Andrew's Dresden

Andrew had a special assignment for school.  It was MEANT to be a three week school project, but he came home last weekend and told me he had a Power Point presentation due on Dresden that Monday.  He wrote the essay and we added the photos the morning of my birthday.  (Which might sound really lame, but for all who know me, was actually not a bad birthday gift for me!)

With ANZAC day coming up here - and inspired by Lindsey's piece on peace (!!!) - I just wanted to show what homeschooling can do.  Although we learned a lot about Dresden as part of a homeschooling project, Andrew's essay shows me that just talking about things informally at home, exposing kids to complicated ideas and encouraging to think about them, goes a long way.

It also shows that they ARE listening more than you think they are. 

And that it is never too early to start teaching kids about peace!

I feel really lucky that Andrew's teacher is carrying on the same lessons at school that I teach at home.  (And yes, Andrew wrote those last few pages himself.  I was actually trying to get him to tone it down or even delete some of it but then realized that was crossing the line from editing to censorship.  Hmmm....might be Andrew has the same preachy style as his mother!  But then again he is only nine!) 

Some photos have been omitted in the interests of time.  It's Andrews WORDS that I am so proud of!

Dresden
By Andrew Connor



My Opa was born in the nearby town of Rathen two weeks after Dresden was bombed. 
(This is us visiting Rathen.)



His Mum, my Ur-Oma, saw only dust and fire.  Dresden was bombed by the Americans and British because they were fighting the Nazis who ruled Germany at that time.  The Nazis were the bad guys.
(This is me in front of the Golden Horseman, a statue of August the Strong.  He was the Kaiser of Dresden in the 1700s)

Before the bombing Dresden was as pretty as today.  It has a famous Opera house.   It has paintings by famous painters like Rafael.  Martin Luther even studied there!  (This is me near a statue of the great Martin Luther.)







A lot of the buildings are fixed.  Some are the same as before and some not.  Good paintings burned and are redone.  This is the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady.  It was completely destroyed by the bombs.  Today it has been rebuilt.  It is a symbol of hope.  A piece of the old church has been kept standing to remind people of the bombings.  Ryan and Matthew stand in front of it.  (Photo omitted.)

Of course many people died.  Some also survived.  The survivors had even more pain than the already dead people of the bombed city of Dresden.

Dresden shows us all how terrible war is.  How much pain it can cause, how deadly it is and how not fun it is.  (This is the Elbe River that my Opa played and swam in as a little boy.)

Hiding

My Mommy worries when I don't blog.  Like there is something I am hiding from her.

Well yes, Mom, I am hiding a lot lately, thanks for asking.

Which is why I write about koala poop and today thought I'd mention our 5:45 AM capture of the Huntsman spider the kids found in their bedroom.  (Piece of cake, by the way.  Doesn't even faze us anymore.)

What the Huntsman is covering up is 3 blogs on Ego and Taoism, mushy pieces of self-discovery and personal growth that I really didn't feel the need to burden everyone with.  (Although, I suppressed the Ego, tried to remember that it was NOT all about me, followed the path of least resistance and had the satisfaction of it following the path I had wanted all along, WITHOUT my Ego pushing it.  See why I saved you the trouble of reading it?!)

The Huntsman is also covering up 4 blogs on German collective guilt and shame.  One of which I will post this week.  Again, not sure I need to go there publicly, but hiding it hasn't been making it go away either.

One of my friends has a son undergoing a second round of chemotherapy and bone marrow transplant for childhood leukemia, on Friday one of my best friends here ended up in the hospital with a brain anuerysm and yesterday my mom told me she was going back in for surgery and chemotherapy for metastasis to the liver from her colorectal cancer 6 months ago.

Which really puts the cough and fever that has laid me out flat for the last two weeks in perspective, doesn't it?! 

And makes the blog I have been researching on the Burke and Wills exploration and what it says about the Australian spirit seem fairly trivial.

I find myself completely unable to deal with Japan and natural disasters.

And then they throw Libya in the mix.

All of which brings up my belief in karma and reincarnation and makes me question again why the Christians did away with such an intuitive concept.

