Good Evening Herr Goethe!
It is Christmas Eve; Blitzeis and Neuschnee blanket the air waves and demand patience from those who are waiting to move forward on a one hundred kilometer stretch of Autobahn. Blitzeis is the kind of ice that forms when very cold rain hits the ground. I think it is the same as black ice, the phenomenon we are warned against in California when we prepare for a drive through the Santa Cruz Mountains on a freezing cold winter day.
Are the weather patterns changing, Herr Goethe? Are our problems caused by society’s crowding of nature? We build, we alter, we invade, we are often very careless with the demands we place on our resources. Nothing lasts forever, we like to philosophize, but we act as if we expect permanence from the world around us. A Christmas greeting from my daughter in Koh Kong, Cambodia, reminded me of accounts I have read of the jungle, which in the end always triumphs over manmade glory. And I received a letter from home which featured the word permatize. A family member wanted to know how to permatize a video message captured on an iPhone. (Good luck with understanding this one, Mr. G. The digital world is an ever-growing tangle of possibilities.) The answer came from her brother, who explained the transfer of data via USB cable to a memory stick.
“The youngest of your progeny will be more than able to do it,” he pointed out.
Because I am temporarily living in the town of Dichter und Denker – of poets and thinkers - (what an odd expression – one certainly does not exclude the other.) I had to add my rather pretentious thoughts regarding the word permatize. Forgive me, Herr Goethe, philosophizing seems to come with the territory. Here is, in part, what I wrote:
Must I point out that permatizing an iPhone video via memory stick makes it no more permanent than recording a Christmas carol on a CD, if it is not played back, carried forward, retained in the memory of family and friends. It is the memory of my mother, her ways of instilling curiosity about the world and the desire to learn more every day, that brought me to this place where permanence takes on a whole new meaning. And while my mother neglected to shield me from some of the evils of the world, she never hesitated to sharpen my understanding of its bizarre connections. I met a woman yesterday, the owner of a rock shop in Weimar; her husband is a geologist. She let me hold her pet named Hermann. I didn’t know then what kind of bug I watched crawl across my hand. Looking around I suddenly became aware of the tiny bit of permanence embedded in a rock shop. I bought a specimen from the area. She wrapped it into a page of an old telephone book. It is under my Christmas vase of tree branches. My present to myself.
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| Frau Gensel, holding Hermann. |
I later googled the bug Frau Gensel had called a Kakerlake. It is a giant Madagascar cockroach. I held a shiny, huge cockroach in my hands, Herr Goethe. Frau Gensel was very informative. She allowed me a closer look at her “Kakerlaken Hotel” and shared some of her knowledge about fossils and minerals. Then she jokingly suggested I tell my friends that the 210 million year old Ceratites specimen I bought for a mere three Euros had once been in your vast collection. I envy her entertaining nature and the ease with which she answers questions from the many tourists who enter her shop on Schillerstrasse.
Schillerstrasse, I learned yesterday, had once been the Esplanade. I visited your friend, Herr Schiller’s house on the Esplanade. It is very different from your home. Most of the furnishings are gathered in lieu of the originals. The rooms are more elaborate in decorations. Wallpaper in every room; this seems to have been the emerging style of the time. As in your house, I was given a map and an audio device which guided me from one spot to the next. Herr Schiller’s work room and sleeping facilities are in the uppermost room, as you know, separate from his wife’s rooms and the area where guests were entertained. Both of you, it came to my attention, took your last breaths in your own bedrooms. You fell asleep in your armchair while Herr Schiller, after a very long illness, passed away in his bed. The audio guide tells me that he died in the arms of his servant, though I’ve read that his wife, Charlotte, held his hand and that his sister-in-law and his physician stood at the end of the bed.
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| Backside of Schiller Haus |
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| Front side of Schiller Haus on former Esplanade |
I wish I had more time to devote to your friend, but I came to Weimar to have a conversation with you. And the place where I am closest to you is the Park by your garden house. It is there, too, where I had decided to leave behind a white rose, after I was informed that your burial grounds are not accessible due to renovation of the building. In my backpack I carried my little companion, the bear, dressed in her Christmas outfit, and she carried a long-stemmed rose, wrapped in tissue paper. It snowed heavily all day and I hid my face behind a scarf and under a cap and the hood of my jacket. But we did it - we stuck the pink-edged rose into the snow and I meditated for some time before we continued our walk through the park. This was, I think, the highlight of my journey, Herr Goethe.
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| Christmas rose in the park |
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| Continuing the walk through Ilm Park |
And now - it is Christmas Eve after all – a time to share with family, I will devote a couple of hours to watching interviews given by my ex-mother-in-law, recorded before I left home. A gift from my ex-husband of more than 40 years. How much more permanent can a relationship be? I will heat up potato soup, snack on chocolate mousse and almond cookies, sit by the window and watch snow flurries disappear into the early onset of darkness. I will think about permanence and change and the great benefits of long-sleeved-and-legged thermal underwear.
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| Christmas Eve in Weimar |
