It’s your turn ;-)

Dear readers,

I hope you’re all doing well. Sorry for not uplading much at the moment – I still write; a lot actually; but it feels more natural not to post it but to have it on real paper :-)

Why I write today to you:

In 2022, I plan to write each month a short-story about a real person – someone I get to know about YOU: it can be a person you are very close to or someone you only see randomly on the street, someone you’ve met in the past or someone you like to meet in the future, or someone you’d like to wish you’ve never met or …or … or …

What can you tell me about the person so I have inspiration to write your story in 2022? I’m curious what you will tell me :-)

Take care, Anne

infinity

I stare into the sky,

see the clouds passing by,

follow a dove’s voyage.

I stare and stare.

And imagine someone else doing the same

at this very same moment.

There is so much above us.

That we don’t know what

makes it even

more

beautiful.

past/present

“May I?” I hear these words and imagine myself to be at a dance of 19th Century high society here in Kislovodsk, candles enlightening this beautiul decorated ballroom, young soldiers in elegant uniforms, myself in a stunning dress … oh well, you know all this clisché fairy-tale-story and “May I?” actually “May I offer you my hand for a dance?” and we dance and we dance on forever (without any wicked mother-in-law, or any money problems, actually without any problems at all as this fairy-tale-wonderland).

“May I? You stand on my rucksack and I must leave at this station.”

Air bubble exploding.

I’m in a crowded bus in cold winter 2021, we’re in corona-modus so everything f* and a man has turned towards me, his voice not transporting so nice feelings as any of my handsome dream soldiers. I move aside and he gets off.

Did I just miss my personal fairy tale? As these eyes! Why do we need to wear all thesee masks when they hide almost the whole face – I want to see the rest of him.

“Hey, wait…”

Forest Walk

There would be so many words to

describe this forest walk we made

this day/this season/this so special year.

I could describe how

we laugh, what

we see, that maybe

we cried, or

we kissed, how

the air

dances

in our

lungs,

what

we discover, how

we

….

But the only word I have

for this forest walk

is

gratitude.

Autumn 2020

From my forest walk today (well it was in a park but felt like Canada during Indian Summer…)

vivacious

when you wrap me
up in paper
of luxus and noise

while i want
to sleep
under the pure and speechless sky of stars
.

***
I got this postcard from John from Georgia with the word “vivacious” as inspiration. And he wrote that “I suspect this decribes you”. This postcard then reminded me of a conversation we had during lunch break at work a while ago. Topic: how do you envision to have your engagement? I don’t remember how we ended up speaking about engagements/weddings (which guy actually sucked it up) (oh well, now I think it was something about the size of the ring) (or was it about the place he choose to ask “the” question of all questions?) Never mind – at one point, I just said that “well, that would be like inviting me to the Eiffel Tour restaurant for a fancy dinner and then ask me if we want to get married, super-luxus all around us, when I probably have my most crappiest but comportable hiking boots on”. What I want to say: Hasn’t everyone ever had the feeling that some people believe to know us while they actually don’t? To sum it up: My writing might be vivacious sometimes or most of the times but I’m not. Not at all. Or maybe I am and don’t know it myself. Well, I’m twins as star signs, maybe that says it all ;-)

Rakkaus

She watches her little girl Suvi. Minutes ago, when Peppa the Pig had ended, there had been a big, big drama. Day 10 of staying at home with a 2 1/2 child, alone since your husband can’t be with you and needs to stay where his business-trip had taken him, and you’re already done. How did mothers survive when there was no tv, no internet? How will she surive when electricity breaks down? And what do you do when your little one has already seen all episodes of her favourite cartoon (and for any strange reason is able to realize this)? She had almost been so far as putting any news programme on since what tires her now, could tire the little one as well, don’t you think? Then she remembers Pablo, the Cold-Blooded Pinguin. He never succeeds in sailing off to the tropes on an ice craft but she wins now. Suvi gets calm, smiles, giggles, wraps her little arms around her mum. When the world around you gets down in chaos, you still have the power of love.

