There are times in life when everything seems to happen at once. Do you know what I am talking about?
First of all there still is this rather newish baby, roles have changes, days and nights too. Then we had a lovely little wedding, I changed my last name (imagine all the paper work), we had to apply for social wellfare which is even more paper work. And, the day we came home from our short trip to Danemark I found out that I was given a place in a doula training class at Intuitive Childbirth that I had applied for. So, so exhiting!!! I am becoming a doula. But, wow, that is going to be so much work, we have to read several books, write essays, attend three birthes, two preparation classes, do local research etc.
I can't wait to dive into all this.
Now the first task is to master the pumping of milk for Maya so I can stay away long enough the actually attend birthes and classes.
I have also started a facebook page for my "business" and made cards (with my new name, yeah!) so that I have better chances of finding women who need me. You can find me here: Geburtswege gestalten.
This week has started weird. Like someone pressed the fast forward button right after getting up. The one who pressed that button was a lady from court calling me on jury duty as a lay judge (Schöffe) this morning. An assignment I had applied for years ago when I was still studying social work and a bit into that law thing after having had a hard time with my exams. In Germany you can apply for this voluntary duty (sounds contradictive) but if not enough people apply you can also be called. Anyway, I had not heared back from court for years, until a few month ago when I recieved a letter telling me I was an official lay judge "(Hilfs)schöffe" now. Then again, no news for month. Until this morning, that phonecall, if I could please be there in half an hour. The court being at the other end of the city. They paid for the cab though. Of course I can't talk about the case itself, but just the procedure itself was exhiting to me. Before the hearing we sat in a small room together with the judge and joked around.
In Germany the judge and the usually two lay judges have the same rights. Unlike in the US the judge also decides on the case, but the two judges can outvote him/her. As a lay judge I also sit right next to the judge in the front, which must have looked funny today because I was dressed very casual in t-shirt and jeans while the judges and the attorneyes were dressed in their robes, the other lay judge was wearing a suit... ooops. Well, noone said anything but maybe next time I will choose a black shirt instead of the orange-purple one to blend in a bit more...
Then I was sworn and the hearing started just to be called off again after a short while because the witnesses didn't show up. There will be another hearing next week.
Have you ever been called on judge duty or worked as a Schöffe? How did you feel about it?
I went to work straight after this and still hadn't had time for breakfast. Thats how the day continued until I got home late in the afternoon.
But someone pressed the pause button just in time for the evening.
It was about time for my very, very favourite summer salad: strawberries, a large handful of basil and mozzarella, seasoned with some sea salt and pepper, olive oil and dark balsamic vinegar. Boy how that tastes like summer!
Our nights are still spend watching too much football/soccer. Some spinning included - for a project I am very much looking forward to share with you soon...
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.
Knittin and reading. My favourite things to complete a perfect day. So I am joining Ginny on Wednesdays for Yarn Along to share my passions with you. Come and join in if you like!
My holidays are over. Two great weeks have been spent with lots and lots of Family, Knitting, Spinning and Dyeing. The coming weeks working call for some easy to-go knitting projects again. Stuff I can knit on the train, in a meeting or in a waiting room of a doctors office. Oh yeah, with my clients I usually spend a LOT of time at those places, not the worst places to work at when you have some knitting. In fact, its the best thing to do to pass time and whilst knitting I can still pay all the nessesary attention to my clients.
In my tea break I often spend some time in one of my favourite cafés, today I went to "Cafe Eichhörnchen" a very small and wonderful Belgium café, fortunatly just near my todays clients place. There is nothing better for a break than some french music, a tea or coffee and some knitting, right?!
I picked up one of my UFOs as an easy project to-go. It`s the babys kicking bag I started a while back and got stuck with because I ran out of yarn I had dyed turquoise with easter egg dyes.
Now I finally bought another skein of organic yarn. Because I was very sure I would not manage to dye another skein in exactly the same colorway I decided to go for a completely different color instead. This orange is what happend... I frogged a lot of what I had already knitted to start with the orange earlier. What can I say, color really makes me do it. I am so exhited about how the combination of colors is working out so I started knitting like crazy and am almost done by now. I will never again knit such a simple, call it boring, project again in only one color because I will never finish it. Mix in some more colors and the stitches are flying away... you just need to know how to outsmart yourself.
