The Road Ahead

Here is where procrastination gets you. This was originally supposed to be a post about miracles, and now it's become my Thanksgiving post.

But I guess the two aren't mutually exclusive.

So I'll start in a place where it seems I am every year now: grieving the lost California landscapes I've traveled so many times, mourning the people who have died in these most recent fires, holding onto hope for the missing, and giving thanks for all who escaped with their lives.

And though I didn't think there'd be anything political for me to be thankful for in post-Obama America, I am thankful for the true nature of my country as reflected in the diversity of peoples chosen for office in the midterm elections.

As always, I'm thankful for Larry and Aji and my friends both here and at home, and each day that brings an opportunity to meet new interesting  people.

I'm also thankful for the writing group I've found that keeps me accountable and inspired and encouraged me to make new commitments to myself. 

Fortunately and unfortunately, it means I'll be shifting my writing focus solely to my fiction, and this will be one of the last posts before I wrap up this blog.

But now we get back to the heart of my original post. To be more accurate, it’s an extension of my last post, which talked about the miracle of my father’s survival after his accident in late July.

When I visited him in the hospital in mid-August, he had only just regained full consciousness and the doctors weren’t sure if he’d be home for Christmas. He had been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury and the only timeframe for recovery was to see where he was after a year.

At the time, that could only be described as “uncertain.” He was confused about where he was and why, and largely immobile due to the hardware reconstructing his hip and leg on his right side. The resulting combination left him understandably bored and frustrated.

When I visited him in the hospital again in mid-October, his progression was incredible. I don’t say that lightly. He had become a whiz at operating his wheelchair and transferring himself into and out of it, his short-term memory was remarkably better, and his cognitive function was nearly normal.

Earlier that week he’d been on an outing to the movies, and during my visit we took him out of the hospital for the day to eat at a favorite restaurant, visit a railroad museum that had been lingering on his list of local sights to see, and stop off for some hand-made ice cream.

When I left, his rehab team was starting him on a regimen to get him standing and strengthening himself to eventually leave the wheelchair behind. They hoped to release him from the hospital before Thanksgiving.

Flash forward to today. My father left the hospital just over a week ago, and is trying to settle into a new routine of being at home and continuing his therapy. He has sent me a few WhatsApp messages updating me on his progress...and asking for my Christmas wish list.

So my last message of thanks is pretty obvious, and my Christmas wish has already been fulfilled. In a month I'll be home with my family, enjoying every second and taking none of it for granted.

And those are the moments for which each of us can be grateful as we follow whatever path we have that lies in front of us.

Putting It All in Perspective

I had intended to continue periodic postings on my job, but things at work quickly became a parody of dysfunction. So I've been struggling not only with what to share, but with my own next steps in resolving the madness.

Then, last week I received this message from my mom:

My father had been returning from his annual fishing trip to Canada. Each July for the past couple of decades, he and his best friend from high school arranged an expedition into the wilderness for a week. My dad would drive from Virginia to Ohio, pick up Gilbert, then they would drive to whichever town was closest to the lake they were visiting that year, and take a bush plane to their destination.

All I knew in those early hours was that they'd been in an accident. Gilbert had been killed. My father was medevacked to the closest city: Thunder Bay, Ontario.

My mother and sister flew up to Thunder Bay the next day, and my sister sent me updates via WhatsApp. It was torture being 6800 km and 6 time zones away and helpless. I'd snatch a few restless hours of sleep, only to wake up every time my phone screen lit up, and anxiously read the next status report.

Over the course of this week I've agonized vicariously through reports of my father's intubation, chest tubes, rebreathers, nasal feeds. I've obsessed over the swelling around his brain, and the numerous broken bones--including one of his vertebra.

My sister sent me a link to an article about the accident. When I saw the pictures, I had a flashback to the girl I was back when I believed in God.

all photos from TRCCTB.com

God, Gaia, the universe--whatever--clearly had some plan for my father for him to have survived this head-on collision.

Which of course made me think about my life and where I was and what was my purpose. We all say life is too short and uncertain. But until you get that unexpected reminder that hits at your core, those are just words.

Now, just over a week later, my father's physical injuries have been repaired, and he'll be flown back to the U.S. to begin the long road to recovery. The doctor says it may be weeks or longer before he regains full consciousness.

But his situation has awakened in me a renewed need to focus on what's most important:

• To surround myself with what gives me joy, hope, and energy. 

