Dancing on the Edge of a Volcano

In the last months, I keep learning how challenging history can be. Everyday I'm confronted by missing documents and stories told to me that (otherwise) remain untold. As I write, I repeatedly try and understand how difficult it can be to weave everything together. But my work as a historian is hardly the history that has proven the most challenging in the past 14 days.

I've been traveling and experiencing post-Smoleńsk Polish history abroad -- at embassies, chatting with Poles abroad, and through newsmedia. How to wrap my mind around my own absence from the streets of Warsaw as Poland comes to terms with the vulnerable void left by the crash? Debates about Wawel, the political arena's future, and culpability skirt around the issue. For me, it's the memorials placed outside people's places of work that convey the human loss many are experiencing.

Expect colorful sausage coverage from me in the next days -- to catch up. But in the meantime, I'll let this British pub grub absurdly symbolize my confusion.