Oh and there is this wonderful book I found in a book store and have enjoyed so much already. I am not sure at what age I should read it to Aaron but I am sure I will. There is no English translation so I wil try to tell you the story here:
The lady you can see in the picture is Mama Sambona. She lives as a queen on the Island Ukerewe in Lake Victoria in East Afrika (part of it belongs to Uganda btw.) Mama Sambona is very old and Dead has plans to take her "home". Problem is, Dead is only allowed to try and take someone home three times. Since he knows Mama Sambona will not be an easy play, he sends his rabbit first but Mama Sambona is nowhere to be found: Her neighbour informs rabbit the queen went to Uganda to buy some hunting dogs. Rabbit does not like hunting dogs and runs off. Dead is angry with rabbit and pays his own first visit to Mama Sambona. Dead politetly asks her to finish her tea and join him on their way back to the ancestors but Mama Sabona excuses herself because she still has to help her granddaughter with her homework. Dead knows he can't let somone die as long as that person does something good for a child so he leaves in vain. The second time Dead come for Mama Sambona, she can't join him because she is harvesting millet for her granddaughter. The third time Mama Sambona has organized a big festival so Dead believes she welcomes him with music this time to say good bye to her people. But Mama Sambona asks Dead for a dance and Dead enjoyes that dance so much he completely forgets what a he came for.
That is why Mama Sambona still lives on her Island Ukerewe and drinks her tea with pleasure. She gave up smoking though... :-)
Happy Knitting!
P.S.: I found a spinning wheel, or rather my sister did. It might be with me by next week! I am so exhited!
Knittin and reading. My favourite things to complete a perfect day. So I am joining Ginny on Wednesdays for Yarn Along to share my passions with you. Come and join in if you like!
There has not been very much knitting in the last week, but a whole lot of weekend outdoors at the river, with the first bbq of the year, bare feet and some reading. I finally started with this novel that I found at the flea market a few weeks back. First I thought I wouldn't like it but I really enjoy it now. Its a not very challenging, easy read for sitting in the sun with a cup of coffee. For those of you who have not read it yet: it's about a woman, divorced, who travels to Italy to find pleasure, to India to find devotion and to Indonesia to learn how to combine those two things. I am still in Italy and constantly hungry. She really knows how to write about food. On my way back from work I was reading on the train and had to pass by a grocery store just to get some spinach pasta, ricotta and sundried tomatos to satisfy my cravings... How come Americans are the most passionate people when it comes to writing about Italy. All the good books I have read about Italy or that take place in Italy are actually written by Americans. They really must like that country...
Some wee bit of knitting has been done though: a chicken and an egg. The chicken pattern again from this book and the egg pattern from the wonderful purl bee. I want to do a few more of both since they are great little gifts for easter and fast knits, once you do it ;-)
The yarn for the chicken is some left over from Aarons T-shirt Vest. The egg yarn is some handspun wool from my mum, dyed, more or less by accident because I was batik dyeing a table cloth and used that yarn to tie the cloth. I wish I had tied/dyed some more...
Last Saturday there has also been some easter crafting at work with my clients (people with learning difficulties). We did some paper easter eggs and egg cups and I just love how they turned out so I asked if I could show you some:
The eggs I have dyed with natural dyes and then scraped some lines with a knife. It just takes forever if you don't want to risk to break the egg, so nothing to feed a whole family on :-)
Totally out of context but still worth mentioning: did you read Ariannes post on Mindful Parenting over at Rhythm of the Home? I love it so!
Knittin and reading. My favourite things to complete a perfect day. So I am joining Ginny on Wednesdays for Yarn Along to share my passions with you. Come and join in if you like!
Despite having attended my grandmothers funeral last weekend there has still been enough time and peace for some knitting. Spending time with my mum always means there is time to knit, time to be creative. I found some funny things she has come up with over the last month, like this cosy knitted lamp shade. Made with her own handspun yarn of course... I did sign up for some privat spinning classes with her during the easter holidays, I can't wait! Especially since I have found this great spinning inspirations here(in German, but its worth it just checking out the images!)
How is my own knitting doing? Well, there are still some sheep to be sent off... and there are a few babies due this summer, so I started a kicking bag like this one with that handdyed organic yarn I showed you last time.
