Blog / Chronik

There’s this dear, elderly woman in the nursing home where I work.
She walks around a lot, is forgetful, and finds it hard to settle down and rest. Additionally, she is one of those people who fall frequently – sometimes several times a day. I hardly need to explain that this often goes along with a great deal of work and much worries.

Therefore, the nursing team has initiated the following measures:
To improve her walking safety, we provided her with a rolling walker. In case she can’t find it, we highlighted it in bright colors to make it more visible. We also made sure she has good shoes – ones that fit well, have a solid sole with good grip, and that she actually enjoys wearing. For the not-so-unlikely event that she takes them off anyway, we gave her some “sticky socks” – so that she can still move around safely even without shoes. We also removed all tripping hazards from her room and improved the lighting conditions there, especially at night. Throughout all of this, we involved her husband as well, so that as many people as possible can keep reminding her how important it is to keep those things in mind and not fall – or at least not fall so often.

And then there are such moments like it happened last Saturday…when I saw these wonderfully mismatched pair of shoes innocently standing there, right next to her bed. I started laughing because it made me realize about just how little influence I – or we as a care team – actually have on her and that whole situation in the end. That control is often nothing more than an illusion. And that people, or life itself, somehow always find their own way – despite all the well-intentioned advices.

Above all, what matters most is that I somehow like this lady even more now. Because of her innocent and deeply human “punk attitude.” Apparently, she may not have been able to find much rest last night but instead she found two wonderfully different shoes from the “very fall-friendly” section of her shoe collection.

That, too, is one way love can look (yes, this topic keeps holding my hand).
That love can take deeper root – especially when people don’t follow even the most urgent advice.

 

2XWJ+F4 Eberstalzell

 

 

In the past year, I finally found my ‘home.’ A place I feel safe and warm, and love to spend as much time as possible there.
True, I have some catsitting clients whose bedrooms are larger than my entire apartment. But those million dollar houses are not home.
So what is home, exactly?
And when I have to live at other people’s houses for weeks on end, how do I take my feeling of home with me?
It’s not a rhetorical question.

 

FMXV+H8 Newport, Rhode Island

Come with me. Let’s sit secretly under a blanket and talk. Softly, intimately, maybe with a little pocket lamp.

Let me sincerely ask you a question. One I always carry with me, but which sometimes drifts into a more prominent light.
Why is it so easy to talk about the weather, food, work, or, let’s say, car brands?
But why is it so often so difficult to talk about something as personal as love and affection?
I mean: just as casually, just as openly – only with some more respect for the topic itself – and for each other. Of course, love… well, there’s so much more at stake with it than with all those other, far safer topics. But still…

So well, “Schatzi”?…What kind of word is that after all?

Well, Schatzi is the Austrian-German equivalent of the English “honey,” “darling,” or “sweetie.” It’s the diminutive form of the German word “Schatz” (in English: the treasure) and one of those terms that’s warmly used throughout Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

 

WQ9X+MH Gmunden

It’s called a “New York Minute,” the concept that things can happen in an instant.
Without warning, the light goes from red to green. Then green to yellow.
Who can tell when things will change? It could happen any second!
This can be both scary and hopeful at the same time. There’s no telling what will happen.
Alan Watts said, and this may not be the first time I’m quoting it:

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance“

Dancing can be so freeing. What a healthy way to handle what’s going on.
Won’t you dance with me?

FMRP+6V Newport, Rhode Island

It’s a wedding. Two people found each other. Unfamiliar in one way, yet familiar in another.
A bride, a groom. Families and friends.
It’s all quiet. (except, of course, for a little toddler and two small children.)

And still, people listen within.
Thoughts emerge and get shared — with everyone, but especially with the newlyweds.

It’s intimate, authentic, unfancy — and funny too. (not just for the kids.)

But hey! What’s there? Something I need to say and share as well? Let me listen inside a little longer.

37VX+X8 Maria Enzersdorf

When I took this photo recently, this just about summed up how I felt at the time. It’s funny how quickly things can shift.
Tonight is daylight savings time. The clocks get set back an hour. Tomorrow, it will be dark even before dinnertime.
Winter is a time for healing. With the upcoming short, dark, cold days, we must make a conscious effort to be good to ourselves. To do things we enjoy, eat good food, have good conversations, nurture ourselves. I’ll try to remember to be a little kinder to myself when I don’t meet my own high expectations. We all get to a point in life where we have to parent ourselves. We can’t rely on others for our inner peace. And that’s where I’m at. Keeping warm in the cold, and kind in this crazy world.

95FF+HM Westerly, Rhode Island

It would be a very intriguing and very unorthodox question to ask the customer service team at the local hardware store:
Is there such a thing as possessed amateur craftsmen? Could there be demons in the paint department? Or other sinister entities that are haunting old furniture?

