Warm and Safe

I just realized that it's been a while since I wrote in my blog about my two beautiful babes, Miss Mia and Baby Li. Lord knows, we've been spending a lot of time inside these days what with there not being a sun anymore and everything....Most afternoons we go to the Marheinke Markthalle, the indoor market about a ten minute walk from our apartment. It's a bit pricey of course, but you can get great produce there and a decent cheap lunch at one of the many food stands. They also have an ice cream place (gold star from the girls) and a toy stand with lots of cheap goodies (double gold stars from the girls). Mia especially loves it there. On any given afternoon I might say to her, "Mia, do you want to go to the library/museum/playground/zoo?" to which she'll inevitably answer, "No mama, I just want to go to the Markthalle."

One of her new favorite games is to roll this jumbo silver marble, which I bought for her at (you guessed it) the toy stand, down the stairs and across the hall. She's very careful not to get in anyone's way and there's plenty of room, but she (or rather I) still get some scowls from the sour puss Germans. I'm sure I'll get Berliner Schnauze about it someday (Berliner big mouth- I SO need to write a post about this...) but I already know what my answer will be: Eine kinderunfreundliche Kultur ist eine tote Kultur." A culture unfriendly to children is a dead culture.

Besides irritating Germans with her child-like frivolity (a lot of Germans, or at least Berliners, still most definitely believe in the virtue to be seen not heard and of course kept on a short leash....), Miss Mia is also very much in love with her stuffed duck, LuLee, which she chose out herself from a thrift store in Oakland. That he's a duck is no coincidence considering that she was obsessed with this vintage cartoon of the Ugly Duckling for a good four months.



The first time she saw it she came to me and burst into tears. "Mama, nobody loves that little duck. He was all alone." For weeks afterward she was obsessed with the good mama versus the bad mama and how important it is to keep your babies warm and safe, pretty heavy stuff for a three year old. But she's such a sensitive little soul. And a good mama to her little duck I must say. She actually lost him today on the way zum Bäcker with daddy. Jasper re-traced his steps while Mia got frantic, but no LuLee anywhere. Finally, he saw a woman who lives at the home for the handicapped on Blücherstrasse where the duck was lost and for some reason he had a hunch. He asked her if she had seen the duck and, low and behold, she pulled it out of her purse. Later Mia told me: "Mama, that lady was so nice. My duck was all alone and she took such good care of him. She kept him warm and safe."

While Mia is sensitive and sometimes thin-skinned, Baby Li is a gregarious little creature that just lets everything roll off her back (and also doesn't take her mama's scolding the least bit seriously...) I often call Mia my little cloud while Lilly is my little mountain. Solid. Compact. Jolly enough to constantly make even Berliners smile. She looks quite a bit like I did as a child and I love to dress her up in vintage dresses I find on my thrifting escapades. This little cherry red rick rack number is exactly like something I would have worn circa 1976.

While Lilly also likes watching the Ugly Duckling, it doesn't have the same effect on her as it does on Mia. Mostly these days she likes to watch these cartoons we found about Ganesha and Krishna on YouTube (god bless YouTube!) Really great stories. I love what brats the Hindu gods sometimes are, not to mention the fabulous Indian accent and turns of phrase. The two videos below are her two current favorites.



(I'm not sure why Brahaman's two hot young daughters were any good for "settling the burning sensation" in Ganesha's body, but maybe you have to be a god to understand these things.)



(Hmm...That snake also has four hot young wives. Maybe they are onto something.)

In addition to being schooled in Hindu mythology, Lilly seems to have her first pre-school crush. The lucky lad is the new one in the group, a Lebanese boy named Malikikin. Lilly literally called his name in her sleep a few nights ago and since then says several times a day: "Malikikin is a nice boy." Ah, young love.

Well, I better be off to bed as it's quite late. Tomorrow we might bake cookies again with the vintage cookie cutters I bought from the shop the Pink Cobweb when I was in California. I'm pretty sure I had that pig when I was a kid. The others in the set include Humpty Dumpty (both Mia and Lilly went through a huge Humpty phase, though it has died down a bit), Jack and Jill, a windmill and lamb and a rather sinister looking clown. I remember how much I loved using cookie cutters when I was a kid and how beautiful the cookies always were. A few days ago the three of us put on our aprons from another etsy shop, Boojiboo, and started baking. I never realized how hard it actually is to use cookie cutters. Jack and Jill looked like monstrous blobs and Humpty was hardly recognizable. But the cookies still tasted good and the girls had fun. Come to think of it, that's all that really matters.

