And I do mean EARLY! Our flight to London leaves at 15:30. We got to the Stuttgart airport at 11:30, four hours early for a two hour flight. The ticket counter wasn't even open yet. The strategy had already worked for me in February when I went to visit Gma in Florida. It - and some profuse tears - got me the last flight out of Germany in the middle of a snowstorm covering most of Europe. I landed in the middle of a snowstorm blanketing the entire USA, and I had to fly throught Charles de Gaulle, but I made it to Gmas only 24 hours later than planned. (Funny enough, a SECOND snowstorm in Atlanta two weeks later also delayed my return home to Germany!) Rule number one in European airtravel: NEVER EVER EVER fly through Charles De Gaulle. (When we lived in France, we were lucky enough to live close to the Geneva airport!) Rule Number Two: have as little carry-on baggage with you as possible just in case you are force to disregard rule number two. And remember, even though their airport looks - and runs - like a third world country in the midst of a civil war (and good God, do NOT go into the restaurants or let your children TOUCH anything while you are there!), the French are a lovely people once you get out of their airport.
All of which has nothing to do with getting there early except perhaps that the lady from the BRITISH AIRWAYS counter (and BRITISH AIRWAYS already has my vote for airline of choice!), a citizen of Ghana living in Germany, was born in France.
She allowed us to turn on two scales at the counter so we could start in with redistributing the weight in our bags. Then she called in two people to check us in at noon. Even though they didn't officially start check-in at 13:00. We told her we'd wait, but we were there early to make THEIR lives easier too.
Wé'd used the BRITISH AIRWAY offer of one extra bag for 45 Euros to condense our carry-ons into as little as possible, using those extra 23 kgs to carry mostly the schoolbooks that Damon would otherwise have ended up lugging through Heathrow and Singapore. And then we ran into complications with the Singapore connection- and those 40 extra Euros PER pound that had hit me in Florida came back to haunt me. It took three people on our end, multiple phone calls to a myriad of supervisors and to sister airlines, as well as forty minutes to get our bag on the flight, checked in through to Brisbane and all for 45 Euros.
The kids also got 4 fanny packs and the label "sky flyer"out of the deal.
I'm going to give a heck of a lot of credit to BRITISH AIRWAYS and to the three women helping us for taking the time to make our life so much easier.
But I also know it was showing up early, BEFORE they had other customers to deal with, that made it all possible. They would not have been ABLE to spend an hour checking us in if a line was forming behind us.
We also showed up with extra bags and tape for the kids' seats.
So that - for that one little moment at least - making someone else's job easier for them made it possible for them to make the next two days easier for us.
I AM starting a new blog - Twintensity in Oz - and I will let you know when it is up and running. Thoughts running through my brain include that fact that noone I now speaks English the way the English seem to - including my English friends in Germany. And that perhaps, just perhaps, we are going to have some linguistic culture shock after all! This is BEFORE the language gets beaten to death by the Aussies! I also didn't know the address we were moving too - and then had to ask Damon if Australia even had zip codes!
My kids are running through the Burger King here at the Stuttgart airport.
I've already cried my eyes out in the cab - fortunately to a Turkish cabby who took it all in stride!
And yeah - we are off. Carrying more baggage than I'd counted on : hug from Andrea in REAL yesterday (a suitcase broke at the last minute!), sushi with the girls last night - who knew it would mean so much?, late night and early morning phone calls with Anita, last minute call from Lynn (who did the same for me when we left Altdorf in Sept!), comments from Jim on my blog, emails and wishes from Catherine.
I'd planned to start a NEW chapter. But I'm not done with last one yet.
Hoping to catch up with you all in London! It means a lot that you are flying with!
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
German or Swabian?
I believe I have taken that last step into being truly German. I'm going to mock the Swabians.
When my family - spread from Cologne in the west to Berlin in the east - heard that we were living in (the German state of ) Baden-Wuerttemburg they all said one thing.
"How can you stand living down there? Those people are odd."
When Damon's German colleagues from graduate school heard they said two things.
"Told you Germany is a lot cleaner than France." (It is.) And " how can you stand living down there? Those people are odd."
I didn't have the heart to tell them at the time that we thought they were all a little odd, so that Baden-Wuerttemburg didn't really faze us that much.
My oldest friend in Germany, whose Hessisch accent sounded like the language I learned as a child, told me not to judge Germany by Baden-Wuerttemburg. I did.
