Live Exams

Sitting in the garden, eating breakfast, I thought whether I had passed this year. I thought which were my strong subjects and which were my weak.
I reflected the year and I came to the conclusion that I did quite well. It has been a good year. A very demanding year at the same time. A lot of things had happened.

We moved to the country side, the children went to the village school (thank God) after homeschooling them for a few months. We bought a new car and travelled for the first time since we live here. We took a stranger into our house, I made a new friend for life, I started a blog, our book came out, we went to Germany (first time after 3 years), we signed a new book contract, we went to Madagascar. And I am sure I forgot some important things.

I asked Sven if he thinks he had passed this year. He said, he thinks he made it. I asked him what was his best subject. He said love.
Mine was happiness and contentment. That was my prayer at the beginning of this year.
We just had moved here, I was swimming in the river and thought, this is heaven, this is what I had always dreamt of and at the same moment I started to worry: Why did we only sign the lease for one year? What if we have to leave this place?
And I realized that I lived most of my life worrying. Either I was anxious that things would come to pass and when they finally did I worried that they will pass.
Floating on my back I decided this had to stop. I prayed that I would learn how to be happy and content in every situation. And I think this is what I learned this year.

Even now, feeling change coming without knowing where to go and how to do it, I feel peace. I enjoy where I am, and I am grateful for it and at the same time I am excited for new things to come, knowing God will give me the heart for wherever he wants me to be.

My weakest subject is still patience. That was my last years lesson and I hardly passed. I never understood why you have to learn patience. Wouldn’t it be much easier if things simply would happen faster?
But even here I learned not to wait, but to enjoy live in the meantime. That makes it much easier. And there is always something to enjoy.

Final Destiny

Today was the last day in school.
Anton has finished seventh grade and passed. They went to school with their white shirts over their casual clothes for everyone to write on. He will be going to high school next year and that will be a big change. For all of us. Because there is no high school in Stanford and he will not board. We might all move. To the city.

This thought kept us busy the whole week. We went to the German school in Cape Town and liked it very much. I am soo excited thinking about living in the city. I think I had my share of country life now. It was great, I will miss it, but it is time for a change. Nothing is sure for now but we have to decide within the next six weeks. Than school will start. I must hold myself back not getting too excited.

We thought about all the plans that we had made. One of them was to travel the world with the children when they are still young and living with us. Our friend Michael said, while we were waiting for our children: “Yes, traveling the world would be great. As long as it is still there.”

This evening I watched “Edmond” on dvd. It was still light outside. I usually don’t watch movies during the day. I feel guilty doing that, but today it was a lazy hot day. The beginning of the holidays. Luzie was sleeping next to me, exhausted from the school year that has just ended, the sun was shining through the open door into her face and I hang a blanket up the reck where a curtain should be.

David Mamet wrote the screenplay to Edmond. It is not an excellent film, but an excellent script. It has got the best ending I have ever seen. I usually forget every ending but this I will remember forever. A burned out white business guy finding his final destiny in a prison cell in the arms of a black prisoner with a rotten front tooth who had sodomized him. Now I spoiled the movie for you but you might have never watched it anyway. Have a great holiday!

My Boy

Anton age 8

Anton age 10

Anton age 12

Anton two months ago

It was Antons 14th birthday on Friday. Like every birthday I couldn’t believe that is has been 14 years ago when i pushed him into the world. I still remember his birth as it was yesterday. The night in our apartment in Berlin Charlottenburg. My friend U. was with me because Sven was working as a projectionist at a movie theater that night. U. and I watched a movie on my small black and white tv. I was already a week past my due date and again nothing seemed to happen. U. had just decided to sleep over when Sven came home at midnight and the moment he opened the door I had my first contraction. I got up and fired the oven in the bathroom to take a bath. We had only cold water and Kachelöfen in that apartment. I am too scared of hospitals thats why I had my children at home.
My midwife was on holiday and her replacement didn’t hear the beeper. So nobody came until 3 o clock in the morning. I was in the bath for hours. I had never met the midwife before and when she came she said that was her first birth since 10 years. But she was great. Somehow she got me out of the tub and onto the bed. I left marks on Svens and my friends hands and arms when I finally pushed him out. It was 7 o clock in the morning and Sven went out to buy champaign and breakfast to celebrate. Anton was the most beautiful baby. He looked so familiar to me. He had the most perfect nose and ears. He still has.

