A Beggar's Bowl

Berlin is a big, big fridge: Siberian temperatures, minus 17°C at night and icy east wind. 

But Yours Truly stepped outside (well: my pedometer forced me). My aim was the Castle Charlottenburger Schloss, to look at a special painting of Freddy’s father (The Horrible).

Well – I abandoned the plan, though I could already see the castle at the end of a long, long alley. But the frost was biting into my nose and fingers, and  a stilled thirst for knowledge is not worth a ruined complexion. Down these mean streets a man must go, but as a woman I sneaked into a little backstreet, where I had once passed the shop window of a goldsmith.

And there I found it: my Beggar’s Bowl.

“There’s nothing like going out in style”, my late father sometimes remarked ironically when he thought I overdid something. So: I do know that this is a very posh Beggar’s Bowl.

But the intention why I bought it is pure.

First: it shall remind me that a day gives us so many presents – and I want to have and keep a grateful heart. It is so easy to overlook all the goodness a day puts into our bowl. I had a warm bed tonight. I had a wonderful breakfast this morning (really strong hot tea, an egg, porridge with real blueberries, half a grapefruit) – shelter and food, I am thankful for that.

And the bowl shall remind me of something else:

As I told you before, I am a person with a very vivid imagination. I read the complete “Pamela” (in English) with 15. I read Colette – my absolute favourite (my parents forbid me to read it – too young, they said – an excellent way to create an ardent reader).

Result: I am great in picturing to myself how an experience will be in future.

And this is not a clever way to live.

The bowl shall remind me:

Life/the Tao/God is putting the events and surprises into my bowl – and I shall take them as they come. Without rating “This is good” and “This is bad”.

Difficult for me. Very. But I try. And learn. Sometimes.

(Now comes a bit of stream of consciousness for you. “The bowl is beautiful – but these are definitely not my colours. I love pink, I have a problem with orange and lime green”, I thought. My Inner Voice talked back: “But it is beautiful! If you always walk on ways you always walk – that will become boring!”)

The Goldsmith wrapped it up. In (beautiful) orange crepe paper. (“But I..” Oh, shut up!” said my Inner Voice). And just as if to mock at me the goldsmith put a pink ribbon around it. (“Pink and Orange don’t harmon…” SHUT UP!”) 

I gave in to my Better Self (and even put that present on a lime green bench to take a photograph of it, I told you I exaggerate sometimes) 

“Have you already seen the Lietzensee?” asked the goldsmith. “No.” “If you go to the left on your way back to the underground, you’ll pass it by: a little park with a pond – and a beautiful atmosphere.”

“That’s good”, I thought. (I know!)

And went.

And it was a marvellous surprise!

A present in my bowl.

Trees

 When I sit on our balcony and look out, I don’t see much of the calm little street in summer – I see the top of trees. And wonder: which sort of trees they are? Their leaves definitely look like oak. But their “flowers” were so strange. I‘ll have to wait till autumn (and I hope that waiting will take a long time!) and then I might be sure.

Or maybe I get that interesting App that Janet, the Queen of Seaford, mentioned on Facebook. (I will put in a quote later, because she will write a post on that).  

Berlin has lots and lots of trees – it is a green city with many parks, meadows and alleys.

At this time of the year the car drivers are unhappy: most have to park under the trees, and especially those ‘oaks’ drop little flowery things on their cars. At the moment it is even getting dangerous for pedestrians: the city complains that an invasion of oak procession moths (Thaumetopoea processionea) entered the city, polishing off most of the leaves.

a thousand hairy savages,
sitting down to lunch,
gobble, gobble, gulp, gulp,
munch, munch, munch

(Spike Milligan) 

Yeah – that poem comes very near the truth: the caterpillars are very greedy, and very hairy. Some trees only have fifty caterpillars, other have nests with more than thousand. And they are poisonous. If you come in contact with the hairs your skin starts to itch for days – so the City magistrate sends out people who have to get rid of the nests of the caterpillars – clothed in protective suits with breathing protection masks. In Berlin they are not allowed to use insecticides – on an auto hoist they use a sort of vacuum cleaner, and to “free” a tree from that plague costs about 900 Euro – for one single tree.

Zehlendorf, Grunewald and Wannsee are hit mostly, our street in the Bavarian Quarter is still green.

In the next street they have lime trees – which I would prefer: I love their mild coloured heart-shaped leaves and the sweet scent when they are flowering – and they look so lovely!

The Germans loved that tree so much that Schubert’s Lied: “Am Brunnen vor dem Tore, da steht ein Lindenbaum” became a folk song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJMqE17Gy1I&feature=related

At this time of the year the car drivers are unhappy: zillions of  aphids sit in the lime trees – when you walk under them, your shoes stick to the ground, it is really weird: the sugary shit of the aphids drops on the cars, too, and very quickly they are covered with a smeary sticky crust.

