times with a severe talking to but also with the admonition that "Now you'll do it differently, won't you?" I have to be thankful in hindsight, that the folks that guided me through childhood, my parents, my great-aunts, my great-grandmother, my Gramps and his wife Jerry, always talked about my mistakes with me. So it became okay to make a mistake. Of course, the serious ones you never forget!
Yet today I observe that many try to dodge a mistake. It's someone else or something caused one to act mistakenly. What a lost opportunity. Does it stem from us? Did we come to expect that our children would be better than us? I have to reflect on my own kids. Did I allow them to make mistakes and not feel ashamed? Did I use that moment to show them that reflection on actions can often educate you? I hope so.
Oh, and by the way, my friends were just that about my dismal attempt to offer Polish food at our book discussion. They gamely chewed and chewed and chewed until we finally agreed it was absolutely awful!! But friends are great that way...their reactions set the tone for one to acknowledge a mistake. I could laugh at myself and my misguided attempt at setting the tone for our discussion. We had a great discussion about the courage exemplified in The Zookeeper's Wife and an honest appraisal about how we would have acted in those circumstances. How refreshing to sit with friends and honestly appraise one's reactions. And what a blessing to have friends that laugh with you and not just at you!! So another lesson learned even at this "midage"!!.
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