In which G and H go hand in hand

G is for Germany, because I already made D be for Depeche Mode, so it couldn't be for Deutschland. And as it is the Home of my Heart, I shall make it count for H as well.

If only a blog could convey sounds and smells, and crawl right up into my mind, wrap itself up in my memories, and share them with you whole and entire.  I know my memories of my Heart-Land are tinged with the contented glow of childhood (I was 13 when we came back to Canada for the last time) and the Germany of today is very different - just as modern as North America, with the added influence of the EU. Who knows what remains of the Germany of  my happy youth?

Since I can't invite you into my brain, I'll try to convey something of what resides in my heart for this beautiful country.

It is rolling hills, tidy farm fields, and lush meadows, where in the distance may be seen a shepherd and his flock. The sound of their bells is soothing.  The forest - the Black Forest - makes its presence known as it seems to wear a cape of time, like the long years of history are settled on its shoulders. Within it, among the trees, are lingering whispers of gnomes and dwarves... the little people and other folk of the old tales.  Their presence, too, is felt, not just among the trees, but in the stories told to children, in the music of the people, their traditions, and their love of fables.  An efficient, obedient people, the Germans have poetic souls. I remember walking by a group of men doing road repairs, sitting on their lunch tins drinking a beer on their break, singing what must have been Wagner. A grown man will weep over the words of Rilke without shame.

Being efficient and obedient lends to great tidiness. It wasn't unusual to see outside door knobs, knockers and bell-pulls being polished, front sidewalks being swept, and stoops being scrubbed with wire brushes.  Window boxes overflowing with well-tended geraniums competed for space on washing days.  Every balcony flew the flag of fresh linens on Mondays. Farms were orderly, equipment well cared for, shops were clean and service was good.  People acknowledged each other when passing on the street with a nod of the head and a polite greeting, for there is tidiness in good manners as well.

Germany is medieval fortresses and castles, ancient churches and cathedrals, old market towns, and villages where even then, animals were kept within the village environs rather than beyond in the fields. It wasn't unusual to hear the rootling of a pig or two behind a wooden wall on your way to the bank.

There are narrow, windy, country roads wrapping around the hills, and roads for tractors that run beside main thoroughfares.  Town centres have old water troughs were cattle used to be watered, but are now decorated with flowers for the tourists to admire, though the water still flows.  On Saturdays there is a market, where stalls are set up on the cobble stone streets, or you can make your purchases from the shops around the square - including at the Konditorei where they sell tarts and torts and beautiful confections by the piece, and the coffee comes topped with unsweetened whipped cream. Plan ahead, because most are closed Saturday afternoons, on Sunday, and many on Monday as well. The Gasthof serves beer and meals (at set times) while the Gasthaus will also offer a room, where you lay under a feather bed as thick as a cloud.

Germany is the Kristkindl Markt in Advent, Fasching before Lent, and Oktoberfest where long tents are set up in the centre of town under which are equally long tables to thump a hefty bierstein on while music plays and everyone sings. This is the land of door-to-door beer delivery. When our landlord of years previous found out we were back in-country but living with the Canadians, he arranged to have his beer man make regular visits to us. This is also a land of vineyards and wine and schnapps.  Germans take their food and drink seriously, all as part of the necessities of life: feed your body well, your spirit well, your mind well.

There are way-side shrines on the side of houses in the country, or at the edge of a farm field - usually a cross with the Body of Christ on it, protected by a little pitched roof to protect it from the elements. Often someone will have left a token offering of flowers or a wreath. Faith was evident in the many churches, cemeteries, and cathedrals.

The Rhine is vast and wide, lending itself to both the industrial and pastoral aspects of the country. What it achieves on water economically for the country, the autobahn system achieves on land. That network is tidy and efficient, and it works because the obedient people trust it works. When the sign says 'stay right' they stay right. That mentality makes me very happy.

Germay is footfall-mad. I could hear the local club supporters cheer and groan from the pitch at the end of our street. They had as much enthusiasm as someone cheering on the national side during the World Cup (which they will win this summer).


There is so much more I want to tell you but I admit that words cannot come close to doing justice to either my memories or the fondness I have for this place.

Following are four thousand words on Falls

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so they say.
So I give you, dear Reader, four thousand picture words of Falls.

I beg forgiveness for the poor quality, as it was pouring with rain this afternoon, and I was very aware of my illegally parked car. I hopped out on the side of the road, snapped a few shots, hoping you'd be able to tell what was in the picture.

This is 10 minutes from where I work, about 30 minutes from home.  Now is the time of year to tackle this wonder of nature because there are barely any buses crammed full of pic-snapping tourists. Barely.  The Falls have such a presence in the region that the Peanuts, who live 20 minutes inland from them, can, on  clear day, see the vast cloud of vapour they create.

