The Two-Week Sublet That Led to Love
Whereas dwelling in Warsaw in 2009, Tusia Dabrowska was all the time on the hunt for potential inventive collaborators. Pals advised that she meet Wiktor Maria Freifeld, who, like her, was Polish and Jewish, and making artwork.
“We met at a celebration that I don’t bear in mind,” Ms. Dabrowska, 44, mentioned. “Then we met twice to speak a couple of undertaking.”
“We nonetheless want to complete it,” Mr. Freifeld, 47, mentioned of the video undertaking they mentioned.
About 5 months after their first assembly, Ms. Dabrowska was leaving Warsaw for a graduate program in inventive writing at N.Y.U., and instructed Mr. Freifeld, who had just lately arrived within the Polish capital, that he may sublet her condominium for a brief interval.
Mr. Freifeld was born and raised in Krakow, Poland, the place he acquired a bachelor’s diploma in graphic design from the Jan Matejko Academy of Tremendous Arts. He has designed exhibitions for museums and reside projections for up to date music and fashionable dance performances, and is at the moment working towards a grasp’s diploma in projection design on the David Geffen Faculty of Drama at Yale.
Ms. Dabrowska grew up in Warsaw, however moved to Queens, N.Y., the place her father and stepmother lived, throughout highschool. She has a bachelor’s diploma in arts in context from Eugene Lang School of Liberal Arts on the New Faculty, and is an adjunct teacher of video modifying and manufacturing at CUNY and N.Y.U.
Due to some logistical snafus, Ms. Dabrowska and Mr. Freifeld had a crossover interval of a couple of week within the studio condominium.
“That was how we grew to become actually good pals,” Ms. Dabrowska mentioned.
Folks streamed out and in for meals, conversations and goodbyes. “Tusia was doing a whole lot of attention-grabbing issues, and was from a special nation, and was very open and welcoming,” Mr. Freifeld mentioned.
For 4 years, they have been in romantic relationships with different folks however remained long-distance greatest pals. “We talked on the telephone on daily basis or each different day,” Ms. Dabrowska mentioned.
In 2013, their connection started to remodel. They went on a date to see an open rehearsal of a reimagined model of the opera “The Magic Flute” at an anarchist squat in Warsaw. Not lengthy after, Mr. Freifeld determined to go to Ms. Dabrowska in New York for the primary time. The three weeks he deliberate was three months, and the 2 grew to become a pair.
For years, they have been separated by the Atlantic Ocean. However in August 2020, Ms. Dabrowska took benefit of distant work and moved to Berlin; Mr. Freifeld joined her there. “We have been each new to the nation, so we actually have been collectively on a regular basis,” Ms. Dabrowska mentioned.
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They lived in a studio condominium with a really comparable format to the one they’d shared all these years in the past in Warsaw, and labored on a brief documentary movie collectively, concerning the refugee disaster on the border between Belarus and Poland. After two years, Ms. Dabrowska returned to New York for work, and Mr. Freifeld utilized to Yale.
Earlier than, they’d been used to lengthy separations, however their time in Berlin modified that. “Being aside for every week began to really feel so lengthy,” Ms. Dabrowska mentioned. “We had to determine how you can transfer to be collectively.”
Shortly earlier than Ms. Dabrowska went again to New York, she and Mr. Freifeld had dinner at Dóttir, a fine-dining restaurant in Berlin that’s now closed, and received complementary tattoos of dots on the ring fingers of their left palms, to mark a brand new stage of their lives collectively.
A number of months later, in February 2023, Mr. Freifeld was accepted at Yale. In July, he moved to New Haven, Conn., and in November, Ms. Dabrowska grew to become pregnant. The couple determined to get married, to start the method of making certain that it doesn’t matter what occurred subsequent, Mr. Freifeld would have the authorized proper to stay in america together with his household.
They have been wed April 27 at Greenpoint Corridor in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with 70 friends who attended in particular person, and one other 24 who watched through Zoom. The couple’s buddy, Elissa Jiji, who was beforehand ordained by the Common Life Church, officiated.
A few of their pals introduced art work across the theme of “therapeutic togetherness and wild futures” for the ceremony and two pals sang. Ms. Dabrowska and Mr. Freifeld revised the seven blessings, that are historically learn at Jewish weddings, to suit their way of life and issues, like “battle and local weather change,” Ms. Dabrowska mentioned.
The couple served “appetizers that remember fermented meals,” as a nod to their tradition, Ms. Dabrowska mentioned, together with herring and pickles from the Pickle Guys and Russ & Daughters. For dinner, they’d borscht and pierogies.
“We blended Polish and Jewish traditions, and all of it felt very pure,” Mr. Freifeld mentioned. “I don’t bear in mind feeling so completely happy in my life earlier than.”