You know. The tight-fisted, scowling, close-minded old person tending their garden, scrubbing their steps and washing their windows while they glare dolefully at the children who dare to venture too close to their previous flower beds. (Like the couple who ran the bed in breakfast we visited in Munich, funnily enough NOT in Baden-Wuerttemburg and just the exception I need to prove the rule!) http://twintensity.blogspot.com/2009/04/we-dont-really-want-to-see-them-either.html
The dialect in Baden-Wuerttemburg is so strong that the state's tourist motto is : we can do everything except speak German. Proving that at least one person there DOES have a sense of humor about themselves! (It's also the reason noone here has picked up on my American accent. I tell them where we have been living and they excuse the poor German based on that fact alone! Although, I gotta tell you, when some of the older Bayern folks compliment me on speaking German, I have to bite my tongue not to ask them if they wouldn't mind trying it too please. Amazing what you can intuit from only understanding half the words!)
Of course Damon and I owe our sanity, and our security deposit, to the kindness and generosity of our Swabian neighbors. And Andrew's baseball coach, the epitome of jocularity and good sportsmanship, is Swabian. As are all my good friends who showered me with thoughtful gifts and sentiments when I left. Aidan and Matthew's godfather is Swabian, and a happy father of four. (Although I am sure his wife, my oldest friend, would ask me to reiterate that she most emphatically is NOT!)
My fellow Dresdeners (in the German state of Sachsen) didn't exactly greet me with warm fuzzy sentimentality either. They were respectful, courteous and helpful. Which was already an improvement over Stuttgarters who are often resentful at having being asked. If you don't ask the correct question, in the correct way, to the correct person, at the correct time somewhere between coffee break and lunch, you not only won't get an answer, you will get a cold sneer. And no, they won't direct you to the proper office. "Nicht meine Verantwortung." Not my responsibility. And they won't make it their responsibility either. (Which is why it is always so pleasant doing overseas business with someone from the USA, where they honestly try to help you find a solution to your problems and actually seem to find pleasure in doing so. Even if they ARE faking it.) Bureacracy, they call it here, shake their heads at the absurdity and chuckle ruefully. Go ahead, you're doing it right now if you live here!
Back to courtesy without warmth from Sachsen. Which prompted our hosts here in Bayern to tell us. ''Oh, we don't really have that much to do with those people up there. They are kind of odd." Well yeah, I guess losing a war you started with the Russians and then falling victim to communism might do that to a person. Or in this case a nation. Didn't I hear something about a united Germany though? Has anyone told the GERMANS that those "odd" people to the south and north of them are actually fellow countrymen?!
But it IS friendlier here in Bayern. Especially with four children. Back in Stuttgart, we do get smiles, but mostly of stunned disbelief and sympathy. People here actually LIKE our large family. They are HAPPY for us. Out here in Iglersreuth, Frau Bauer tells me that families of four and five children are nothing unusual on the farms. With less incomes than in Baden-Wuerttemburg.
But we still turn heads in the larger towns. Heads that stop, bend down and talk to the kids. Heads that laugh when they realize they are holding the door open for more than the two children they had first spotted. Like a gaggle of geese coming through the door.
Wait. Let me repeat that. They are holding open the door. Holding open the door. As in a common courtesy that I thought had been forgotten in Germany. Holding open the door. For children. You aren't going to see that in Badem-Wuerttemburg. Unless you are hanging out on one of the American military bases. Which is quite possible since they seem to be proliferating quite nicely there despite the end of the cold war. (Another essay, another time!)
In Dresden, a woman in her sixties insisted on giving up her seat on the tram for Aidan and Matthew. As if it were only the right and proper thing to do. She wouldn't have had a seat on the U-Bahn in Stuttgart. The men are pretty quick to get there first.
So that common courtesies aren't as common as they should be. But universal after all.
My cousin in Cologne had some advice when we told him we were considering relocating to Freiberg two years ago. ''It's nice enough." he said. ''I spent seven years there. But it's still Baden-Wuerttemburg. I couldn't do it again."
Seven seems to be a magic number in my family. I couldn't do it again either.
But I do leave a part of myself behind in that odd little part of the world the rest of the world considers part of Germany and the Germans consider Baden-Wuerttemburg. So that I'd like to make an introduction.
Germany, meet Baden-Wuerttemburg.
Baden-Wuerttemberg, meet Germany. Go ahead, they're holding the door open for you!
When my family - spread from Cologne in the west to Berlin in the east - heard that we were living in (the German state of ) Baden-Wuerttemburg they all said one thing.
"How can you stand living down there? Those people are odd."
When Damon's German colleagues from graduate school heard they said two things.
"Told you Germany is a lot cleaner than France." (It is.) And " how can you stand living down there? Those people are odd."
I didn't have the heart to tell them at the time that we thought they were all a little odd, so that Baden-Wuerttemburg didn't really faze us that much.
My oldest friend in Germany, whose Hessisch accent sounded like the language I learned as a child, told me not to judge Germany by Baden-Wuerttemburg. I did.
