The small group of young people gathered near several flickering candles, randomly set round a black table approximately the length of a casket. Their shadowed faces were set, their approach slow.

"We're not dead yet", one whispered.

I'd been in Poland long enough by now to know what that meant: these candles are rarely seen other than on graves and tombstones - and this was no funeral (although some of my English as a Second Language classes do carry embarrassingly similar overtones once in a while). As a matter of fact, however, the current circumstance was just another impromptu solution to the rather common situation of power loss.

A moment later, my students were happily playing a game of Scrabble-by-candlelight, giving no second thought to any peculiarity or inconvenience of the situation.

And it's not just the kids who can adapt and adjust with a sometimes infuriating ease - Polish adults take daily life hassles, such as when the drugstore consistently runs out of necessary medicines or the light bulbs that literally explode instead of merely burning out, with aplomb and a slight shrug of the shoulders. Hardships that would drive any North American into lengthy law suits, like lack of heat in apartment buildings and seemingly pre-20th century playgrounds with jagged rust-covered remnants hoping to torturously impale with intent to kill, are sometimes muttered about but actually sadly commonplace and really no big deal - the kids play there anyway, dodging shards of broken beer bottles and loads of dog feces, and everyone wears lots of sweaters.

When people are late for appointments, even by days, there is a prevailing attitude that "something's come up and he'll be along" which can craze the uninitiated. Phone calls, for those with telephones, are made after a time: the bus never showed up or broke down along the way; a toothache that needed immediate attention; "Gee, I thought we said next week".

Everything takes forever, it seems. Time is not valued in financial terms per se, although a good time is savored by all.

Once we hired a carpenter to build an outdoor playground for the children; he came at once, erected the ladder and tree-top platform with swings and slide - but no railings. He went home. I fully expected him to return the next day to complete the job, but he did not show up until he needed more money - some three weeks later.

If you've ever had children who are denied access to a play structure in their own back yard ("I'll be careful, mommy!"), you'll understand why I squeezed and creaked my way up into the branches, and hammered old two-by-fours as temporary guard-rails (tying lengths of wool when wood ran out), studiously ignoring our tightly-permed, gap-toothed neighbor in rain boots laughing uproariously.

Tonight, driving home from school in the nearly impenetrable fog typical of Polish autumns, streetlights automatically turning off at 10 pm, I suddenly realized that I never get that odd disembodied feeling anymore. Perhaps it's just that I'm no longer driving my North American Ford (which was shipped, crammed to the gills, when we relocated here), and there's no association of "home" in my little plastic older-than-God Polish "Tribant" I now own - but I no longer suddenly think I'm going to wake up at any moment and realize that my mad dash through the blackened outback of Poland is just an extremely vivid dream.

Maybe that old saying is a good one…you really can't go home again.