poem by ls

This poem is not written by me but by a very dear friend of mine.
It is a great honour for me being allowed to translate and to publish it here and I hope I got everything right about intentions, meanings, rhymes, pictures and, of course, language.
It is great in the way how it transports delicate and complex feelings in such short and simple words and verses while still being mysterious and puzzling.
No more talks, let the poem speak for itself:

Alone, I walk through the woods

while only my steps make sounds

Hot and burning, I can feel him.

Hear silent my heart's beating.

Barefoot, I sense every leave.

Only dew the feet can relieve.

My face in his hand.

Time's running away like sand.

Alone in the woods, without a tree,

I can feel the thorns around me.

He is passing away,

Time has gone astray.

So I lay, just here.

He is with me, so near.

And yet so far -

A lonely spot, my heart.

gone with the wind

Soap-bubbles, dandelion clocks (or blowballs, as they're called) and wishful dreams are equally solid-grounded and permanent (which means not at all) but also equally lighthearted. They're wonderful even if or even because they're so fragile in their beauty and it takes no more than a soft breeze till they're gone with the wind. Dissolved, away, for ever. I love and soap-bubbles although I know they won't last. Have you ever tried to get hold of a soap-bubble when you were a child? It's so disappointing that the slightest touch destroys them in an instant! How peaceful and beautiful is it when they float away into the sky before the inevitable bursting... Every child learns that they're no consistent toy – but you can make some new, and again, and again... There's not much difference with dandelion clocks, they're just not as colourful and if you haven't blown strong enough you'll find the little seeds everywhere. Still, they're gone anyway and won't come back. A small child may cry when there are no blowballs left. Who thinks of all the flowers that will grow in a year's time? The little seeds are gone and only a sad stalk is left. End of the story. Dreams often burst like soap-bubbles or float away in pieces like the seeds of a dandelion clock and leave you behind disappointed. That's life and that always will be. Just sometimes – a tiny chance – things you have given up long before turn out to have a wonderful outcome. A dream, a wish, long time ago shattered, dead and buried gets fulfilled even better than imagined. A happy end although the villain had won. It happens. I once read a childrens book where Kasimir, a little squirrel, became best friends with a dandelion that grew on the meadow where he lived. They spent a wonderful spring and summer together and when the dandelion finally had become a blowball, it promised Kasimir that it would always be there and return if he now blew strong enough. Kasimir was sad and disappointed discovering that his friend was gone. He left, thinking everything was over and he had been lied to. After a sad and lonely winter he returned to the meadow to discover that it was over and over covered with dandelions. Ok, I know that this is just a story. In a children's book. Anyway, isn't it wonderful to keep in mind that some things aren't as eliminated from the earth as they seem to be. Every time you blow a dandelion clock, you plant flowers for the next year. Death and life, disappointment and hope. There are shattered dreams and there is the wonder of something that was Gone With The Wind and still has a happy ever after*.

(* If you don't believe me, just watch the movie or read the book with the same title. This does neither mean that I like, support or recommend it. It was – in combination with the photo – only an inspiration for reflections)

dark clouds, blue sky

Right now several people I know fight with depressions, burn-out or both. This dark shadows run in my family as well as in my church and among other acquaintances. In most cases I wouldn't have suspected the people to be likely candidates for it. And this although it's a process to get into that black hole which seems to shade the sun out eternally. And as far as I know, it's a journey even longer to get out of it, and most fail to manange that without professional help. Naturally climbing out is harder work than falling in and it's absolutely demotivating and power-drenching to try and try and fail all over again. There is a need of someone who tells you that it's always the darkest part before you see the light at the end of the tunnel. And a lot more. If you know someone with depressions or other psychic problems you'll know how desperated one feels when one realises there is nothing you can say or do that will help. It seems impossible but there needs something to be done. I have the highest respects of psychatrists, therapists and other people working in psychatric clinics. They're often the last hope – everyone espects so much of them, they're often consulted far too late when nothing else is possible anymore, and still, most of them are doing a great job. I cannot imagine how people who have reached the absolute bottom – psychic, physic and with their souls – are fixed up again (sorry to use such a disrespectful expression) and work their way back to leading a normal life. To have help then is inevitable and I'm glad some have even a greater one helping. Someone who promised to be the healer of your soul, your doctor even, your comforter and friend and will always be there. He is the sun that will someday dissolve anything dark that clouds your soul and tries to make you forget there still is a blue sky above.

