"Oh the comfort ... The inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with another person. Having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together. Certain that a faithful hand will take and sift; keep what is worth keeping and, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."


A line of poetry as quoted to me by my mother. 

I absolutely love it. 

On my way to class

Nathan insists on walking me to school every morning. And we usually have adventures.

Class doesn't start until nine, but we take the 8:07 train. This means that we have some time to kill. I love the city at this time of day. It is quiet and still and so peaceful as the city wakes up.

We come out of the Hauptbahnhof and walk along Europastraße for a bit. Then we take a left onto Wilhelmstraße and we go over the Neckar bridge and look down at the water, seeing the reflection of the city. We walk past as the city workers are watering the flowers along the bridge rails and the ones that hang from the lampposts. We continue along, cross the street, and stop at a bakery. 

Most of the time we wake up and rush to catch the train and hardly have any time to eat breakfast. We might kinda sorta do this on purpose. It gives us a reason to walk into a German bakery and admire the diversity of breads and pastries that are laid out before us. I just want to go in there and stare at it all. It blows my mind how the Germans have evolved bread into an art form, and I want to taste it all. So we buy a Nusschenk, a Kirschtöpfle, my favorite, or something covered in bacon and melted cheese and wander into the Altstadt. 

We wind through the Altstadt, looking at the quaint architecture of the homes and businesses. We look in store windows, we admire, we muse, we sigh, and move on. We go up the hill and as we near the top, the faint sound of organ music can be heard from the church. And we go into the very center of the city, the Holz Markt, and the fruit, meat, and vegetable vendors are all there, selling some of the region's best with regards to homemade. 

By this time the Kirschtöpfle is gone, and we make our way over to the Brechtbau. Nathan hugs me good-bye, and I go to class. 

The train, the bakery, the organ music coming from the old church, the German architecture, the cobble-stone streets...this I will all miss when we go home. 

I dream of you. 

Update

I'm really quite bad at updating my blog more frequently. I just forget about it until I read someone else's blog, and I think, "I should be a better blogger like them."

This is what happened just now, on the blog of someone who I don't really speak to in real life, but I follow them on the interweb. Such is my life of social encounters cushioned by the silence of the internet.

Perhaps an update is in order.

This summer has been quite eventful! I went to Tennessee, Michigan, New Jersey (the airport was quite big!), and now Germany. For three months, Nathan and I were separated due to my work in Tennessee and his research internship at the University of Michigan. Oh the sacrifices we make for the future. I can summarize the long distance in two words: it sucked. It was quite an interesting summer. I learned what it means to be a boss, what my managing style looks like, became really good friends with my sister Leah, put together two binders worth of paperwork for an ACA Accreditation visit, and drove a tractor for the first time. In the meantime, Nathan was being super academic researching methylase and taking a GRE prep course.

So we met up in Tennessee after those three awful months and flew to Germany. It was a long day of traveling. We got to Germany at 8 AM in the morning, exhausted from our travels, but unable to sleep if we wanted to adjust to the time here. After three days we finally got adjusted. We usually go to bed around 9:30 or 10, so basically I'm on my dream sleep schedule. I'm speaking a ton of German, and I'm getting used to it/getting better. I used to be extremely shy about speaking German and would even refuse to speak in my German classes. I'm getting over that out of pure necessity. The other students in my program are from Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Brazil, Taiwan, Japan, China, Kyrgyzstan, and so many other places. It's actually a really cool experience. Meanwhile, Nathan gets to be a "housewife." He cleans and shops for groceries and sometimes even cooks. It's so nice coming home with the bed made. He's learned some German, and he can now order food and gelato. Two very important things. We've visited so far one castle, the Schwarzwald, Freiburg, and explored alllll of Tübingen. Such a cute, quaint city.

So anyway. Here we are in Germany, and all we can talk about is how we miss our home in Provo. I'm excited for the semester to start.

Confession

Sometimes, I enjoy feeling sad, melancholic, or nostalgic.

I think these instances allow me to feel the complexity of human emotion, its depth and intricacy, its possibilities and strong influence.

Besides, one can't appreciate sunny weather if it didn't rain every now and then. Enjoy the rain while it lasts, ya know.

In Love with German Printmaking

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Holy Family, 1500

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Old Bulldog Scratching Himself,1485

Albrecht Durer, Self-Portrait at 13, 1484

Martin Schongauer, Nativity, 1470

The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Christ Bearing the Cross, 1480-90

Albrecht Durer, St. Jerome in his Study, 1514

I gotta get this out of my head

In my life, there are a number of friendly-type of relationships that have diminished. My relationships with certain people are not what they once used to be. Close friends have become distant acquaintances, and I feel trapped when I'm around them. None of the ease that should accompany a true friendship.

I'm trapped by memories, haunted by echoes of something I once had but have now lost. And I am not sure how to get this back.

Even if I do "succeed," there exists this shell, a remnant of a connection that no longer exists that I've outgrown. A hollow and empty form that reminds me of what things once were. And I can't seem to overcome it. Things never seem to be the same, and I don't seem to quite succeed.

It's discouraging. It also makes me sad.

But I want to try to make amends. That counts for something, right?

In the instances where I have made amends, I feel hopeful but also unfulfilled at the same time. I yearn for the friendship that was once there. I want to permanently erase deeds and words from memory or any tangible evidence, blurt out apologies for my mistakes, and tell these people what I desire. I was never one for expressing my feelings to such an extent.

I find myself longing for friendship, and I can't seem to shake it off. But nor can I seem to succeed. Whether I attempt to amend a lost friendship or try to start a new one, I never feel like I get very far.

Maybe I should just try being a better friend to the ones that I already have. I can direct the path of my future.

Sorry for the rather introspective thoughts lately. I don't mean to be a downer, but I don't want to simply forget some realizations I've had lately.