I Return

Good Morning Herr Goethe!

It has been three years since I last addressed you from Weimar. I don't know what this time accounts for in eternity. One moment? Too long to have stayed friends? I would hope that eternity does not engage calendars and clocks and we are forever connected by the mere words of my acknowledged interest in your life and times.

In earth-time it has been a busy interval for me. I lived through illness, death in the family, new artistic ambitions, other travels, and an endless array of minor interests. Though I have not spoken to you, I have, nevertheless, felt your presence in my life frequently. I have devoted a great many hours to getting to know your female friends. Women like Lili Schönemann who was your first love, Charlotte Kestner, who became Lotte in "Werther", Fridericke Brion whom you met in Sessenheim in 1770, the young woman you adored when you were eighty years old, and, of course, Charlotte von Stein, your most noted companion, and your wife, Christiane Vulpius. In all I met twelve women. I am sure there are others, but I would have to spend a lot more time to find them.

Christiane seems the most fitting. The woman who forgave your escapades. Who made your garden a paradise and your meals fit for a king. Who bore you five children, entertained your guests, didn't succumb to gossip and always was ready to listen to your poems. You picked well.

Herr Goethe, I am in your Weimar again. While, during my last visit, I stuck a white rose into the snow in front of your garden house in deep winter, this time, in late spring, I would like to bring you something different, but what? I think I will leave this up to chance as I do with most everything on this journey into the past. Yes, it is a journey into the past - a rather minimal past for me, since I was here only once before. And yet, my memories have formed certain images, based on my limited knowledge of the town. I am here to deepen and color these images.

Floods and icy winds have made it nearly impossible during these first days after my return to observe the locale, to compare the landscape of then and now; most of the time I was preoccupied with securing a certain level of comfort. I hunted for a cap to cover my shivering head. Fought the deterioration of my umbrella. Reinforced the vulnerable cloth of my shopping bag with a plastic liner. Dried my inappropriate summer foot gear - those wonderful walking shoes I recently bought - atop a built in room heater that barely functions. And, as if all these mundane daytime concerns weren't enough, I was awakened several times during the last two nights by my own sneezing and coughing.

But - Herr Goethe - this morning I heard a bird sing. The puddle of water on the flat roof in front of my window was still. The bright light of the sun now blinds me from its easterly seat on a pale grey-blue sky. I am going to explore the town as it recuperates. As the benches dry. As outdoor cafés reclaim their territories. As the barricades lift. As May 29th progresses and my feet take me on a leisurely journey across familiar and unfamiliar cobble-stoned streets.

G.

(P.S. I will go into my river cruise experience a bit later. Right now I am off into the great and mostly dry outdoors.)