Dying in Deutschland: nicht so einfach.

I thought I had it easy.  It’s not that simple.  The washing machine was a gift!  They lost the manual.  A top-loader in Europe!  It’s not that common.

Feinwasche, plus-Wasser, 40 degrees Celsius.

I’m camping out next to the washer, in the basement, near the cellar (the bomb shelter?).  I listen, watch, try to determine when each cycle begins, ends, rests.  It’s the resting I need, I must be able to stop it there, but begin again right away so that there is no creasing, just soaking.  There is no stirring: the drum is like a hamster wheel not a whirlpool, I can’t just stand and stir.

I thought I had it easy, but it’s not that simple.

Give the Gift of Mnemosyne

Come on over to our Etsy store and see how it’s done.

Uncool to Give Coins: Tribute to Moritz

It just felt uncool.

I’ve finally figured out what goes where and I’m two weeks late now filling my bills and I’ve got to give 15 in cash and 5 Euros in change to my roommate, Moritz from Berlin, whose in charge of the Kasse or communal cashbox for coffee, tea, cleaning supplies, and toilette paper.  A two Euro coin is hefty and I notice the toll immediately: my envelope is not crisp.

It’s uncool, isn’t it?

Yes, in Deutschland, it’s uncool to give coins.

What I Love Best About Our Trip (So Far!)

The remains from some enjoyed but ultimately forgotten meal; Middletown, MD.

Just another backyard off main street in this small eastern town.

Ah, Deutschland kaffee, on demand; one cup, two cups at the push of a button.

Upper story porch, right off the kitchen.

Our view from the balcony to the north, and the little lady who tends her garden.  Just beyond her there is a Kindergarten.

The view off the porch to the south, where the men come to play bocce.

Stuttering Stuttgart

it is a bit of a stu. stutt. stuttgart stutter start

day one i try to remember why i’m here

i’m slowing down, gently leaning forward

here.  i’m writing by hand.  in this moment.

i’m careful.  it’s early.  let’s walk.

so i’m still here making this room our home

i’m everywhere already and i don’t know

what would you like best?

Autumnal Equinox and Some Thoughts

This is an interesting time of year.  On this day, the autumnal equinox, September 22, 2009, there are equal hours of daylight and moonlight.  The two sides are balanced, in harmony, sharing in their concerted efforts.  This day is in many ways a macrocosmic demonstration of our desired inner condition.

I have noticed in the last six months that when I practice yoga, I have a harder time staying balanced on my left side.  When it comes to opening, back bending, or blooming in any way while stabilizing with only my left side I tend to fall out easier, become distracted, or simply lack the strength to endure.  This troubled me for a bit.

After all, one’s left side is the feminine side, the lunar side, the side of faith.  The right side is masculine, the sun side, the side of action and dynamism.  What said my body of my mind and spirit if it’s left side failed to blossom and grow, stabilize and endure?  Well, it said just that about my faith; it said that there are times, moments, of doubt and hesitation.  But over the last few months I’ve had to remind myself that my body is an afterthought, and literally just that.  It is the product of my previous thoughts, my previous well-being.  And it is not to be considered indicative of the present spiritual me.  So as I change and develop into the person I want to be, I see those changes happen in my physical body.

On this day of balance, of equinoctial bliss, I ask this of myself: “Be at peace, be in balance, be equal parts mother and father to yourself and your loved ones, let the sun shine with all its warmth and the moon glow in reflected joy.”

In the words of Ekhart Tolle, “Joy is vibrantly alive peace, and you are an agent for positive change in the world.”

Across cyperspace I offer you these wings to aid you in becoming whomever you will yourself to be today.

Making Lemonade

I’m so excited to say that there are big changes happening for Mnemosyne.  I’m finally taking my sister up on her offer, and I’m traveling to Germany for a couple of months with my husband to fit her friends with custom clothes in our sustainable fibers.  Amy and I are resolved that this is the trip we need to build our ever-growing European audience, and to give them some convenient options for shipping and a first hand chance to feel for our fabrics.

