Child of the Boheme

Trains, hotels, endless car rides. The glow of makeup mirrors, the churn of backstage chaos. Crowds, controlled pandemonium, the stage itself. Noise was constant, energy ceaseless. A world of people, yet even as a child—a creature so often at the center of things—I was a watcher, a little observer. My mother marveled at my independence, proud that I could manage myself while she and my father worked. Early memories blur, fading into this singular reality of perpetual motion. A photograph of me, just months old, dressed in 18th-century lace and cradled by a university dean and a renowned actress of the era, still sits in a family album. For years, I mistook the woman in the photo for my grandmother.

The stage was my jungle, and I knew every inch of it—the thick curtains, the small TV monitors, the unmistakable smells of powder and hairspray, the muted rhythm of steps on the floorboards, the snaking cables, the microphones, the shouted cues. I watched as every person was so utterly absorbed in their purpose, each a part of one larger body. A collective heartbeat of stress, elation, purpose. The smell of adrenaline as the lights went up. The audience in shadow, actors under the heat of the lights, the backstage crew murmuring like surgeons at work, as if directing from the bridge of a ship in uncharted waters.

I didn’t know then how extraordinary this life was. I sensed my parents were revered, important in ways I couldn’t fully grasp, but it always unsettled me. I was a child born of artists, actors. To most, an artist is akin to a wizard—a figure of mystique and grandeur. For me, it was simply an existence into which I had no say; I was woven into this world before I knew the meaning of choice.

When I was seven, my mother took me to a studio. She let my long blonde hair fall loose and asked me to speak a line into the camera. My parents owned a casting studio, and for this particular role, I was auditioned alongside other children for a foreign production.

Acting felt second nature. I loved dressing up, performing for my parents and their friends. There was magic in seeing how words could stir laughter or admiration. The spectacle, the props plucked from closets, the elaborate makeup—my mother’s hand creating a Mickey Mouse face out of nothing—I reveled in it. A little doll with bags and trinkets and feathered heels.

That line I spoke into the camera shifted everything. Suddenly, the attention wasn’t just on my parents; it was on me. I couldn’t foresee the outcome of the casting; I only knew they were searching for a blonde girl with a particular look. I liked the line, imagined how cool it would be to win the part. Days later, my parents received a call; I’d made it to the second round.

My mother and I traveled to the capital. There were even more children than before, yet I felt a calm certainty, not pride, not ego—just a sense that I belonged here. Standing before a big camera in a darkened studio, a single white spotlight illuminating me, I delivered my lines. Behind the lens sat the director, producer, and casting directors, their expressions intent. They were looking for me. Calmly, I rejoined my mother in the corridor, filled with a quiet thrill. By the end of the day, the call came—I’d secured the main role.

My co-star was a boy my age with brown hair and brown eyes. They tested our chemistry with older children, faces I already knew from TV. I wasn’t starstruck, but seeing them was like meeting older siblings I’d never had, embodiments of “cool.”

More travel followed—trains, planes, hotel rooms. Waking in the dark, accepting jellybeans from flight attendants. Makeup rooms, wardrobe trailers, an endless procession of people moving me from one place to the next. My hair in braids, costumes changing with every director’s nod. The crew spoke little Polish, save the director, yet we communicated through gestures. One crew member had a big fuzzy boom mic that hovered like a peculiar pet.

There were endless takes, lines repeated until perfection, tinged with a fatigue softened by fun. When the final scene wrapped after five days, I felt a quiet sadness. Back home, I was gifted the clothes from the set—a little capsule wardrobe that felt like treasure. I was the picture of a baby model straight from the catalogue.

My classmates knew I’d missed school to film a commercial. In 2001, before social media’s reach, television, magazines, and radio were the gatekeepers of information. When the ad aired, strangers began recognizing me, whispering, “Are you that girl from TV?” Work continued, school absences increased. I saw my face on the screen every day, fielded whispers from new strangers. The novelty was thrilling, but a strange loneliness settled in.

