30 Jan 25

Went to the Rat for lunch today and yeah, I got the Schweinerückensteak, a kleine portion that was still too big. Convinced mom to forgo the Kaiserschmarrn in favor of a walk. Almost broke down for some reason. Taken by the moment, being there. Here—

Sat on a small bench by the river and felt instantly calmed by the water flowing. Little bird sounds and water rushing from a nearby inlet where it cascaded beneath a concrete embankment, a hollow mouth. The water level was high, not far from my feet, with little brown leaves along the edges. Off in the distance you could see where the land slopes downwards, where I end my daily walks. Here was the bottom of the town, just on the other side of the old wall, not far from the train station or the bakery where mom and I made a daily practice of going for an afternoon coffee and something sweet. They only had three tables but we got one every time.

I had a bad way of over sentimentalizing things. Anything was fair game. Even today’s lunch, which wasn’t remarkable. But it was a moment of everyday living we had together and we didn’t get that so often. I’d gone a couple years I think without seeing my mom around Covid. And the frequency of our visits was only annual now, for a couple of weeks.

I sat by the river with my phone writing until my hands got cold and brought my attention back to the river. Life sure was like that too, a river. This afternoon it just felt like I had time to kill, until my next meeting. With the time difference I had to wait for the States to wake up and meetings started around 1800. The water looked brownish-gray and unclean. It ran past the ugly factory a ways down where our friends say they used to dump chemicals. Nature has a way of working through all that it seems, so do we.

Some walks in the town had nostalgic significance and here was one by the river: the section I walked with Lily on her last day of kindergarten in 2009. I remember trying to have a serious conversation with her then to mark her achievement and I took a picture of her with her brown and pink vest.

Killing time this afternoon I also took the nostalgic walk through the cemetery, remembering our first fall here, what it was like one day when summer seemed to just pack up and leave. Brooding on a bench for the first time in that graveyard, cluing into the falling leaves and low-angled light.

I understood well why mom loved this place but I worried the old house would become too much for her, and would she let me help her or push me away? 

They put her birthday in the local paper—they do that once you hit a certain age—and that explained all the greetings she got from people she doesn’t know. Today mom saw her neighbor Bernard in the Edeka and he was saying something in German about me being here to help her fill out paperwork, suggesting something morbid, like maybe she was sick and signing over the house, making arrangements? The locals have been speculating about that, why am I here, why now? And she hasn’t been looking so well…

I lay on my back by the kitchen banquette looking at the ceiling fachwerk beams, put on a favorite record really loud, pretended I lived here all on my own with no sadness or loss. It was really hard to be in the present like that but the only way to let go and live. I could never do it.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, Travelogues

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, journal writing, Memoir, travel