You know. The tight-fisted, scowling, close-minded old person tending their garden, scrubbing their steps and washing their windows while they glare dolefully at the children who dare to venture too close to their previous flower beds. (Like the couple who ran the bed in breakfast we visited in Munich, funnily enough NOT in Baden-Wuerttemburg and just the exception I need to prove the rule!) http://twintensity.blogspot.com/2009/04/we-dont-really-want-to-see-them-either.html
The dialect in Baden-Wuerttemburg is so strong that the state's tourist motto is : we can do everything except speak German. Proving that at least one person there DOES have a sense of humor about themselves! (It's also the reason noone here has picked up on my American accent. I tell them where we have been living and they excuse the poor German based on that fact alone! Although, I gotta tell you, when some of the older Bayern folks compliment me on speaking German, I have to bite my tongue not to ask them if they wouldn't mind trying it too please. Amazing what you can intuit from only understanding half the words!)
Of course Damon and I owe our sanity, and our security deposit, to the kindness and generosity of our Swabian neighbors. And Andrew's baseball coach, the epitome of jocularity and good sportsmanship, is Swabian. As are all my good friends who showered me with thoughtful gifts and sentiments when I left. Aidan and Matthew's godfather is Swabian, and a happy father of four. (Although I am sure his wife, my oldest friend, would ask me to reiterate that she most emphatically is NOT!)
My fellow Dresdeners (in the German state of Sachsen) didn't exactly greet me with warm fuzzy sentimentality either. They were respectful, courteous and helpful. Which was already an improvement over Stuttgarters who are often resentful at having being asked. If you don't ask the correct question, in the correct way, to the correct person, at the correct time somewhere between coffee break and lunch, you not only won't get an answer, you will get a cold sneer. And no, they won't direct you to the proper office. "Nicht meine Verantwortung." Not my responsibility. And they won't make it their responsibility either. (Which is why it is always so pleasant doing overseas business with someone from the USA, where they honestly try to help you find a solution to your problems and actually seem to find pleasure in doing so. Even if they ARE faking it.) Bureacracy, they call it here, shake their heads at the absurdity and chuckle ruefully. Go ahead, you're doing it right now if you live here!
Back to courtesy without warmth from Sachsen. Which prompted our hosts here in Bayern to tell us. ''Oh, we don't really have that much to do with those people up there. They are kind of odd." Well yeah, I guess losing a war you started with the Russians and then falling victim to communism might do that to a person. Or in this case a nation. Didn't I hear something about a united Germany though? Has anyone told the GERMANS that those "odd" people to the south and north of them are actually fellow countrymen?!
But it IS friendlier here in Bayern. Especially with four children. Back in Stuttgart, we do get smiles, but mostly of stunned disbelief and sympathy. People here actually LIKE our large family. They are HAPPY for us. Out here in Iglersreuth, Frau Bauer tells me that families of four and five children are nothing unusual on the farms. With less incomes than in Baden-Wuerttemburg.
But we still turn heads in the larger towns. Heads that stop, bend down and talk to the kids. Heads that laugh when they realize they are holding the door open for more than the two children they had first spotted. Like a gaggle of geese coming through the door.
Wait. Let me repeat that. They are holding open the door. Holding open the door. As in a common courtesy that I thought had been forgotten in Germany. Holding open the door. For children. You aren't going to see that in Badem-Wuerttemburg. Unless you are hanging out on one of the American military bases. Which is quite possible since they seem to be proliferating quite nicely there despite the end of the cold war. (Another essay, another time!)
In Dresden, a woman in her sixties insisted on giving up her seat on the tram for Aidan and Matthew. As if it were only the right and proper thing to do. She wouldn't have had a seat on the U-Bahn in Stuttgart. The men are pretty quick to get there first.
So that common courtesies aren't as common as they should be. But universal after all.
My cousin in Cologne had some advice when we told him we were considering relocating to Freiberg two years ago. ''It's nice enough." he said. ''I spent seven years there. But it's still Baden-Wuerttemburg. I couldn't do it again."
Seven seems to be a magic number in my family. I couldn't do it again either.
But I do leave a part of myself behind in that odd little part of the world the rest of the world considers part of Germany and the Germans consider Baden-Wuerttemburg. So that I'd like to make an introduction.
Germany, meet Baden-Wuerttemburg.
Baden-Wuerttemberg, meet Germany. Go ahead, they're holding the door open for you!
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Fight to Write
Damon has been gone for two full days and I have spent a large majority of that time on the computer writing. The days have been mild and sunny. The kids have played outside, Luke and Leia running an intergalactic fast food joint out of the sandbox as Anakin and Obiwan ride around on their little plastic green tractors saving the universe from loose lawn debris and every so often in coming in for an order of fries. With ketchup.