Getting ready for this big change has not come without its strings!  Taking a home based business abroad is easier than moving something in brick and mortar, but let me say it isn’t all that easy!  Thankfully, Amy is on my page and it has all fallen into place nicely.  When a moment of doubt or hesitation crossed my path over the last couple of weeks, I’ve thought of this miraculous incident I experienced over a simple dinner just last week.

I was cutting into a lemon and as I made the first cut down the center I thought to myself, “Is this wasteful?  Am I going to need all this right now?  Should I have cut it otherwise?”  And just then I looked down to find that buried within the depths of my lemon was a seed that had sprouted.  More than that, it was a seed that had begun its quest for light and life.  There it was: proof that even the most tender shoot begins in darkness, searches blindly and equally in opposite directions (the root and the shoot), to pass through the densest pith and emerge in the full glory of sunlight.

Not even the dense and dark rind of its experience can stop that new life from emerging victoriously…

Dear, Sweet Memory

I’m always on the lookout for things that mention our mother of muses, Mnemosyne, goddess of memory.

This reference is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Here he replies to a request from his father’s phantom:

“Remember thee?  Aye, thou poor ghost, whilst Memory holds a seat in this distracted globe.  Remember thee?  Yeah, from the table of my memory I wipe away all trivial fond records and thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain unmixed with baser matter.  Yes, by heaven!”

This is the moment when my husband usually comments, “How does such a mind exist, that can compose such phrases in multitude?”  And I then think quietly to myself that he’s not such a paltry wordsmith himself, expecially following full Shakespeare submersion!

The Secret to Creativity

Sometimes I find myself at a bit of a loss when it comes to material for my blog.  Thankfully this is about our time spent making clothes in a green way, not just about the clothes.  There is so much more that goes on behind the scenes, not just behind the machines.  It’s complicated: sewing, designing, writing, and managing a business: rarely are Amy and I everything at one time.

What I think helps me maintain the movement of all these things simultaneously is reading fiction.  I know that sounds crazy, like another thing to make time for, but I am certain that it is what makes everything else effortless.  Reading for pleasure makes my day sing.  Creativity is centered on imagination: exercise your imagination by reading.  Trust me, you will be wildly rewarded and rejuvinated.

Jhumpa Lahari, contemporary author of The Namesake, said that her life literally stops when a new book comes out by one of my long-standing favorite authors, Michael Ondaatje.  It’s true, you read his books (In the Skin of a Lion, The English Patient) which are rarely over a few hundred pages long, and then you immediately want to read it again, stopping all other activity to live a while longer in that imagined time and space.

Here is a good passage from Divisidero, his most recent novel (2007), p.136.  From Anna’s perspective about her recent arrival in France (look for the vocabulary below):

“All my life I have loved travelling at night, with a companion, each of us discussing and sharing the known and familiar behaviour of the other.  It’s like a villanelle*, this inclination of going back to events in our past, the way the villanelle’s form refuses to move forward in linear development, circling instead at those familiar moments of emotion.  Only the rereading counts, Nabokov said.  So the strange form of that belfry [helicoidal**], turning onto itself again and again, felt familiar to me.  For we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue.  We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.”

Hmmm.  Let us tell good stories!

–Heather

Vocabulary:

*villianelle: n. a pastoral or lyrical poem of nineteen lines, with only two rhymes throughout, and some lines repeated.  From the Italian for ‘rural’.

**helicoidal: n. an object of spiral or helical shape.  From the Greek for ‘of spiral form’.

Quote of the Day: V. Nabokov

I found myself reading parts of Ada again.  It’s a bit of an addiction.  Have you read it yet (Ada or Ardor: a Family Chronicle by Vladimir Nabokov, 1969)?  It’s simply wonderful.  Here’s a photo of the author.

From page 482 (a magical number, n’est pas?).  Lucette, at the end of a nervous paragraph says this,

…”Young people are less misled by the passage of time than the established old who have not much changed lately and are not used to the long-unseen young changing.”

“That’s very clever, darling,” said Van, “–except that time itself is motionless and changeless.”

“Yes, it’s always I in your lap and the receding road.  Roads move?”

“Roads move.“