It still really bothers me when someone asks me where I’m from. It happened again recently when I asked an older man at a store to help me take my bags out of the cart, and, hearing my accent, he of course asked:

–              Where are you from?

–              From Poland (I responded, but I would really prefer not to repeat this cycle.)

–              Ah! This is the country of Wałęsa! A beautiful country. Beautiful…the older man enthused.

So of course I thank him, and of course the country is beautiful, but… why always Wałęsa?, I think to myself…And I make a mental note that I have to tell Richard about this…He is happy and shouts out, „Ha! I always say that!  

 

The change is his middle name…

 

A conversation with Richard Romaniuk, a friend, a community leader, therapist, social worker, author of many publications, and lecturer at Case Western Reserve University.

 

Warm, cozy, atypical, gracefully cluttered, colorful, and in its own way extravagant—inside Richard and Sean’s home is a peaceful oasis in which everybody feels comfortable. Nobody here treats me like a guest anymore. Even the crazy cats just ignore me, though they’re still afraid of other visitors. We drink tea. Oceans of tea. There is never enough mint tea…and we chat… I insist that Richard say something about politics. He’s unusually open, enthusiastic, and emotional about his views, very engaged in Facebook political discussions, but he avoids politics in our discussion gracefully and effectively. But the recent intrigue around Lech Wałęsa raised his blood pressure and this time Richard spoke up: „Wałęsa will always be a hero for me. Wherever I was in the world, I noticed that when people heard Poland, they always knew Wałęsa! So if Poland now wants to „wipe out” Wałęsa from its common memory, the only thing that will remain is Poland without Wałęsa. And this won’t be the same Poland. Whenever some Pole becomes known in the world, other Poles will destroy him. This for me is a 100% example of Polish „suicide”!, Rysiek says, feverishly. „You could write half a page on this! To „erase” Wałęsa but to make of Konopnicka the greatest poet – so Polish…… Richard is exceptionally politically sensitive. His introduction to politics was March 1968, when he was 19. This was such a formative time for him that what he learned then defined his values for the rest of his life. From then on he’s fought against lies and injustice directed toward social groups. When he fought in defense of justice again in 1980, he became a leader of Solidarity in the Institute of Experimental Medicine at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is very attuned to the concerns of minorities, to „the other”, from the perspective of his Ukrainian origins, which, in an earlier Poland, did not make for a painless process of social assimilation. He still remembers the cutting comments and the nickname „prawosławny Żyd”, or „Orthodox Jew”, using the Polish word for the Ukrainian Orthodox church. Fascism and nationalism disgust him. And fascism in his dictionary is „against everything I like”…

 

Biophysicist, Neurophysiologist, and Social Worker

 

Richard Romaniuk’s professional specialization was a mistake. He has said many times that biology was his first love. When he chose a field, he turned away from biology only because everyone said, „Don’t be stupid, only girls study biology.” For once in his life he decided that „he won’t be a girl”. He studied physics, but he never stopped loving biology. In 1973 he finished his study in biophysics. In 1979 he worked in Sweden at the Institute of Neurophysiology with Tony DiMarco. Several years later Tony received a grant of his own in the United States and he invited Rysiek to work with him. And so Richard Romaniuk arrived in the States in 1988 „temporarily”. In the meantime, everything changed in Poland in 1989 and academic science was not a priority given the changing economic conditions. So, because he could stay, he stayed. Later he stayed for another couple of years and again for another couple of years and so, without making a decision to emigrate, he became an emigrant. He never consciously wanted to leave the Poland he always missed. More than that, he regretted not being there for the great changes that were happening, especially since he had been active in Solidarity since 1980. As everything was changing around him, Richard began to change himself and one day concluded: „I no longer want to work in a laboratory. I want to work with people.” Working at Case Western Reserve University, he was able to begin studying for free and so he began his next adventure in his professional life: he began to study social work. Because of his own painful experiences, the focus of his attention became helping people with addictions. From the start he developed his interest in the neurobiology of addiction. He later became a social worker and chemical dependency counselor at the Free Clinic of Greater Cleveland and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

 

Change

 

At some point in his life Richard sobered up and took his life into his own hands. He changed everything, starting with his profession, including his marriage, his name, his friends, his surroundings, etc. In the course of these changes the Internet developed and there, in one of the many discussion groups, he met Sean Martin. In reaction to my friendship with Richard, people often ask me, usually with a confused smile, „so which one is the guy, and which one’s the woman?” And then I look surprised and say, „Oh, no, it’s not like that at all…”

 

Because to know Richard and Sean is to understand that it’s not about a division of roles or standards or names or obligations. Their partnership relies on love, freedom, and mutual respect. Like any other relationship. Richard identifies with the rights of women with a real intensity and he explains why: „when I changed my life, I started to understand my own, ingrained sexism. And I began to think more deeply about gender in Poland and I saw my own behavior as dependent on stereotypes, and, well, I wasn’t proud of this. I discovered then that many of these behaviors came from my trying to be the „big man” that I never was. And I had in myself many behaviors that were feminine. When I met Sean, this understanding helped our relationship last until today. This is the longest relationship in my life, more than twenty years.”

 

Since we’re talking about change…Richard recently made another change in his life, this time in his diet. He stopped eating beef and pork, arguing his decision: „when people said to me that beef and pork make arthritis worse, I smiled, because how is it possible to not eat meat? But then I went to India and I saw that millions of people do not eat beef and pork and they live well, so I decided that I could do the same. And so that was my next change. I don’t know if I feel better without meat, but I know that if I eat it I will definitely feel worse. That’s enough for me.”