And so I give you, Four Fotos of Falls

 

 

 

 

The egrigious E

It is egregious. There is no excuse. Make an example of me for great effect! I’ll not seek exoneration for that would be effrontery. I am in earnest; shall I elucidate elliptically? My employment… there was extra.. it seemed ever long and never-ending…  an absolute era! It left me enervated, at low ebb, without the extra energy needed to eke out the enchantment so effective for entreating the muse to engage as my envoy to fill this empty page. I had no equanimity, she no empathy, and so we are entrenched.  Shall I enumerate how I have erred? I have no essay extolling the letter E.

Depeched

I wanted to make D be for Depeche Mode, but instead of tell you, yet again how much I love'em, I thought it would be fun to try to string song titles together in a way that might tell a story. I challenged myself to pick 50, but when it was all done it turns out I had 55. 
My thanks for Martin Gore et al., for writing songs that lend themselves so well to the kind of story I like to write - more images than plot.

A story told in (55) Depeche Mode song titles

Higher love is a Strange love In Your room, Little 15. You were Wrong; please Never let me down again!

Shake the disease, Love thieves for You should be higher. You think you’re wearing a Halo? Dream on – that’s a Pain I’m used to Behind the wheel, or Walking in my shoes on Route 66… But not tonight.

You see the World in my eyes through A Broken frame Happiest girl, all Dressed in black. But It’s no good -- a Sea of sin, a Black celebration. In a World full of nothing, the Bottom line is Sometimes we need to sing our Songs of faith and devotion to our Personal Jesus, to be made Clean – it’s just A question of time, not Useless, my Sister of night. There is only Mercy in you, Lord, no Condemnation. I feel love when I lose myself… and then Surrender. That is the Sweetest perfection. We get Some great reward when we Get the balance right, and that’s not Nothing, Lillian; I told you so.

People are people Sometimes. It doesn’t matter. They Leave in silence with a Photograph of you because they want to See you. There’s Nothing to fear in The sun and the rainfall – it’s all Pleasure little treasure, like Waiting for the night in Stories of old. 

Enjoy the silence.

Calling the midwife

Commending Call the Midwife

It is all too easy to idealize the past, viewing it through rose-tinted lenses. The simpler days of yore are perfectly wonderful when you don’t have to cope with the plumbing of yore. I believe there is give and take in equal measure in how we’ve advanced and what we’ve lost between then and now. Call the Midwife is a good demonstration.

Yet another British hit that has taken the New World by storm, Call the Midwife provides my favourite way to learn history: through story. Rather than dry facts of dates and causes and effects, I prefer to peer through the window of time into what life was like for people. What work did they do, how did they bathe, what did they wear, how did they amuse themselves, what was the home like, what were the biggest challenges in their daily life?

Call the Midwife has several factors that make it very appealing:

Though a dramatization, it is based on fact, being inspired by and based on the diaries of the main character, Jenny Lee.

While set in the past, it is recent enough that the world is still familiar to us in the present day. Our near relatives lived during the Post-War age and we know enough about it to be able to enter into the story as though it was our own experience.

It takes place in what we think of as the last of the golden years. Despite the hardships of a recent war, we do rather idealize the 1950s. We know they’re about to enter the frenetic world of accessible global travel, crazy-fast advances in technology, sexual revolution, and the many other ways life was about to change. Some ways were for the better, yes, but we can look back on certain of their qualities (that tend to have to do with character and values) with fond regret.

 

In the early years, the living conditions of the women cared for by the midwives are appalling.  Truly appalling. The flats are dark and dingy. Washing is strung over the street, or in public hallways, lavatories are shared by all residents in the building, the smog is chokingly thick, the men could be brutal, and women labour to deliver without pain relief. So many of the people are barely scraping out an existence, their poverty is painful to observe.

There is more than struggle and strife going on though. For example, just as any modern woman will be familiar with, the laundry is never finished; but while the modern women may have fancy machines to help her, she most likely is doing her washing alone in her own home. Compare that to the woman of Poplar, London, in the 1950s who does many of her chores in the company of, and with the help of, her mother and neighbours. They look out for each other. Very little of daily life is confined to the inside of the house, being more connected to the community, whether it is adults socializing in the street, children playing, or work and chores. It’s difficult for modern habits of privacy to contemplate such openness. (It’s also shocking to see little babies left outside in lines of prams while the mums are getting on with things indoors!)

The communal aspect of life means the midwives are aware of everyone in the district and their various needs. The doctor also knows them, visiting in their homes, and policemen walk their beat, knowing the neighbourhoods and what goes on there. Very few people are invisible.

So we’ve gained miraculous advances in medicine and birthing theories, but no longer have a relationship with the person helping us deliver. We have the safety net of the hospital, but forgo the intimacy and comfort of home. Our homes are larger, possibly cleaner, no doubt warmer, but largely more isolated, with less community connection. We may be more sophisticated, but are also more jaded, having lost a lot of the simplicity and wonder of that time.

