.SOMETIMES RAW.

Hello and Happy Thursday. 

My sister and I are sitting in this little café on her birthday, celebrating with Campari and Soda eating Flammkuchen. It is lunchtime, the sun is shining, our drinks are close to the window and are shining and glowing  like lamplights through the sun. I feel like crying. Nobody notices. But I am really crying on the inside, this kind of cry of lifetime procedure. I am crying for the past 31 years we have known, loved and battled each other. For now, I have been talking about it all for myself. All the painful and tricky parts. The things you try to avoid because it is just deep and it hurts. We try to connect and struggle but we do have this desire to understand and hold some space for the difference. 

There is a tightness between us sometimes and  I know I love her but I am not able to tell her the way I would like to. Life is made for moment like that.  And when I really think about it, it is two women sharing the same mother and father, the same brother, and the same history and yet after all, memories are different. Between us is just a contrast which gives shape to the truth of our hearts. We had some shared memories. Some tough times. We have been though it. This tough love or hard truth. However, ultimately you are just full of love. I understand the color of your pain and the way  of your journey and the brightness of your joy. You are my sister and we are so alike. At the same time we are so different but together can celebrate everything we accomplished. 

How did this post come about? Really because we spent a day together at your parent’s in laws’ and I really got to see you. Got to know you again after a long time. We talked, exchanged thoughts, sat next to each other and enjoyed the moment.  The BBQ, the conversations, our kids playing together for hours. It was all an adventure. For all of us. 

What I would like to tell you  is first of all that you are beautiful the way you are and that you can achieve anything you want in life. No matter what. You can take a trip. Go somewhere. Discover something new alone or together as a family. Have a jet-leg when you get somewhere and pack not enough and then buy the things you need at a local supermarket. Get lost and argue with your husband and end up stopping at a restaurant and enjoy the best pizza and red wine you have ever had. Then, order a Campari Soda and watch the people walking by. Cheers to life. Cheers to who walks by next. 

Be open to discover something new and leave old pattern behind. Diana, you are my little sister but you have grown. You are such a beautiful amazing woman. You stand very tall, even though you are shorter than me. You hold so much strength and it is amazing how you take care of two children and keep your sanity. I am proud of you. Proud how you manage it all. I am proud to be your sister. This courage you have inspires me. To just keep moving forward and  just keep going. I hope I inspire you as you inspire me. Maybe we can inspire each other. I want to see you. Not only physically. I want that we see each other. I would love that we are a mirror for how beautiful we both are. We are sisters. How wonderful is it to call you MY sister. I love you. Forever. 

Hello and Happy Monday!

We spent the entire afternoon in the woods collecting wild garlic (bear leak, ramson) and dandelion for more syrup.  The wild garlic is awesome for pesto when used fresh with (homemade) pasta or just frozen to add to any dish. It is really yummy with potatoes, mixed together with spinach in a lasagna and a variety of other recipes. I use it even in soups. The best! There is this wild garlic-hype in Germany and many collect it themselves. It is also possible to purchase it in stores but why not collect it yourself and spend some quality time in nature? So we headed to our secret wild garlic spot not too far away from my parent’s house. It is so calm and beautiful there and the wild garlic leaves are the best when collected close to the water. This way we did not even have to wash them before cutting them up and putting them into bags for the freezer. This is how those leaves look. [If you are not 100% sure if you found the right leaves, don’t collect them. The poisonous lily-of-the-valley leaves (Maiglöckchen) look very similar!]

So after I collected way more than initially planned,  I sat close to the water on a tree trunk and observed my son who played in the water. He tried to “catch a fish” with a stick, balanced on some rocks and threw tiny pebbles in the water. “I have it all,” I think.

I know that most people are only comfortable if they have a certain amount of money, love, health or the best job and this one particular promotion they wait for. “If something does not work out the way I want it, there are always ways to improve those circumstances.” [Jean Henry] Sometimes I do feel weird or uncomfortable if things are too good in way. Do you know this feeling? Like this is all too good to be true? I even sometimes  think negative thoughts to pull me down even though I should be all content and happy. Maybe it is the fear of disappointment or loss that pops in my head – like I want to hold on to this particular moment forever but I know this is not possible or that this special moment is simply only temporary. Sometimes I look for something that ruins it all, or search for teeny tiny flaws. I am practicing Reiki for quite some time now. I meditate, I even read spiritual books; however, I still have those thoughts occasionally. 