I did spend some time making sure that Luke and Leia could measure distance in meters, centimeters and millimeters. And all four of the Star Wars gang has unwittingly been learning about Germany while playing a great Ravensburger game called "Deutschlandreise'' (Travel through Germany). Not only are they learning map reading skills, they are learning all the major airports in Germany and which connections to take get from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Kiel. The coolest thing is that the game is over 20 years old and still shows the divided Germanies. So that we get a little history lesson built in too. I'd highly recommend the game to anyone raising kids in Germany. The kids learn to plan out a route, learn about places in Germany. And it's fun. Really. Ravensburger is great. And can feel free to advertise on my final web-site any day.
Right now I just looked up to catch Andrew, in my straw sun hat, enter the bedroom. Ryan has the camera - I believe she asked permission and I just said ''Um." And the four of them are writing and directing themselves in a movie. Peacefully so far.
But Damon will come home to battle scars. The latest occurred this afternoon as Luke, Leia and I were reviewing lengths and distances. ( I get to be Padme, and have endowed myself with the powers of Gaia, something that Luke does not fully approve of but which he lets slide with a roll of his eyes as long as I am willing to remain in character.) In order to stop Anakin (Matthew, appropriately enough) and Obiwan from waging their intergalactic battle on the sofa, Padme suggested they open a fast food stand on her bed using the Uno cards as currency. Padme did NOT suggest taking her pens and tattoing their faces with them. Although she has to admit it adds to the terror when they face their intergalactic space opponents. Or, in Obiwan's case, scary spiders.
It also has the added bonus of covering some of the scars Anakin inflicted upon Obiwan in yesterday's all-to-real battle here on Earth.
Padme can use the forces of good to restore order to the universe. Or in this case the apartment.
Nothing but time will bring back Andrew's toenail.
My time is up. Damon is on his way up the stairs. I think of my children's battle scars and thank them for their self-less sacrifice on the altar of their mother's writing.
The fight to write. Tougher than a light saber duel against Darth Vader. May the Force be with me.
I did spend some time making sure that Luke and Leia could measure distance in meters, centimeters and millimeters. And all four of the Star Wars gang has unwittingly been learning about Germany while playing a great Ravensburger game called "Deutschlandreise'' (Travel through Germany). Not only are they learning map reading skills, they are learning all the major airports in Germany and which connections to take get from Garmisch-Partenkirchen to Kiel. The coolest thing is that the game is over 20 years old and still shows the divided Germanies. So that we get a little history lesson built in too. I'd highly recommend the game to anyone raising kids in Germany. The kids learn to plan out a route, learn about places in Germany. And it's fun. Really. Ravensburger is great. And can feel free to advertise on my final web-site any day.
Right now I just looked up to catch Andrew, in my straw sun hat, enter the bedroom. Ryan has the camera - I believe she asked permission and I just said ''Um." And the four of them are writing and directing themselves in a movie. Peacefully so far.
But Damon will come home to battle scars. The latest occurred this afternoon as Luke, Leia and I were reviewing lengths and distances. ( I get to be Padme, and have endowed myself with the powers of Gaia, something that Luke does not fully approve of but which he lets slide with a roll of his eyes as long as I am willing to remain in character.) In order to stop Anakin (Matthew, appropriately enough) and Obiwan from waging their intergalactic battle on the sofa, Padme suggested they open a fast food stand on her bed using the Uno cards as currency. Padme did NOT suggest taking her pens and tattoing their faces with them. Although she has to admit it adds to the terror when they face their intergalactic space opponents. Or, in Obiwan's case, scary spiders.
It also has the added bonus of covering some of the scars Anakin inflicted upon Obiwan in yesterday's all-to-real battle here on Earth.
Padme can use the forces of good to restore order to the universe. Or in this case the apartment.
Nothing but time will bring back Andrew's toenail.
My time is up. Damon is on his way up the stairs. I think of my children's battle scars and thank them for their self-less sacrifice on the altar of their mother's writing.
The fight to write. Tougher than a light saber duel against Darth Vader. May the Force be with me.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
21st Century Woolf
It just occurs to me that the best words of wisdom I have heard about writing come from two writers whose works I really haven't read. Virginia (Woolf)'s essay entitled ''A Room of One's Own" has been my clarion call since before I read it. And once I finally did read it, two years ago, well, the woman is simply brilliant. (I just can't seem to get into her fiction. Huh.)
I don't have her essay here with me. But I feel that I am living it. Virginia's contention is that men in her time were more successful authors than women for a number of very simple reasons: they had the freedom to write, they had the income to write, and they weren't getting knocked up every eighteen months and raising a passle of snotty nosed children.