• To cherish my time with friends and family and make the time to stop and smell the roses. 

• To let go of the grudges and the irritation at things that, when it comes down to life and death, do not matter in the slightest. 

• And most importantly, my next steps must be to use my gifts in whatever way I can to actively make things better for someone other than myself, even if it's just one person at a time.

Every moment of every day matters. Make the most of them.

Back in the Game, part 2

In my last post I talked about the smoothly running recruitment machine that led me to my current job. That’s not to say there weren’t some differences to navigate along the way:

Contract

The last time I signed a contract that wasn’t for a publisher, I was a freelancer doing work for the government. (I guess you could *almost* count signing an offer letter in the U.S. as a contract, but not like this).

My work contract was a multi-paged full-fledged agreement between two parties. And I’m not a contract worker or part-time employee or special expat case. This is just the way it’s done here. 

I signed an online version once the offer was made, then went into the office a couple of days later to sign a paper version and receive my own copy.

Health care and getting a SSN

Speaking of paper, before I started, HR sent me a list of things to bring the first day. The usual ID, proof of this and that, etc. Of course they wanted hard-copy versions, and my home scanner/printer/copier had suddenly stopped working. So I loaded the documents I had onto a thumb drive (with Google as a backup) and made my way to a self-service copy shop.

Unfortunately, the drive I had (an oddly shaped branded item from a previous employer) did not fit into the USB drive of the ancient tower computers at the copy shop. I was just starting to navigate their equally archaic system to get online and access my Google drive when one of the younger employees pointed me to the back room of the shop, where there were newer machines that would work.

With that problem tackled, one big one remained. Tax ID number and social security number were two separate items on the list. I had the former, and, as an American, had assumed it would be the same as the latter. Turns out it’s not, and it got more complicated. 

When I called my HR rep to clarify, I found out I needed to be assigned a SSN because this was my first employment in Germany. And oddly enough (to me), it was handled through my insurance. 

Because I needed the information ASAP, I bypassed the email option and steeled myself to call my insurance to ask them to send proof of coverage and information for my SSN. In theory they had a helpline in English, but I couldn't find the option so I forged ahead in German.

Another wrinkle: Because I was now employed, I would no longer be covered under Larry’s insurance and would need separate coverage. Ugh. I had looked up the new words I'd need to discuss my proof of insurance and tax ID needs, but not this.

A couple of phone transfers and awkward explanations later, that was finally worked out and I had confirmation that they would send proof of coverage and my newly issued SSN directly to my employer. (And they did. But did not send copies to me. Sigh.)

Probeszeit.

This is your probation period. Standard is six months, no matter your job or seniority level. Within this time period either you or the company can part from each other with two weeks’ notice. After this period, either of you must give a minimum three months’ notice.

As you can see from this photographer's proof,
I had important bridesmaid duties to perform!

I knew about Probeszeit in advance. So, even though it was frowned upon to take vacation during this time, I made it clear from my first interview that I would be traveling back to California at the end of April to participate in a wedding.

At that point I'd been there for a month-and-a-half, so just enough time to be getting some bearings and starting on my first big solo project. 

In that small window of time off, however, I went from easing myself in and learning the ropes, to coming back and running full tilt in multiple directions.

Office etiquette

Social security number aside, I had done some research before jumping back into the working fray. And by that, I mean scanning articles and blogs about the etiquette in German workplaces.

Weeks later, when I mentioned my prep work to one of my colleagues, she was surprised and appreciative. Them she asked the question to which I had immediately discerned an answer: “Did it help?”

No.

My teammates created a spirit animal wall to represent 
everyone in our department. The wall is between
our offices and across from the largest conference
room on our floor. As one translator 
friend noted, "that's not very German."

Ok, to be fair, it helped in one regard. In the U.S., when you knock on someone’s office door you usually wait for them to say “come in,” before you enter. 

In most cases here, you knock and then you immediately enter. It took some adjustment, but I started getting used to it from both sides.

(Although sometimes people just open our office door and come in without knocking. Still not adjusted to that.)

But in many other ways the world outlined in my readings was not the world of my particular workplace. 

True, it’s a startup and I expected there would be less formality than in traditional German offices.

But the dress turned out to be a mix of business casual and casual, and the approach to many things was very much like the Wild West Silicon Valley startups I had known, combined with a puzzling randomness of German bureaucracy. 