Got a lot of troubles

growing over my head.

They eat up my time

and all my thoughts.

They're like the airplane

in the grey sky above my head

- loud and threatening.

I try to get rid of the noise,

the threatening,

the problems.

I cry for help

but still try it on my own,

don't let anyone help me,

don't let go.

I can't do it anymore!

Now, finally I seek for my God,

don't anymore cry for help

while doing it on my own,

but give it away,

throw everything to his feet.

The loud airplane is gone.

A white dove approaches.

Peace and silence slowly come too.

My head is so much lighter.

A great bird floats under the sky a little farther.

The troubles won't be a threat anymore.

The great bird is replaced by a little one.

They will lose their horror

if I let him do.

A small airplane appears far away.

Then I too will be able

to look at my troubles with distance.

Maybe find out that they're not at all

as threatening

but only seem so.

And even the airplane will withdraw sooner or later.

And there where I just saw grey clouds

the sky is bright blue.

mistakes & knowledge with value

''There is only one kind of wisdom that has social value, and that's the knowledge of one's own limitations''

This is a quote by my favourite author, Dorothy L. Sayers, spoken by a figure who definetely knows a lot about society, wisdom and social value as he is a Lord and a detective. A very intelligent one as he seems to me, but that's not the point. Thinking about it it can be a very good advice how to behave in any society – especially a new and unknown one. The most unpleasant experiences will occur when one pretends to be/know/be able to do something and is discovered to do so. To be known as a boasting sack of hot air and nothing else is not something you'd dream of. So: Mind your limitations. If one doesn't know how to ride, for example, but says he is almost an expert with horses because it fits in the situation and he has no other interesting thing to come up with, this can backfire only too easy when his new friends invite him ever again to riding trips. It may not be easy to be honest but in the end it's the better thing most of the time.

Or something a little more practical: It can be very necessary and useful to know one's own limitations when it comes to alcohol. Why is an aspect I don't think I have to explain... lets just say it can be embarrassing.

And if you are creating an image of yourself it's even more essential to know your limitations, to know what you're able to maintain pretending, what you can and know and what you don't. A bad self-estimation is rarely a support to succeed – it leads to a lot of faux-pas. Even when one's aware of what one can't, one makes a lot of mistakes there (or the other way around: making mistakes create an awareness of the deficits). They're inevitable, especially in new surroundings and societys. Here another Sayers-quote could come in use: ''What is the use in making mistakes if you don't make use of them ?''

I like this sentence a lot. When I'm angry about myself making so many mistakes everywhere I go (yes, I have perfectionist tendencies in a few places, but only about myself) this is a little comfort. Like someone's telling me that there's a use in making mistakes because they are an opportunity to learn. I don't have to think about what I've done wrong especially how I can do it better next time. That's making use of it and learning extends one's own limitations consciously.

All the wisdom in these books has not as much value as the knowledge of one's own limitations …

a little paradox is that I've bought a Sayers book in this antiquariat in Edinbourgh (it would almost even have been on this picture :)

broken flower

Short time ago a girl I know has tried to commit suicide. We're not close and aren't in direct contact but this has shocked me. I have no idea why she did that, and I hope it was a cry for attention rather than a desperate wish for death.

Death is a thing that makes most people finally serious. It has something final, when your life is over, it's over. It's one of the things which cannot be changed, reversed or graduated. Dying, in most cases, is nothing pleasant at all, it's painful and people dread it because they don't know where they are going to. Most people fear it, even those who have nothing else to fear. To protect life and avoid death as long as possible, infinitively measures are taken, from airbags over ambulances and firefighters to food-control. Life is valued as high as nothing else, it's priceless, and everything is done when one needs to save a life.

