Hair New Era

It is five years ago today that my mom passed away. She was 85 years old. I still miss her very much.

My mom was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1921 as the oldest of four children. She is a real Berliner, always missing that city throughout her life. During her childhood, however, she spent many summers in West Prussia (Poland today) and always remembers it tenderly. She told us many stories of her childhood which was a happy one. My favorite one was how she pushed her brother into an anthill as a revenge that he had damaged her doll. I loved this story as a child, and now of course my daughter loves to hear this story over and over.

She married rather young and had her first child, a girl, in 1943, almost two months after her husband was killed in Russia. She was 21 years old.

Because of the heavy bombardment of Berlin, women with children were "ordered" out of the city. My mom (unfortunately) went to the East, to a small town which after the war belonged to East Germany and is right at the border to Poland. At the end of January 1945 the Soviet Army came into town, but was beaten back for a couple of days. During that small window of time, the residents of that town packed and left to the West in a long trek of people, becoming refugees in the dead of winter. My mom didn't tell too much of that time, only that every night they found a place to sleep at some farm and somehow they survived. It must have been traumatic. What she told us, though, was, when finally in the West, one GI took a picture of my sister (who was just two years old) sitting on her pot peeing at the side of the road! Funny, what one remembers.

She settled down in Lower Saxony where she worked at a doctor's office (the closest she ever got to her dream) and had a rather unhappy second marriage (she had remarried in late 1944). Here she met my dad and, after her divorce, they married in 1955 in Lüneburg and a year later my brother was born.




She was also a very compassionate woman. For decades she volunteered at the hospital as a so-called "green lady" who looked after patients, read to them, talked to them or just listened. She only stopped doing this when she was 82 years old.



When I became a mom myself, my mom and I connected on a different way - as mothers. I could tell her about my doubts, and how helpless and stupid I sometimes felt. She could understand. And she would put me at ease.


I wish I had asked her more questions. I wish we had gone away together more, just the two of us. We once spent two weeks on Sylt, the island in the North of Germany, and we had such a wonderful time. I found out how important mother-daughter time is, how rewarding. I regret that she never came to visit me in the States. I am sad that Kaefer has lost such a wonderful grandparent.

Of course she and I had our difficult times - but we were always very honest with each other. We both knew that we loved each other very much. She was very special for me. I love her - and I miss her terribly.

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Bonnie's challenge for this week's Photo Art Friday was something that connects to the number 3/three. Not only will you see three of my photos here, but each shows three of something - deck chairs, sail boats and trees.


This picture - originally a slide, like the two others as well -was taken at the beach in Brighton, England. It was a windy, partly cloudy day, and almost no one was sitting in these chairs. However, they had something very optimistic about them the way they were patiently waiting for guests to lounge there despite the English moody weather. The texture applied here is Kim Klassen's "warmsun", blending mode linear burn at 50% and copied once with some adjustments (levels, saturation, brightness).


With these sail boats - shot at the coast of Cornwall, England - I went a little bit bolder. The picture was taken in the evening with the sun already gone, but the clouds were still pink and the mood was nice, but quite dark. The original picture is a little bit dull, so I thought some "pepper" can't hurt. I first applied Bonnie's texture "dappled dawn", blending mode exclusion at 90%; did some hue/saturation adjustments; applied Bonnie's texture "mauve magic", blending mode color dodge at 25%; some more saturation and brightness adjustments; and finally I cropped the photo a little bit more. I'm in love with the color!


Finally trees - of course! Again, we are in the Swabian mountains in Germany on a cold winter day, a very cloudy day I should add, the original photo is just dark. I cropped it down to three trees; did a levels adjustment to brighten it up a little bit; applied Bonnie's "edited acrylics" (one of my favorite textures) in blending mode pin light at 85% with some saturation adjustments. I only used a part of the texture, the upper left hand corner, and I thought how interesting it looks when you drag out the texture.

What I really like about these challenges is that I try something new - blending modes I usually ignore, or playing around with the texture first before applying it. Every time I realize how much I still have to learn, but I love, love, love it.

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After a few weeks of break we're back at Bonnie's Photo Art Friday. For this week, Bonnie asked us to share one of our favorite pieces of photo art from 2011.

Oh the choices. There were so many that I really like, but I have already posted them here and I don't want to bore you with repeat photos. However, I found one that I edited in PSE from an older slide that I took sometime in the early nineties. The texture I used is Kim Klassen's "kkluminous". It is not my best photo art, but I love the mood in it and it reminds me of the times when I was still living on my own and bought myself some fresh flowers at the farmers market every weekend. This must have been taken in May or June, the time when peonies bloom in Germany. Dark red peonies like the ones in the photo belong to me very favorite flowers. They look wonderful by themselves, but are absolutely stunning when you pair them with blue delphinium or purple lupines.




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This is the setting for one of the most beautiful traditions of the town: the Christmas Market. It's nothing like its big siblings in Nürnberg, Stuttgart or München and so many other cities. First, it only takes place from Friday to Sunday and not weeks and weeks and weeks. Second, it's not commercial. There are tons of local artists who sell their work, school classes who raise funds for their annual end-of-the-year trip, small local environmental groups who fight for preservation, neighborhoods who try to raise awareness and money for the disabled - the list could go on and on.