On the plus side, I had mentally prepared myself for the very direct manner of German communication in regard to feedback, but found there was a lot more diplomacy and sensitivity than I expected. 

(With the exception of one phone conversation I overheard which would have been cause for a management intervention in the U.S., but seemed to leave the caller on the other end unfazed).

I wasn’t sure if it was my age, past experiences or outdated data I had been reading. But in those first few weeks--language aside--I was feeling more “German” in my office than the Germans who worked there...

Back in the Game, part 1

It started innocently enough. 

Realizing that I was nearing the end of my greater Munich area sightseeing list, and that we would be staying for at least another year or two, it seemed like a good idea to look for something to do outside the house.

My team, minus our web developer

I’d casually looked before, including volunteer positions where I could help out with presumably less language pressure than in an everyday office environment. 

But postings with refugee organizations were surprisingly scarce and a local animal rescue group only needed volunteers who had a car.

So after several months I updated my LinkedIn profile and turned on the job search function, not expecting much. Within a few days, however, I’d been contacted by several recruiters. 

The messages in German I replied to with a “thanks, but not qualified” note. Another offered a job in English but required German skills beyond my basic functioning.

Then there was Celonis. A German software start-up offering a job writing in English, in an English-speaking office. Intriguing.

I contacted the recruiter late on a Friday and she responded over the weekend. We talked at the beginning of the week then two days later I went to their office for an in-person interview with the recruiter and my boss-to-be, the head of creative marketing.

I completed an at-home writing challenge, a week after that had an interview with the company’s newly hired CMO, then a couple of days later I was signing a contract. That was a Friday, and I started working the following Thursday.

Despite the whirlwind nature of it all, the recruitment and orientation proceeded smoothly, and I was thrilled at the prospect of being on a creative team again.

This whole returning to work thing was going to be easy, I thought...

Working for the (Long) Weekend

After an unintended extended absence, I'm back!

The past month has been busy with the publication of my first book, adjusting to my new job, and a trip back to California to be in a wedding.

Spring is finally here, and instead of being rejuvenated by sunny days and warmer temperatures, I'm already exhausted. 😧

Thankfully, there are three more holidays in May here in Bavaria, which will be great for catching up on some sightseeing, enjoying a long weekend, and planning a summer vacation.

Or so I thought.

It turns out that in the land of advanced planning, examining your options for an out-of-country vacation even a couple of months in advance might not cut it. An acquaintance recently joked that Germans are planning now for their spring 2019 vacations.

Except he wasn't really joking.

Yes, please!
Image from the official tourism website for Sylt.

A cursory look shows flights and hotels well-booked for both popular and up-and-coming Mediterranean destinations.

So I thought maybe I'd look a little closer to home, even though we were pining for a lazy beach vacation.

I'd never really given much thought to the possibilities within Germany, but a website called AllTheRooms has a list of the Best Beaches in Germany, so I checked it out.

It looks like there are some good choices for our purposes, and they're certainly more budget-friendly than the destinations on our original list! Maybe the usual outflux of natives means there will be some space for us to explore a couple of these sites this summer.

These days, "hidden gems" don't stay hidden too long, so hopefully we're not stuck behind the eight ball already. But even if we are, now at least we know, and a German beach vacation can go on the top of our list for planning for next year... 😉

Shameless Self-Promotion: My Own Take on a Fairy Tale

Although my self-determined March-as-fairy-tale-month has ended, I have one last related post...

Late last summer I saw a call for stories about villains, and what makes them tick. The anthology publisher focuses on fantasy, and at the time they were also soliciting manuscripts for modern takes on fairy tales.

Inspiration struck. My villain would be from a fairy tale, and I would tell his/her origin story.

I ran through some of my favorite fairy tales, then thought maybe I should focus not on the story but on the worst fairy tale villain I could think of. Child-eating witch in the woods? Done.

I gave my villain a name. I gave her a family and a home. I gave her hope and tragedy and a purpose in turning on townspeople who had so cruelly turned on her.

In the spirit of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, I tried to create an unflinching look into the world of people trying to live a simple life while afflicted by complicated circumstances. And thankfully, the publisher accepted my story.

Now that anthology—The Heart of a Devil—is available on Amazon. 

It includes my story, "Adelinde's Last Supper." I hope you check it out!

Fairy Tale Flop

My plan was to continue to follow the Grimm Brothers around this part of Germany with a visit this week to Kassel, home of Grimmwelt (Grimm World). But travel schedules/costs and my recent new employment (more on that in an upcoming post) made that unfeasible.