Only very old people, who have lived a long life, or people, who are in extreme pain, wish for death to redeem them of their agony. What reason can a teenage girl have to want to end her life before it really has begun? Life is wonderful and bright as a flower, but also as fragile. Young people are like buds, not yet fully developed, already beautiful and valuable but in a need to be extra protected so that they can fully blossom in their life, with an unspoiled beauty, without bad scars. Wounds received as a bud damage the beauty of a flower the most. A bud broken before it has opened and blossomed is the most sad thing, a life ended at it's start. Being ripped out of the middle of life, in full blossom is equally cruel. When an old person dies it's sad, but at least they've had had their life. Faded flowers have a sad appearance too, but that's the natural way.

This is just a flower. It would have faded in a few days anyway. A person will die in a few years time anyway.

But when I see this picture I cannot think of anything but the cruelty of death at a time when it oughn't be.

This would be my greatest fear if I hadn't a hope beyond it. Have you ever thought about sudden death? And what then? Someday it'll be too late.

a shell

deep in the sea, camouflaged with brown, grey and black, barely visible on the sandy ground, hiding it's greatest treasure: it's inner content. A hard case, often tightly closed around soft living flesh. The most precious shells are those who once have swallowed something hurting – a sandkorn for example. A shell has no lips to spit it out so she has to live with it. To make it less hurting she clothes it in layers of perlmutt, around and around. After a very, very long time, years afterwards, the efforts of the shell have turned the disturbance into a shining, wonderful and precious PEARL. Unpleasancies, time and patient effort can cause the most beautiful products while on the outside around the hard protecting shells nothing seems to happen or change. The greatest treasures are hidden inside.

what do you think

what do you think is this ?

So many brilliant thoughts (not necessarily only yours about an amateurs photo – I mean really ingenious ones) will never do anything in the world because they simply get forgotten, procrastinated, lost or thrust aside.

Would it have been of any use to them if they had been written down? 

To some, maybe, certainly to a few. On the other hand, there exists such a lot of useless written stuff nobody ever needs. Ninety-nine percent of the world population could very well do without the biggest part of it, but somebody will always find a reason to preserve it. That's why tons and tons of documents, papers and files still molder in enormous archives where something living visits once in a decade.

The value of something written is relative (I know, Einstein said that everything is relative, to precise it, here it's very relative). In fact it's mainly subjective – I don't think I have to line up all the examples - situations where a scrap of paper (that usually would be thrown away without any closer look) can mean everything to somebody. 

The value of thoughts is at least as subjective as this – maybe even more, the other's don't have full insight into one's head to state the thought's value. They can only comment, react and talk. The thoughts are free anyway.

'The thoughts are free' is also a title of a song that was forbidden during the Third Reich. Isn't that paradox? However, no thought can be proved. It's different with spoken words and especially written things. They are counted as secure proofs by the law. For a thought nobody can be punished. 

Still, I once heard a a sentence that too seems to be somehow true: 'What once was thought cannot be taken back' (B. Brecht). 

Who believes in an existing invisible world maybe will agree with the opinion that there a thought is as real as a spoken word. 

And even who does not believe in this, to whom that's strange maybe'll underline this saying: 'Sow a thought, and you will harvest an action. Sow an action and you will harvest a habit. Sow a habit and it will change your life.' This sounds a little dramatic to me, I think there won't be such huge developements of every single thought. 

But as well as every thought has an origin, a trigger, it too has an effect. A very small one often and most of the time only subconscious (but don't underestimate your subconsciousness! You'd be surprised how much your actions and decisons are influenced by it!)

The power of thoughts is enormous. No dictator can completely rule and subjugate people as long as he does not rule their thinking. And manipulating the thinking of a whole nation (without the exceptions who could form a resistance group) is a difficult task most dictators failed upon. There always remained a few 'sane' people whose thoughts stayed free and helped them to resist and oppose.

A thought is often compared with the spark that sets a forest on fire. Small but electrifying and with a lot of energy – as long as it does not get nipped in the bud, forgotten, procrastinated, lost or thrust aside

but pursued, followed, inquired after, kept, preserved and developed.

Cuz everything starts with a thought.

