Sad but true....the color palette has undergone a complete reversal; now the brown of the tree trunks and ground, and the green of the pine trees predominate, while the light dusting of snow that followed and deepened the fog of early last week has mostly gone back into the ground. The temperature has moved from -5 or so to plus 3/4. In places where the sun don't shine there is still some snow on the ground, but otherwise the fields are back to brown with green where the winter greens are struggling their way out into the air.
The still, dry cold of last week was actually more clement than the more windy but supposedly warmer wet cold of yesterday and today......this stuff kind of seeps into and enervates me a bit. It is still quite walkable and even beautiful, just more normal and different.
Today we took Gunter's (my father in law) car back to him in D-Hausen and then walked back (3 hours or so) through the forests, thru Marburg's altstadt, and then along the Lahn, by the small town of Kappel where Anja's mother grew up, and up the hill and thru another forest and so back home to a very nice hot shower and then Didi's (I guess he is my step father in law) dinner (at 4pm...sounds early but it's already getting dark, so when eating in Rome, etc.) of Schnitzel with a special kind of Saurkraut and my favorite dish of his, Bratkartoffeln...really yummy potatoes pan fried with bits of bacon and olive oil and butter. Beer, coffee and my German Xmas dessert weakness Stollen (a kind of butter/sugared up German fruit cake/bread) of which I am eating way too much. Followed by, now, sitting in the Kamin (not sure of spelling but it is the 'fireplace room') zimmer ('tsimmer'=room) and writing away.
The biggest problems I have identified to our travel/figure out where we want to live plan are so far these: 'Community', something I'll call Efficiency, and Purpose. I will articulate the basic elements of each, and I welcome comments from any readers with suggestions:
Community-Anja and I have lived in the San Francisco for the last 14 years together and I have for my whole life lived in the area. Her family is in Germany (around Marburg) and London. Mine is all near where I grew up. One dream we have bandied about is trying to buy an old Bauernhof with some land, maybe in this area of Germany. Such a purchase would give us a relatively immense amount of space, both living and with some land. Undoubtedly, it would demand from us a ton of work to convert whatever we get into what we want: a place that friends and family would love to come to on some regular basis, and that would satisfy us in terms of a living space we could love and grow into. I am not afraid of the work. But since this isn't Hollywood, I am worried about the field of dreams aspect. IF we made such a place exactly what we want (many many variables and challenges, many unknowns but isn't that part of the fun?), who would come (?) and how often (I for one am more worried that no one shows up than that we are constantly inundated with guests)? Assuming most folks came in the summer, there would be biking and hiking trails galore, but not much culture (that is, not much to encourage multiple visits over a lifetime). Basically, how do we keep contact, physically, with people we care about? And how much should we worry about it? Some friends in New York have talked to us at length on this specific issue, and there is no easy solution.
Efficiency-or, effectiveness. While we are on the move I feel very ineffective in my daily life. Interestingly, not regarding work. I can get a day of exercise in and some reading and writing, and login at 6pm which is only 9am back in the U.S. on the west coast. I can review client accounts and call anybody for less than an american penny a minute. But during the day I miss my deadlines and daily sports and workout routines. Maybe part of the answer is just to accept not having a routine. But I like to get accomplish things and even though I get around fine in German, still buying and shopping is a little extra effort. I am in the process of setting up a little area with a desk and file space and that should help....right now I have to kind to hunt and peck through piles of stuff to find what I want. I think this is the least of our problems; maybe no problem at all
Inerjection: One thing I did do and recommend everybody do, especially if they are thinking of living on the road but even otherwise, is to digitize as much as possible. Every document I need, every record I need from here on going forward, every phone number and password, except for physical receipts, is stored at some part of the internet. That is, it is all accessible from anywhere I can login, and not device dependent. I really don't need to lug a computer around at all times, so if my hard drive blows up I haven't lost anything I can't easily retrieve.
Purpose-I am not a believer in 'the one meaning of life'. I do believe any reasonable life has many elements of meaning and they only have to be important to the individual. However, as part of our lives going forward, one of the elements of meaning we are trying to identify is some purpose beyond just having fun; i.e.-something that gives back to the world in a way that is meaningful to us and makes us feel good (yo...it's all selfish). We would like to do something together, but have different areas of interest and competency and so this might be tough. Nonetheless, it is something we are going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out. Global warming? Volunteer work of some kind (Peace Corps?). One idea I had was to look into a group that from what I remember goes to disaster areas and coordinates relief by setting up mobile communications .... something like 'telephone guys without borders'. That sounds useful and like something I could do...haven't found out enough about it and haven't really discussed it with Anja but it is an interesting idea. Doctors without Borders also might be a possibility....they must need people without too much medical knowledge (and maybe I could learn some basics) but who are available on short notice and have energy and basic common sense/intelligence? More research there to do as well. This area is an exciting challenge for us.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
December 26th, 2007-Walking in the Snow to Dagobertshausen
8:30pm Beltershausen. Wallace and Gromit and the Were Rabbit, dubbed in Hebrew---Still under snow and frozen fog. Got up 12 hours ago and took off without breakfast for Dagobertshausen (hausen means 'houses' in some old german dialect)......there was probably someone named Dagobert just like there was someone probably named Belters.....the whole area is infested with little dorfs with names ending with 'hausen'. Anyway, D-Hausen is on the the other side of Marburg, about 17 klics through field and forest and then M itself and then back up a hill on the other side of town and through some more forests and sometime after one says 'Bob's your uncle' there you are. 2 hours and 45 minutes door to door and I could have done better but tried to find an abkurzung (shortcut) and lost about 15 minutes. But no problems. Light snow fell for awhile along the way, and there were a few hikers and dog walkers and joggers to ease the lonelieness.
