Blitzeis. Neuschnee. Permanence.

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.

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. 

Backside of Schiller Haus 

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. 

Christmas rose in the park

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.

Christmas Eve in Weimar

Santa, Lentil Soup Friends, and my Personal Amusement Parlor.

Fireman, taking two kids to see Santa at window #19

Here we come, Santa

We're here Santa

Ho Ho Ho

Show me, Mr. Fireman

See you later

Good Evening Herr Goethe!

                Some of my days here are consumed with history, with reading and writing, with the past. With you, Herr Goethe. Yesterday was not one of them. Though I should have made today – Monday – my day of rest, since the museums are closed, I decided on Sunday. Well, I didn’t really decide, just didn’t get dressed until afternoon. Sat on my bed knitting, watching Christmas shows on television. And after I had draped myself with all the layers of clothing that I could carry before toppling over, I just walked the nearby streets for a couple of hours.

                At three in the afternoon – 1500 hours – every day during the Advent season Santa appears at a window of city hall and gives gifts to a couple of children selected from the crowd. The windows of city hall are like the windows in an Advent’s calendar – numbered and decorated; when the window of the day opens Santa appears, chats with the child, then sits on the window sill for a few moments, waving to the crowd at the Christmas Market below. What makes some of these windows more interesting than others is the location. Dec. 19^th is on the second floor. Punctually – ah these Germans and their punctuality – at  1500 hours – a fire engine  lifted a child, accompanied by a fireman, to the window. I heard a few hohohos, there might have been bell ringing, but that could have been in my imagination, (I’ll have to go back, maybe on Dec 24, to pay closer attention.) From the ground I watched what must have been gift giving, and questioning, and other Santa-like maneuvering, until it was time to bring the earthlings back to earth. What fascinated me was the young fireman’s attention to the little boy in his charge. He talked with him, showed him various parts of the fire engine and then, with the mother’s consent (I heard her ask where to) he lifted the boy into the cab and after he had seated himself, took him on his lap, and the driver slowly drove away; I assume just up the street a bit, around the corner. It was, I think, what makes for good relationships and good memories for both, child and man.

                At that point, for me, it was time to pay a visit to my lentil soup friends for a late lunch. I had been craving hot soup since I had arrived in Weimar. Twice before I had stopped at the edge of the Christmas Market where two young men ladle soup with a smile and the willingness to engage in a friendly, touristy conversation. “Where are you from?” “ I love your accent.” (One of them had spent some time in London.) “Your soup hits the spot.” “Yes, we do have napkins.”  They give you real china soup plates if you want to eat at the stand, right there. I crowded in with a frowning, elderly, male slurper, a young woman in designer clothing, who missed her mouth and had to engage three napkins to clean up her act, teenagers in love – one plate, one spoon. I was waiting for them to feed each other, but had to be satisfied watching them take turns spooning. The most fun was a young couple with a little boy in a stroller. At least I thought the child to be a boy; it is hard to tell with all the bundling. The parents ate quickly, comforting the unhappy child between each hasty spoon full. I don’t know if the child was hungry, or cold, or uncomfortable, or spoiled, but even though the parents spoke a language I didn’t recognize, their concern was familiar to me; the scene reminded me of my early parenting  years, when my son had to endure similar outings because “fresh air is good for the child.” And, by the way, note to my young lentil friends, “Your soup - high sodium content and all – is delicious.”

My Lentil Soup Friends

                Carefully folding my almost unused pale yellow napkin, letting it disappear into my backpack, I continued my walk. Ah yes, napkins are a rarity in Germany, still. I remember years ago, when I took my granddaughter to the places of my youth and we broke into hysterical laughter at the sight of a half napkin at the bottom of a basket. We both reached for it before the waitress took away the remains of a hard roll. I do, generally, appreciate the frugality and sense of environmental protection, but my mouth has not yet learned to internalize all of my food groups, especially the whip cream covered ones and the soupy ones; my tongue sweeps across my upper lip, periodically – like a windshield wiper at its slowest speed – in an effort to minimize waste and/or achieve cleanliness.

Santa chats with passer-by

                My next victim was Santa. A Santa. This one I met in front of Hotel Elephant. His helper guarded the stash of candy he handed out. Every once in a while Santa returned to the bag and filled his pockets with chocolates. I don’t think he saw me as a friend; he turned his back toward me whenever I tried to take a photograph.  I followed him for a while, noting his antics as those of a townsman who, during the off-season, was just an ordinary citizen. People seemed to know him. I even expected him to indulge in a glass of hot wine with the customers at one of the many Stand Bars. I made the word up, Herr Goethe. We writers tend to do that, don’t we? I fashioned it after the expression for the coffee stops everywhere, those tiny tables on poles, at which one stands to drink coffee. Stand Café is the name. (I still haven’t found the Umlaut symbols and the  accents on my laptop, but the spell checker knew how to correct this one for café.) 

Santa takes a stroll through the Christmas Market

C'est moi

                When Santa disappeared into the Sunday afternoon crowd I asked a passer by to take my picture, then I warmed myself at a public fire, listening to Posaunen, trombones that blew Christmas carols. My only embarrassing moment of the day came when I tried to drop money into the instrument case that stood, open, at the edge of the Buehne (good grief, I’m having senior moments in my language salad; what is the English word for Buehne? Ah yes, it is stage.) I only had 50 cents in change and expected the container to be strewn with Euros. As I bent forward I realized that the trombone case was totally empty. I almost withdrew without dropping the coin, but I felt all trombone eyes on me and let go of the puny offering. Well, either I was the only one who even gave a few cents, or I was the only one who mistook the open instrument case as depository for charitable giving. I walked away quickly.

The Band

A place to warm my feet

                 The last event of the darkening afternoon was a stop at the Weimar Haus, the place with the Disney version of a walk through history behind closed doors. I did not take the walk again, but I planted myself in front of a photo automat. Jay Leno has some cute sketches with people in photo booth that talk. They make me laugh. “Please touch the tip of your nose.” I almost expected this machine to say: “ Why do you look like a bag of potatoes?” I was prepared to answer: “Because I am wearing all the clothes from my suitcase.” But this isn’t actually a booth. You stand in front of it while it takes several photos of you. Then you pick a design you like, add a caption, throw 3 Euros into the money slot, and it prints out a postcard with your face in the middle. I was wearing my new red cap, picked an image of the famous faces of Weimar, added “Dichter und Denker in Weimar! (Poets and Thinkers of Weimar) then tried to make small talk with the serious clerk at the counter. She did not find me very amusing. However, I had had a wonderful afternoon, and when I saw ME to the right of YOU, Herr Goethe, I declared it a perfect afternoon.

G.

And here we are Herr Goethe - Face to Face :)

P.S. How do you like my new red cap, Mr. G.?