Making it hard to focus on the blog about Andrew being selected as goal-keeper for the travel team in soccer. 

By which I mean to say that things are business as usual around here. 

I have a hard time hiding anything from my Mommy.  Probably made her wish she hadn't asked though, didn't I?!

Life After Dresden (On Trafalmadore)

I came away from my visit to Dresden knowing where I came from and excited to see where I was going. I had - and still do have - the beginnings of yet ANOTHER book - but this time with characters I knew and could work with. Still do.

And then I read the copy of Slaughterhouse Five that I had picked up in a bookstore in Dresden. In English, of course, but also by a German-American (who studied the sciences before turning to writing, and who taught at Cornell University!). Yes, I DO like comparing myself to Kurt Vonnegut! Kurt, in a few terse words that always appear to be dancing around the subject matter but then somehow seem to hit it right on the head, brought out the horror of my ancestry. You have to see Dresden - or Florence or Rome - to know the splendors Kurt's American POWS saw when they first stepped off the wagon. But you can go to all too many places on earth - Hiroshima and Nagasaki spring to mind first, but also London, France and all of the former Naxi-occupied territories in Europe as well as Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan - to feel the horror they felt after the bombing.

I felt it at King Henri's fortress in northern Haiti. (He was the first of Haiti's many brutal dictators. He fought - and I believe conquered - Napoleon's army - but also delighted in power over others, at one point ordering his soldiers to march to their deaths over a cliff - just to prove they would.) I felt it at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. (Where George Washington's army froze and starved to death waiting for winter to end so that they and the Redcoats could slaughter eachother over the right to Native American lands.) I felt it at War Memorials all over France and Germany. And I feel it enough NOT to have to go and visit the former concentration camp only a few kilometers from where I sit right now.

So that this is my legacy. Not just the horrors of belonging to a race that systematically slaughtered the Jews and almost conquered most of Europe into Russia, but the reality of belonging to the human race that has committed such atrocities before and continues to commit them today. The Crusades. Christians killing Muslims. The Thirty Years War. Christians killing eachother. WWs 1 and 2. The Cold War. Killing Communism - and communists. And now back full circle to Muslims killing Christians. Except that now we're civilized enough to spread the horror worldwide. Good for us.

I don't want my story to be about this. My story is supposed to be a story about a young woman's quest for herself - or her Self. It's supposed to be an everywoman kind of story, one that everyone can see her - and him - self in. One to laugh along with and relate to, maybe cry along at the sad parts, but certainly emerge whole and strong at the end.

And - being only half German - it had always felt false, üebertrieben if you will (overkill for lack of a better English translation), to spend this amount of energy on something that happened before I - or even my father - was born. False sympathy. False guilt. Kitschig. But the more I try to avoid it the more it stays buried inside. I need to unearth it - and sorry here, write about it - before I am able to determine it's actual weight in my personal story.

Kurt says it better, but I can only say it my way.

I've got LOTS of good stuff to write about too. The days here on the farm in Iglersreuth, sunny and clear. The homeschooling in our little house, an enlightening but surprisingly enjoyable enterprise for all of us. The hiking and history, the swimming and skating. The Bauers and our revelations over the campfire. I've only got two days in which to do it too. We only have one ancient internet connection while we are here and Damon is on it constantly. Working he says. And I can't very well promise him my random musings will be picked up by Random House and immediately be made into a film by Steven Spielberg.

We leave for Australia on Wednesday, November 3. We will have no internet or phone for the first two weeks there. So that I feel a little lost. I AM writing. I have pen and paper. And I use them. But it doesn't seem like I am doing anything unless I share it here.

I DO write for myself. I have been getting more and more tense the longer I don't post. But I also write to share it. The character I am developing, the person on a quest for self-discovery, me, needs others to understand as well.

"Because he doesn't know who he is, people recognize themselves in him." (Tao Te Ching, 22)

Kurt's Tralfamadorians have a philosophy too.

''That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."

