Frozen Delight

This week's thaw triggered a really unusual reaction in me: wait, winter could be over soon? I am not ready for hunting Easter eggs and donning rain gear. This winter felt like sliding down one long ice track, with a running start. (Like poor 1 1/2 year-old Lotte, above, on the frozen-over Alster River in Hamburg.) Isn't winter usually the time to be a sloth, to hibernate? I never got that rest; too many awe-inspiring distractions.

So, here, before it is gone, is a small photo tribute to the fairytale-like wintery whiteness that captivated me the last few months.

First, around the New Year, there was a sledding adventure - my first time sledding in ten years. And my first time ever on a real, classic wooden sled. (Our landlords wanted to throw them away, but luckily we were there as they were cleaning out their basement and could protest.) Since there are exactly three suitably inclined landscapes in all of Bonn, the crowds here were not small, but neither was the enthusiasm - regardless of age.

In late January I spent a weekend in the best possible place to enjoy snow: a small farm with a couple of puppies and a lot of antiquated equipment, made more mysterious by its heavy, white attire.

Then, back home, on a walk over the Rhine, even the ship traffic was somehow elegant covered in snow.

But, on shore, the thaw was beginning...

Auf Wiedersehen, Winter.

Gerbamia

This is the new word I coined for the collective thoughts and feelings of Germans toward the Obamas. Many fellow Americans have asked me some version of the following in the past year: "What do Germans think about Obama?" Sometimes added on, "Are they as crazy about him as we are?" Then they make it personal: "Do you feel a little better being an American abroad?" Sometimes they jump directly, by way of assumption, to, "Bet the US has a better reputation abroad now that we have the Obama administration."

All I can say is that, according to Die Zeit, a major German newspaper, (Link for those who read German), Obama is appearing to Germans in their dreams. One woman in this article describes getting into a car with Obama; she didn't know why, but there was a "clear sense of departure." Another dreamer discovers a check for 300,000 € in the back pocket of her jeans - signed by Michelle Obama. On a similar note, a middle-aged man dreamed he received a job offer from the US president. His new role? To help Obama understand the hearts and minds of the Germans.

But as with all things German, this enthusiasm is tempered with some sobriety. Before the November 2008 election, as Obama was leading the polls, Germans kept saying, "Well, even if he makes it, he's gonna got shot." This is just an indication of how desperately the world needed a leader to give us a little more hope and faith. Luckily, I don't hear this fear/comment any more.

But the skepticism has lingered in other forms; Germans are very hesitant, for example, to embrace the charisma that Obama possesses. The caution comes from fact that the most charismatic German leader on the books is also the one responsible for millions of brutally ended lives. (Here is a clear explanation of how a ban on political rhetoric and pomp and circumstance got written into the German constitution post-Hitler.) Therefore, modern Germans are used to politicians who are (lifeless), matter-of-fact reciters of their positions. So no matter how much Obama proves to be a man of his word, Germans will hold his rhetorical prowess against him to some degree.

By the same principle, many Germans were grotesquely fascinated watching the unprecedented ceremony surrounding Obama's ascension to office. In fact, I would wager to say that Obama's being sworn in captured significantly more TV viewers than a major event leading up to next week's German general election: the formal debate between Chancellor Angela Merkel and her contender, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. It isn't that Germans don't care about domestic politics or don't want to know where Merkel and Steinmeier stand. It is just that politics in Germany is far more about parties than about individuals, so a TV duel is contrived in the first place. And, as Obama was taking his oath, I do think a lot of emotion - whether permitted or not - welled up in the collective German Geist.

(That this essay leaves out how Germans view Obama's individual policies is intentional. Each topic could be a blog entry in itself: health care, Afghanistan, economic stimulus policies, actions against global warming... Suffice to say what is obvious to anyone with a few ounces of grey matter: a welcome departure from the white man with the cowboy hat.)

For my niece Cecilia, born today

Hello there, my dear Cecilia
Here you are in a brand new world!
We're glad that you have joined us
(especially cuz you're a girl)

We watched you grow on Blogger,
To your temperament grew wise.
We were wowed as little hiccups
From the uterus met our eyes.

Before you were Cecilia called,
The nickname Chickpea was installed.
As Facebook updates fed us news,
All your stats we had - down pat.
We were indeed insatiable
For Chickpea this and Chickpea that.