He went on a big hike with two friends and two girls and Sven the next day. They walked three and a half hours to the rock pools and waterfall. Sven showed me on his camera Anton’s 5 meter jump from the rocks into the water. He never did that before. He seemed changed. He is becoming a man now. This morning I found a paper envelope in my laptop. “From a secret helper” was written in front of it in small skew letters. Inside were 250 Rand. Anton had given me his birthday money because “we need it more than him”. When I gave it back to him with tears in my eyes, he grinned and said, I knew you would give it it back to me anyway.

Dieses Buch wird Ihr Leben Verändern!

Für alle, die es noch nicht haben oder nicht wissen: Unser Buch “Was wir von der Liebe verstehen” kann man jetzt kaufen, leider bisher nur in deutscher Sprache, aber das wird sich bald ändern.

Es ist in der Tat lebensverändernd, man kann es immer wieder lesen, viel lachen, manchmal auch weinen, es ist offen und ehrlich (vielleicht zu ehrlich), was man heutzutage so selten findet wie eine unverbaute Aussicht.
Deshalb kauft es, lest es, vorallem verschenkt es an alle Paare die ihr kennt und solche, die es werden wollen. Und vorallem an die, die ihre Hoffnung an die Liebe glauben verloren zu haben.

Wir haben auch noch einen Blog dazu eingerichtet, in dem wir abwechselnd über die Freuden und Leiden der Liebe schreiben. Sven hat ihn mit einer Geschichte über Vertrauen eröffnet und ich werde bald darauf antworten. Außerdem gibt es Textauszüge und ein Interview zu lesen und kleines Video zu sehen.

Unser Wunsch ist es, noch mehr Autoren zu diesen Themen zu gewinnen so daß ein möglichst vielfältiger und anregender Austausch stattfindet, zu dem wir auch die Leser einladen wollen.

Außerdem schreibt Sven auch noch einen Blog!
Sven also started a blog. Don’t miss it. Yes, we are living in blogworld now!

Loosing Myself

Sven found our video tapes the other day and I looked through all of them. The kids dancing in our Berlin apartement, on rollerblades on the Gendarmenmarkt, Luzie missing her upper front teeth and so much blonder than now. 5 years ago, before we moved to South Africa.

I enjoyed going back in time but it also made me sad. I thought it was because these children are gone forever, these times will never come back, but I also remembered how desperate I was at that time. I saw all these happy moments on camera, the beautiful children, summer in berlin and remembered I wasn’t really there. In my memory, I am absent and I remembered how much my life was determined to wait for something to happen: A new book, a new place to live, the children to get well again, winter to finish, summer to start, the children to grow up.

It seemed as I was always at a place where I was not. Was not or if not. If only… I could be happy, if not… I would feel much better. I had an overwhelming feeling of regret not having enjoyed every moment, realizing how happy they were and that they will never come back. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy my life, we had a great time together, but my underlining feeling was that of being somewhere else in my mind, not being where I should be, not enjoying what I should have enjoyed as much as possible. I worried too much. I looked into the future or into the past while I missed the moment.

It was painful to realize that, but it is also freeing to know that I live differently now, that I have learned to be in the moment and appreciate more what I have.
It was so sad looking back and realizing what I actually had and how little I was able to enjoy it. What a waste. At the same time I was grateful for everything I have right now and I told my husband how much I love him and appreciate him and I know how much he missed me in all these years where I withdrew myself.

