Busy Last Week

Lieber Herr Goethe,

My brain was in command mode all week long. "Type www.bahn.de into the URL box. Fill in the blanks - from, to, when, who etc. Pick ideal time. Enter return date and time. Decide on normal price or non refundable (much cheaper). Select, add credit card information, submit payment. Print ticket for train trip from Frankfurt to Weimar. Copy email from Deutsche Bundesbahn and paste into Pages. Label. Convert to PDF. Export to iBooks. Move to Poppies in May."

Poppies in May! Most of the documents for my upcoming trip are stored in this category. City information for Lyon, Marseilles, and Avignon. The 44-page program for the river cruise through the South of France. Hotel and apartment reservations. The bill from Phoenix Reisen. Some photos and maps copied from the Internet. My iPad holds it all together. But this is just one cog in the giant wheel of preparations. There are many others. I have bought a GPS application that is supposed to help me navigate through cities and towns in Germany. It will, I hope, prevent me from getting lost on the 28 kilometer Goetheweg. And find a restaurant nearby when I get hungry.

To refresh my high school French I acquired a wacky program, appropriately named Mindsnacks. It acts more like a gaming center than a tutorial. Word birds, sliders, and swells offer timed puzzles, quizzes, and spelling bees, bombarding me with the most basic of Conversations in French.

I spent an afternoon puzzling over Skype texting. After I allowed myself a ten dollar credit I was able to send text messages from my iPad to friends' cell phones. When nobody answered I sent myself a message, marking it iPad to cell. I did get the message, but what I texted back to the number Skype had assigned, disappeared along the way. When checking into a Skype forum I learned that one can text but not receive text back. But the credit will help in phoning land lines. Skype to Skype is, of course, free.

I can't remember how long I studied the map of Terminals 1 and 2 in Frankfurt, but I am happy with my newfound understanding of the connection between the Hilton Garden Inn and the Charterbus area in front of Hall B at Terminal 1. Since I am arriving in Frankfurt a day prior to the Cruise Departure I will spend a night at this airport hotel.

The bus to Chalon sur Saône leaves at 8am on May 23. From then on I will leave the planning and worrying to Phoenix and Company. They are in charge of the cruise for the next ten days and I am confident that all is well organized. But once they bring me back to Frankfurt I am on my own again. Which means another airport hotel stay since I won't arrive until six or seven in the evening on Thursday, May 23. The train to Weimar would arrive too late at its destination to allow me to take possession of my apartment.

On Friday, May 24, around one, I will arrive in Weimar, will take a bus to Goetheplatz, and walk to 16 Heinrich Heine Strasse, and, most likely, receive the key to my apartment from a sales person in Herr Thieme's Jeans Boutique. I have secured this place, online, from the owner, early in the year, because I wanted to make sure that I would wake up to the same rooftops as before. Since I spent three weeks in Weimar before, in the depth of winter, I hope for lovely spring weather this time. I imagine standing by the window in the morning, watching sunshine add a sparkle to the dew drops on the roof across the way.

Yesterday, besides repacking my suitcase one more time, I made reservations for the shuttle bus to the airport. There were also calls to bank and credit card companies to advise them of my foreign travel plans. I placed a hold on all mail. Prepared a travel brochure/schedule, as promised, for family members and a few friends. Deep-watered bushes and flowers, tightened defenses against the neighborhood skunk and raccoons.

Today I made sure airline tickets and other documents were printed in duplicate and that passport and money would not be left behind.

Tomorrow, before I leave, I will conduct a final tour through the house, turning off computers and printers, unplugging appliances, shutting windows.

And then I will be on my way to Europe, one more time. To walk under the same sky as Vincent van Gogh in the South of France. To photograph poppies. To speak my native tongue in Germany. To sit on the bench near your house and imagine a long conversation with you and your wife Christiane.

Until then.
G.