P.s. The solution to the little riddle above: I had the brilliant thought to direct my camera to our rain bassin... now the picture keeps and has even improved the thought of showing what is visible in the water, under its surface and upon it as a reflection.

guiding eyes

''I want to guide you with my eye''

Eyes tell so much. Talking without looking into the other persons eyes is quite unusual and impolite. You wouldn't say you've met someone, even if you had seen him and he had seen you, until you hadn't met his eyes. The eye-contact is more essential than having exchanged words. Avoiding it while talking means, that the other one has to hide something his eyes would give away. They shape the whole expression of a face and they're unique. Scanning the Iris is used in one line with taking fingerprints. Eyes identify a person – and if that's to be avoided, they're covered with a black beam. Of course, when you know a person, you'd still recognise her – or is this because you know her eyes and can imagine them?

When you've got a very good relationship with someone you sometimes can communicate without words, only with your eyes. The intimate relationship is necessary for wordlessly understanding how the other one thinks and what he means by the small gestures. People who are in love are known for these conversations where everything is understood on a level deeper than language.

Still, this mainly applies for couples who are crazy in love and anyway don't see anything else than their dearest or for some of the rare couples who have been together for a time so extraordinary long that they know each other by heart. The one status usually is not ever-lasting, the other is a very rare one.

But there is another more day-to-day relationship where one can observe this eye-contact-dialogue: on the playground. A small child, about three or four years old and old enough to know that there are some things not to do, will play, walk around and try out things. But ever so often it'll turn around his head and watch out for his mother: Is she still there? Is she watching me? (otherwise, unobserved, I might do something she wouldn't like...) Is that ok what I'm doing?

When they know each other well, the mother only has to nod encouraging or look stern and shake her head and the child will obey. Of course this does only work, when it knows, that the confirmating nod is trustworthy and that ignoring the shaking of the head will have it's consequences.

I think it's amazing, even such a small child, which isn't able to understand any complex matters, will follow the guidance of it's mothers eyes. At the same time when it's testing it's borders, it's always looking back for confirmation and being lead.

Why are relationships that close that make guiding with the eyes possible, so rare when we have outgrown toddler age and gained our first little bit of independence? Everyone longs for close, intimate relationships of love. Maybe they're rare because it costs a lot of energy and will to get to know someone by heart – and to defeat your self-protecting reluctance to open yourself so the other one can really get to know you. It makes one vulnerable to love like this. And, what I think is at least as big a factor: it'll make you dependent. We defeat our independence nearly as much as the darkest secrets of our soul and our ego. All three are definite hindrances for a ultimately close relationship and for the ability to look the other one in the eyes openly, honestly and with understanding. Maybe thats too much a high request.

Being guided with someones eyes surely can work with less of what is lined up here. Talking can also work without really speaking the other one's language. It will only liken the misunderstandings and resulting frustration.

Who even tries that hard to build a relationship, where an eye-to-eye conversation is possible, when we all have language to make ourselves understandable in a way far more easy? The quote above this text is from the bible*. God says this. He is the one who is willing to invest that much into a relationship with you, and although he is very well able to talk through powerful storms and make man follow him, he prefers the more gentle and subtle way, although this can cause many misunderstandings and other disturbances – it's the way of love: Guiding with his eyes, like the mother on the playground. Do we watch out for his look or do we run in the opposite direction, doing what we very well know is not good and hope he isn't watching? Do I know him well enough to understand what he wants to tell me? Whatever you're doing, he's always there, watching out for you and waiting that you'll once meet his eyes and trust their promise. He longs for a close relationship with you. ''I want to guide you with my eyes“ - will you let me?

*Psalm 32:8, King James Version 2000

fairytale forest

Being some hundred metres in a naturally grown forest and away from the path, I sometimes feel like I understand how and where all the fairytales and stories about fairies and dwarfs have come from. Do you know what I mean?

A forest can have something magical 

– a silence that most of the time is no silence at all, but a constant murmuring, rustling trees, rushing wind and singing birds. There's light that reaches the ground only filtered through 

a roof of branches and green leaves. A ground that is covered with the most varied parts of plants: layers of dry leaves, bushes and herbs, old dead trees and younger branches among stones, earth and small brooks and ponds. Being in a forest creates the most different feelings in humans, depending on their situation, company and of course, season and hour. You simply cannot compare the same woods in spring, summer, fall and winter! Some people relax when walking through the forest, some get frightened - especially in the night - or feel utterly lonely. You can get – or simply feel - really lost in a forest.

