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.

Lemme aks you summthin

There was a lot of talk about the "the black vote" being the weight that carried Proposition 8 through in California last November. African Americans, who vote Democratic in many instances, took a departure from the Democratic platform on the topic of gay marriage. (According to Wikipedia, 70% voted for the measure to put the clause, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California," into the state constitution.) That is why I want to tell you a story that goes against the cliché of homophobic African Americans.

This morning, while having my car towed, I got to talking with one of the tow truck drivers, who was a gregarious and funny middle-aged black man.
He was flirting with me in a harmless way, saying, "You got a boyfriend? Cuz, say, you cute."

The towing turned into a visit to the mechanics at his garage, giving us ample opportunity to chat. He told me about the neighborhood, serving in the marines, busting his knee cap, getting to know a few Amish people on a trip hauling electrical equiptment to Chicago last week ("I respect 'em. That's a modest way a life."), and everything in between.

Toward the end of our encounter, he said, "Let me aks you one more thing. You tell me now if I make you uncomftable. You don't hafta answer."
For a second I wondered if he was going to ask me to comment on being a white woman spending the morning with two black men.

"You know earlier I aks you if you have a boyfriend and you says no?"

"Yeah..." Then I was sure he was just going to ask for my phone number - and sorely disappointed. I never expected what came next:

"You got a girlfriend?"

I said, "No, sir, I don't, but I am glad you asked me that." It is the first time in my life I have ever been asked.

"You never know nowadays. My daughter's gay. My ex-wife, too. But it don't bother me one bit."

The other tow truck driver weighed in critically: "Yeah, I know some girls they that way, and I aks em sometimes what make em like that, and they say, 'I bin hurt by too many guys,' but I think, women's capable a hurtin, too."

This opened the door for my conversation partner to respond with eloquent disagreement: "Yeah I hear ya man, but ain't nobody made em like that, that's just nature." Then he looked back at me: "You ain't angry a'me for aksin' are ya?"

"No, not at all," I said, wishing I could let him know how much I admired his candid style. "I respect you for asking me that."

"Ahright. Cuz I wouldn'ta thought any diffrently of ya if you'd a said yes."

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.

Let's be clear

I am not the kind of American who compliments your haircut if your bangs really are too short or it reminds me of an oil slick. As a foodie I am also sparing with compliments on people's cooking. In general, you can count on me to tell you what I really think - even if I am quite sure that you don't want to hear it. However, I grew up around plenty of people who would say anything just to make someone else feel good. This puts pressure on others to do the same, because it creates a culture of compliments. That means that, in order to go against the grain, I had to learn tact: to be forthright, but not insulting, candid, but not heartless, and straightforward, but not out of line. In Germany, where everybody says it like it is, this does not apply. Tact is a little known quantity.

In fact I noticed recently that there is not really a proper translation for forthright, candid, or straightforward in German; all three of these words are best translated with ehrlich, the German equivalent of "honest." This takes away a lot of the room for possibilities in analyzing communication. Either you are honest or you are lying. There is no gray zone. Let's look at some examples:

1. Last fall I left Germany for vacation in the US directly after moving to a new city (Bonn). Before my vacation I found an apartment in Bonn and made a verbal agreement with the landlady to sign a contract and move in when I got back from my trip. Two days before my return to Germany (and to a new job), the landlady backed out on me, and I had no choice but to temporarily move in with my then boyfriend and his roommate while I looked for something new. When I explained exactly that to the roommate, who was a complete stranger to me at the time, she said, "What can you expect if you didn't get a signed contract before you left?" This - to my eyes - unsympathetic answer seemed inconsistent with the empathy and generosity she expressed by agreeing to let me move into what was already a cozy apartment for two. But to her eyes she was just giving me an honest answer, and being honest is showing respect.

2. A friend of mine also has a particularly forthright roommate. Recently this roommate invited a bunch of other folks to a party and my friend felt excluded, especially because the party was taking place right around the corner from her work and involved mutual friends. She gently breached the issue the next day by asking, "Why didn't you call me before you left for the party?" A reasonable thing to ask, for two friends who have many common activities. The answer: "Because I didn't feel compelled to extend you an invitation." If you are thinking, this is not for real, or what a bitch, or, what kind of a friendship is that anyway? - then you are starting to see the disparity in ranges of communication styles between the US and Germany.

3. One final example: my roommate's boyfriend said to me, a couple of weeks after we all got back from a hedonistic vacation in southern France: "Hey, can it be that you gained a couple of kilos on our trip?" He insisted that it wasn't meant to be insulting in any way, and I believe him, although I also think I convinced him - for me - it was.

How Americans think about Biking

I still have a suitcase in...

Today the flamboyant owner of a fabric store asked me, "What is your accent?" The funny thing is: I am in the US. If things continue the way they are going, I will soon be more likely to be taken for a foreigner on my native turf.

Luckily, it turned out the guy has a German-born mother, so I guess he was highly attuned to the sound of a light German inflection. We got to talking about the things I miss when I am here or there and what I look forward to, and he told me his mother's take on switching back and forth between the cultures. He said she is always complaining. When she arrives in the US, she says, "It is impossible to get anywhere here using public transportation," and when she arrives in Germany, she says, "People here are so rude!"

People pose the question on what I miss about the US/Germany (depending on where I currently am) to me all the time. One of my stock answers, handy for surprising my audience and keeping the conversation from getting too heavy, is drinking fountains. In Germany you rarely see a drinking fountain, whereas in the US, you can expect to find them indoors and out in almost every public place.

I think when you live between two cultures and have seen the best and worst sides that both have to offer, you will always see room for improvement where ever you are. Furthermore you will always be missing something, pining after something, feeling incomplete. The German way of expressing this is to say, "I still have a suitcase in Bonn," (or, in German, Ich habe noch einen Koffer in Bonn). That means, "I still have one foot in Bonn" or "I left my heart in Bonn."

But the more I travel back and forth, the more I will be leaving suitcases in Virginia and forgetting mein Herz in Heidelberg, because the idioms (after prepositions) are the first to go - or at least get spliced and blended.

3 tidbits from the past week

Food for thought: My friend S. is spending three months on an organic goat farm in the hills of Bavaria learning to make goat cheese. Her young co-farmer, who grew up in the area, confessed that as a girl she asked her sister, "Where do people without chickens get their eggs?"

Advice: If you are trying to convince a dyed-in-the-wool carnivore that vegetarians can also make good use of a barbecue grill, avoid the T-word.

Good for a chuckle: For the Bonn Marathon last weekend, participants had to register at a "Scheck-In" counter. Some Germans are really on the fence about the growing use of English in everyday life.