Mmmmoooo

When I was a child, I remember my mother drinking buttermilk. She said it reminded her of the fresh milk she drank as a child, the milk you get straight from a cow. It's tartness made my lips pucker and I never fully appreciated its tangy flavour...that is until traveling in southern Germany. I can't say precisely what triggered this new found appreciation. Perhaps it was the fresh mountain air, seeing the cows grazing on the hillside, the abundance of food that flooded my mind with childhood memories, food that felt like home. Whatever it was, I felt compelled to give buttermilk another chance. I don't know why I didn't appreciate it sooner, I had always loved everything else dairy (even though I try to limit it in my diet these days) and there really isn't much of a jump from yogurt to buttermilk. In fact, it's kind of like drinking Yop, although much more economical. I simply throw some buttermilk in my blender along with some fresh or frozen berries (today the feature fruit was blackberries, gathered fresh last summer and lovingly stored in my freezer). Sometimes I add a little maple syrup if the fruit is especially tart, and voila...instant meal chalk full of nutrients. I guess tastes change, because I love the stuff now. Or perhaps the appreciation was there all along and I just didn't know it. Is this sort of stuff hard wired into us?

Twinkle, Twinkle

Sometimes Christmas comes a little early and sometimes it arrives a little late, but happy surprises are always welcome no matter when they arrive. Yesterday Rupert arrived on my doorstep. He apologized for not making it in time for Christmas, but explained that like me, he has the travel bug. When he knew he was making the trek all the way here, he decided to stop a few places along the way. I can't really blame him, I probably would have done the same, especially since holiday travel can be so grueling if one needs to get somewhere fast.

" Besides," he said, "the weather was just dreadful there for a little bit." But to make up for his tardiness, he brought me a little treat: a sweet tin full of gummi bears... "oops, they're not really bears," he said, " it would be odd a bear bringing bears as a treat, don't you think? "

"Of course," I replied. So in actual fact, they are sheep. Just as well, I can count them as I fall asleep.

Rupert is getting along fabulously well with the crew and we have brilliant conversations. I'm sure we'll be bestest of friends as we pop gummi sheep while he intimately whispers me all his secrets. And of course he gives the bestest of best bear hugs.

Pickled Ginger

I did a little experimentation with my canning this summer and strayed just a bit beyond the regular tomatoes and jams. I ventured into the domain of pickled ginger. I tried just a couple jars as I didn't quite know how it would turn out or if I would even like it, but overall I'm against the expensive pink stuff that's sold in stores, mainly because of the red food dye...I try to avoid anything with dyes or other chemical additives and too much sugar. In any case, according to all who tried the goods, the recipe was a huge success and just perfect for California rolls. So I've made up some more jars as gifts for some special friends. If you'd like to try your hand at making this...it's really simple...here's the recipe:

10 ounces of fresh ginger peeled (I simply guessed on this, do enough to fill two small jars or double the recipe for five)
2/3 C rice wine vinegar
1/2 C sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Put about 4 cups water on to boil. Shave the ginger lengthwise into paper-thin slices with a vegetable peeler or mandolin. Blanch it in the boiling water for about one minute. Drain and put into jars (the water can be saved for tea or broth if you like). Put the vinegar, sugar and salt in a pot and gently heat to dissolve the sugar. Pour into the jars to cover the ginger. Prepare lids and process in a hot water bath to make them seal. If you don't want to be bothered with sealing the jars, you can close the containers and refrigerate for 24 hours to allow the flavors to combine before using. This will keep in your refrigerator for up to a month. This little jar definitely carries punch and will keep you warm this winter.

Halbtraum

Dreams take us to the oddest places. They transport us somewhat beyond our conscious imagination allowing us to live experiences that we never dared imagine as is seen in this delightful short animation. Enjoy.

The Sinking

Oh, for goodness sakes Otto, what are you going on about now? Would you get down off of that soap box. We have more pressing matters to deal with these days, you know. And quit staring off into the horizon. You make me nervous when you get that strange look in your eyes.

What Killed Die Katze

Curiosity becomes a heavy, heavy load, too heavy to hold, too heavy to hold. Do you really want to know? How much can you bear? Do you really want to know? How will you use what you find out? It will eventually all spill out. Curiosity becomes a heavy, heavy load.

Peaceful Meditations

All things in moderation with the exception of love and laughter; one can never have too much of those.

Connections

Things don't fall apart. Things hold. Lines connect in thin ways that last and last and lines become generations made out of pictures and words just kept

~Lucille Clifton

Imperia

Es ist alles eitel...

Oh, Madame Konstanz with your coy smile,
What does go on behind those steely eyes
You stand guard in the harbour
Looking out across Bodensee,
Flaunting your sex for one and all to see
A noble stance, for a mere courtesan
As you raise your hands with pride,
Naked prince in right and pope in left
Such raw display of sweet dominion over power.

Fantastical Menagerie

This wonderful collection of someone's bizarre imaginings was found on a peaceful street in Konstanz. Each piece was so expressive as if it came with its own history and stories. I would have loved to have known what they were, but despite my long repose under the comforting shade of the nearby trees, not a one was willing to part with his secrets. Not this time.