Some feel a secrecy like in a hidden place – why else would a faraway meadow in the forest be 

a major motive for a romantic place? I think the feeling that the forest will always keep some secrets you will never get into, has inspired people throughout the centuries to the stories about fable creatures who live in the woods. At the same time they tried to tame nature, to make maps, paths and roads, to cut or burn it down and replant it.

But a forest which got so thouroughly combed that no secrets and hidden places remain would 

be a park. And who won't agree that the atmosphere in a park is always different? I think it cannot be compared with the feeling you get while straying through a 'genuine' forest.

Some people also feel quite small in the great woods and see the greatness of its creator. 

And a single picture can impossibly describe the diversity of the different forests with their atmospheres – winter, summer, spring, autumn, dusk, daylight, dawn, night... - one gets to know here in Germany, let alone around the world!

You don't have to be a freak of nature (which I'm most positively not! Being outside can be so ...uncomfortable ;) to enjoy the charme of the woods. Whether you go there alone or with a friend, take a look around yourself: Although I cannot promise you to see a fairy or any spectacular animal you might anyway catch that fairytale-feeling too.

happy family

„All happy families resemble each other, but every miserable family is unhappy in her own way.“ (Tolstoi)

This first sentence of the novel Anna Karenina seems to have some truth in it. Of course every family is unique in its ways, but in a happy family one can say: Everything is ok. This is not the case in a unhappy family. The span reaches from one thing that isn't ok and disturbs everything up to „nothing is ok“. And the reasons for this are as different as the people under the sun . They reach from small conflicts of everyday life, stress, lack of money, troubled communication, difficoult characters to death of a family member or other grave catastrophes.

It is not necessary that Tolstoi has meant one of these things, one or another of these factors appear in families that can be described as 'happy'. No family is perfect. But then they do not affect and trouble family life that much, their effects aren't seriously disturbing anything. And those effects, that what a catastrophe, a mistrust, a problem, a disturbing causes over a short or long term, are what makes a family unhappy and miserable. Stress leads to irritation, this causes fights and a bad mood. When somebody dies, the grief stuns everything, also relationships. Silence begins.

The possibilities for combinations leading to unhappiness are infinite due to the different unique characters in a family and the amount of reasons for difficoulties.

Every miserable family will be unhappy in her own way.

When a family is happy, all these things and surroundings don't matter anymore – being happy is, in the first and last place, a matter of the people, more than of anything else.

I assume that in the following, Tolstoi will have described (at least) one miserable family. This introductional sentence makes it appear much more interesting and unique. But – I never read Anna Karenina, I found this quotation elsewhere. Maybe I should find out what Tolstoi thinks about miserable families in detail, some day...

golden ambitions

abandoned shoes next to a red carpet - is it over or does it begin?

When one grows up and becomes an adult one will, at some point, start thinking about one's aims and goals for life - or maybe thats because of the 21.384 people who want to know about them. It sometimes seems that everyone you're speaking to, especially when you've reached a certain age, is asking for what you want to learn/study/work/
DO WITH YOUR LIFE.
Most children dream of growing up and being an adult. Most teenagers want to be independent, responsible for themselves, be allowed to drive a car, drink and come home late or not at all. Reaching the magical 18, the glorious time of adulthood, the Golden Age.
(By the way, the term Golden Age is mainly used for a time in the fifties when Hollywoods movie-industry blossomed and had a glorious time. Many stars had their greatest time then and still are very popular - Marylin Monroe, Audrey Hepburn for just to mention a few)
Most realise, as they're getting closer to that age, that it's maybe not as golden as one dreams it to be. It won't be like that in the most cases, there is a lot of responsibility coming, duties and wrinkles. In some other ways one stays an eternal child - which is good. The author Erich Kästner says 'Only the one who grows up and stays a child is a human' .
Nevertheless, one still can be optimistic and look forward to a Golden Age!
When I'm asked for my personal plans and perspectives for the future I cannot answer most of the time because I simply do not know yet! I just can tell what definetely is no ambition of mine: becoming popular. Although I very much like Hollywood, Audrey Hepburn and glamour (these are most positively remains of childhood princess-dreams :) I would never want to be there myself.
I have as many inconcrete dreams as few plans. There are a lot of things I could imagine myself (not) doing and high goals for what I want to do...
but only one thing that's secure for me:
I want to go my way with Jesus and put his plans for my life on top priority. Everyone who also tries to follow him will know how high this ambition is.
Though, I'm sure that when I let him decide, he will lead me to true happiness and a really shining Golden Age, better than I could imagine it myself. He has not only promised me to be with me all my life but a time even more glorious afterwards.
T(o know t)his is HEAVEN!