Thinking thinking thinking......I got this little book for making notes but have stopped carrying it the last week on walks because by the time I get my gloves off and the pen out my hand is too cold to write anything. So, I keep forgetting many of the sage thoughts I have been having while I'm underway.
Thinking thinking thinking......I got this little book for making notes but have stopped carrying it the last week on walks because by the time I get my gloves off and the pen out my hand is too cold to write anything. So, I keep forgetting many of the sage thoughts I have been having while I'm underway.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Sunday December 23, 2007
Germany---winter wunderland. 8pm. Two days ago the prevailing color was silber (silver). Now it is weiss (white). There is a very unusual weather system in the area, and the result is what the locals are variously calling raureif, or frozen fog. Not just dew or frost; the fog settles on the trees and bushes and fields and then freezes before it has a chance to melt. Anja and I, her day Gunter and some friends of his took a long stroll in the countryside (10 klics outside of Marburg, about an hour north of Frankfurt (also learned where the word Frank-furt comes from today----a furt is basically an English 'ford', and the city is named after a ford that was revealed to the Franks who were fleeing from some other goths/vandals/huns and searching for a place to cross the Main and were shown the way by a deer). That was Friday.....close to zero grad centigrade, sunny and hazy. Where the sun couldn't reach was everywhere silver, hanging off everything and most everywhere. Not ice at all, but more a crystalline powder in the hand, light and dry and feathery in appearance. Anja said some of it on the ground looked like orzo. Where the sun did hit for long was just barren; so the dichotomy was very stark indeed....some trees were silvered halfway up and then appeared dry, and fields on one side of the country roads were dry while the other side had a complete covering. To wander in it was extraordinary.
Saturday-12/22/2007. Could it be any more picturesque? Hard to imagine. 5 degrees below zero and everything in socked in....today is even more unusual. The fog has stayed overnight and everything is either gray or white. Visibility in the air is very reduced. I walked up the 13th ruin at the top of the hill, from where I can see on most days 10+ kilometers into Marburg and the castle (Schloss) landmark that dominates the skyline. But on this day I couldn't even see the hotel/restaurant a few hundred meters down the hill. I had the day to myself, walking in the forest (Wald) alone with the cold, padding and crunching along, alternately putting my hands in my pockets to thaw and then taking them out when they had warmed up enough. It is cold enough that I can feel it down my throat when a take a big breath with my mouth open. The forest is in a very bad state, a massive hurricane having decimated the area near and far about a year ago. Whole stands came down, and while the foresters are cutting down the broken trees, the job is immense. Trails I used to know simply no longer exist, or are so clogged with branches and trunks that it is just an obstacle course. Very sad. In the summer time from just up the hill I would only be able to see trees; now, I can see right through the forest, just a field of debris and massive tread tracks, all the way into Marburg. Very sad, though today peaceful and beautiful in its own way. There is no 'up' today, the horizons just merge into a gray vastness and I couldn't tell how near or far anything might be. And until I hit towns there was virtually no one to be seen on any of the paths. Almost eerily deserted. I walked down to the Lahn, the river that runs through Marburg, and then along that into town. Eventually, Anja picked me up and we bought some wine and came home.
Today. More of the same, but now it is all white and the crystals are longer and even more stunning. There is no sun or any sense of a light source. Just a ceiling of a few hundred feet, and the 'sky' is just various shades of gray merging into.....nothing. Smoke. The smaller branches are drooping with the weight, but again this is nothing like ice but ineffably light and delicate. Fences in the countryside with connectors of string or twine are swelled to many times their width by the spiky covering. Some places deep in the forest (where there is deep forest left) are weirdly left untouched by this, but mostly it is magical. The palette of colors is so muted there is really only gray, white, a bit of green, and some brown. That's pretty much it. I was by myself again, trying to do a little local foot research for a walk Anja and I are supposed to lead next Friday in the area.
Someone in the distant past liked to bury there people in raised earthen circles. The surrounds are 2 or 3 stones laid on each other to an above ground level of 2-3 feet high and a diameter of 12-15 feet or so. Not much to distinguish one from another. The middle is all earth and whatever nature has bestowed in the intervening years. In summer these graves can be devilishly hard to find, but the forest partly destroyed and it being in the middle of winter where one can see better, it is much easier. Were they Celts? That seems to be the prevailing theory. They are not much to look at, just a local curiosity.