The Widow

The world was full of happy widows. He had seen them go mad with grief at the sight of their husband's corpse, pleading to be buried alive in the same coffin so they would not have to face the future without him, but as they grew reconciled to the reality of their new condition he had seen them rise up from the ashes with renewed vitality. They began by living like parasites of gloom in their big empty houses, they became the confidantes of their servants, lovers of their pillows, with nothing to do after so many years of sterile captivity. They wasted their overabundant hours doing what they had not had time for before, sewing the buttons on the dead man's clothes, ironing and reironing the shirts with stiff collar and cuffs so that they would always be in perfect condition. They continued to put his soap in the bathroom, his monogrammed pillowcase on the bed; his place was always set at the table, in case he returned from the dead without warning, as he tended to do in life. But in those solitary Masses they began to be aware that once again they were mistresses of their fate, after having renounced not only their family name but their own identity in exchange for a security that was no more than another of a bride's many illusions.

In the restorative idleness of solitude, on the other hand, the widows discovered that the honorable way to live was at the body's bidding, eating only when one was hungry, loving without lies, sleeping without having to feign sleep in order to escape the indecency of official love, possessed at last of the right to an entire bed to themselves, where no one fought them for half of the sheet, half of the air they breathed, half of their night, until their bodies were satisfied with dreaming their own dreams, and they woke alone.

~Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Love in the Time of Cholera

Faith

Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is
still dark.
- Scandinavian Saying

When I was growing up, my Mutti had a cleaning lady, Wilma, who came once a week. She was a good Dutch woman and an impeccable cleaner, probably the only one who has ever cleaned to my mother’s standards. This woman could make absolutely anything sparkle and shine and I am sure dust quivered in her shadow, we certainly did. She was just that kind of woman.

Thursday evenings were an inevitable stress for us kids as we had to “tidy” before Wilma came to clean, because you see, Wilma only cleaned. She was not there to pick up after us. She was very strict about that. Those were her rules. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was to get in the way of her cleaning.

The tension on Thursday nights was such that at one juncture one of my sisters, in the midst of a meltdown, took a purple wax crayon and in her scrawly grade one printing wrote, “Wilma, I just can’t take it anymore,” on the inside door panel of my mother’s antique washstand. Those were sentiments that I am sure we had all shared at one point or another, but luckily for us, my mother found this message of distress before Wilma ever happened upon it. If she would have, I am not quite sure what would have happened, but I am sure it wouldn’t have been good. We probably would have been down one good irreplaceable cleaning lady and sentenced to numerous years of cleaning penitence. But that’s not really what this story is about. You see, when Wilma started, she made it very clear to my mother that this was not a long term affair. She would only clean for my mother until her husband returned. He had left her some years previous, but she was adamant that at some point he would come to his senses, change his mind and they would be reunited. Well, weeks turned into months and months into years, but just the same, as if it were her mantra, she would say, “You know, I won’t be here for long. My husband is going to come back to me and when he does I will quit. I’m only cleaning until my husband returns.”

I know many of you are probably now thinking that this is a story of some highly delusional and probably obsessive compulsive woman, and it certainly might seem that way. Wilma was our faithful housecleaner for a good ten years or more, just as faithful to us as she was to her mantra. Then one day, just like that, out of the blue, she phoned my mother and said, “I won’t be cleaning for you any more, my husband has just come home.”

Apparently it only takes the faith of a mustard seed to move a mountain. At present, I’m working on trying to move molehills while attempting to remember that thoughts become things.

Cheese and Quackers

Okay guys, it's been a busy couple of weeks. Not that I don't love you, I'm just not oozing with endless creativity at the moment. I would love to have some time to concentrate on and preferably master the "art of slow," but am afraid that even that does not seem to be permitted at the moment. So instead, I leave you with some photos to highlight both my hunger and craziness. And if that makes no sense, so be it.

Deceleration

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

~Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Thin Ice

I do not praise the wisdom of men, said the Reverend, for that is not great wisdom. Now I rather try to praise the folly of men, because it's remarkable how far their folly has brought them.

What I Don't Know...

About Rothenburg am der Tauber

I don’t know that the little narrow path just beyond the bridge meanders behind the wall to the edge of town and eventually leads into a large garden with a big apple tree and a quaint little cottage. I don’t know that the man, who lives in this cottage, reminiscent of the gingerbread house in the tale Hansel and Gretel, is now retired, that he waits impatiently for Sunday afternoon when his curly haired granddaughter with her big blue eyes and cherry pursed lips and little scuffed black mary janes comes to visit.

I don’t know that she runs up and down the path along the side of the house chasing the mouser who in turn dives under the bushes searching for a quiet refuge. I don’t know that the little girl, once she’s had her fill of fun then flies breathless through the front door, dirt on her knees where Oma feeds her fresh baked cookies and a tall glass of milk. I don’t know that she gobbles it all up greedily and then peers into the china cabinet at grandma’s collection of knickknacks knowing that she mustn’t touch, but wanting to in the worst way.