P.s.: If you want to know what I'm talking about (and really looking forward to!), pick up a bible and read revelations 21-22. And if you'd like to experience this - and a golden life with him - too, you've got nothing to do but believe in him...

ice

Ice is beautiful, isn't it? Just look at that picture or imagine crystals, snow... It's marvellous to look at structures that often seem so artfully crafted and who come into existance when plain water freezes.
Ice is also fun. Who hasn't ever enjoyed ice-skating, snowboarding or skiing?
Ice is delicious. Most of you will agree that there is nothing better than icecream, slush or drinks with icecubes on a hot summer's day.
So why do so many people hate winter and especially frost? Because it's cold, is a quick answer.
'As cold as ice' is more than a metaphor. We don't want to be cold. Nobody likes shivering, goosepimpels, a red nose, hurting fingers and toes.
Emotional ice climate is equally unpleasant. Someone who is criticizing you with a sharp, icy voice. A cold personality. A frozen relationship. None of these things is something you'd like, because they're like ice:
Ice is cold, motionless and hard. They ought to be smooth and fluent like water. The characteristics of ice, not only the stiffness, also the fact that it extends in the process of freezing, cause many problems in winter: Ice has the strength to break tubes and stones, harbours and rivers cannot be shipped anymore, mechanical devices are no longer movable... and people wish it would just melt because
Ice is destructive. Ask any installer, or anyone who knows about the fate of the Titanic. Or any gardener. Plants do only survive a limited amount of frost. All living things die when they freeze to hard, animals and humans too (we can just protect ourselves better). When the water in our cells freezes and becomes ice, it's  too late. They burst and get destroyed. Freezing is dying and ice isn't agreeable with living.
Ice is dead/th. Ironically it's always said that water is living - and both are just different forms of the same substance H2O, shaped by it's conditions. And still they're so different that the fluent water is basis for all life while ice has the ability to destroy it. Life and death are so close sometimes...
It isn't without a reason that most metaphors, connotations and literal images about ice are negative.
Ice's beauty can be as misleading as the fun a frozen lake promises
before one finds out that one has been walking on too thin ice and breaks in.
It's hard, destructive and can be very dangerous.
A very good illustration would be the Snowqueen in the fairytale and the White Witch in Narnia. She is beautiful but insidious and dangerous, holding the whole country in an eternal winter's grip and having the power to freeze everyone rock-hard. Both are the evil characters of the stories, living in fierce castles made of
Ice.

P.s. Something to add: There's always something stronger than ice - the sun wins the tug-of-war ever again (as in the stories where the evil Ice-queens always finally have to give in to the good ones who bring the summer)

what if...?

a song's refrain often goes around my head:
'what if I had never let you go? would you be the one I'm used to know ? ... If we could only turn back time... but I guess, we'll never know'

