Justine and Natalia bringing newspapers back from town.

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Notes from Jay Allison

This piece is not constituted of emotion recollected in tranquility. It is a story told in its own midst. It's an attempt to look at what is happening while it's happening, while the emotions are current.

Jonathan came to work on it here in Woods Hole with the Transom crew as part of our sort-of-artist-in-residence program, in which we give support, gear, and a place to stay to someone with a story to tell.

Our goal in this is to support emerging producers and to explore process. During production, we huddle and cajole and advise (here's a sample), but finally the piece belongs to the producer and receives its premiere here, for you. We hope that the ensuing open discussion will be useful, because it will contain various perspectives - the producer's, ours, and yours . Please listen and join in.

Justine and the family she left behind. L-R Justine's mother Basia, Justine, her grandfather Stansilaw, her sister Natalia, and her grandmother Maria.

Notes From Jonathan Menjivar

Justine and her grandfather Stanislaw on the day of her first communion.

About a year ago, just as the discussion for my last Transom piece was starting to die down I left behind all thoughts of anything like the Internet and went to Poland with my girlfriend Justine. But I brought along my tape recorder. I had a vague plan to make a piece without any after-the-fact narration. Just talk into the tape recorder and capture all of my impressions as they happened. You know, because it'd just be fresher that way. It was my first time out of the country (except for weekend jaunts to Mexico which doesn't really count when you're from California) so I figured that maybe if I rattled off enough I might say something interesting. Turns out I didn't.

Justine did have interesting things to say though. And I ended up capturing this other thing, this dynamic between me and Justine that seemed to take on a life of its own - more than just the trip to Poland, more than just the story of Justine.

Working on a story about someone you live with isn't a good idea if you don't have the space and distance to do it. I told the Transom folks about some of the material and they offered me the chance to intern for a month. They not only gave me over 800 miles of distance from Justine but provided some much needed advice along the way. Thanks all around.

About Jonathan Menjivar

I left my very low paying but fun job as a volunteer coordinator at KCRW last summer to follow Justine to Ann Arbor, MI so she could go to grad school. Since then I've been temping and doing occasional Arts and Humanities news stories for Michigan Radio and spent a lot of time just talking about other pieces I should actually be working on.

Maria and me directly behind their house. She's a lot stronger than I am. Those hills and fields just beyond the fence stretch on forever.

Support for this work provided by the

with funding from the


and
The National Endowment for the Arts

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