taking time (or using it well like momo)

In the children’s book “Momo” by Michael Ende, (same author of “The Neverending Story“), which I am reading in German at the moment, the young girl Momo follows a turtle to a street called “Nowhere Lane” with glass houses and seashell streets. It is a place outside of conventional time. To reach the door of [...]

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mornings

or, The Glamorous Germanic Life of An American Girl In Berlin — Part I Some strange radio ad that sounds like a creepy nightmare. This is the first thing I hear in the morning, since 1) the normal clock alarm scares the crap out of me, 2) I changed the station from BBC because I [...]

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a towel, some crepes, and burned-out friendships: a tragedy in three parts

Intro Making friends in a new country is a difficult and delicate matter. Equally difficult is keeping the friends. One must often be more proactive, have more energy than in those friendships where all is well and has been well and will continue to be well for the last 5+ years and the coming decades. [...]

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the origin of things

Right now all the doors of my closet are standing open. I hear the sound of Jens bouncing on his yoga desk ball in the other room. It goes “scrunch scrunch scrunch.” I was looking through my clothes, counting up zippers on my belongings. This weekend when I traveled to Dortmund in the west of [...]

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what could have been (worse)

The following viewpoint is pessimistic optimism, or otherwise a complaint: Today I received a visa to inhabit The Federal Republic of Germany for two years. Clearly, a cause for celebration, and I am grateful and relieved, though I feel pressed to mention as well how awful the experience was. German bureaucracy. Is horrible. But while [...]

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