What would I give for being able to turn back time!
Who hasn't ever had this thought? Everyone knows this situation: You see the outcome of some decisions you have taken, things you did or should have done - and you wish you still could change anything.
Sometimes these are only minor things: 'Why have I searched for my umbrella so long? I should have known I'd be late!'
Other things are about life and death: 'If I had stopped at the red streetlight, the guy in the other car would still be alive!'
Often one had been so close to do what later turned out to be the right thing. The decisions often even didn't mean anything at that time and were taken randomly, what makes it only more frustrating afterwards.
Unfortunately, turning back the time propably wouldn't change anything, even if it was possible. If one takes a look at the objective and logical side of it, all events had to happen exactly the way as they did before. Although a decision may be taken without thinking, it's always subconsciously influenced by conditions, surroundings and personal experiences. And those would always be the same again. In the past, you have been different. The regrets come afterwards when you change, learn or simply see the consequences. Turning back time would only make things happen once again, without a change.
Then, if all this is about the changed and wiser self, what about not turning back the time, but making yourself travel back in time to talk to your younger self and prevent things from happening? I know, this phantasy is old sci-fi-stuff and many others have already spend many thoughts on it.
To sum them up: you would cause a lot of chaos in a time you don't belong - possibly more than you could help with your knowldge offuture events. Only watch 'Back to the Future', the all-time classic about time-travelling, and you'll know what I mean when I say, that this might not be a good idea.
What I favour is equally impossible as the other ideas but, to me, seems easier, smaller and bearing less risks than e.g. travelling in time.
For most events it would be sufficient if one coul only send a note to one's younger self in the past. Just a single sentence could change so much, something like 'Don't drink tonight' or 'Take the car'.
If this was possible, sending one-sentence-messages intotthe past, even if you could only deliver them to no other person but you and considering that you might not obey yourself, this technology still would have changed the history of the world. What would be different today if people could reverse their actions! When one tries to imagine that, even that 'small' thing would be very, very complex in its consequences.
And maybe it's good that time has something secure - what has happened has happened and cannot be changed by any human, how hard he may wish he could. We humans have in some ways already too much power to influence our present. To be able to change the past too would be far too much - and it would also remove the necessity to learn from it.

 

this picture reminds me of a wonderful journey, but also drags the thought to my mind that if I hadn't decided to go to town that afternoon, I wouldn't have missed the fun the others had at the beach... but I guess, I'll never know...                       

trying to catch dawn

A written picture is to be centre this time and not a photo, as it would be usual. Why a written picture? Once I experienced a situation with a very special mood, although there was nothing extraordinary. I wanted to remember it, but had no camera at hand for keeping it. So then I tried to capture it with words for still being able to remember it.
Everyone who has ever tried to catch, to secure a certain mood, situation or memory to remember it, will know how difficoult this is, even if it is fresh in one's mind. Words won't fit properly and you can't find those you are looking for ... words are just not enough, but sometimes you have to deal with them. Especially when there's nothing available but a pen and some paper.
Here's my try:

The dawn comes and it's as cold as ice. In some corners there's still a thin layer of snow laying on the ground, elsewhere it's not there anymore. Not that it had melted, the temperature would be far too low for this, the dry snow has simply been blown away by the wind.
One can hear the ripple of the snowy crystals, they're coming down almost crumbly. The frosty wind is blowing in my face painfully icy. I feel like It slowly goes stiff in the cold, that now even is creeping through my gloves.
The wind blows freshly fallen ribbons of snow around in a jumble, here and there he drives the pulvery fringes.
Tears well up in my eyes, I narrow them and try to see. The tears flow over and on my face they leave traces which almost immediately begin to burn. I try to wipe them away, but the rough wool of my gloves only worsens it. New tears come and my whole face is burning in the cold wind. Don't wipe them away, the friction hurts and the burning tears remain. Will they really become ice on my skin?
The lights of houses, cars and streetlights are already lit. They're warm, glowing spots in the purpleblue dawn that envelopes everything of this grey winter's day.

  

This photo has nothing to do with the described situation, but I thought it supported some aspects of it. And by the way, I don't think I'd be successfull at trying to reproduce a photo that would fit exactly - it has been a moment more or less unique, the reason why I had wanted to capture it in the first place.

simplicity

This photo once was made because the changing pictures in the shallow water at the beach fascinated me. The lines and layers developed and disappeared in so many constant movements at the same time and after one anotherand never came to a stop. A photo could always catch the fraction of a second of this infinetely ongoing process. For a few minutes I sometimes tried to capture a certain frame of a special pattern here or there, but I had to realise that this was condemmed to fail. Till the moment I could move my finger to take the photo, everything would have changed and look entirely different. Not bad, though.
I have liked this picture only for its simplicity for a long time - there are no contrasts, no strong colours, nothing striking.
Later, I made the discovery, that all four elements have to work together to create such a picture: There's water - obviously - earth (sand), wind and sun.
Each of them helps shaping such a simple thing like the patterns of water and sun on a beach. It's often like this on our earth and in life: Such simple things, but plain beauty, working and ongoing for endless times, and a lot more behind it than one might see at the first look.