Fun as it was to follow your
prenatal track, howe'er wide-eyed,
We longed to kiss your soft, round head,
and are glad you're on the outside!

On this wondrous day of your birth,
Here's some advice, for what it's worth:
Milk your status of being queen,
Before a sibling arrives on the scene.

Take after me, wear what you like,
A dress with rubber boots is nice
and just a diaper would suffice
for romping around - snow or ice.

Your uncle can be a model, too:
Open your heart up, live for you!
Don't let life's setbacks get you down
and if they do, get outa town.

All told, I know your life will be
A tale of wonder unforeseen.
As you live and love, work and grow
Surprised we'll be by where you go.

Singularly honest

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

--Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream: Act 1, Scene 2, lines 232-235

In the German popular magazine NEON, there is a special kind of singles ad (Ehrliche Kontaktanzeigen) in which people try as hard as they can to discourage readers from contacting them. Or so it seems at first glance. They feature individuals who share weaknesses with complete strangers that most people would hesitate to share with a shrink, all in the name of honesty. This encapsulates the German mentality described below in "Let's be clear": say it like it is, so that we all know where we stand and what to expect.

What I really want a potential partner to know about me, says one young man, is, "I can be emotionally icy." In case someone might find that attractive, he adds, "Most women who find that an appealing challenge at first lose patience quickly." Nothing like covering all your bases. I didn't think singles ads were supposed to include disclaimers.

A 30 year-old woman from Berlin says she goes weak at the knees over men with big, crooked noses. Can you imagine someone answering that on account of his big, crooked nose? "Dear Berlin, Your ad really grabbed my attention. Enclosed is a snapshot of me that captures how big my nose is."

One lists for ISO (in search of) "Round-the-clock Feminine Care" (weibliche Vollzeitpflege). In other words, anyone ballsy enough to answer his ad should be prepared to wait on him 24/7.

My favorite feature of these ads, however, is the space for "The ex says." People share how they have been labeled by former partners, e.g., needy, jealous, depressed, lacks self-confidence, etc.). In a nutshell, this highlights the qualities that likely contributed to the shipwreck of previous relationships. Does anybody else see the potential for a self-fulfilling prophecy?

But love is blind, and so the number of faults and quirks that people have really is irrelevant to whether a relationship succeeds. The word relationship implies at least two people, which suggests that compatibility is the key to a strong relationship, not perfection, so why not present as honest a picture as you can?*

Also, I find these singles ads extremely refreshing. The ads don't just list off all purpose interests like "walking on the beach" and "an evening of Netflix," but they portray self-reflecting individuals with guts. The portraits remind you of folks you have experienced. They seem real.

*Of course, there are still varying degrees of honesty, as anyone who has ever applied for a job knows.

Praise for Green Cities

When I was home in the States I had to defend having wanted to live for 2 and 1/2 years in Germany. For many people 30 months (or 921.5 days) is the brink of eternity - an eternity abroad. They are sure I will be in Germany forever. And no one, except a person without financial alternatives or someone who is persecuted would choose that, right?

Surprisingly people who have been abroad a lot are the most disbelieving. "Don't you get tired of not being able to express yourself naturally in your own language?" "Don't you wish you could just pop home for a weekend?" The answer, of course, to both questions is yes, but it misses the point here.

The crux of my defense is always: I think Germany has really livable cities with vibrant nuclei. I can stumble out my front door and within five minutes I've reached my dentist, picked out organic groceries, taken shoes to be repaired, popped into a thrift store, or sat down for Spanish lessons. And restaurants, beer gardens, and cafes within a five-minute radius are in such abundance it is hardly worth mentioning. (The best news is - but, ssh, it's a secret - even with the dollar at rock bottom and a student/subsistence salary it isn't prohibitively expensive to live in a thriving German downtown - and it's safe.) Another bonus is, when I've had enough of the city, there are frequent trains and smoothly paved bike paths to get me out.


That upshot of all of this is that living without a car is not only possible, it is the only sensible way to live. And that point is made here by a more articulate spokesman from the NY Times.

I live in the sort of neighborhood in Germany that Krugman describes, "a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping." And I agree with his conclusion that this kind of neighborhood "barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas." To make a contrast, he even mentions a US city close to home: "Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses, and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars, and cars."