Aside from the anthropological interest of the show, I also like the main characters – the nuns and midwives of Nonnatus House. While one may be cranky, she is also tender hearted. Another is eccentric, but so delightfully herself, and surprisingly intuitive and kind. The young nurses genuinely like each other, different as they are from each other. They allow each other to be themselves, appreciating the gifts of each one. I like the girly chatter as they huddle in their rooms late at night while the nuns are at the great silence, drinking the latest tipple, listening to the latest hit on the turntable, or get ready for an innocent night of dancing at the local community hall. I love the British expressions, particularly Chummy’s use of ‘old thing’ and ‘frightfully’ and ‘chap’.  (One of her best lines was to her infant son, warning him against laughing at her. “The first glimmer of a smile from you, young sir, and I’ll take you to the mirror to show you what a naughty monkey looks like!)

 

Equally delightfully, they drink Horlicks at night, and have their tea from a cup and saucer. There’s something reassuringly calm about a cup and saucer, as you can hardly be rushing about clutching them in your hands; plus, if you have to prepare the tea and then clean up twice the dishes, you’re going to take the time to properly enjoy it!

 

Watching Call the Midwife inspires me to be more reflective, observant, quiet, slower, more deliberate. I think it’s a brilliant bit of television, and am very grateful that a wise executive discovered Jenny Worth’s diary, and that such a good team of craftsmen and actors have worked together to make it the beautiful production we can enjoy.

In which I B surprising

I am resisting, with everything in me that has the strength to resist, making B be for books.  I am not so predictable as that! No, I am surprising and capricious, and for that reason, I give you:

An Ode to a Bookmark

 

O, little bookmark

Tattered and dear,
How delighted I am
To have found you here.

 

My memory is fuzzy

I’m sure I forgot
Just where I was
In this confounded plot.


It is very short, but sometimes that is very sweet.
I've spent the day thinking about the bookmarks that litter my home - the favourites I use again and again, not because they're special but because they feel right tucked in a book.  I use postcards, grocery receipts, strips torn from napkins, promotional material from publishers, and those plastic ones with cheap wool tassels on you can buy from school book fairs. My favourite of these is a Garfield one that says, "Cats are keen, cats are great, cats are clean they lick your plate." And a Peanuts one showing Snoopy on his doghouse. It says, "I love this place".  Only I lost that one, as I left it in a book I returned to the library. 
This may sound odd, but there is a bookmark that stands out in my memory, and it is the one my dad used from as far back as I can remember. It was stamped leather. I don't remember what I once said, since the letters have faded, but as he only read one book at a time (great serious tomes of history, mostly) he only used the one bookmark, and it had become so smooth, so supple through use and age, but it never lost its earthy leather scent.
I like finding someone else's bookmarks in old books. I imagine something about what they're like based on the bookmark, and wonder what else we might have in common, and if they've maybe read this other book I'm reading... .
I'm not the only one, as this website attests to.  Check it out; it's fun, sometimes humorous, sometimes touching reading.

In which A is for alarm

In which A is for Alarm

It’s the crack of dawn.

Actually, it’s before the crack of dawn.  If I had a rooster, it would still be sleeping right now. But I don’t have a rooster; what I do have is crickets. They wake me up by chirping incessantly and repetitively until I silence my phone, whence their simulated sound come. The rooster I don’t have would make a mental note to itself to eat those crickets at some point during the day, before they have a chance to try their same nasty trick again tomorrow morning.

I thought the sound of crickets would be more soothing than, say, a shrieking air-raid siren but I was wrong about that. Don’t get me wrong – I far prefer the sound of crickets to shrieking sirens of any stripe, but as a person who jumps out of her skin if you say “Tess!” in a quiet room, I think anything above the sound of a snail’s glistening slide would be startling at 6 o’why-am-I-awake.

Are you familiar with Snooze Button Mathematics? It’s the built-in wiggle room you give yourself the night before when you set the clock, and the negotiations you undertake in the morning when the crickets summon you from the blissful arms of…. something wonderful I can never really remember when awake, but anything dreamt of must be wonderful, mustn’t it, because you are, after all, asleep. The morning negotiations go something like this: Do I have to wash my hair this morning?  No = 15 extra minutes. Did I remember to pack a lunch last night? Yes = 5 extra minutes. Do I know what I’m going to wear today? Yes = 5 extra minutes. Did it snow last night?  No = 10 extra minutes (no scraping time required)

And so on, hopefully netting an extra half hour during which my pretend rooster and I swat at the crickets every nine minutes, and otherwise snuggle with great delight into the pillows which suddenly feel like the most comfortable place on earth (they weren’t as cooperative the night before during the tossing and turning portion of the program) (that’s Murphy for you).

Alarm means ‘anxious feeling of danger’ or to inspire that feeling.  Isn’t that a terrible way to begin the day?