Everything shifted when we moved to a larger house, necessitating a new school. Here, the corridors teemed with larger-than-life characters—Olympic hopefuls, national celebrities. I was a small figure, quieter, famed in a way that felt alien. Students moved like storm fronts around me, whispers trailing in my wake, “That’s the girl from TV.” Once, while I sat braiding scoubidou strings, a boy approached and spat at me. Older boys muttered comments about how I’d landed the role. At eleven, I couldn’t fathom the hostility.

I joined the theater club, cheerleading, dance classes. I’d quit acting by thirteen, yet my fame lingered, growing heavier with time.

My parents were rarely home. Long stretches of absence punctuated by brief visits, suitcases stacked in corners. As a young child, I’d clung to my mother, hoping to keep her close. When my sister and I grew older, two nannies filled in the parental gaps, their presence a source of calm and order. I began to resent my parents’ return—their suitcases, their disarray, the way my mother’s makeup smeared onto the couch as she slept off a show’s late hours.

In their absence, our lives followed quiet rhythms. In their presence, the house reverted to its chaotic self. My parents rehearsed and wrote, their work consuming all available space. My sister and I cloistered ourselves away, dining on Happy Meal, avoiding the mess.

I never invited friends home after school, ashamed of the disorder. Other parents prepared lunches and picked up their children. My mother never packed my lunch. I later learned from my sister that this absence became one of her most painful topics in therapy.

Such are the costs of being raised by artists. To my mother, “being an artist” justified everything. Art demanded sacrifice. When she returned from her tours, we’d shop, and for a time, she was my best friend. We’d lose ourselves in racks of shoes, the flick of credit cards, the delighted faces of salespeople. Even ridiculous, impractical pieces seemed justified by her mantra, “I’m an artist; I can wear whatever I want.”

And then, there were the parties. Our home transformed each evening, alight with music, laughter, heated debates. Faces, both familiar and foreign, filled the rooms—new aunts, new uncles. The glassed-in garden overflowed with smoke, voices, food and wine. My mother in her element, lavishing guests with lavish dishes, my father spinning stories. Glamorous at night, bleak in the morning. If it was a school day, I’d dress myself and my sister, slipping out before the house awoke. On weekends, I’d clean the debris of the night—empty bottles, ashtrays—and make pancakes. My parents, perhaps in separate beds, would sleep until noon.

Arguments were the language of our household. Shouting, doors slamming, voices muffled. In the quiet of night, I’d overhear fragments, a voyeur to truths I wished I hadn’t learned. I’d find my sister, holding her as the fear of those voices seeped into her dreams. I whispered reassurances I wasn’t sure I believed.

Some days, school was my sanctuary, an escape from the clamor, a place where I excelled. Returning home was harder.

The cycle of leaving and returning, packing and unpacking, stretched on until I finally left. The paint on the walls faded, my parents’ faces creased with strain. We diverged into different worlds, a rift I couldn’t define.

The fame, the frenzy—it all ebbed, as they continued grasping at the intangible. When I was a child, our lives moved to a grand rhythm, our days counted in tours and productions. In their pursuit of something ephemeral, my parents seemed to believe we’d been a part of something larger.

Now, the house stands quiet, empty save for relics, a space overfilled yet desolate, like an abandoned hotel. Suitcases line the halls, though no one comes or goes. Time passed, stars dimmed. They remain on their stage, chasing echoes of a life that no longer exists.

I watch them navigate this world—the mundane, the unchanged, so foreign to their sense of self. My mother hides behind sunglasses indoors, waiting for a call that will never come. My father cloisters himself in his study, pursuing projects to the detriment of his health. The house still feels governed by a god—an invisible force, a relic of fame, its grip as present as ever. A waiting room, always prepared for the next production, but empty, lifeless.

In the rare moments they step onto a stage, their eyes light up, the spell returns. My father, the magician, my mother, luminous. Their faces alight with the same intensity, for just a moment. But then reality settles in—a dark, echoing house that mirrors their inner chaos, a place that refuses to be home.

My parents are still in the show, still waiting in the wings for the next cue. The life they crafted, once bright with purpose, now feels worn, like an old house left in silence, inhabited only by traces of its past. They move through it as though the applause might still return, under a spell that no longer holds. What once felt grand now seems faintly spectral, a shimmer that hovers just out of reach. And yet, they linger in its echo, as if in the dimming light they might find their way back to the beginning.