bruecken_schlag_worte

Brückenschläge und Schlagworte

Schlagwort: Christmas

Finding Kindness – an Instagram Journey

My friend Aggy of DreamExploreWander, whom I’ve tagged here several times, tagged me on an instagram challenge a few days ago. I was supposed to post five pictures on five consecutive days, all connected to the theme „KINDNESS“. While I loved the theme from the start, it turned out difficult to put it in pictures. There is lots of symbols for faith, or hope, or love. Travel is easy to visualize, as is home. But kindness?

Difficult as it was, I tried to capture kindness in pictures to post to my instagram account every day. And the beauty of it was that it made me much more aware of little everyday acts of kindness all around me.

Advent Wreath

On the first day, conveniently, I received my mum’s yearly Christmas package. If there is anyone I learned kindness from, it is my mother. She sends me my advent wreath every year. I have the decorations ready and set it up on my couch table on the fourth Sundays before Christmas – and then one more candle is lit every Sunday. It isn’t advent without this tradition, and it makes my home feel more cozy, friendlier. It was in this moment already that I realized that kindness would only be visualized through a connection with others.

Sheet music

On the second day, my singing teacher sent me the final recording of a song that I wrote myself. I have been writing music for a bit now, but I cannot really do arrangements. I am going to learn that in the near future, but the arrangement on this one is my singing teacher’s. He spent a lot of time getting everything done, just because he is nice that way. And now I have my own song. I never thought this day would come. If you would like to give it a listen, you can do so on my soundcloud.

Berlin Mitte - the deli

On the third day I had a late lunch and some good coffee at my most frequented deli close to work.  The place is often overcrowded at lunch time which is why I try to come in late, have a quick chat with the staff and enjoy the soup of the day (which is always delicious!). The guys who work there know the way I like my coffee, and they notice when I’ve had my hair cut and ask if I’ve been okay if I haven’t come in for a while. Genuinely kind, good people who will brighten up my lunch hour considerably. Bad service can ruin my mood. It never happens here.

Advent Calendar

On day four, I had to go back to my mum’s Christmas package and post a picture of my advent calendar. 24 little gifts for each day in December until Christmas Eve finally arrives. Not only does this remind me of my mum’s infinite grace and kindness every day, it also makes me feel a bit of the childish excitement Christmas used to be about when today it is more about stress and getting things done. I like getting up in the morning and knowing there is something small (or not so small – what might be in that big red package I get to open today, on the 6th?!) to look forward to.

Wisdom

The fifth day had me turn to my dressing table. My friend sent me little notecards for motivation and reassurance this year for my birthday, and I set them up next to my jewellery so I will see them every morning. This card says: „Do only the things that are salutary to you.“ Salutary – „heilsam“ in German – is a particularly pretty word, and it refers to things that will heal your wounds. In other words this means: Be kind to yourself. Often we are not, we don’t take care of our needs enough. We should be kind to each other and ourselves alike.

While I don’t know if my pictures sufficiently mirrored the topic, this little challenge gave me much joy. It felt good to look for things that would symbolize kindness to me every day, and it animated me to be kind, too. Write a text to that friend who has started a new job to wish her luck. Call my sister to let her know that I miss her. Go after that lady who nearly left her scarf at the restaurant at the table next to us. Hold open doors for other people. Get in touch with someone you haven’t heard from in a while. Maybe it’s also the Christmas spirit talking, but honest: If you’re kind to people, kindness will come back to you. And it feels good.

„Making Strange“, or Snow in Berlin

Another post in the seasonal department, I feel compelled to write about the beauty of snow.

There is a really good German film called Jenseits der Stille (English Beyond Silence). Now I love German film in general, but this one is especially great. It tells the story of a girl born to deaf parents who has regular hearing ability herself. She learns how to play the clarinette and her music threatens to alienate her from her family because they cannot understand it. At this point I’d just like to say: Watch it, it’s beautiful. Anyway, in one of the very intimate moments between her and her father, they stand and look at snow falling, and he asks her (signing of course): „What does snow sound like? What does it tell you?“ And she answers: „Honestly, snow doesn’t talk much. They even say snow drowns out all the noise. When snow is falling, everything is very quiet.“

Now, Berlin is never quiet. But it is quieter when it is as snowed in as it is now.

Tramtracks snowThe cars go slower, their motor screams muffled in white thickness, and on the large streets they disperse the dirty greyish substance that’s left on the floor like dust. The tram tracks disappear underneath it too.