I have to be more resistant to weird feeling and appreciate the happiness here and now. And if things don’t go my way, it is not the end of the world. I am usually pretty good at all this, but then there is this one day, that let’s my little house crumble and shakes the walls up pretty hard. I don’t want to be too attached to anything because if it is gone I am sad. Enjoyment leads to happiness, obviously. I watch my son playing and I feel good. And the next moment I might think, “Oh damn, but we have to leave Germany and move somewhere else. We won’t live here forever and all this does not continue. And I will miss my parents and family”! Attachment most certainly does not lead to happiness, I know this but don’t apply it all the time. Attachment usually means for me emotions, clinginess, sadness – or plain fear. 

There was a great documentary on TV a couple of days ago about bees and the way they collect pollen. They fly around to find flower heads. They fly and fly and if they don’t find any flowers they just return to their hive to do something else in the meantime. Or they fly to a different area. Simple as that. No disappointment, no agony or buzzing around about some missed opportunities. [No pun intended] They instinctively know that another opportunity will come along their way and they will find another flower head. And they do everything gracefully and with patience – getting the most out of the here and now. [Well, I am not a bee charmer and I don’t know for certain what might go on in their little brains but this is how it seems to me.]

I work on appreciating the moment and not ruin it by over-thinking and analyzing everything. I notice the positive and don’t search for the negative – sometimes better, sometimes worse. When certain thoughts pop up I tell myself to just let it float by, acknowledging it but letting it go. Again, this does not happen all the time and I am working on it. Nobody is perfect. I then bring my attention back to the here and now and tell myself that other great things are ahead of me, new challenges, new adventures. I just stay open-hearted and work on being non-attached.  I find it helpful to focus on breathing in those situations. It is all a work in progress and quite a rocky path. 

When I am looking back over my life I notice how things usually just float through, arrive and then leave. They then make way for new exciting things. Isn’t it amazing how everything  just comes and goes and somehow makes room for new paths? I guess it is easier to rely on the flow of life than on one particular thing because this flow just never stops. Maybe it never will. Who knows. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Good days come and go, luck comes and goes but I have to listen more closely to the lessons and finally wake up. 

Hello and Happy Friday!

I am thankful for great friends. I don’t have too many which is fine; but the ones I do have I love to spend time with. These are friends I can learn something from, the ones who inspire me, the ones who listen to what I have to say, the ones I can be the way I am without putting on a mask and the ones I love to listen to. Friendships shift as we develop but the real friends stay no matter what. With real friends conversations don’t need to have depth all the time but I want to be able to talk about something serious as points.  To laugh together and being silly without alcohol is a good thing, too. Or with alcohol. Or with coffee. I also keep in mind that with time and life changes my friendships have changed and become more redefined. I needed to disconnect from some people and reconnect with others. This is how life goes. And it is all okay. I just want to say Thank you to my friends out there without writing out names! The ones I am talking about here know! This is what I have been up to during the week if you would love to read. Have a great weekend! 

Reading:  I finished The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. What an amazing book. Book review will follow. Highly recommended! Currently I am reading Jed McKenna’s Spiritual Enlightenment, Part One. This is not an easy read and it takes time to really grasp all of it. I highlight a lot and even copied a bunch of paragraphs so far and wrote them in my journal. Thought-provoking! 

Watching: This! 

“What is it that makes us human? Is it that we love, that we fight ? That we laugh ? Cry ? Our curiosity ? The quest for discovery ? Driven by these questions, filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand spent three years collecting real-life stories from 2,000 women and men in 60 countries. Working with a dedicated team of translators, journalists and cameramen, Yann captures deeply personal and emotional accounts of topics that unite us all; struggles with poverty, war, homophobia, and the future of our planet mixed with moments of love and happiness.”

Also, I found the movie to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. It is fantastic and …. lonely!  

Enjoying: Sushi at this place! And of course great conversations with Ronia, my husband’s messages, my son, my parents, Ronia die Räubertochter, Fame Cocktailbar in Coburg [Try the Strawberry Daiquiri!!!] 

Discovering/Learning: 

Once you realize that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road,
not to reach a goal, but to enjoy its beauty and wisdom,
life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple,
in itself an ecstasy.

Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

Looking forward to: Traveling soon! I cannot wait. The world is so awesome. I need ocean and sun! There is so much to discover and see. Now is the time. Or maybe it is all just a dream. 

What have you been up to? What are your plans for the weekend?