The news is full of global warming and the spreading sub prime/mortgage crisis. The latter will work itself out, but the planet needs help. I feel pretty smug about my environmental impact (no motorized vehicles, mostly travel on public transport or my feet), but that smugness isn't going to mean anything if we keep polluting and overpopulating. Nature doesn't measure, but if it/she did, what happens weather wise is normally accomplished over millenia and eons. The possible disaster we are responsible for ourselves could be occurring in just one lifetime. Is there a politician lucid and strong enough to say to us, and to the world at large, that we need to slow down and redirect a huge amount of scientific research and money to a renewal source of energy that doesn't pollute and that can make secular western society self sufficient? Because if there is not we are screwed. If some of the most dire climate forecasts are accurate, we have very time to offset what is already in motion.
I read today that for the first time, in a small village in Italy just recently, there was an outbreak of Dengue fever, brought by tiger mosquito's from somewhere in Africa because the climate is now mild enough to support their migration. Very.....scary. As we wander in the next few years I need to see how I can help. If we don't solve this issue, all the other issues may become......moot.
Saturday-12/22/2007. Could it be any more picturesque? Hard to imagine. 5 degrees below zero and everything in socked in....today is even more unusual. The fog has stayed overnight and everything is either gray or white. Visibility in the air is very reduced. I walked up the 13th ruin at the top of the hill, from where I can see on most days 10+ kilometers into Marburg and the castle (Schloss) landmark that dominates the skyline. But on this day I couldn't even see the hotel/restaurant a few hundred meters down the hill. I had the day to myself, walking in the forest (Wald) alone with the cold, padding and crunching along, alternately putting my hands in my pockets to thaw and then taking them out when they had warmed up enough. It is cold enough that I can feel it down my throat when a take a big breath with my mouth open. The forest is in a very bad state, a massive hurricane having decimated the area near and far about a year ago. Whole stands came down, and while the foresters are cutting down the broken trees, the job is immense. Trails I used to know simply no longer exist, or are so clogged with branches and trunks that it is just an obstacle course. Very sad. In the summer time from just up the hill I would only be able to see trees; now, I can see right through the forest, just a field of debris and massive tread tracks, all the way into Marburg. Very sad, though today peaceful and beautiful in its own way. There is no 'up' today, the horizons just merge into a gray vastness and I couldn't tell how near or far anything might be. And until I hit towns there was virtually no one to be seen on any of the paths. Almost eerily deserted. I walked down to the Lahn, the river that runs through Marburg, and then along that into town. Eventually, Anja picked me up and we bought some wine and came home.
Today. More of the same, but now it is all white and the crystals are longer and even more stunning. There is no sun or any sense of a light source. Just a ceiling of a few hundred feet, and the 'sky' is just various shades of gray merging into.....nothing. Smoke. The smaller branches are drooping with the weight, but again this is nothing like ice but ineffably light and delicate. Fences in the countryside with connectors of string or twine are swelled to many times their width by the spiky covering. Some places deep in the forest (where there is deep forest left) are weirdly left untouched by this, but mostly it is magical. The palette of colors is so muted there is really only gray, white, a bit of green, and some brown. That's pretty much it. I was by myself again, trying to do a little local foot research for a walk Anja and I are supposed to lead next Friday in the area.
Someone in the distant past liked to bury there people in raised earthen circles. The surrounds are 2 or 3 stones laid on each other to an above ground level of 2-3 feet high and a diameter of 12-15 feet or so. Not much to distinguish one from another. The middle is all earth and whatever nature has bestowed in the intervening years. In summer these graves can be devilishly hard to find, but the forest partly destroyed and it being in the middle of winter where one can see better, it is much easier. Were they Celts? That seems to be the prevailing theory. They are not much to look at, just a local curiosity.
The news is full of global warming and the spreading sub prime/mortgage crisis. The latter will work itself out, but the planet needs help. I feel pretty smug about my environmental impact (no motorized vehicles, mostly travel on public transport or my feet), but that smugness isn't going to mean anything if we keep polluting and overpopulating. Nature doesn't measure, but if it/she did, what happens weather wise is normally accomplished over millenia and eons. The possible disaster we are responsible for ourselves could be occurring in just one lifetime. Is there a politician lucid and strong enough to say to us, and to the world at large, that we need to slow down and redirect a huge amount of scientific research and money to a renewal source of energy that doesn't pollute and that can make secular western society self sufficient? Because if there is not we are screwed. If some of the most dire climate forecasts are accurate, we have very time to offset what is already in motion.
I read today that for the first time, in a small village in Italy just recently, there was an outbreak of Dengue fever, brought by tiger mosquito's from somewhere in Africa because the climate is now mild enough to support their migration. Very.....scary. As we wander in the next few years I need to see how I can help. If we don't solve this issue, all the other issues may become......moot.
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