And then Berlin has a lot of planes (sycamore trees?). Those are especially beautiful, because the  light, falling through their leaves, makes you think you are in Paris. 

I walk along the Spree and think:

Sheer bliss! Thank you, Berlin!

What You Focus On Grows

What You Focus On Grows!

This is the title of a great new song by my best English friend Stephen Russell ( the one with the jacket and pink guitar) aka Barefoot Doctor, and Leakster. You can see and hear “Get Spanky!” on Youtube, 

 

you can buy it on i-store, and you can utterly enjoy it: it’s really uplifting music that makes your heart happy, your eyes bright and your body moving!

As I have told you I “lost” my garden when we moved to Berlin - but I gained a wonderful city, so: no complaining about that, especially as our beautiful flat has a large balcony – where “Gardening in High Heels” is so much easier. :-)

We moved in the middle of November 2010, and you can imagine that I had other things to do than garnish my balcony.  But while unpacking many chests, I dreamed of spring and summer.

What you focus on grows.

At least: it hibernated.   On my balcony stood some refugees from Hamburg: five pots with roses, and   clematis, lavender, catmint and Cranesbills. In the cold, cold winter my fugitives shivered in ice and snow.  I protected them with that air-cushioned foil nervous people like to crush between their fingers – we had lots and lots of it from padding the moving chests.  

 

All winter I doodled plans of what I would plant on my balcony – till Husband reminded me gently that once in a while he wanted to sit on the balcony too, without using a machete to chop through the roses. I, sleeping beauty, refused to lend my ear.  But I threw out the over-dimensioned teak-table we had imported from our terrace in Hamburg.  I changed it by mere wishcraft:  I detected it in a shop-window of the KaDeWe: an unusual oblong white French table – “No, sorry, Love: this is not to be sold – it is decoration!”

So I focused on it – every time I passed the shop windows. And by chance (and courage and persistency) I got it: What you focus on grows!  

 

 

The first new plant on it was a pot of beautiful horned violets that Stephen bought me on the farmers market at the Winterfeldplatz. It was very early in March – but: What you focus on grows. 

 

And then the roses started to grow leaves, “Gertrude Jekyll”, “Abraham Darby”, “New Dawn” “Auguste Luise”, and a dark red Austin-rose just start to bloom!  

 

 

That proves it: What you focus on grows!

Please, do come in - you're welcome!

You asked me to tell you how we live in Berlin now. 

Please, do come in – you’re welcome!

Oh, I’m sorry – I have totally forgotten that there are no electric bells beside the entrance door, and no name plates.

There is only a brass button – you press it, it purrs – and then you have to fight against the really heavy door.

If it is not after 6 pm, that is. Because then we have a problem, at least when you have forgotten your cell phone, and you came around spontaneously (if you have rung me up before, of course I will look down from the balcony). Decades ago there has been a concierge here (another vocation that almost became extinct!) who after a sharp glance let vistors in. But you came in the afternoon and now you are standing in the entrance hall of our house. 

An estate agent has told me that in the Bavarian Quarter of Berlin there existed a directive that the entrance hall for the staircase had to be built in marble. 

What I like is another directive that said that ‘even’ in the rooms of the servants there had to be a stove (that was not at all common in 1900 – when we looked for a flat in Berlin we sometimes saw tiny rooms formerly built for servants: the high walls were divided with a sort of intermediate floor – so that two servants could sleep on two levels one above the other).

Even though there are no bell plates next to the entrance door, you can find out on which floor we live: in the direction of the atrium you’ll find a big old wooden frame with carefully drawn names of the inhabitants. 

Yes, there are many: the house is built like a U – the front house and two wings, the rear buildings.

We live in the front house. When an unknown neighbour rang to fetch a delivered parcel and I introduced myself and said: “Sorry, I haven’t met you before”, he said apologetically: “I live in the rear building only”, and I asked quite aghast: “Why ONLY?” Today I know that the expensive flats are those in the front house, in the rear wings live young academics, artists and the janitor.

On the staircase of our house lies a thick carpet – so the sound of the steps are absorbed.

But let us take the elevator! I have the key for it and will come down. 

The elevator was built in 1900 – that was a special luxury at that time, in which the building tycoon Haberland built all the houses of the Bavarian Quarter – all equipped with electrical light (normal houses had gas), warm water and bathrooms – and it is said that the houses also had a central vacuum cleaner station, but that station I cannot discover ;-)

The elevator was modernized in 1977 –I feel a little bit ill at ease when I gaze at the metal plate which reads: “Dear user of the elevator! (…)  In case of an entitled emergency call with good cause  you will be connected with the control centre (…)” 

See, I wonder: Who decides what is ‘an entitlement with good cause’?