Life now feels so much more real to me, I feel soaked, drenched with life. I stopped waiting for things to happen and I think it is because I came out of my snail house, where everything was about me and where I thought I had to take refuge to not loose myself, and instead opened myself as I never did before. And taking the risk of loosing myself, I did find life.

Truth Hunter

I woke up tonight with the sentence: I am a truth hunter. A truth collector.
I don’t remember the exact words. I didn’t write it down, because it was so clear that I thought I wouldn’t forget it.

But it is true. This is what matters most to me. This is the purpose of everything I do. Finding truth. Collecting pieces of truth, looking for them wherever I go and putting them together like puzzle pieces, hoping one day the picture will be complete. And what a picture this will be. That’s what my life is all about.

Nothing gives me more joy than finding truth. Nothing leaves in me in greater desperation than walking in the dark, not knowing right from wrong.

Maybe this is the reason for my “fiction crisis”. I am still searching for a way to put truth into a made up story.

That night I had another dream: Sven came into my room and walked with his big, dirty boots across my sacred carpet, leaving heaps of sand. As I mentioned it to him, he didn’t care at all. It’s true. So much about fiction.

Honor your Parents

Today was a beautiful day again. The air was warm, no wind, very mild, not the typical crisp sea air. Soft and gentle and the smell sweet with a hint of fire. How I love this smell. I wish I could post it. It smelled like Thailand.

K. told me about the healing course she was doing last night. It was about honoring your parents. In Ephesians 6 it says: “This is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you and you will have a long life on earth.” This is a promise!

No matter how good or lousy your parents were, you must honor them, because everything you will hold against them will come back in your own life as an unresolved issue. For example if they disappointed you in a way, people will keep disappointing you in that area or you will perceive them doing it even if they don’t.
This is the relationship of all relationships you have to get right, before the rest of your life will become right. That makes complete sense to me.
The good news is, that even when they messed up, you can still heal by forgiving them. Instead of blaming them.

Found this one-night teahouse in a book I bought the other week. It is called Space Craft. Fleeting architecture and hideouts. Such a great book. Only at home I realized it was German. From Die Gestalten Verlag. Germans are great!

The German in Me

What I love about Cape Town (huhu Taschi) is city next to nature. The city ends and the mountain starts. The ocean on one side and the mountain at the other. You just walk out of the city into the mountain. Or into the sea.

We spent a beautiful quiet week-end on the country side. Met long missed friends, looked at self-made cob-houses and enjoyed the spring.

On Sunday I got unrationaly upset about something. I couldn’t stop talking about it, even in bed. Sven was slowly dozing off while I was still talking to him, he mumbled “maybe it has got something to do with you” and started snoring, while I was still turning the thoughts in my head upside down.

I had a great picture for unpleasant thoughts though, the other day. I would take them and throw them into a big black dustbin and put the lid on top. I would watch the thought rageing in the dust-bin, banging and jumping up and down until it finally calms down and than there is peace.

But this was different because it really bothered me and I had to figure out what I had to do. If I would tell that person that she was wrong or not. I hate doing that. I hate confronting people and because I hate it so much I thought it might be something I should do.

It was still there the next morning. I went for a walk on my own because that it the best way for me to clear my thoughts, and the whole way I held a speech. All these arguments came up and they seemed so right and convincing. I was on fire when I came home, couldn’t wait to fire my speech and suddenly I could see with a clarity I never had before, that I had held the speech for myself. I had to convince myself about this issue. Sven was right, it was all about me.

I laughed out loud. Immediately I felt peace and again understood I can only get myself right. I hope the right and wrong issue is finished for now because I almost got paranoid thinking about being wrong.

Pleasure and Anger

Yesterday we talked about what makes you feel alive and what makes you angry. I like these kind of games.

Being with my friends makes me feel alive. Having heart to heart conversations, getting inspired, learn to look at life differently, finding truth and learning new things.
Eating great food that makes me go mmhhh with every bite, reading great books, looking at great art. Swimming in the river, rolling in the waves, walking through beautiful nature while talking are things that energize me. It is good to remember that and keep doing it as much as possible.