Poppies

Lieber Herr Goethe,

Before I come to visit you again I would like to acquaint you with the thoughts that precede this journey. I will, before I travel to Weimar, take a river cruise on the Saône and Rhône. Red poppies should be in full bloom as I stop to explore Avignon and Arles, the Camargue, Marseilles, the Ardèche region, and Lyon. Just as I realized my need for the touch and taste and feel of snow in 2010, I understand that, right now, red poppies are important in my life. So, here is a short memoir about them.

Poppies
You'd think an imaginary shrink would be invisible. The head doctor is supposed to stay in my head. Not my Dr. Steinfeld. He pops in and out of my life in a variety of disguises.
"You look like Carl Gustav Jung today," I say to him.
"Is that good or bad," he wants to know.
"Neither. It's just that, last time you were here, you had higher cheek bones and more hair."
"Well, your head was bald and your right boob was in a sling. I believe you had issues coping with breast cancer?
He is sitting in my chair, at the kitchen table, touching, one by one, books, binders, folders, crafting supplies, note paper, iPad, drawing and writing utensils, the stump of a candle, with the tip of his left index finger.
"I am amazed at the variety of projects I see."
"Those are just the active ones. I have a few more on back burners. Will you help me sort things out?"
He doesn't answer right away; it makes me think that I am whining. Maybe I should be able to handle things on my own. Or, maybe, if I feed him, he'll come around. I open a cupboard door, then I look into the fruit and veggie laden refrigerator, shaking my head in frustration because I can't find any sweets. He starts to tap-dance his fingers on the table. Taram taram taram tatam. Taram taram taram tatam .......
"Item number one: you don't have to feed the old man cookies every time I come to see you."
The motion of shutting the refrigerator door seems dream-like. I am performing a part in a child's play in which my mother makes me eat everything on my plate, because not doing so would be a waste, depriving Chinese children on the other side of the earth. And, not feeding a visitor is a major sin. With great satisfaction I disobey my mother.
Taram taram taram tatam, taram taram taram tatam.....silence.... and then: "Time is a child at play, gambling; a child's is the kingship."
"Explain yourself. Please."
"It is a fragment attributed to Heraclitus. Something Jung inscribed on the stone cube he had placed by the lakeshore at Bollingen tower. He was 75 at the time. And he was, from childhood on, very much a believer in ceremonial acts. They brought him peace."
My mind, slipping into the role of the accused in a courtroom drama about unfulfilled promises, strings together dots in unsolicited selfdefense. Dots that represent a number of unrelated events and circumstances in my recent life, like maneuvering without much enthusiasm through strength training and aerobics class, my reaction to the finality of a friend's medical diagnosis, the pressure of financial decisions, an impatient surge of images during meditation, sleepless hours because of a family member's nightmare, the unread book from the library, pages upon pages of paperwork to be filled out for a doctor's appointment. My marionette awaiting direction; the new puppet begging for a voice. Harsh remarks made by a friend. Careless words by another, delivered to my inbox by mistake. The cookies missing from my afternoon routine.
Herr Steinfeld interrupts: "What image were you trying to evoke when you meditated?"
"Poppies. A field of red poppies. Their heads swaying in the breeze."
"I see. The field behind your grandmother's house. You were five then, right? Happily braiding daisy chains, climbing trees, licking rock salt?"
"Today, the wind blew so hard, it uprooted some of the poppies. They flew through the air, dusting me with soil. I tried to edit the film in my head, slow it down, but, instead, I became angry with the instructor. She forced me to make decisions. Even during this important down-time. "Think of a place you love," she said. "Indoors or outside. Maybe a fine hotel. A warm vacation spot. A cool mountain retreat. A favorite chair in your backyard."
I wanted her to take responsibility. I wanted her to say something like, "think of the most beautiful spot in your childhood."
Dr. Steinfeld gets up. He closes the Weight Loss Challenge binder and the food log. Stacks the library copy of Living Your Best with Early Stage Alzheimer's on top of Dear Life by Alice Monro. Pushes aside sewing utensils, notebook, magnifier, candle, the glitter-sprinkled potted evergreen left-over from Christmas. He takes a pen and writes Red Poppies on a piece of note paper. Briefly he holds up a postcard depicting Herr Goethe and, surrounding him, the twelve most important women in his life. He looks at me and grins. "You can come back to your hero and his dalliances later. For now I want you to concentrate on your well-being."
In a slow-motion sweep of observation I notice that Dr. Steinfeld opens the refrigerator, reaches for a non-fat yogurt, pulls a small spoon from the drawer, and sits down again. A while later I focus on the bottom of the dessert cup. Steinfeld has drawn a criss-cross pattern into the remains of his yogurt. I want to ask him why, but he escapes into the image of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on the postcard.
After I push aside the snack I pull the short piece of vanilla-scented candle toward me and light it. Now my hands rest, palms up, on the kitchen table. Dancing, swirling, wind-ruffled poppies gather around me. I hum, releasing sounds of patterned grace into the afternoon. Shivering red petals respond to my promise of renewal. Broken stems rise tall. I open my notebook and replant the poppies into the fertile ground of my early childhood memories.