Honestly — somehow I think such things might actually exist in one way or other.
Like when long-postponed projects start to “grown” in one’s mind over time. When ideas arise that require more effort than expected, ones that can’t be finished in just a few hours but demand proper planning – and thus begin to root deeper in one’s subconscious than something like changing a lightbulb.
And then, when the object of one’s project happens to be something that’s always in view, something that can’t be hidden away for a while — then, in my opinion, the “unholy trinity of a DIY possession” might be complete. That’s when certain tasks, work or even creative ideas gradually begin to take on a life of their own – sometimes, as in my case right now, even in my very own dreams at night.

So, what is it all about actually? It’s my old bathtub.
The one whose decades-old red paint has started to peel off for several months now, bit by bit.
The one that strictly refuses to let go of all layers of paint, as it can be seen on above’s picture.
The one that keeps reminding me, every time I pass by, that, contrary to all my hopes and plans, I really will need some electric sanding tools to finally strip off the final red spots there.
At this point, I’m almost waiting for it to start speaking to me in Latin or so 🙂

Well, frustration, unexpected changes of plans and delays aside — once again, maybe out of self-defense, I’m taking it all with a good dose of humor and the realization that I’ll be spending this year’s Halloween with my eerily, red-stained bathtub.

Happy Halloween to all readers!

 

WQ9X+XMC Gmunden

Here in the states we each have what we call a “Bucket List:” a list of things we’d like to do before we ‘kick the bucket’ (a term for dying).
Some people have very adventurous bucket lists. Others are simple. I actually don’t give much thought to my bucket list, and maybe I should. In fact, if you asked me for 5 items on my bucket list, I’d probably freeze up… I really just haven’t thought through what I’d like to do before I die.
One thing is for sure, though.
Watching the sunset over the Pacific Ocean, after 34 years of sunrises over the Atlantic–THAT is a bucket list item.

Perhaps I ought to make my list after all.

Ruby Beach, Washington 98331

This could have become such an unbelievably exemplary, sprawling, enthusiasm-laden, and of course deeply profound blog article.
Me – being in London again.

It could have been all about pop culture: from David Bowie to the Sex Pistols, to Doctor Who, the Teletubbies up to Monty Python.
Or about history: from the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell was all through to the present ongoings in the Buckingham Palace and then, with a funny twist, to Samuel Pepys’ truly outstanding and delightful diaries from centuries ago.
Certainly it could have also been politics: from my first visit after Brexit to the legendary yellow press over there – maybe also a few words about Margaret Thatcher – who knows.

But then I decided to take a whole different route and admit that it’s almost shameful how scandalously incomplete even this short list of references to this country, or rather this city, already is.
I thought: why fall into the same old trap and reheat what’s been covered over and over again by more famous and maybe more skilled bloggers?
Why not turn my gaze just a little to the details behind and beside it all?
To those places where life happens too, however absurd it may seem.

And that’s why I don’t want to dedicate this blog post to just any wonderful British thing but explicitly and respectfully to the English contribution to the diversity of window handles in this world!

Some countries open up by lifting parts of the window vertically upward.
Here in Austria, we tilt them open. At the top.
But here, in England, in the heart of Earl’s Court it’s the exact opposite. Windows get tilted from the bottom. Oi! So Glorious! I love it!

FRP2+85 London

Yes, the following blog post may very well be one that’s more of a funky insider’s joke than anything else. More than that, it’s an insider’s joke that likely only relates to German and Austrian people. And going even deeper: mainly to people who, many years ago, loved watching crime shows on local TV – back in the early ’90s, when, at least around here, there was no internet yet, and television was indeed the only medium through which you could experience the latest thrills.

Anyway, back then I always found it a bit suspicious how much airtime was devoted to countless of German crime series. To put this into perspective for any American reader: Austria had two TV channels and Germany had three that lucky Austrians could receive over the air. And every Friday and Saturday evening it felt as if three quarters of those handful of channels were only showing crime shows. Quite phenomenal, really – that apparent public longing to catch at least one villain a week!

Even though I wasn’t (and still am not) a big fan of the crime genre myself, there was one German production that somehow did draw me in from time to time. The show was called “Ein Fall für Zwei” (“A Case for Two”) and revolved around the friendship and cooperation between a defense lawyer and a private detective. The latter fascinated me in particular because he wasn’t the typical good guy or hero – back then I might have learned, through him, was an antihero was. That guy was short and not muscular in appearence, never too proud to spend more time in a pub than planned, and, in what felt like every episode, he’d get involved in a brawl or two. Yet he was always a guy whose rough edges, reliability, attitude, and humor somehow stuck with me. A man who wouldn’t give up easily, who always knew exactly what was unjust, who would not shy away from taking unorthodox paths to outsmart and catch the villain. A man his partners could always count on and who was always addressed by only his surname: Matula.

So the other day, I was driving home from work and couldn’t help bursting out laughing while waiting at a traffic light –  because, of all things, there’s actually a local garden center here that bears the very same name. Realising that it instantly triggeed some old TV memories in my mind and a certain sense of longing too – that today’s world would really need some more guys like him, like Matula.

 

876G+5C Linz