Nowadays the passle of kids is a choice, and not nearly as time-consuming as we all like to moan about. (Is passle a word?) The exception is the first few years with multiple small children, but those do pass. Sure, we have to keep the buggers fed and clothed but we now have ovens, stoves, microwaves and take-out menus. We have washers and dryers so that the laundry doesn't take an ENTIRE DAY out of every week. Oh - and the clothes DO make themselves. Or at least some underpaid and underfed child laborer in China does. And we have supermarkets. We aren't raising and slaughtering our own meat or growing and canning our vegetables or going out the chicken shed or milking the cows twice a day. And we aren't chopping the wood for our heating. Or spending another day a week on our hands and knees doing the floor. (Honestly, I can't imagine caring enough about the appearance of my floor to spend an entire day on my hands and knees on it but..)
So that I think the biology of breeding has been taken out of the mix as an excuse.
Having an independent income would be nice. No worry about mortgage or college tuitions or those braces Ryan and Andrew are going to need. But we have the freedom to earn an income.
So that I'm actually forgetting what I was going to complain about in the first place!
Oh. Yeah. THE ROOM. OF ONE'S OWN. Time, breathing space, a moment to oneself.
The second brilliant writer I worship but don't read is Stephen King. Not my style. Although I will be taking out all of the books under the King section in the Brisbane public library because I want to see what I've been missing. I'm not into sci-fi or horror or creepy and weird. I have enough trouble dealing with the horrors of reality and don't need anything more to lay awake nights trembling about.
But he knows how to write. And he says a writer has to...guess what...write. (And read too. Yay. I have access to English language libraries again and free license to do what I love best. And call it work.) A writer, according to Stephen, has to write. A lot. And to do that you need a place of your own. His own words, a century after Virginia said the same thing.
Stephen doesn't say you need a ROOM per say. He wrote his first two published novels, Carrie and 'Salem's Lot, ''in the laundry room of a doublewide trailer, pounding away on my wife's portable Olivetti typewriter and balancing a child's desk on my thighs." You can either hate people like this or you can try to emulate them. But the room, according to Stephen, ''really needs only one thing:: a door which you are willing to shut." And that is when I realize that Stephen's wife, also an author, was taking care of the kids a large percentage of the time he was writing. I believe he'd be the first to admit it too. (And the guy was writing four hours a day, at night, while holding down a full-time teaching job, so that I am not saying he had it easy either. Virginia again. Independent income. Which Stephen has NOW but did not have when he started.)
I'm reliving all this in Iglersreuth this month because I don't have internet access. Poor baby. Virginia would not be impressed. But Damon is home, on our only table, working. He dominates the scene and the access to cyberspace. And I am drained by the demands of teaching in the mornings, entertaining the children all afternoon (although we have a good time) and then home, hearth and husband to boot. Always there. Sapping my space. I have managed to condense that ''room of my own'', that space with a door, into a laptop and a blind eye to the mischief around me. And still I am fighting for that.
But Damon is supportive of my writing. And the kids start all-day school in January. So that maybe, and maybe soon, my day will come. I envision myself in puffy blue houseslippers and a flowered house dress, my hair done up in rollers and a coffee in my hand, cheerfully handing everyone their lunchbags on the way out the door. Never mind the rollers. Too much work. Hair in a bandana wearing an old Tshirt of Damon's, sitting in front of the sliding glass doors, sunlight already streaming in at 8 AM, and sitting down to work on my writing.
Virginia's dream realized.
Because women like her worked hard to make it possible for women like me to have the freedoms and luxuries (and yes, doing the laundry in a washing machine IS a luxury!) we have. Because technological advancements have given me time I wouldn't have had a century ago.
And because I've been working long enough, hard enough, with four little monkeys clinging to my back to appreciate the gift of time and space I am being given.
A whole lot of nothing. That's what I'm getting for Christmas this year.
I don't have her essay here with me. But I feel that I am living it. Virginia's contention is that men in her time were more successful authors than women for a number of very simple reasons: they had the freedom to write, they had the income to write, and they weren't getting knocked up every eighteen months and raising a passle of snotty nosed children.
Nowadays the passle of kids is a choice, and not nearly as time-consuming as we all like to moan about. (Is passle a word?) The exception is the first few years with multiple small children, but those do pass. Sure, we have to keep the buggers fed and clothed but we now have ovens, stoves, microwaves and take-out menus. We have washers and dryers so that the laundry doesn't take an ENTIRE DAY out of every week. Oh - and the clothes DO make themselves. Or at least some underpaid and underfed child laborer in China does. And we have supermarkets. We aren't raising and slaughtering our own meat or growing and canning our vegetables or going out the chicken shed or milking the cows twice a day. And we aren't chopping the wood for our heating. Or spending another day a week on our hands and knees doing the floor. (Honestly, I can't imagine caring enough about the appearance of my floor to spend an entire day on my hands and knees on it but..)