Dear Alice

Alice finds the small postcard when she comes home from the factory, tired, so dirty that she even doesn’t want to to hold this precious gift in her hands. Normally she would now wash herself, put the blackest of all her dresses on and walk to the church nearby, to convince herself and all the others that she makes everything all right, as a widow of 22 years. But this day she only washes her hands, tries to make her hair, her face bloom againm puts the summer dress on that her lost lover loved so much and walks off. Ignores the gazes, the words “Mrs. Robinson, will you attend mess later?” and gets off to Daisy Hill. When they still lived together in Bradford, she and Polly, and when sadness was long away, the two got there all day, until one of their brothers was sent to bring them home, laughed so much, dreamt of the men they would kiss one day … Alice wants to be Miss Alice Smith again, not Mrs. Alice Robinson, and she’s 17 again when she reads that Polly may come one day this week, when she sees Walter’s name … Alice blossoms out when she sits on Daisy Hill. Let hunger and death be gone for a least that small, sunny moment on a normal day in May 1919.

a story

When the American soldiers left, Ahmed came. He looked around, his eyes wandering on the yellow, dry ground, searching for something to pick up and hold in his hands, as a trophy maybe, to remember what had happened or simply to sell it afterwards. He made his way through the camp that had been full of life only some hours ago, only to find some coca-cola-cans and some empty medicine packs. Ahmed went in some of the smaller tents which, now the air-conditing was gone, had heavily heated up. There was no light, he didn’t know why he stayed as the tent was empty. But he couldn’t leave, didn’t want to. Ahmed closed his eyes, enjoyed the peace of the silence. When he finally made his way back into the sun, Ahmed’s gaze fell on the ground. Something was reflected in the light. Ahmed bend down, his old hands grabbed a piece of paper. At first he didn’t know what it was until he realized he had a postcard in his hands. It showed a mountain with snow that reminded Ahmed of the hills of his childhood. Ahmed knew English, through he hadn’t spoken the language in a long time. Packwood, Washington it said on the front. Ahmed turned the card around, his tired eyes reading the small words. He learned that Packwood had first been named Sulphur Springs, then was called Lewis until it was changed to Packwood in the 1930’s to prevent mail for Fort Lewis from being mistaken sent to the town of Lewis. Ahmed was so fascinated by the story of the city that he didn’t pay attention what else was written on the card. 4 words. awe inspiring. indubitably. and, written in an elegant way, the name Maria. Maybe that was the more capturing story than of a city changing its name so many times? Ahmed would never know. In his mind he was somewhere else, in a time long gone.

human zoo

flabbergast
the only word coming
to my mind
when
a crocodile walks
by
and stops
for
selfie-time
with young Egon
on the wall of ego.

beating hearts

“Dragostea Din Tei”. While the young audience starts to scream for O-Zone’s Maria, the teacher remembers all the ‘Maria’ he knew in his 60 years pf life. Well actually, all the others ‘Maria” are outlined by one special woman. The one Maria who he met when studying in Paris, in the wild years of the late 1960ies. He sees himself as a young student, long hair (when he still had hair), an old leather jacket fron the flea market, going on the streets for everything and nothing, drinking too much and smoking too much, and the day when they met by chance, in a small bookshop in quartier Marais. He remembers so much in the minutes, hozrs the school party continues. When he finally gets home hat at night, he wished Maria was here with him in Ordu, awaiting him with a chai to warm his broken heart.

Maria’s thoughts are suddenly distracted. It’s late at night and while waiting for her métro line to come, she hears a man speaking Turkish. Maria remembers when she was young and her heart was all about love while there was hate on the streets of Paris. She wished Ugur would await her at home, making chai for her. She remembers the taste of his chai and she remembers so much more which was lost years ago.

Even though there are mountains,
seas and distances in between, we
are here to unite the beating
hearts at two different points