I don’t know that later that afternoon she saunters lazily hand in hand with her mother down the cobblestone street. I don’t know that when they turn the third corner that there’s a little café that sells ice cream, their most popular flavour being a creamy hazelnut that would be perfect topped with melted chocolate. I don’t know that just a little ways further down this narrow street they reach the city walls where they take time to peer off into the forested countryside and then slowly pass through a gate into a large park with beautiful gardens.

I don’t know that many musicians hang out in this area serenading the lovers who laze about in the grass and on the park benches on sunny summer afternoons. I don’t know. There are many things I just don’t know.

This is Amrum

"You're a funny bird," laughs my sister, "You know, most birds head south for the winter. And what do you do? Winter comes along and you head straight north."

She's right you know. Just when almost everyone else is mourning the loss of those last summer rays and making their plans to grace those welcoming beaches in the south, I do an about face. I head out north on the autobahn zooming my way along until finally one by one the cars begin to disperse and it is no more. I am now on what amounts to not much more than a lonely country lane, yet still I forge on, urged by the gentle secret whispers of the North Sea. Long fields of flat farm land stretch out around me fringed by forested areas. Every so often I happen upon quaint red bricked houses with welcoming candles gracing the windows. And then, a small village with the same neatly organized quaint brick houses.

I continue past it all. The air grows thicker and mist periodically rests its heavy head upon the fields. The call of the sea is getting louder now. Soon I reach its edge, the very edge where it greedily swallows up the land and makes it disappear into its steely grey waters. But this is not where I want to stop. No, I want to ride the waves until I reach a speck of land that bravely pokes its towhead out of these icy waters and gulps for air. I want to wash upon its naked, lonely shores, be enveloped by its sandy dunes. I want to listen to the wind quietly whisper its secrets in my ear as it gently brushes the hair off my forehead and kisses my cheek. I want to bask in the pale winter sun, soaking up its cool rays. More than anything, I want the moment to stretch out into eternity with the promise of forever in the now, although ultimately I understand that it must cede its spot for another to take its place.

More on Loreley

A gigantic stratification of slate (132 meters above sea) impressively overlooks the Rhine near St Goar. Far below, the Rhine twists its way through a narrow valley which over centuries has been the site of many a tragic shipwreck. German poets have immortalized this place through their romanticized writings. As a result, various legend and lore has come about.

In one such story, it is said that from the top of this rock a ghost-like image of Loreley sang sailors to their doom. As they heard her fascinating, sad voice when they passed the bend of the river, they would become mesmerized with her, crashing their ships onto the rocks. This tale goes on to say that she was once a mortal girl who threw herself from the top of the rock into the Rhine because her lover proved her unfaithful.

Clemens von Bretano tells yet another tale in his novel “Godwi.” Here a ravishingly beautiful woman was cursed to attract men and thus bring about their undoing. Because she could no longer bear this tragedy, she threw herself off the highest point of the rock into the Rhine to put an end to the spell.

Yet another slightly different version of the story is found in a poem written by Heinrich Heine in 1824. He tells of a girl who combs her golden hair and lilts a little song with such a powerful melody that the sailors below, instead of watching out for shallows and wild currents look up to her and crash their boats against the rocks only to be dragged to the bottom by strong river currents which at this point is almost 100 feet deep. Thus their fate was Loreley’s song.

The Lovely Loreley

"I cannot explain the sadness
That's fallen on my breast.
An old, old fable haunts me
And will not let me rest."

I do not know what haunts me,
What saddened my mind all day;
An age-old tale confounds me,
A spell I cannot allay.

The air is cool and in twilight
The Rhine's dark waters flow;
The peak of the mountain in highlight
Reflects the evening glow.

There sits a lovely maiden
Above so wondrous fair,
With shining jewels laden,
She combs her golden hair.

It falls through her comb in a shower,
And over the valley rings
A song so mysterious power
That lovely maiden sings.

The boatman in his small skiff is
Seized by a turbulent love,
No longer he marks where the cliff is,
He looks to the mountain above.

I think the waves must’ve flung him
Against the reefs nearby,
And that did with her singing
The Lovely Loreley

Breach of Reality

I could be anywhere. My mind flits from my "to do" list when I get back home to an altered plane of reality in a variety of different locations. But the reality is that I am sitting in a black Mercedes heading north towards Köln at 180 km/hr. We're in the fast lane. My surroundings whir past me similar to my brain's present mode of processing. Everything outside of the vehicle is in muted tones of brown, grey and white. Winter does interesting things to the landscape. I feel like I am passing through a black and white film with selected objects tinted in sepia. It all adds to the surrealism of the situation. The radio is turned on playing mainly 80's pop songs which carries me back to my high school days. I see peoples faces, remember situations, places...it's all in there somewhere. Man, it's been a long time. I don't even know if I know their names anymore. Occasionally the music stops and a news clip is interjected. I catch a word here and there but realize that I am presently oblivious to the happenings in the world. And does it really matter anyway? "Charlie get down. Charlie get down." Have I heard that one before? I'm not so sure. Every so often they throw in one I don't know. Even now as I sit here, it all feels like a dream, I can just imagine that it will only feel more so later.