Stall of lace goods which included some rabbits

On to the backup plan, then: an exploration of the “fairy tale” of Easter. What better way to see the trappings of the secular side of this upcoming holiday than to visit an Easter market, right?

Yesterday I took the train to Nuremberg, thinking their advertised market would be the Easter equivalent of their Christmas market.

Or, at a minimum, akin to the Easter market I went to a couple of years ago in Hamburg’s Museum for Ethnology.

It was neither.

Instead, it was essentially a regular market with a slight focus on this time of year. Meaning the usual household goods, weather-appropriate clothing and gear, spices, etc. Plus linen vendors displaying their Easter-related table runners, placemats, curtains and one or two vendors with a few hand-painted eggs in addition to their regular toys or collectibles.

Hand-painted egg I found
in the main market.

I had a little better luck in the small village of hand-worked goods between the main market square and the train station, but overall my Easter-themed fairy tale outing was a bust.

Hand-painted egg I found
in the Handwerk Hof.

Except in one regard. I did learn a tiny bit more about the numerous origin tales of the egg-toting, gift-giving Easter hare, as he’s known here.

The earliest mention seems to be in the 1500s, and the primary recurring theories are as follows:

* an amalgamation of symbols of fertility and the rebirth associated with spring;

* an association formed from farmers giving hares and eggs together as spring payments to landlords; or

* a representation of the companion of the pagan spring goddess for whom Easter was named. Supposedly she had to transform her companion from a bird into a hare, but because it was originally a bird it still produced eggs.

Spending time with the Easter bunny
in Hanau in 197

A couple of other theories attempt to make the secular aspects of Easter more sacred. 

Apparently some scholars believed hares were hermaphrodites and therefore associated their “virgin” reproduction with the Virgin Mary. 

And there was an Orthodox tradition of not eating eggs during Lent, boiling them so they would keep, then decorating them to celebrate the end of the fast.

I’m all for some rebirth and celebration right now. It’s been a beautiful winter, but with last night’s snowfall trying to dampen the cheer of sprouting crocuses, I’m hoping that the Easter hare’s visit in a couple of weeks brings spring to stay for good!

Following in the Footsteps of the Brothers Grimm: Marburg

Marburg is home to Philipps University, the 9^th oldest university in Germany and the one where the Grimm Brothers studied in the early 1800s.

But the purpose of my trip to Marburg was not to wander the hallowed halls of higher education for glimpses of the Grimms. My purpose was much more playful.

Marburg has what none of the other cities I’ve visited so far have—a fairy-tale trail within the town!

The Grimm-Dich-Pfad (Grimm-You-Path) takes you on a trip from the edge of New Town Marburg up into the Old Town of Marburg, highlighting 16 locations of art installations associated with Grimm fairy tales.

An Old Town street with a gentler slope

(And when I say “up” into Old Town, I mean it. That part of the city sits high on a hill, and it’s multilevel. There are actually two elevators to take visitors from the street in New Town up to the base level of Old Town! Sadly, I did not find the elevators until after I climbed back down from Old Town.)

The Frog King

The Pfad is reported to take two hours, which I thought strange considering how close the points appeared to be on the map. 

But it is a bit of a scavenger hunt. You have to not only be on the lookout for the artwork, but you have to navigate uneven, narrow, steep streets and lots of stairs while doing it.

Two-for-one: stairs with an excerpt from
one of Jacob Grimm's letters,
and Cinderella's slipper waiting up  at the top.

The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats

The Valiant Little Tailor

Having fun with the mirror
from Snow White and
the Seven Dwarves

Snow White and Rose Red

It was one of my most enjoyable day trips to date, and definitely comes up the winner so far for fairy-tale fun with the Grimm Brothers!

Following in the Footsteps of the Brothers Grimm: Steinau an der Strasse

Last week I told a new acquaintance I was going to visit the Grimm Brothers museum in Steinau, because I love fairy tales. I'm not sure what horrified her more--the fact that she feels the Grimm fairy tales are very dark in nature, or my assertion that I found that appealing.

After visiting Hanau last year, I thought I’d try to hit a few more stops on the German Fairy Tale Route. Some stops follow in the footsteps of the brothers, some are more about atmosphere and inspiration. Steinau seemed to be both.

Once you get into the old town. 