two on a narrow footbridge

two on a narrow footbridge (friendship)
- one has spread her arms to balance herself out, the other one patiently waits fo her.
Why can't I think of any title but friendship for this picture? I'm not sure. There's basically nothing else on it than the ocean, the sky and two people on a footbridge, not even touching each other. But visible is more, at least for me. I see confidence, for once.
You need confidence -and courage- to walk and balance on a narrow footbridge, just centimeters above the water, and you wouldn't do it with everyone. It's very helpful to know that there's always someone behind you who wouldn't push you into the water (I know, some people surely would do this and have fun with it, but if you're already trembling they're no soothing company at all!). How great is it to have someone behind you who would rather catch you - and risk falling with you- than doing anything else. Someone who cheers, encourages and calms you with words or with his sole presence. Who is never tired, looses his patience or good mood, when it takes you all the time in the world to take the next tiny step. These qualities also come in use the other way around, when someone walks in front of you and all you have to do is follow, being able to watch his back and not all the time the frightening long and narrow path in front and under your feet.
That's why there are two on the path together. And that's why friendships are so precious: everyone gives something and gains more in return. Not always immediately or consciously remarkable, but in the backward glance, one feels enrichened.
During challenging times and situations you can't always walk side by side, as you would like to. One has to take the lead and the other one to follow. But only for a certain time: when the end of the footbridge is reached and you turn around, you inavoidably will find yourself in the other position ;)
Walking down a footbridge towards the ocean, like the one on the picture, can be quite an enjoyable experience - one of the enjoy-the-simple-things-of-life kind of events, when you're at the beach with a friend. The literal 'footbridges' in a friendship however belong to some other category...

the name of the rose

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweer"  (Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare)

Once I wanted to try reading Shakespeare - in English - because everybody seemedto be talking about and referring to his plays, especially Romeo and Juliet, which is said to be the most popular lovestory in the word.
I failed. Neither could I admire the (as I was told9great lanuage nor the beautiful poetry because I couln't even keep up with the story (although I already had a general idea about it)!
When I later found a bilangual edition in the library, I decided to give Shakespeare a second try - to sum it up, I still didn't understand a lot of the English part (and the German translation was terrible to read because of an awful style & language), but at least I somehow made my way through the whoe play.
The quotation above this text is one of the very few things that still lingered in my mind after I finished it.
Names are only names. They don't say anything about the person that bears them. As I remember the context, juliet said this to Romeo (or was it the other way around?). She was saying that his family name didn't matter to her at all because she loved him, as a person, and not as a member of the hated family. That whatever name he would bear could not change anything about is personality and the way she was seeing him.
As the end of the story shows, not everyone is able to think like tha. For the rest of her family, his name mattered a great deal.
What first caught my eye was the picture of the rose, and the truth behind it.
I very much agree as I, for example, do not love roses because of the word but because of what they are - beautiful, wonderfully fragrant flowers.
Even if one likes the word, this likely happens due to the image it creates in one's head. Same way with disapproval. That's why nobody of Julias relatives could accept Romeo and this is also the reason why I always cringe when I'm introduced to a person whose first name awakes bad memories. Luckily this always disappears as soon as I get to know him or her.
A name doesn't make up or pins down anyone - not even a rose.

behind the camera

Making photos is mostly me seeing the world while I'm hidden behind the camera (unless I'm not turning it around to focus myself - but then, I don't see anything anymore.) There's nothing visible of me, merely some emotional influneces, personal preferences in choosing the objects and composing them. Only here, on this picture, it's a slightly bit different...

My best friend and I can only visit each other very rarely. We're close, though, through mails, letters and the telephone. Like in this picture: We're seperated through glass and neither of us could hear the other, but we communicated. And I shot that photo.
Originally I had intended to make one last photo of her before the train took me away again, then I discovered that I was visible as well and that had an astonishing effect. (usually it's quite enerving to have these mirror effects when photographing through glass!)
Now it's not only a picture of her saying goodbye to me, but of the two of us: seperated but together and united on the photo. And I as the photographer am as visible as the object I photograph...

Hej!

Welcome to my blog!
Although its supposed to be writing , I'd like to base it on photos (if I'll ever understand how this works... :) Pictures say so much more than words, and a single photo can transport far more information, memories and feelings than a long text. Because I like it both, making photos and writing texts, I chose to combine it here. Hope you'll enjoy sharing them with me!