And somehow blogging is bringing me back to my roots it seems. I started to rediscover all that Waldorf stuff from my childhood. I feel like I never really appreciated it enough when I was a child, it had always just been there, for granted. Now, having my own child and wanting to provide for him the best, I return to what my mum used to do for us. Being at her place I explore all her books and find lots of inspiration there. Like the seasonal corner. I really want to get into that and make some sweet little dolls so I can prepare a small corner in our house that features the season outside. Btw, Marta is showing a very sweet daffodil doll here this week. So thats what the book "Jahrenzeitentische" is all about. Here you can find an English version of that book.
In one of my mums magazins I also found an amazing articel about wool art (not felted). How do you like the shepherds mobile and that beautiful fairy? I am in love!
Our beautiful calender made it official, "Frühlingsanfang", yesterday spring has started!
And spring it was over here with lots of sun and flowers:
Yesterday I was fortunate to get paid for spending a day contemplating. (Being a protestant,) I work as a social worker for the Caritas, a catholic social service organisation. One of the benefits of working for Caritas is that we get some extra (paid) time off every year for contemplation, bible rounds and days in a monastery etc. I love to use that offer to find some peace within the rush of the week. And yesterday was one of those days that I spend with some co-workers talking about blessings. We read some old irish blessings, some bible quotes and we wrote our own blessing. Here is mine, translated into English as good as I could. I wrote it for you so I hope you can feel the blessing.
Gestern Nacht, als ich nicht schlafen konnte, fiel es mir siedendheiß ein: wir haben noch gar kein Abschiedsgeschenk für unsere Kollegin die am Samstag zur Weihnachtsfeier kommt und die schon seit Wochen nicht mehr bei uns arbeitet. Da sie jedoch das ganze Projekt des Freizeitstreffs für Menschen mit Behinderung maßgeblich initiierte müsste es schon etwas persönliches sein, mit Bezug zum Freizeitreff, nicht einfach irgendein Büchergutschein wie wir das sonst so handhaben.
Dann kamen mir all die alten bemalten Leinwände in den Sinn, die seit Jahren auf dem Schrank verstauben in dem wir unsere Materialen im Bürgerzentrum aufbewahren. Heute, vor der Arbeit, bin ich direkt dort vorbei gefahren und habe sie allesamt mit ins Büro genommen. Und, statt die anstehenden Hilfepläne zu schreiben, habe ich mich dem Recycling gewidmet.
Zuerst empfand ich es als absoluten Frevel in bemalte Leinwände zu schneiden, aber dann fühlte es sich richtig gut an, etwas Neues aus all dem Material zu zaubern.
Und da es um einen Abschied ging, musste ich natürlich sofort an das Gedicht "Stufen" von Herman Hesse denken, und meinen so trostreichen Lieblingssatz. "Und jedem Anfang wohnt ein Zauber inne". So fand Buchstabe für Buchstabe der Satz seinen Weg auf die Leinwand...
Hach, und gerade bekomme ich noch ganz viele andere Ideen, was ich mit den verbleibenden Resten der Leinwände machen könnte. Ein tolles Material!!! Ihr dürft gespannt sein...
Manchmal liebe ich meine Arbeit! Mögen tue ich sie ja fast immer, aber ab und zu gibt es so Momente, da wird mir wirklich bewusst, was für einen tollen Job ich doch habe. Zum Beispiel gestern: eine meiner Klientinnen wohnt in einer autofreien Siedlung in der jedes Jahr im Dezember ein sogenannter "Lebendiger Adventskalender" organisiert wird. Jeder in der Siedlung kann sich im November in eine Liste eintragen und ist dann an einem Abend im Dezember dafür verantwortlich ein Fenster seines Hauses zu schmücken und um 18 Uhr feierlich zu erleuchten, als Adventskalenderfenster eben. Dieses Jahr hat sich meine Klientin mit meiner Unterstützung daran beteiligt. Passender Weise haben wir in unserer Kunstwerkstatt in den letzten Wochen mit den Teilnehmern Krippenbilder erarbeitet. Diese haben wir für den 13.12. als kleine Ausstellung in ihr Wohnzimmerfenster gehängt. Zur Fenstereröffnung gab es dann natürlich für alle Nachbarn Kekse und Glühwein und viel Plauderei. Und so kann man Abend für Abend durch die Siedlung pilgern, von einem Fenster zum nächsten, lernt dabei seine Nachbarn kennen und kommt so richtig in Weihnachtsstimmung - ein wunderbarer Brauch, der meiner Meinung nach sehr viel verbreiteter sein sollte.
