Grenzen

Memorialplace of the Berlin Wall at Potsdamer Platz, a billboard in the background.

The German word "Grenze" has a whole lot of meanings in English. It can mean: limit, border, boundary, limitation, frontier, barrier. Yesterday was a day about Grenzen:

I woke up after a very good nights sleep. I wanted to turn around and get up. That's when I twisted my back, very painfully. I lifted myself up, the pain stayed. The day didn't wait for it.
Nathan went running, which was good, because I wanted to bake the cake and set the breakfast table.
Aaron somehow thought it was all about him. He poked the cake, he unrapped presents, he even blew the candles, but acctually my love turned 30! How does it feel to turn 30 Schatz?

I went to work, breathing deeply, trying to ignore the pain in my back. I spent some time in the office doing the paper works and documenting my last client meetings. Then I crossed the city by bus and train to pick up a client from work. On the way I felt very sorry for myself and just wanted to go home and get a massage. I wasn't looking forward at all to meet that client. Someone I never met before, I just covered the appointment for a colleague on parental leave. I wans't up for anone elses problems. I had read his files, I knew about this very depressed, traumatised man from Afghanistan whose life had been destroyed by torture so that the former successful businessman, able to speak six language now works at a place for mentally handicapped people, spending his nights at his parents place because he can't be alone without freaking out.
I met a man who thanked me about a hundred times for coming, for taking my time for him, for talking to him. A man whose wisdom hit me by surprise and who somehow managed to change my perspective of life at least for this so far very selfcentred day. He spoke a lot about his country, like someone who has told his story very many time but still can't believe it actually happened to himself. He said the people in Afghanistan don't have love, war has destroyed all of that. His words went deep. He wanted to thank me again but I was the one to thank him.

After work Nathan and I met for a very rare date. We went to a small theather to see a play called "SOS for human rights" set up by a refugee  right group in Berlin on tour through Germany now. The play told the very sad story of three young people from Ghana and Afghanistan on their attempt to cross countries, deserts and an ocean to come to Europe. It was acted with very few means, only three actors but endless passion. A masterpiece of creativity! There is a short trailer on YouTube if you want to get a first impression. I also found some recording of the play:

There is one poem that expresses my opion on the idea of states, borders and the like. I have nothing to add:

Psalm
(by Wislawa Szymborska)


Oh, the leaky boundaries of man-made states!
How many clouds float past them with impunity;
how much desert sand shifts from one land to another;
how many mountain pebbles tumble
onto foreign soil in provocative hops!


Need I mention every single bird that flies
in the face of frontiers or alights 
on the roadblock at the border?
A huble robin - still, its tail resides abroard while its beak stays home.
If that weren't enough, it won't stop bobbing!
Among ennumerable insects,
I'll single out only the ant between the border
gurads's left and right boots
blithely ignoreing the question "Where from?" and "Where to?"


Oh, to register in detail, at a glance, 
the chaos prevailing on every continent!
Isn't that a privet on the far bank smuggling
its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?
And who but the octupus, with impudent long arms,
would disrupt the sacred bounds of territorial waters?


And how can we talk of order overall
When the very placement of the stars
leaves us doubting just what shines for whom?
Not to speak of the fog's reprehensible drifting!
And dust bowling all over the steppes as if it hadn't  been partitioned!
And the voices coasting on obliging airwaves,
that conspiratorial squeaking, those indecipherable mutters!


Only what is human can truly be foreign.
The rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.

Of course my own family has its on "crossing borders and limits" story too. Not as painful though, there were more resources on both sides, so the crossing went smoother. Noones life was threated. But Aarons grandparents can't affort power, medication and other daily needs. We don't have to fear deportation for Nathan because he is father to a German child but he also can't travel freely, his embassy refuses him a passport and the German goverment refuses him working allowens because that stamp can only be stamped into a passport. Those are our daily struggles. They seem small and lucky compared to the big picture. Still the small picture takes over most of the time and my strength and energy are challenged by rude staff at foreigne offices, useless phonecalles, thousands of photocopies of account bills for social offices etc... The worries about money are still freaking me out every day, so I have refused looking at our account in the last weeks which doesn't help the problem. I just closed my eyes and hoped for a miracle. My body tells me there is something wrong though. My limits are reached, my back told me so. 

The miracle happend today when my granddad told me he will give us some money from my grandmother, some money big enough to equalize our account so I can look at it again. And we can send some money to Aarons Grandmother too. Sigh!

My back, somehow has healed today, still tension but no breathtaking pain. It is that simple sometimes.