I'm still not sure whether Kurt is being facetious or not. ("Um," said Billy Pilgrim.) On one hand, the Trafalmadorians see in four dimensions and know that time, as we see it, is an illusion. So that Trafalmadorians have the option of ignoring something unpleasant in one instant by knowing it is pleasant in another. Which is sounding kind of Zen, or Taoist, in a way.

Ignoring the implications of at least half my heritage hasn't been working for me though. Most likely, I have not felt WORTHY enough to embrace all of my past. Not worthy enough to even feel guilt about the horrors of being human. So that maybe Kurt means that we humans AREN'T Trafalmadorians and DON'T have the luxury of looking at our atrocities through space alien eyes.

In any case, I feel much better for having gotten that all out into cyberspace.

If the novel ever DOES get written, and published, and maybe even becomes a big hit, you can say you read it first here! And front row seats to all 18 of my loyal fans (17 really, since my sister is signed on twice! but I really need the numbers for an ego boost right now!) when the movie version premiers.

In the meantime life continues on Trafalmadore, ie Iglersreuth. We will contact Earth as soon as our spaceship lands. (Not metaphorically, that could be a while for me, rather when we land in Brisbane and get our phone and internet up and running, sometime the second week in November.)

"Poo-tee-weet?" (Read Vonnegut, the man is brilliant.)

Say You're One of Them / Uwem Akpan

Say You're One of Them.

A collection of short stories written by Uwem Akpan, a Jesuit priest from Nigeria. Fictional stories about children in Africa that are so heart-wrenching they become real. A man writing about children. But a man, an African man, who has captured the heart of Africa's plight through these children's stories. And made their plight our own.

They're not easy to read. Certainly don't read them all at once. Homeless children sniffing shoe glue on the streets of Kenya. Been there, seen that. But - if I'm honest with myself - never allowed myself to think of them as human beings until now. Rwanda. Genocide. Again, not easy reads. But about people who could really be us.

The one that completely shocked me was set in Nigeria. Just like a second book, Little Bee, written by Chris Cleave. Another man, a white English man this time, who manages to somehow channel this little black Nigerian girl and make her world our own.

The thing is. This is our world. It is happening in real-time as we sit in front of our computer screens or play with our children at the pool. And we know nothing about it.

Did YOU know there were oil wars in Nigeria? Did YOU know the Muslim North was fighting the Christian South - and that the oil in the south ........no, I really didn't bother to pay attention. Because it's the same old story all the time.

That's why we need books like this.

BP and Shell and Mobil have been destroying the environment for decades. The only problem recently was that BP had the misfortune to do so in a rich, white country. No oil company has had to pay Africans for their destroyed land and rivers, for the loss of homes, towns and yes, the brutal slaughter of people who mattered so little that they were able to kill them without the rest of the world even caring.

Makes you really want to read these books, doesn't it? But I promise you - the good thing about these books, the reason these authors are great, is that they don't preach and philosophize the way I do. They let you know a person and hear their story, without pity, without sympathy.

They tell it honestly, from the minds of children, and let you take what you want from the telling.

They are fantastic stories first a foremost. Because they DON'T rub your face in it.

The first person I passed "Little Bee" onto was Lynn. Unwarned. (And the thing is - it tells you on the cover not to reveal the ending to anyone - it is a journey from beginning to end that must be read and absorbed alone without discussion.)

Poor Lynn. Her words (she worked for a newspaper in South Africa and is no slouch with the writing!) :

Little Bee is the most riveting story I have read in a while - I keep wondering what happened to her...... left me feeling apprehensive, and angry...
Thank you so much for letting me read her story..... ahh it broke my heart and challenged my own conscious...... you see I still drive my car around, would I give it up? since the petroleum I purchase is probably linked to the destruction and blood of others? 'Yes, yes yes,' my heart cries ! Then what? Buy an electric car? Can we afford it?
Next option - which brand of diesel /petrol could I support that is not linked to any evil? According to Forbes Fortune 500 - Mobil, Shell and BP are listed as the second, third and fourth richest companies in the world...... only beaten by Walmart listed first. Shell and BP are definitely in the Delta and I do not know much about Mobil and their history ...... Thomas doubts their are any oil companies that are not tainted with blood and destruction in some way .......