For most educated Americans this isn't really news. It is, however, hard for people who haven't lived in Germany or similar places in Europe to appreciate the extent of the disparity. And the ramifications that transportation issues have for quality of life.

On the other hand, Americans are making changes. I am really pleased to see more bikers in my hot and humid hometown every time I visit. They are defying the famous wisdom from Field of Dreams, ("If you build it, they will come."), tired of waiting for bike paths to be built. Hoping that if they come, the city will build. I am also encouraged by talk of restoring existing railway lines and expanding passenger rail travel between major cities in the area I grew up. Both these things seem to not only be relevant for the liberal enclave in which I was nurtured, but also for other parts of the nation.

Rock on, green city planners, amateur and professional. It makes me want to come back and fight the fight. Almost.

Plink!

E. and I were in the supermarket the weekend that our kitchen was being renovated, because, after Chinese food we both had an irrational craving for ice cream - and where else can you find it in the middle of January? Next to the ice cream freezer in our PLUS market is, logically, the housewares aisle, and that's where we noticed the energy-efficient light bulbs being offered on the cheap.

Finding a compact fluorescent bulb for sale at the chaotic, convenience-oriented drop-out prices discounter around the corner is a little like finding a Williams and Sonoma sale catalogue in the waiting room of a free clinic. Imagine hearing this in a 7-11:
"I'll have a Big Gulp, a corn dog, and a HighPower 4-Watt soft glow light bulb."
"Your total is 12.77."

So of course we nestled them into our shopping basket. PLUS may be an unusual place to find elite consumer goods, but we needed lightbulbs, and we stood to save a handful of cash by buying them from an unusual supplier. We swam contently in the knowledge that discount doesn't have to mean abandoning your values, inwardly congratulating the higher-ups int he PLUS chain for their forward-thinking range of products.

But as we neared checkout, the responsible consumers in us awoke and we felt uneasy about not being able to test the bulbs on the spot, which you can do in any respectable store. E. presented this dilemma to the man at the end of the conveyor belt and asked what happened if the light bulbs didn't work.

"Yeah," he said, scratching the peach fuzz on his chin. "You can't bring 'em back, cuz we wouldn't know how they got broken, if you know what I mean."

But then a light bulb went off above his own head and he gave us this reassurance: "But all you have to do is just put it to your ear and shake a little and you don't hear anything, then it is gonna work all right."

Confirmed. Whatever forwardthinkingness the company exhibited by offering enery-efficient lightbulbs hadn't trickled down to the brain behind the counter. Still I saw the situation with an upbeat: if someone so lacking in general knowledge or experience can present such a positive, self-confident face and an air of expertise in his job, I really don't have to hold back my piece of mind.

Split Personalities

Let's be honest. I am a perfectionist. How often have I heard, "Wow, are you still working on that?" To keep the self-destructive tendency at bay, I concentrate on viewing every task I take on through the eyes of the person who will benefit from its results. Doing so often frees me from the most rigid standards and harsh judgement - my own.

I realized recently that I already knew this to some extent in fourth grade. In May that year I was assigned by Mrs. A. to make a Mother's Day card for my mother. I considered for a brief agonizing minute picture, poem, pop-up, what to do? Then I realized that the real recipient of the card would not be my mother, but my teacher. For my mother we would plan something as a family, or I would make her breakfast in bed, or decorate her bedroom mirror. So, I just asked myself, what would Mrs. A want to hear?

About ten minutes later I brought my letter to her desk for approval. It displayed the straightforward, but overbearing style of writing that my teacher delighted in: "Thank you, Mom, for guiding me along the winding road of life. You are always there for me, and you shower me with love." Mrs. A liked my Mother's Day card so much that she got tears in her eyes, hugged me around the middle, and called for silence in the class so that she could read my composition aloud.

In a parallel scenario I could have made an off-beat, but sincere Mother's Day card there, and I would have given up recess to stay in and keep working at my desk. My classmates would have looked away in bewilderment as they fled out of the classroom to play four-square and Mrs. A would have wished that I had chosen a less abstract or complicated motif.

The utilitarian approach I just outlined is a bit contrary to my rather bohemian philosophy that "the journey is the destination" and one should not change one's standards or values for the sake of the mainstream. But it seems to hurt no one and it keeps me from getting lost in the details. Sometimes.