Living the Moment

I write. I draw. I adventure. I do a lot of other things, too.

[racheladler]

As seen in Deutschland: four months of the bizarre, the funny, the disturbing.

[racheladler]

West Village street corner

But:

here’s the city painted all around you, awash in light,

and here’s your heart pumping pump pump

your cheeks all flushed.

The city is you

and you are twirling twirl twirl in a red dress

so fast until the world becomes

just a continuous swath of rotating fabric.

[racheladler]

This list of what, where & with whom I ate from April 2010 reads like a poem. And I love it.

Panera

Smoothie

Bagel

Tacos

Blackbird with Frank

Egg

Pizza with Hillel and Farhim

Tal’s

Rohr’s

M&Ms

Pizza

Bagel

Mexican diner

French place

Gun pizza

Carrot bread

Coffee with Frank

Breakfast with Ro

Ray’s with Brendan

Smoothie

Agave

Panera

[racheladler]

Street art (building art?) -- Rome, Italy

[racheladler]

I  have discovered that most of the beauties of travel are due to the strange hours we keep to see them: ~ the domes of the Church of the Paulist Fathers in Weehawken against a smoky dawn -- the heart stirred-- are beautiful as Saint Peters approached after years of anticipation.

William Carlos Williams, January Morning

[racheladler]

Pompeii, both the ruins and the modern sculptures set throughout those ruins, blew my mind.

[racheladler]

That’s not Colorado, she said. That’s heaven.

[racheladler]

Pieces of a summer: Athens, Greece

[racheladler]

Thoughts: Early 2015

Write as though it means something anymore. A coffee shop on a blind Wednesday in downtown Boulder & the tables are the same & the people are the same & my jeans are the same.

I want to write, for real, from my heart as they say, but there’s no time & when there’s no time, there’s no heart.

It’s easy to relegate your living to reading through Facebook posts and drowning in some app or another and counting your cups of coffee or calories and ticking off chores on a list. It’s very easy not to be brave or to confine bravery to small moments.

But I don’t want small. Or I don’t want only small. Because if the hikes and cups of coffee and new sneakers aren’t against a backdrop of something larger, what are they?

A wooden table, a phone, a crumpled napkin. Another Wednesday. March has come melty and full of promise and despair. Maybe I will walk.

[racheladler]

A perfect early August weekend in Paris. I love that city.

[racheladler]

3:40am, listening to the Zagreb traffic outside my window

This morning, I drank a frappe on a park bench in Athens, watching stray cats pounce toward groups of idling pigeons. Yesterday, I stood on top of the Acropolis. Tomorrow, we head for Makarska and then the waterfalls of Plitvice Lakes National Park.

In August of my 23rd year, having just graduated college but not yet started my full-time, grown-up job, I convinced myself that it was my “last real summer.” I love how wrong I was.

[racheladler]

On my second trip to Scotland, we visited Edinburgh and the Highlands. It was chilly and rainy and I had not packed appropriately, but all I could focus on was the unearthly beauty of the place and how clear it was that I must go back again one day.

[racheladler]

The Colosseum (Rome)

The last month has been a huge adventure. I’ve been traveling quite a bit -- most notably to Scotland and Italy (within a week!) and there’s more travel coming up later this summer. I really, really love being so close to so many beautiful and exciting places.

It’s also been over six months since we moved here to Germany. My German is coming along, I’ve made some friends, and I’ve found myself to be much happier in general than I was in the States. Here’s to the next six!

[racheladler]

Homesickness

This, too, is a real part of being an expat, and something that I’ve been struggling with in the last two (very rainy) weeks. Mostly I’m homesick for New York, sometimes for Colorado, and sometimes even just for America generally. Things for which I’d never expect to have any nostalgia start worming through my brain. I’ll say it: I’ve actually gotten homesick for Walgreens. Walgreens!

 This even as I slowly grow aware of the ways in which Germany is a more accommodating place to live (and, dare I say it? better in many, many ways).

Still, some perspective: I’ve been taking a German course for the last few months. Most of my classmates are Syrian refugees. I’ve become fairly close with one woman in particular and she’s told me about her struggles with homesickness. Only she can’t go home. And even if she could, her hometown would look nothing like the place she’s homesick for.

Yes, I’m homesick, too, but I get to go back. And in the meantime, I’ll let myself grow more attached to Erlangen so that one day I can be homesick for this time and this place.

[racheladler]

I'm looking for a nice girl for to have fun.

A very earnest dude in the park near Erlangen’s Bergkirchweih festival 

Official winner of Most Direct Pick-Up Line Ever

[racheladler]

Blau Nacht was every bit as magical as I thought it might be. And in addition to all the blue light and ridiculous art installations, there was so much happening everywhere I looked, so many people! There was even a building where the consulates of various countries put on dance shows and gave out free food. Free baklava!!!

Spring, it turns out, is a pretty great time to fall in love with Franconia.

[racheladler]

A Season of Festing

May has always been my favorite month. This, of course, is in part because its status as my birth month makes me a bit biased. But mainly it’s because it’s when everything starts to grow, when the air starts getting warm, when the days begin to stretch out into night hours. It’s also so far away from the winter that I can begin to forget the world was ever cold and can make myself believe that I will never again need my winter coat.

(You can imagine my intense sadness when, while living in Colorado for seven years, I had to get used to the fact that it inevitably snowed or even blizzarded at least once or twice each May.)

In any case, May in Erlangen is really the golden season. Festivals dot the calendar. As of May 2nd, I’ve already been to one (albeit a small one). But coming up (!!!) are two particularly exciting festivals:

- Blau Nacht in Nuremberg on May 7th. On this enchanted evening, the city of Nuremberg replaces every bulb in its public areas with a blue one. Considering that the city is already wonderfully haunted at night with its medieval architecture, this seems something beyond my capacity to imagine. Also, lots of public buildings, museums, etc., are open and free.

- Bergkirchweih here in Erlangen from May 12th to May 23rd. Think Oktoberfest in Munich, then subtract the commercialization and make the attendees almost all German. It’s bier, bier, bier on the pretty hillside of Burgberg and over 1 million people from across the country come in their dirndls and lederhosen to partake in the joy. 

What’s more? Music festivals, nighttime flea markets, and a citizenry that emerges from their houses and takes to the streets, the outdoor cafes, the parks, the hiking trails. 

Plus, at the end of the month, one of my best friends in the world is visiting from America!

Happy May, everyone!