If you are a global economic power it is all about the money - you own the politicians, pretty much a licence to do what you like, start wars, displace (indigenous) communities, destroy the environment and the list continues..... our greed is not only linked to oil - how many brands are ethical when only the bottom line counts?... and marketers try and own the consumer, we live our lives consuming, complaining and ignoring the little voice when it tries to remind us of what we are accountable for when we support unethical companies by purchasing their products or working for them...... So what do we do? Go back and live the life of a plain lady like your friend? Or live the life of a renounciate and find a cave in the Himalayas ...... So how can we live an ethical life in the world of consumerism?

And, since the book made us feel so good, we of course want to share it with the rest of the group!

How's that for a bunch of stay-at-home mommies supposedly spending our mornings painting our nails and the afternoons taking it easy with the kids at the pool?!

What can we do? How are we, each of us, individually, going to save the world? How are we going to keep smiling and living happy lives when confronted with the atrocities around us? The list is long: oil, war, poverty, racism, disease...how can we live with ourselves knowing we are doing nothing about them?

Lynn again - with an answer -

'Mommy can you play with me?' ..... there's a start to my question this morning.... be a good mother, buy local, consume less, live a simple life, try and make a difference where I can .........

And Michael. Man in the Mirror. We can start by becoming better people ourselves. We can recognize our flaws - our own pettiness, our own selfishness, our own unfair prejudices and work to become more compassionate ourselves.

We can learn to recognize ourselves in others.

So that when we DO see somewhere where we can make a difference, we will help someone with a wheelchair, or someone who has fallen on the sidewalk. Love the neighbor's child - who really is quite the little monster - as our own.

I don't know that smiling and helping your elderly neighbor with the groceries is going to do anything about the atrocities in the world. But I do know it's a start.

Say You're One of Them. Uwem Akpan.

Little Bee. Chris Cleave.

Do read them. They're a look in the mirror.

Man In The Mirror

A friend of mine wrote a piece about auras a while back. In it, he defended his idea that NOT all people are created equal, that people are different, and that we notice this on a subtle level when we interact with others, when we are attracted to some people and more turned off by other people. For him, it was about spirituality and intelligence. And we recognize others like ourselves and are automatically drawn to them.

The Hindus explain this instant attraction to someone you've never met before through reincarnation. Someone you feel an immediate bond with was probably someone you have known - and been close friends with - before.

We've all had it. You run into someone for the first time and could spend hours talking to them. Or you meet someone and know right away this person is going to be trouble.

I've known people who believe they can read auras. And always been afraid to ask. I had a guy in India begin to read my palm once and draw back in fear. So sometimes you don't want to delve too deeply. (I apparently have a double lifeline, and that's not a good thing.)

But the man in India also told me that you can change your lifeline. And I am quite certain that you can change your aura.

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror.
I'm asking him to change his ways.
And no message could have been any clearer.
If you want to make the world a better place,
Take a look at yourself
And then make a change."

Michael really is brilliant.

I don't know what my aura was like when the twins were born. I've been told I have way too much fire in my astrology chart. My guess is red. After the twins were born, I think I may have lost my aura. It disappeared entirely. And then it came back black or gray. Yuck. When I finally got color back in my aura again it turned an angry red. Who would have wanted to know me then?

I didn't lookup what the colors meant until just now. But no surprises. Red creates a lot of friction. Black and gray relate to blocked energies and health problems.

I believe I'm lucky I had any friends at all the last four years.

This week I did a visualization exercise and saw pink. The gray was leaving me. I was letting it go. I do feel more compassion - for myself and for others. I am more sensitive, slower to anger and more eager to understand and empathize.

I am a much healthier, better person to know.

And I know my aura reflects this.

When I was black, I bounced everyone else away. When I was red I pissed them off. Now that I am pink, I am amazed at all the people who come out of the blue (not picked intentionally, but a blue aura DOES signal sensitivity, generosity and communication!) and find me. Some need to talk. Some offer guidance and comfort.

But it's unbelievable. HOW DO THEY KNOW? How do they know they can confide in me? How do they know that I need to hear what they have to say?