The way the snow mixes with granulate on the sidewalk reminds me of little villages in Austria where we used to go skiing, and of walking to a gondola that will take you up the mountain where the sun is crisp and the snow is sparkling.

granulat

An untouched glistening surface, so pure, so innocent, is sitting between parking cars on the sidewalk. And once it is broken in, there is a trail, showing a path, leading the way into any new adventure. Both images have their very own beauty inscribed into them. Foothigh, there is snow in my yard, laying all the tiny bushes my neighbor is nurturing with so much care, tiny red blossoms peeking out of the covers. The most bizarre plant there is the cactus reaching out high, with his sad little leaves wilting in the cold, like he was having a bad-hair-day.

tracks in snowcactusphoto 5

Snow is covering the roof of the pretty old church in Bohemian Rixdorf in Berlin Neukölln that still carries substance from the 15th century, although most of it has been rebuilt after several destructions in wars. It reminds me of the pretty wooden churches I have seen in Slovakia and Ukraine. This being an area that was first settled by protestant refugees from Bohemia in 1737, and with the church having been rebuilt in 1757, it figures, and the visual evidence of the Eastern influence excites me.  As the church now overlooks the Rixdorf Christmas Market (one of the more traditional ones), its red roof tiles sugar coated, it looks like it was taken out of a fairy tale.

Church Rixdorf

Streets, cars, yards and churches – it all looks different, it is as though the world was in its entirety a work of art in which the artist had distorted, estranged reality for the on-looker to see it anew, as though laying eyes upon it for the first time. I didn’t come up with this concept of „making strange“ or „defamiliarization„, a guy called Viktor Sklovskij did about a hundred years ago, even before the master of German 20th century theatre, Bertolt Brecht, brought the idea to his drama theory. But it is exactly how snow works. I don’t just recognize things I know, walking past them in an unaware, unconscious manner. Instead I look at them, I see them, and I allow myself to rethink them from a new perspective.

Snow makes me look at the world differently. It allows me to rediscover things I thought I knew and see them in a new light and sound – whiter. Quieter. What a gift.

First times and the Magic of Advent

My cousin recently posted a meme on facebook that read

„When was the last time you did something for the first time?“

I had to think fast, and yet I couldn’t really come up with a good answer, and that made me rather sad.

When we are kids, first times present themselves constantly. As we grow older, there are fewer opportunities for them. Partially because we have already done so much, but also because in our daily life and routine, we seek them out far too seldomly. Aside from seeing all the places on my Bucket List (and more) – what about my everyday life? Where’s the new, the unknown? It’s not like there aren’t things I’d like to do for the first time. I have never had absinthe. Or Haggis. Or snails. I have never done kite surfing. Or rock climbing. Or swing dancing. And there is bound to be more. I should really try to keep in mind that every day may grant me the opportunity to do or try something for the first time.

AdventskranzI think that the magic of first times is what we celebrate in Germany when we celebrate Advent. The number of first times, even if just for that specific year, increases dramatically in December.

There is the first of advent (which is today!), the fourth Sunday before Christmas Eve, when the first candle on the advent wreath is lit. The wreath holds four candles, one more will be lit each Sunday until Christmas. Christmas isn’t coming without and advent wreath or fir sprigs that hold all the little decorations I have found in my advent calendar over the years.

AdventskalenderThe advent calendar of course is most exciting, most special on the 1st of December. It consists of 24 little surprises, one for each day between December 1st and 24th. Mine is an embroidered beauty of the 26 letters of the alphabet, all formed by little Santas, surrounded by tiny packages that hold chocolates. It took my mom 6 hours to finish each letter when she handmade the calendar. She really must love me. But then again, for what by now must be 15 years I stand before the filled advent calendar every year on December 1st and am overcome by a childlike excitement and joy, and I know that Christmas is coming, and for some reason, that means that all will be well.

This year, December 1st and first of advent were both in one weekend. And that wasn’t all. This weekend also had the first snow – huge snowflakes in a graceful dance outside my window, covering the yard in a thin sugar coat that makes the grey and dull sight so much prettier. Unfortunately in Berlin, more often than not, snow melts right away. The city’s steaming body gets to it too fast. Still there’s magic in snowfall.

I also went to the Christmas Market for the first time this year and had mulled wine (now it wasn’t the first mulled wine of the season, but mulled wine is just too delicious to wait for it until December every year!). Weihnachtsmarktzauber at Gendarmenmarkt may be the prettiest of Berlin’s more central Christmas Markets. The white tents with the large Moravian stars on top of them are bustling with people of all ages. Some of them sell delicious Christmas Market specific food, like roasted chestnuts and sugar roasted almonds. In others they sell handicrafts, usually very pretty, but really expensive. Christmas Carols are played as well. Lately „Winter Wonderland“ and „Let it snow“ have driven out the more traditional German songs, but let’s face it: You can’t be sure that Christmas is coming until you’ve heard Wham’s „Last Christmas“ on the radio for the *first time* that year anyway, so you may as well make your peace with the fact that English Christmas Carols are saying that the holidays are coming just as much as German ones.

Weihnachtszauber Gendarmenmarkt

Oh Christmas Tree

Even though all these Christmas related things are „first times this year“, not „first times“, they remind me of the beauty of a new start and of the fact that I should treasure *first times* and try to make them happen more frequently.

By the way, I did come up with a very first time after I read my cousin’s meme. I had a dream that was entirely in Polish for the first time when I was last in Gdańsk. The realization of it made me feel giddy and exhilerated. Blessed with the new and unknown, with the excitement of discovery. What a feeling!