The Presence of Strings

Cairo’s Tahrir Square is vibrating with revolutionary demands. The American midsection is shivering under thunder snow. The Ilm Wiese is flooded and muddied by a rapid thaw. In a world gone crazy with man-made and natural disasters my solace is a library filled with grand ideas. I live several lives at a time. I am reading your Daybook of the Italian Journey 1786, while flipping through a modern novel about a father to son relationship, and, off and on, I am admiring individual contributions to the magazine Puppetry International.

            It is the magazine that makes me philosophical today. Issue #27. The piece is “Vertical Balance” by Irina Niculescu. She writes about strings – the connection between puppet and puppeteer. As she explores her relationship to marionettes she speaks of their helplessness, their “tragic-comic essence.”

            When I prepared P.K. I tried to make the strings as invisible as possible. I had never thought of strings as lifelines before. I was convinced that the manipulator should be hidden away. Then I watched a video clip in which a marionette discovers his attachment to the manipulator; the manipulator even holds his hand for a moment, but the marionette is obsessed with freeing himself; he tears down his strings and collapses on the floor. It was at that moment that I understood the connection.

When the kit arrived I wondered about the colorful strings attached to the wooden pieces. The color coding is designed to help the fledgling manipulator see which movement he is performing. I re-connected all the strings this morning after I had glued in the hands and sewn the scarf to the dress. But I did not try to walk the marionette. Clearly I haven’t found either form or balance or relationship yet; I am at the beginning of my journey. My marionette is evolving with each piece of clothing, each tug at her hair, each tentative pull of a string. Most importantly, with each photograph. In studying light and shadow, color, shape, I see movement develop and backgrounds and props emerge. I recognize a question mark in the face I painted. A faint proposal of essence.

Because I gave it some thought, I pause in my writing, feel bold enough to command the first steps.

Command, I said. Not a good choice of word.

After a failed attempt to make the marionette walk I have come to my senses. It is too early to make the connection. I am not ready.

A gentle lift of one green string. She waves good night.

Good night..                                   

Highstrung or Unbalanced? Who's at Fault when a Marionette doesn't Walk Properly?

I must tell you about my new obsession with marionettes. There are names. Important names. They influence the view of the builder, manipulator, actor, spectator. Tony Sarg and Bil Baird are two of them. Puppetry has its own language. I just read the article “My Own Private Püterschein” in Puppetry International. Ronnie Burkett – himself a famous puppeteer – talks about a Sarg knee joint and a Baird turnbuckle. Burkett is a Püterschein defender – Püterschein Authority seems to be an inside joke, having to do with the Dwiggins theory of counterbalanced marionette construction. And though I am a bit confused, I am learning lots of new terms.

Marionette Masters seem to have been seduced by puppet theater around the age of seven or eight and have started their own shows at eleven or twelve. I myself owned a set of hand puppets and have played with marionettes as child, but I preferred small dolls for which I sewed clothes and decorated shoebox houses.

The phrase, “marionettes are the hardest to control” has crossed my recent path more than once. “You’re a fool,” it mocks me. You are about 60 years too old for this.”