So that I think the biology of breeding has been taken out of the mix as an excuse.
Having an independent income would be nice. No worry about mortgage or college tuitions or those braces Ryan and Andrew are going to need. But we have the freedom to earn an income.
So that I'm actually forgetting what I was going to complain about in the first place!
Oh. Yeah. THE ROOM. OF ONE'S OWN. Time, breathing space, a moment to oneself.
The second brilliant writer I worship but don't read is Stephen King. Not my style. Although I will be taking out all of the books under the King section in the Brisbane public library because I want to see what I've been missing. I'm not into sci-fi or horror or creepy and weird. I have enough trouble dealing with the horrors of reality and don't need anything more to lay awake nights trembling about.
But he knows how to write. And he says a writer has to...guess what...write. (And read too. Yay. I have access to English language libraries again and free license to do what I love best. And call it work.) A writer, according to Stephen, has to write. A lot. And to do that you need a place of your own. His own words, a century after Virginia said the same thing.
Stephen doesn't say you need a ROOM per say. He wrote his first two published novels, Carrie and 'Salem's Lot, ''in the laundry room of a doublewide trailer, pounding away on my wife's portable Olivetti typewriter and balancing a child's desk on my thighs." You can either hate people like this or you can try to emulate them. But the room, according to Stephen, ''really needs only one thing:: a door which you are willing to shut." And that is when I realize that Stephen's wife, also an author, was taking care of the kids a large percentage of the time he was writing. I believe he'd be the first to admit it too. (And the guy was writing four hours a day, at night, while holding down a full-time teaching job, so that I am not saying he had it easy either. Virginia again. Independent income. Which Stephen has NOW but did not have when he started.)
I'm reliving all this in Iglersreuth this month because I don't have internet access. Poor baby. Virginia would not be impressed. But Damon is home, on our only table, working. He dominates the scene and the access to cyberspace. And I am drained by the demands of teaching in the mornings, entertaining the children all afternoon (although we have a good time) and then home, hearth and husband to boot. Always there. Sapping my space. I have managed to condense that ''room of my own'', that space with a door, into a laptop and a blind eye to the mischief around me. And still I am fighting for that.
But Damon is supportive of my writing. And the kids start all-day school in January. So that maybe, and maybe soon, my day will come. I envision myself in puffy blue houseslippers and a flowered house dress, my hair done up in rollers and a coffee in my hand, cheerfully handing everyone their lunchbags on the way out the door. Never mind the rollers. Too much work. Hair in a bandana wearing an old Tshirt of Damon's, sitting in front of the sliding glass doors, sunlight already streaming in at 8 AM, and sitting down to work on my writing.
Virginia's dream realized.
Because women like her worked hard to make it possible for women like me to have the freedoms and luxuries (and yes, doing the laundry in a washing machine IS a luxury!) we have. Because technological advancements have given me time I wouldn't have had a century ago.
And because I've been working long enough, hard enough, with four little monkeys clinging to my back to appreciate the gift of time and space I am being given.
A whole lot of nothing. That's what I'm getting for Christmas this year.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Peace, Love and Behavioral Modification
Ice skating has also inspired our new behavioral modification plan. Andrew has been able to chart his progress on the ice by counting how many times he falls down per round (and let me tell you, it's an impressive number! Also impressive to see. Will have to post on youtube someday. Probably when he leads the Australian ice hockey team to victory over the Canadians in the Olympics. If Australia has a ice hockey team in the Olympics, that is. And the Canadians come down with typhoid).
Since Andrew is charting improvement by trying to reduce his spills on the ice per round, I decided to try to reduce our whining, crying, yelling, screaming and tearing eachothers' eyes out in the same way. My screaming. Everyone elses' whining. Ryan's pestering. And yes, they DO try to tear eachother's eyes out. Casualties from my time spent on the computer yesterday include one bloody nose (Aidan), a damaged toenail (Andrew) and severe gashes to the nose and cheek (again Aidan). Andrew is starting to lose the advantage of age since the twins seem to fight together. When they aren't beating the crap out of eachother. And Matthew obviously needs to work on his temper. Aidan and Andrew aren't fighters by nature, but Matthew is scary. As evidenced by the nosebleed, torn toenail and gashes to the head and neck. All obtained in the two hours I was ignoring the noise around me and telling them to work it out themselves. Kinda like they do in the German school system. Works well. If you want to breed fear into the peace-loving and create a bully.
Which we don't. Hence the chart.
It is working well so far today. I am being fairly lenient, giving out warnings before I strike a point and counting a lengthy bout of whining and fighting as only one point total.