These are people of all ages, sexes, races, religions and nationalities.

Why are they finding me now that I am leaving?

When I was in highschool grown-ups always asked me what I was going to do with my life. "I'm going to save the world." I replied. (How I was going to do this as a veterinarian was entirely beyond me, but my reasoning at the time discounted people as a bunch of pinheads and animals and the environment as way more worthy of saving than the human race.)

Saving the world is a big task. Worthier men - and gods - than I have tried and failed.

But if I'm just one more person looking in the mirror and getting the message, maybe we're just that tiny bit more closer to a better place. I am, anyway.

No, Mark. All people are NOT created equal. (Hindus explain this so nicely too, as karma creating your present circumstances so that you can learn from them.) But we are all one. And we all have the opportunity to change.

I believe that's what we're here for.

It's up to us whether we look into the mirror and rise to the challenge or not.

Ubuntu

This is why I like the World Cup.

That's a German man embracing an American man (Damon's step-dad) after the Germany-Ghana game a few weeks ago.

Damon's folks were here for only a few days, but caught the best of us. Smiling, happy, friendly, social, even goofy Germans. All rooting together for a common goal - one that doesn't have the rest of the free world quivering in their boots this time.




Even more so, Africa was on display. And the world rooted with them and for them. Sure, we wanted to beat Ghana, because that's what you do in a game. But we also wanted to see them win. People asked me how I felt after Ghana defeated the USA. Sweet that. But in a game that was billed as "The American Dream" versus "African Hope," well you couldn't be sad the game went to the country to whom it meant the most.

One could say that Africa got screwed as usual, on Uruguay's handball in the goal. And lost because of lack of technical expertise (penalty shots) and not because of lack of raw talent. How typically African. (FIFA is considering changing the rules on handballs in the goal because of that Ghana loss to Uruguay.)

But South Africa really set a standard of generosity and good will for the rest of the world to follow.

It's called Ubuntu. No, not the Linux program, but a south African philosophy of human interconnectedness.

Desmond Tutu defined it in 2008 as "the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation."

The World Cup brings us together as a nation for a few short weeks every four years. It's the only time I follow soccer, but I know all the players every time. And have opinions on who was fouled and whether an off-side took place, things I know nothing about in the real world, during a non-World Cup year.




But this time I feel the Ubuntu. I do.

I cried when Germany lost to Serbia early on in the elimination rounds. Not just because we lost but because Germans were cheering their team anyway. And because I suddenly realized that Germany winning the next game meant Ghana losing. And that one nation would cheer as another one mourns. That no matter what happened in a game, someone was celebrating as someone else lost.

And goodness, I suddenly also realized that it is only a game. Really. That there are much more important reasons to celebrate and much sadder reasons to mourn.

And that if we could unite as a nation over this, then we should be able to unite as a world over other, more important matters.

Desmond Tutu from his 1999 book:

"A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."

It's the exact opposite of Schadenfreude. It's the ability to be happy for your enemy, because they aren't your enemy after all, but a part of yourself. It's what the Taoists call Tao, the Hindus call Universal Consciousness. And I believe what Jesus meant when he talked about us all being sons and daughters of God. Oh. I get it now.

My Ballack shirt goes back in mothballs after last night's win against Uruguay. (And yes, it was nice that we won. Nice though, not life-changing or world-altering.)

But I'm working on keeping the spirit of Ubuntu alive more than once every four years.

New Labels for Everyone

"What's your sign?"

I'd just tried to help an elderly couple disentangle two shopping carts in front of the supermarket. The husband was wheeling two of them around, stuck together, muttering to himself and the wife was looking confused. So I ran up and told them not to worry about it, this happens all the time, and offered to put my Euro into the one slot to separate the two. Turns out they had already tried that. It really WAS busted. They were still looking slightly confused, but able to manage on their own. He was just going to wheel the two carts around until he got to the help desk. I laughed. "You know, you could probably just shop with them like that and see if anybody notices."

They didn't quite know what to make of me. I was laughing, I was friendly, I'd offered to help a stranger. (Last week, swear to God, Damon watched THREE separate people walk past a handicapped elderly gentlemen who was looking for help getting a shopping cart. Damon finally had to get back out of the car to help.)