Hey, I know. That’s why I ordered a marionette kit after I chopped up a teddy bear for string manipulation, but was unable to manipulate him. I had already named him, before he began to turn and twist on his airplane controls. He wouldn’t walk – his legs dangled in the air and spun around. I had named him P.K. Pudels Kern.

Pudels Kern is not about truth; it is about balance, or in P.K.s case about the lack of it. Seeking balance is more important than imparting truth to a manipulated object. At any rate, it is the more realistically appropriate concern for now. Not that I should consider appropriateness over truthful transfer of information when reasoning myself into puppet play, but all my endeavors are subjective; they start with my interpretation. My truth. But apparently not always with my balance.

So! Well! Before I interpret I need a balanced puppet. It arrived on Saturday, January 29. A properly balanced, loosely jointed marionette skeleton with red, blue, yellow, and green strings and its own stand. I immediately began to drape and wrap and cover to establish a connection. After two days of testing we decided on black cotton for a dress and a red wig for the bald, wooden head. She required Walter Keane eyes to become the slightly melancholy wild child she decided to be. I am working on a purple scarf but don’t know yet if she will accept it. Her sad face and bright hair make me happy. I hope she is still in balance when she is completed. Maybe I am too impatient to be a puppeteer. Let’s see who is in control.

Regards,

Gisela

           

Thank You!

A Rose in Winter for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Parallel Noises

Good Evening Herr Goethe!

Tyana and rose at Goethehaus

I woke to parallel noises this morning. Not the down-below rumblings and mumblings one is used to in a third story apartment or hotel room, but the loud attack of a garbage truck loading the neighbor’s trash out front, on your street. During the moments before my mind became fully aware of my back-at-home status it read the event as bumpy expressions of a battery of luggage carriers, filled with chained down Facebook pages, crossing an airplane’s runway. It even allowed me a brief viewing of my latest photo album and selected Tyana with the rose in front of your Gartenhaus as a favorite. The mixed up, multi-language dreams of a world traveler who has not yet pinpointed her latest position. 

And then the silhouetted branches of the black ficus in front of my bedroom window reeled me in to the reality of my return to everyday life. The bumping and clanging must come from the recycling truck that picks up paper and plastics and glass bottles to give them a new life.

“It’s seven a.m. Get up. Make coffee. Go to your desk.”

And here it is, the orange glimmer of the rising sun, filtered through bushes along the fence across the street. Bright. Reliable. Twenty-four years of history. 8,760 mornings, take away those spent abroad on journeys, or just away for ordinary reasons. Twenty-four years spent in the same house, the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I know, Herr Goethe, it doesn’t compare to the 50 years you lived in Weimar, but it shows a soothing trend of sameness, a strong probability of reoccurrence. (Discounting an earthquake, of course) I needed this statement after the oddly final imprint I registered when I looked out over the Alte Brücke in Heidelberg on the morning of my departure. Yesterday morning.

“I will never see this place again.”

Lat view from the hotel window in Heidelberg

How strange. A damp cityscape, an icy mountain I had climbed, a river, a bridge, buildings I have been accustomed to for sixty years have imposed their final goodbyes. There are two ways to look at the feeling of “never again,” the first would be too sad to continue. No, I don’t believe that this is the end of my travels. I prefer the second way, the route informing me that I have done all the searching that was needed to put the past behind me. Logos, the deed, words, actions – whatever I want to call it – previous wrongs, old hurts, unresolved anger - have finally lost their sting. I am celebrating a new era.

The sun is shining brightly now above the rooftops. Skeletal wisteria branches entwined with the railing on my front porch tell me that it is still winter. But there is no snow. And here comes the second garbage truck, roaring through the street, the one that picks up the real leftovers. They call it Restmüll in Germany. I don’t have any of that yet today. I just came home.

California morning

Yours,

Gisela.

On Sale - 50 % Off

     Good Day Johann Wolfgang von Goethe!

How much is the girl in the window?

There's always a last day sale. I gathered a few of my favorite windows to display while I get ready to travel home. I will be in touch with you soon again.
Bis bald,
Gisela

My favorite models in Heidelberg in the spotlight