So that's the eye-candy. The next is the food - just one word: delicious. The food is mainly local specialities, the best time to eat "Bubaspitzle mit Sauerkraut" (a thin rolled kind of potato pasta with sauerkraut and sometimes bacon), one of my fondest memories in the food department. There was a guy with a complicated portable special oven who made Swiss Raclette that was to die for. Of course there was Glühwein (mulled wine), very welcome in the cold. None of the food or the drink was allowed in any kind of plastic or paper container, everything had to be re-usable! So you bought a beautiful mug with the words "Tübinger Weihnachtsmarkt" written on it and this could be refilled at any booth that offered Glühwein or juice punch (I still have half a dozen of those mugs - each year has a different color). Most of the plates were eatable - envision big sturdy waffles for apple strudel! No trash!

Throughout the market you could listen to music. Children were singing, little choirs stood at the fountain in the market square, someone played the violin, another one the bagpipe, and again another one the flute. There was a cantata concert in the main church. There were jugglers and clowns. It was a very festive atmosphere.

We felt like community, we were community. People spending three days in the cold in order to help someone else. To serve others. To share stories. To entertain children and their stressed parents. To bring smiles on the cold faces, red cheeks from the mulled wine.

That third weekend in December, no matter whether the sun was shining, it was raining or snowing, was spent in the streets among those medieval buildings. It was freezing cold - always. But everyone was there. Community.

The view from the castle over the rooftops of the medieval town center of Tübingen. Behind the castle, Hohentübingen, the long Schloßberg (castle mountain) stretched out at which very end I lived. On Saturday mornings I often walked into the town center and sometimes I took the shortcut through the castle. I always enjoyed this beautiful view over the rooftops of Tübingen. To the right, just outside the picture, was the river Neckar (remember where we did the punting). The big church you can see is the Stiftskirche, the main Protestant church in Tübingen, a Gothic era church. On weekends you can climb up to the tower - this is actually where the Geek and I had our first kiss!! Quite romantic, isn't it?

The second week of Thirty Days of Thanks has already gone by. It's quite amazing how fast time passes when you have a lot to do AND enjoying it!!

This week - obviously still under the impression of the book about the Siege of Leningrad that I read - I'm full of gratitude that we are living in a country where we have everything, especially food and heat when we need it. However, I cringe when I see how many people in this rich country do NOT have enough to eat and depend on food banks (thanks to the food banks and all the people who work there and donate food and money). It breaks my heart how many children are among them. And my gratitude is even bigger then.

On Thursday evening - as on every other Thursday evening - I met with my German friends. We are a rather big group who calls itself "der Stammtisch" - Stammtisch is the big table in a neighborhood pub in Germany where the regular locals meet for their beer and some chat. Our group, however, does not meet in a pub (because pubs like that do not exist in the US), but every time at someone else's house and everybody brings something to eat. Last Thursday we all met at our house, and we had a wonderful time together. Every time we laugh a lot, talk about serious stuff and then laugh some more. It is never sentimental, and thankfully no-one in this group compares the US to Germany as it unfortunately happens in so many other groups. It is such a joy to talk in our own language when we can exactly express what we want to say and not look for adequate words which in the end aren't that adequate anyway. I feel comfortable among these Germans and Swiss; I have found my place here and am more than thankful for these friends, these people I love to spend time with.

At the end of every day I write into my regular journal what I am thankful for. So this week I made a gratitude journal for my shop - for someone who wants to start a gratitude journal and would love a book like this one, an altered composition book in beautiful autumn colors. It even comes with its own matching bookmark. I enjoyed making this journal, it was pure pleasure.


I am linking this to Art Every Day Month.

Since we don't have Halloween in Germany (although it has been getting more popular in the last few years), I decided to post an image of a cemetery for today's Made in Germany - it's at least related.

Most cemeteries are beautiful peaceful places in Germany. Almost all of them have very old parts, and it is interesting to walk among those old gravesites and read the tombstones. Some of them are so old that you can't read what's written on them. Fortunately, despite the terrible history of my country, there are still Jewish cemeteries that have beautiful tombstones and seem to be a haven for wildlife. The tombstones are beautifully carved, like the one in the second picture.

When I still lived in Germany I often went to a cemetery to sit on a bench, listen to the birds and either read or write in my journal (or both). It was like entering another world, a world of quiet, calm and peace.  It fed my soul. After one or two hours I felt renewed and very calm.


Do you like to visit cemeteries or do you think that's creepy?

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Currywurst mit Pommes - sausage with a special tomato-curry sauce, served with french fries either with ketchup or mayonnaise or both - is the most famous German fast food. "Invented" by a clever Berliner woman, Hertha Heuwer, in 1949, this simple meal has become popular all over the country. You either hate it or you love it.

I belong to the "love" side. Whenever I'm in Germany I need my German version of junk food at least once. The "real" Currywurst is NOT a bratwurst as many might think, and the sauce has to be homemade (no ready made sauce that you can buy in a bottle). You don't eat it in a restaurant but at the Imbißbude - a kind of food cart or booth (see picture below). Curry 36 in Berlin-Kreuzberg (the biggest Turkish community in Germany!) is not a food cart but still a Imbißbude and it definitely serves one of the best Currywurst ever. Those in the picture above are ours that we ate in the summer of 2009 while we stayed in Berlin. As you can see we prefer mayo on our fries - yum!!! (I see many of you eye-rolling). This was the best Currywurst I have had so far! The other nice thing - you stand around those metal tables while eating them, and almost instantly you start talking to the other people standing there enjoying their Currywurst - so it's very social as well!


Top photo was taken at Curry 36, lower photo at Kurfürstendamm (Ku'damm) next to Gedächtniskirche.