 

But Richard’s views haven’t changed: „I don’t change my views, I don’t need to fight for them any longer, I can simply have them.”

 

Polonia Close to his Heart

 

„Being in Polonia you get the impression that you are among your own, only…they are from the other side of the tracks”, Richard says. About his years of active engagement in Polonia, he says that „Polonia is like an unplowed field on which you can and should do a lot, but its strength is missing, because one style of working with Polonia persists and it’s very difficult to change it.”

 

Many years ago, as a newly trained social worker, Richard wanted to help older women in Polonia, but they were only interested in dancing. He threw up his hands. The older women “danced their own dance”, they didn’t expect any help…Later he wanted to help men who were drinking. Who drink too much. Well, and the men, they didn’t come, because, what for? Poles drink like Poles – normally, why mess with their normal drinking? And then Grażyna Hryniewicz came up with the idea that Richard could help women whose husbands drink. And so Porada (Advice) was born. Women came and talked, Richard listened, explained, and facilitated group therapy sessions. The women began to heal themselves. So it was worth it to help within Polonia, but this doesn’t mean it was easy. The more people who are engaged in helping alcoholics, such as AA groups, the better. And in the Polish environment everyone says, “You’re not drinking with me?” Many times Richard has despaired because of these common attitudes and behaviors; people call him, desperate, asking, begging for help, he explains, helps, counsels. And then? Nothing. Most often people from Polonia don’t listen. They know better. Their father drank, their neighbor drinks, they don’t have any problems, you only live once. And everyone accepts this as normal. He’s a social worker; the lives of people with problems interest him, but that doesn’t mean that he can help everyone.

 

Travel

 

Richard doesn’t like to be closed up in one space. He likes things happening, he wants to be doing something. He doesn’t like to travel like we once traveled with Orbis. His idea for travelling the world is a trip somewhere as a volunteer. He wants to get to know people through working with them and getting to know the country from the inside. He works as a volunteer first, learning some of the customs, and then he sightsees and enjoys everything new. He says, „Guatemala is the most beautiful, Tanzania is the most fun, and India is the most interesting. Poland…in general, it’s in another category – I live in Poland, I don’t travel to Poland. A special form of travel around the world every year is the Cleveland International Film Festival, during which he disappears from life. „The film festival is like traveling the entire world while staying in one place,”, he says. Richard has already been in enough corners of the world that his Facebook profile is like a flowery carpet embroidered with the most beautiful colorful photographs. It makes everyone envious…

 

Cats and Criminals

 

Maybe not in that order, but the order’s not important. Cats… „because everyone has a weakness”, he says. And mysteries work the imagination, drawing you in, taking you away from the daily stress. The more intrigue, the more effective it is in taking away stress. For years he’s been such a fan of Joanna Chmielewska, to the extent that a friend in Warsaw once invited the author to a birthday party for him, as a present… Cats, though, are a completely different story. The cats came into his life when he was already with Sean, and they’ve stayed. They built a special place in their garage as a shelter for homeless cats, so they could have a peaceful place to eat and sleep. Richard feeds them regularly. There are two cats in the house, Bury and Biały Nosek and both take advantage of Richard’s weakness….

 

Retirement

 

This is the best period in Richard’s professional life. He retired as a social worker and now teaches as a lecturer at Case Western Reserve University. A great way to spend retirement, right? And, besides, it’s hard to imagine Richard in a stereotypical retirement, without work, doing nothing – that’s not his style. I hear from him all the time, „you’re getting older, I’m not getting older”, and, unconsciously I agree with him. Rysiek says, „what happens at this age is that people begin to disappear for many reasons and you start to be okay with it. You learn that you won’t be here forever, that this is the time to sit and calm down and not to plan life. Because it’s already happened.” This incomprehensible nostalgia comes over me as I listen to him… Now Richard likes most writing articles for journals in Poland on a topic not as well developed there as in the United States, therapy for those who have experienced trauma. This allows him to share the knowledge he has acquired here with his colleagues in Poland. He recently wrote two articles on chemical dependency among women. Treatment for women has to be different than treatment for men; people in Poland change „she” for „he” and think that will work.

 

Retirement has given Richard time to explore his interest in Poland. Every day he reads online about what is happening there. Because he never made a conscious decision to emigrate… He now has time to be a part of the Kościuszko Foundation, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to cooperate further with Dr. Kathy Farkas, a profesor of social work at Case who is the Foundation’s current President.  His retirement is something of a „golden age”, when he has the great good fortune to organize his life so that his garden of professional interests and life’s passions can continue to grow. Everyone should be open to each new day, just as Richard is.

 

Dreams

 

… „my dreams are fulfilling themselves; I also wish good lives for my daughters and that nobody in the family has difficulties….”

 

Not everybody has had such challenges in life as Richard Romaniuk. Or maybe it’s just that his challenges are already behind him? Or maybe it’s his positive attitude to life? Or is it the balance of his experiences? Maybe it’s because he helps people? In any case, there is something that allows Richard to say that he is „a fulfilled person”. Maybe it’s simply because he lives at harmony with himself? He never pretends to be someone he’s not. He knows who he is. Such internal peace and joy seems to be the fulfillment of a dream.