Results today at 3PM are as follows:
1. Matthew - 4 points - all for whining
2. Aidan - 3 points - for crying. All accumulated right around lunchtime
3. Mommy - 1 yell. Early on in the morning before she caught herself.
Ryan and Andrew have had some yellow cards, warnings, but no points yet.
The major success of the program seems to be my decreased yelling. Go figure. The chart makes me assess the situation, decide what is going on and then react to it rationally instead of just flying into a rage. I actually gave myself two little gold stars for NOT reacting with screaming when the situation actually could have warranted it. Turns out stern reminders work as well as threats and swears. Who would have thought it? Once again it is Mommy receiving the lesson in behavioral modification while trying to teach the kids. Ain't homeschooling a bitch?!
Our efforts of the last month was truly rewarded around lunchtime today, when Aidan was having a meltdown and Matthew was well on his way to provoking it further. Just as I was about to separate the two of them myself Aidan turned to Matthew, looked him deep in the eyes and said
"Matthew, Matthew, remember. We only think and speak words of love."
It's an affirmation from Louise Hay, designed to decrease anger.
It's a confirmation that, charts or not, my basic message is getting past the blood and bruises after all.
Since Andrew is charting improvement by trying to reduce his spills on the ice per round, I decided to try to reduce our whining, crying, yelling, screaming and tearing eachothers' eyes out in the same way. My screaming. Everyone elses' whining. Ryan's pestering. And yes, they DO try to tear eachother's eyes out. Casualties from my time spent on the computer yesterday include one bloody nose (Aidan), a damaged toenail (Andrew) and severe gashes to the nose and cheek (again Aidan). Andrew is starting to lose the advantage of age since the twins seem to fight together. When they aren't beating the crap out of eachother. And Matthew obviously needs to work on his temper. Aidan and Andrew aren't fighters by nature, but Matthew is scary. As evidenced by the nosebleed, torn toenail and gashes to the head and neck. All obtained in the two hours I was ignoring the noise around me and telling them to work it out themselves. Kinda like they do in the German school system. Works well. If you want to breed fear into the peace-loving and create a bully.
Which we don't. Hence the chart.
It is working well so far today. I am being fairly lenient, giving out warnings before I strike a point and counting a lengthy bout of whining and fighting as only one point total.
Results today at 3PM are as follows:
1. Matthew - 4 points - all for whining
2. Aidan - 3 points - for crying. All accumulated right around lunchtime
3. Mommy - 1 yell. Early on in the morning before she caught herself.
Ryan and Andrew have had some yellow cards, warnings, but no points yet.
The major success of the program seems to be my decreased yelling. Go figure. The chart makes me assess the situation, decide what is going on and then react to it rationally instead of just flying into a rage. I actually gave myself two little gold stars for NOT reacting with screaming when the situation actually could have warranted it. Turns out stern reminders work as well as threats and swears. Who would have thought it? Once again it is Mommy receiving the lesson in behavioral modification while trying to teach the kids. Ain't homeschooling a bitch?!
Our efforts of the last month was truly rewarded around lunchtime today, when Aidan was having a meltdown and Matthew was well on his way to provoking it further. Just as I was about to separate the two of them myself Aidan turned to Matthew, looked him deep in the eyes and said
"Matthew, Matthew, remember. We only think and speak words of love."
It's an affirmation from Louise Hay, designed to decrease anger.
It's a confirmation that, charts or not, my basic message is getting past the blood and bruises after all.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Poem About Ice-Hockey
We've finally found something the whole family enjoys doing together. Not one kid whining. Everyone
psyched to go, even Mom and Dad.
Ice-skating.
Go figure. Anybody got the address of the nearest skating rink in Brisbane? I think they call it New Zealand maybe?!
To celebrate our new-found group enthusiasm we took the kids to a semi-pro hockey game in Weiden. The Weiden Blue Devils versus some other team in red. We called it semi-pro but we're not really sure. I didn't even know Germany HAD ice hockey teams until last week!
And, to be fair, it wasn't really hockey the way Damon and I knew it. Damon from the Philadelphia Flyers and me from Cornell. (Don't laugh; it's actually the one sport the Ivy Leagues are respected for!) And the Canadians would have been laughing their heavily padded fannies off. Our highschool team played rougher than these guys. Although it was nice to see some finesse put into the game, to see guys chasing the puck instead of slamming into eachother. Again go figure, the Germans play hockey like gentlemen!