I like the elderly here. They are so friendly. And thrilled that someone my age is friendly back.

The incident was strengthening my conviction not to label people based on their nationalities anymore. I am studying Hindu and Buddhist philosophy. Both believe that we are all part of a universal consciousness. Part of self-realization is seeing us all as a whole. I don't explain it very well, but then again I've spent my entire life in a Judeo-Christian society. Jesus did say something similar, something about us all being sons of God, all having God within us.

The Dalai Lama says it well too. All of us just want the same things, to avoid suffering and to be happy. When you realize that, you can empathize and see yourself in anyone.

Mother Teresa had it right too.

So I was - and am - going to see everyone as myself. No age, sex, race, religion or nationality. Just people. Part of the same universal consciousness as me.

Her husband went off pushing both shopping carts but his wife ran back to ask me a question. "What sign are you?" she asked. "Huh?" I eloquently replied. "Your sign, your sign, you know, I want to know why you are so exuberant and happy."

That nasty part of me wanted to tell her I was American, and that that's why I was so exuberant and happy, but I had my new resolution. (My accent is slight enough that a lot of people, especially serious Swabs battling with an accent of their own, don't notice it.) This had nothing to do with nationality. It had to do with being friendly.

"Aries." I told her. "April." As if that explained everything. "Oh" she replied. "I'm a Pisces." And off she went, as happy as can be, looking for her husband and the two shopping carts.

"Hmmm" I thought to myself. "Looks like I've found myself a new system for labelling people."

Oh Mother!

I am a mother.

I am not a piece of furniture, a place to rest your head, a source of refuge, a security blanket, a cup holder, a provider of food and beverage as well as various articles of clothing, a pack mule, a place holder, a trash can, a hand, face and nose wiper, holder of the kleenex.....

Oh, who am I kidding?

We all went to the International Motocross in nearby Holzgerlingen the other week. I don't get to watch the races much; see the list as to what I am invited along for.

For one brief moment, I was able to lay on my back on the grass, eyes closed, for what passes as solitude in my current existence; motors roaring, you take what you can get. There were no kids around for a second.

I opened my eyes to find a tall, lean, good-looking blonde man in his early thirties looking down at me. (True story. It was actually rather disconcerting.) "Hello." he smiled, eyes certainly twinkling at me behind his trendy sunglasses. "Do you mind watching my bag?"

I give up. There must be a sign tattoed on my breasts. "Mother," it says "the source of all things."

I like to think other women are taking care of my men when I allow them out alone.

It got me to thinking though. Honestly, if men were REALLY running the world, I mean REALLY running it, managing the grocery lists, the household chores, the kids' school schedules in addition to their "real" job, I think the world might actually be a better place. If more chaotic and messy.

Hear me out. I mean, even Obama, darling of the free world and one of the most powerful men on the planet, admits in his book that his wife still yells at him for not putting the butter away. This man is in charge of the largest armed forces in the world, and he can't remember to clean up the kitchen. That's not cute. That's insulting.

So, if it weren't for Michelle, and all of the Michelle's out there, getting food on the table, buying winter jackets, taking the car in for it's 30,000 mile checkup, keeping vaccinations up to date and all the rest, I'm thinking the world would fall apart. Peacefully. Daddies everywhere would be too busy trying to figure out how to coordinate the Tuesday soccer/ballet carpool to even bother trying to invade another country.

Then again the American military has been doing it without any real strategy for years now.

I tried my own strategy for world domination - or at least a little peace and quiet - the other day. Nobody was really thrilled with the lunch I had whipped up, admittedly rather hastily. (Am I the only mother on the planet whose kids don't like spaghetti?) When Andrew came into the kitchen half an hour later to ask for a granola bar, I gave in. However, when Aidan heard the wrapper and came in too, I also asked Andrew to get one for his little brother. By the time Andrew had opened one for Matthew as well, he just looked at me in exasperation, gave a deep sigh and said, "oh Mom, those two are just too much sometimes."

Welcome to my world son. Let's change it together!