I recall the coolness the moment I stepped into the hall, and I remember the odor of wood polish. It was July and I was seventeen. 

I might have looked like I had a lot going on, but I didn’t. Coming from the north by car, I was deposited into the care of my father’s German translator by my American Field Service host and hostess who didn’t quite know what to do with me. 

Tecklenburg had been a strain. It was a small and cosy town on a hill with a medieval ruin in Westfalia. A theater had been set up between the walls of the former castle. Along with the members of my host family, I stood on stage in the rain dressed in a Hungarian costume and sang the choir’s soprano line in the summer season’s production. A syrupy operetta entitled “Der Zigeunerbaron” topped the bill.

In Munich, I discovered that my father’s German translator and his wife were people I could easily relate to and they didn’t expect me to act like a teenager. I wasn’t interested in teenager things. I wanted to pound city pavement and stare at the kind of architectural wonders that are not found in California.

So instead of watching episodes of Hertz zu Hertz in German on a hill in Westfalia, I stood observing the shadows falling around the beam of light that hazily pieced through the windows of the old apartment building on Daiserstrasse. The lightness and darkness and browns and greys shifting softly and silently over the staircase at the back of the wide hallway. It was summer and it was hot and the staircase was polished and cool. 

Just once I would love to stand there again.

“I’ve got an appointment,” Ilse said to me. She doesn’t live in Munich anymore. They moved to a university town outside the city and their building’s hallway smells satisfactorily of wood polish. Whenever I enter, I always take a moment to inhale deeply and relax.

Ilse explained she had decided to get her teeth straightened. I got her point, but I thought with regret that had she had her teeth straightened when I first met her, I would never have thought of her as uniquely European. Then again, she’s nearly eighty and she wants her teeth to look better assembled. She feels it’s about time. It’s quite understandable.

Spring is advancing and summer is coming, and the landlord’s tidy garden surrounding my father’s translator’s flat has turned a hearty and lush green. And I love the summer time in southern Germany. I love it when it gets warm, the birds sing and I listen to Bavarians speak about bike tours and the weather. It’s always a vacation, a real vacation.

*

Dreaming of an Impossible Strawberry in Germany

Ruminating that
I’ll have to fix that
when I woke up that
small unripe strawberry
its twisted white-ish 
bottom quite incorrect
that
that
then
whoosh
out of 
my reach

*


I Thought of An Ex-Friend While in Freising DE

a bloody pinkish red
concentrated vitamin juice
travel sized bottles in bottom bin
- nearly lying on the floor -
the overflowing drugstore has everything

last time, that was the last time
I was collecting unique items
as advent calendar gifts 
like, much appreciated,
my friend in America
had previously sent me

then, well back then you know
it was the time of corona so when
the empty plane landed in Seattle 
I proudly presented
- all wrapped up - 
the vitamin concentrate, and of course
twenty-two other small Bavarian treasures plus
a first edition 1930-something novel
a female French author to be sure
hardbound and last minute addition to be sure

my friend tucked the Advent bag away, turning to
the closet nearest her, saving it for the coming yuletide
 - her dog nipped at me - 

I thought I was doing okay
definitely not well off  
 -  basically......you might say....comfortable -
I fancied maybe a handbag
such as my friend kept
on her kitchen counter 
only days later to learn 
a price tag for thousands of dollars
hung on it, even when second hand
and it was second hand

what was it again? 
her dog nipped at me
reminds me now:
the small candle both 
donation and token for a prayer 
sourced at a Baroque church in Passau
I thought my ex-friend would
particularly enjoy
being Catholic and all

Some days I imagine my ex-friend on a loop
chucking the whole bag of Advent items into a box of old clothes,
driving it out of her driveway in the trunk of her white BMW
and handing it over to the folks 
at the Salvation Army 
or the Goodwill
she didn’t need me 
like I needed her

we don’t talk anymore
from social media postings
I see she still has her dog