We enjoyed the game. I sat next to a nice lady my age with Downs Syndrome who apparently was a regular. She had a row of friends behind her - also with Downs Syndrome - and every time the Blue Devils scored they all had a roaring round of high-fives. Also every now and then in between just to keep up the enthusiasm. She was also patiently trying to explain the game to me. (Having been mostly to Cornell games, it was the first hockey game I can recall going to sober. All I remember about rules is that shot of 151 per goal scored. And Cornell scored quite often.) As far as I could make out, whenever in doubt, you were supposed to yell...."Man out...one of the red ones." In German of course. It had the same effect upon the ref/ump/guy in charge out there that our yelling "safety school" at Harvard did way back when but I was still fairly impressed with her command of the game. I was having a hard enough time trying to keep track of the ball - which all four of my kids kept yelling at me to call a puck - and was pleased to have someone sitting next to me who was patient enough to explain things to me on my level. I'm not going to let a little thing like everyone else having Downs Syndrome keep me from fitting right in!
It was also the only time I'd had all week to open my notebook. To get that "mind-writing"' onto paper. (Credit for that term goes to Michelle Anderson, and yes Michelle, you have unfortunately inspired me to write a mind-poem about Pilates class too! More on that later!) Try as I might, in between cheering for the Devils and giving colas to my devils, I could not get this stupid ditty out of my mind.
So here it goes. And do feel free to blame Michelle for getting me going in this direction at all!
My Poem About Hockey (written in the mind, as per Michelle Anderson)
There's lots of words that rhyme with puck.
Like "lots of luck."
Or "You guys suck."
"Our team's got a lot of pluck."
"Hey man, you had better duck!"
"I've got some beers out in the truck."
"The pretzels only cost a buck."
Which is why I have to cluck
And wonder why my mind is stuck
In the muck.
F*@#!
You gotta be impressed that I found ALL those alternatives. Don't you?
Or is there a reason I missed before that Michelle calls it MIND-writing?!!!
(The Blue Devils lost, by the way, on penalty shots, but we are lacing up the skates again this Friday before heading into summer next week.)
psyched to go, even Mom and Dad.
Ice-skating.
Go figure. Anybody got the address of the nearest skating rink in Brisbane? I think they call it New Zealand maybe?!
To celebrate our new-found group enthusiasm we took the kids to a semi-pro hockey game in Weiden. The Weiden Blue Devils versus some other team in red. We called it semi-pro but we're not really sure. I didn't even know Germany HAD ice hockey teams until last week!
And, to be fair, it wasn't really hockey the way Damon and I knew it. Damon from the Philadelphia Flyers and me from Cornell. (Don't laugh; it's actually the one sport the Ivy Leagues are respected for!) And the Canadians would have been laughing their heavily padded fannies off. Our highschool team played rougher than these guys. Although it was nice to see some finesse put into the game, to see guys chasing the puck instead of slamming into eachother. Again go figure, the Germans play hockey like gentlemen!
We enjoyed the game. I sat next to a nice lady my age with Downs Syndrome who apparently was a regular. She had a row of friends behind her - also with Downs Syndrome - and every time the Blue Devils scored they all had a roaring round of high-fives. Also every now and then in between just to keep up the enthusiasm. She was also patiently trying to explain the game to me. (Having been mostly to Cornell games, it was the first hockey game I can recall going to sober. All I remember about rules is that shot of 151 per goal scored. And Cornell scored quite often.) As far as I could make out, whenever in doubt, you were supposed to yell...."Man out...one of the red ones." In German of course. It had the same effect upon the ref/ump/guy in charge out there that our yelling "safety school" at Harvard did way back when but I was still fairly impressed with her command of the game. I was having a hard enough time trying to keep track of the ball - which all four of my kids kept yelling at me to call a puck - and was pleased to have someone sitting next to me who was patient enough to explain things to me on my level. I'm not going to let a little thing like everyone else having Downs Syndrome keep me from fitting right in!
It was also the only time I'd had all week to open my notebook. To get that "mind-writing"' onto paper. (Credit for that term goes to Michelle Anderson, and yes Michelle, you have unfortunately inspired me to write a mind-poem about Pilates class too! More on that later!) Try as I might, in between cheering for the Devils and giving colas to my devils, I could not get this stupid ditty out of my mind.
So here it goes. And do feel free to blame Michelle for getting me going in this direction at all!
My Poem About Hockey (written in the mind, as per Michelle Anderson)
There's lots of words that rhyme with puck.
Like "lots of luck."
Or "You guys suck."
"Our team's got a lot of pluck."
"Hey man, you had better duck!"
"I've got some beers out in the truck."
"The pretzels only cost a buck."
Which is why I have to cluck
And wonder why my mind is stuck
In the muck.
F*@#!
You gotta be impressed that I found ALL those alternatives. Don't you?
Or is there a reason I missed before that Michelle calls it MIND-writing?!!!
(The Blue Devils lost, by the way, on penalty shots, but we are lacing up the skates again this Friday before heading into summer next week.)
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
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.)
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.)
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