Karin said, the smell of burned plastic makes her angry. I agreed! Bad movies can make me very angry. I watched “Children of Men” the other night. Everything looks great in this movie, but the story is pure rubbish. There simply is no story. That made me angry. If people don’t listen to me makes me angry. Hearing bad and loud music at a place where you can’t get away from it, like shops, public transport or restaurants makes me furious. Bad architecture or design, ugliness that spoils beautiful nature make me angry. Unfriendly, self-righteous and reckless people make me angry. Feeling helpless makes me angry.

I had this dream that night: I was at a spa-like-casino-restaurant place. I had to pay for being there and the service was very bad. I tried to stay friendly. The two (young, smart looking) guys who run the place were rude, but I tried not to upset them and get along with them. But when they switched the electricity off while I was playing a game, I went to the bar to complain because I had paid for it.
The guy looked at me disgusted and said: “Can you speak into the other direction, your breath stinks”. I didn’t feel angry, I felt humiliated.

Sticky Rice And Cranberry-Juice

There are three things that Sven and I can’t do together:

#1 is dancing. We tried it at one of the first nights we went out together at the Kumpelnest, my favorite bar in Berlin at that time. He moved double my speed and we fortunately ended up kissing very soon, which we managed much better. I never really gave him a chance, but every time we stand next to each other and he starts moving to music, he is too fast.

#2 is playing cards. I mean serious card games, especially Doppelkopf. In Doppelkopf the two queens of spade play together. You have to find out during the game who is your partner. This is a very serious game and Sven played it for the first time and he didn’t take it serious. He just laughed when we lost after he made a major mistake. I nearly broke up with him. We decided not to take the risk to ever play cards together.

#3 is cooking. We always fight when we cook together. I like to stick to recipes, he is more an adventurous cook. That bares some risks but also leads to a lot of experience and often amazing results. He is the chef in this family, he does 95 percent of the cooking, but I still don’t trust him when I watch him cooking and I still think it is sometimes not a bad choice to follow a recipe.

It became a habit in the last weeks to invite friends for lunch on Sundays. Yesterday we decided (I decided) to cook a green Thai curry which we didn’t have for a long time. I looked up the recipe in the internet and we shopped together. Sven listened to me when I read the recipe to him and we started cooking together. And it actually worked out. We didn’t fight at all. I had some questions but he politely answered them and I was happy. We were so proud of ourselves that we finally had managed to cook together and it was fun!

Only at the end, the rice he cooked turned sticky. I hate sticky rice and if there is anything we both never mess up, it is rice. Very easy. You take the same amount rice and water, (maybe a little bit more water) put the lid on the pot and leave it on, bring the water to boil and switch off the heat, if you have an electric stove. The rice will turn out perfectly.

There was only little rice left in the package. I cooked it and when I opened the lid, the rice was just as sticky as the first lot. I apologized to him and repented and came to the insight that I still have to trust him more. The Rice was mixed with the curry anyway and it was delicious.

Our guests brought a great summer-drink: mix (Stoney) Ginger-beer, Cranberry-juice, (about 2/3 ginger-beer, 1/3 juice), the juice of two limes (on 1 Liter, put the limes also in the bowl), ice and fresh peppermint leaves. It is delicious!

The highlight of our Sunday lunches is a walk along the river. Even it was drizzling yesterday, we went and it was beautiful. We watched the yellow weaverbirds in the reed and the dark clouds moving over the mountain. I love talking while walking. It is always very special.

Unfortunately my laptop is sick again and I can’t upload any photos on this one until Sven has fixed it. He can fix almost everything. The first time he came to my house he fixed the light-bulb in front of my apartment door, so I won’t have to fumble with my key in the dark when I come home late, as I did for weeks before I met him. That was when I decided he is the one.