Because I did not have such a warm and fuzzy feeling when I got off the train (and it had little to do with the -11 Celsius temperature). I quickly checked a map at the station to confirm the route to the museum. Thankfully, the landscape improved greatly as I turned in the opposite direction and headed downhill.

Unfortunately, this industrial area across the train tracks smelled even worse than it looked.

A much more picturesque view and inviting start to my adventure!

The museum is in the house where the Grimm family lived while they were in Steinau, and includes some décor and the original kitchen so you get a small sense of their lives at the time. The first floor covers the family history and the brothers’ academic and linguistic work (they wrote the first comprehensive German dictionary, a multi-volume series that is on display).

Former Grimm home in Steinau, now home to the
Brüder Grimm-Haus museum

There's also a display devoted to younger brother Ludwig Emil, a talented artist who illustrated some of the early versions of his brothers' work.

The second floor is dedicated to the fairy tales, including a Little Red Riding Hood room, a room full of fairy-tale-inspired toys and paraphernalia, and a hallway and room highlighting opera and theater adaptations.

There’s also a small theater, a room where you can hear different fairy tales while wearing a crown/headset contraption, and my favorite: a room with two walls of built-in beautifully carved and painted dioramas where you guess which fairy tale is depicted in each scene.

(Unfortunately, the museum doesn't allow the public to take pictures, but there are some photos on this site you can scroll through).

















Later, I wandered around the grounds of the city's castle and down some of the narrow streets. Then I followed a path that represents where the old city wall used to stand. I tried to imagine how the area would appear through a child’s eyes.

When I came upon the witch tower and dunking cage, I thought back to the perception of the Grimm stories as dark and sometimes gruesome. When you read the original versions, many fairy tales are not so happily-ever-after. They served many purposes, but were never originally intended as tales for children. 

Instead, they conveyed real-life lessons in fantastical scenarios, and, in the case of the Grimms' early versions, veneration of the simple, good, and natural over all else.

When we face the ugliness and fear of everyday living—either to confront it or embrace it—it no longer has such power over us. I think that’s the lesson I have always taken from the stories the Grimm Brothers gave us. 

And even though more than 200 years have passed since the first publication of those tales, I think that lesson is still quite relevant for today's world.

Interior courtyard of the castle, where there's a plaque
on one wall depicting the Grimm Brothers...

Germany’s Contemporary Colorscape: Part III

My initial intent with this last post of the series was to talk about how Germany’s colonial and national socialist experiences helped shape its response to the refugee crisis and ongoing migration.

But there’s been an unending stream of news and opinion pieces on both sides of the fence over the past few years about the refugee situation: the welcoming, the hatred, the support, the blame, the integration, the isolation, the resentment.

A handful of success stories are being held up to counter the accusations about an increase in violent acts and anti-Semitism which are being attributed to refugees.

image from prx.org

The rhetoric is passionate and frightening and illuminating. At a couple of points over the past few weeks as I read and researched, I felt as though Germany was stuck in America circa 1950s in terms of race relations. Then I realized there’s no real comparison because the histories are so vastly different.

Once explorers and colonists arrived in the U.S., American racial diversity had begun. Native Americans, Africans, whites, Mexicans, Spaniards, there were plenty of shades to go around. Germany, meanwhile, had a population that was largely white until the early 20^th century.

While Americans have struggled (and continue to struggle) with the fallout of Native American massacres and relocations, enslaved Africans and their disenfranchised descendants, Chinese rail labor, and Japanese internment camps, Germany’s melting-pot woes have been comparatively brief and, though devastating, limited in scope.

This is not to pit one country's bad deeds against the other's, or to let Germany off the hook by any means. But it’s helpful for me to remember these different histories when I see articles that say Germans don’t “get” American racism or why blackface is a big deal or don’t understand that procedures they’ve described are, in fact, racial profiling, or assume every brown person they see is new to the country and without means.

All I can do is honor who I am and my history, learn from and try to affect the circle of people around me, and hope there’s a rippling effect.

I guess that’s all any of us can hope to do.

“For peace to reign on Earth, humans must evolve into new beings who have learned to see the whole first.” ― Immanuel Kant

This is my final post in honor of Black History Month, focusing on race and diversity in Germany. If you missed my previous posts, you can find them here:

• German Colonialism

• German Nationalism & The Question of Color

• Germany’s Contemporary Colorscape: Part I

• Germany’s Contemporary Colorscape: Part II