A Plague Of Paparazzi Parents

Today Jasper, I and the girls went out to visit some friends who had rented a house in the Choriner Schorfheide. The Choriner Schorfheide is an rural area in the former East German state of Brandenburg. When you drive through the area you come across village after village, some of them picturesque, most of them depressing, the locals (if you even see them because they seem to stay in doors) often making neanderthals look overly civilized. Still, the nature there is truly beautiful and the area is well worth a visit, especially from city slickers like ourselves. We met our friends at this lake. It was a beautiful late summer day with just a dash of Herbst in the air, so all was well.
When we later drove to the woods, Miss Mia got a little spooked out. We've experienced this before when we rented a place in the same area a few months ago. Ten minutes into our hike she said she was scared and wanted to go back to the nice apartment. What can I say? I'm raising city kids. She was ok at the lake, though I suppose that's probably because it at least had a parking lot.
At some point I took her to this little shed up on the hill to take some photographs. She's used to this since both Jasper and I are hobby photographers. A little to the right. No, a little to the left. Now hold still. She knows better than to give us an overly posed smile.
Part of me thinks this is great. We have so many beautiful photographs of the girls and it's always the perfect opportunity to practice a little portrait photography. Still, the other part of me has to wonder, Jesus, are we warping them? From the very beginning we've both been constantly shoving these lenses in their faces, the plague of the paparazzi parents.
A while ago, I saw a documentary about the Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.
He takes photographs of everything, including the death of his wife, including his many adventures with prostitutes. Although he has sometimes been criticized for this, he said his impulse has always been to document everything. I think I can understand him.
For example, shortly after I took this photograph I confiscated Little Li's pacifier because I wanted to take better photographs. But the photographs I ended up taking were mainly of her protesting, her arms outstretched, screaming for her pacifier. Sometimes I've taken photographs of the girls crying instead of comforting them. But then, I think such photos are important. These are the times we spend together and I want to capture them.
But, getting away from my thoughts and back to the day, Little Li and I took a nice walk in the woods, me in only my bikini, she in only her diaper. We climbed together for a while on these fallen logs and, of course, I took more photographs.
Someday, in her early teenage years, Little Li is probably going to want to have a killer tan but look at how white this arm is. A pale complexion and red hair. Sorry Little Li, god or whoever might be up there will say, it ain't gonna happen!
Here is a little self-portrait of my foot. I'm sure it's not hard to imagine that I have never ever in my life had a pedicure....
Later our friends went into the forest and collected some Steinpilze (I don't know what the English translation is, but big-ass mushrooms would suffice I think.)
We all went back to the house they had rented where they started slicing up the mushrooms for a pasta sauce or a soup or to lay out on a loaf of bread. Who knows? But we had to be heading back as the babies were getting mighty grumpy (and grumpy babies forced to stay up often means grumpy babies for a couple of days=not worth the risk!!)
On the way back we passed by this eerie swamp. The water was completely covered in duck weed and all the trees were dead (drowned I suppose, though it seems strange that a tree could drown.) Every once in a while you could see a ripple under the duck weed or an occasional abrupt leap from a frog. Creepy to say the least....
Good night, freaky swamp in the Choriner Schorfheide. Good night friends who have now most likely fallen into a gorged-with-Steinpilze-slumber. Good night babies, your paparazzi parents will greet you in the morning. Good night, anyone who reads this blog, oh yeah, and thanks for reading. :)

(Re)Discovering Crafting, Berganza and More

So it's been a tough couple of weeks because the Kita (pre-school) has been closed since the beginning of August. People who don't have small kids can't possibly know what it is like to have them full time. Not one iota of down time ever (and don't you dare try to take one because you'll just be asking for trouble!!) Baby burnout hardcore to say the least, plus an absolute respect for any parents who are doing this full time with no nannies, babysitters or pre-schools....

To give myself a break, I did get our fantastic Ami (American) babysitter to come for three hours this afternoon. What a fabulous time that was. I rode my bike through a virtual rainstorm but I didn't care. On Goltzstrasse in Schöneberg I wrote a bit in Cafe Savo (mentioned in my previous post) but mainly just cycled around. I (re)discovered the fantastic old school Bastelladen (craft store) Hobbyshop Wilhelm Rüther on the same street. Great stuff at great prices and a true Berliner charm, with middle-aged ladies with thick Berlin accents getting excited when you pay in cash because they get to use the antique cash register from (I would guess) the 1950s. Anyway, it inspired me to make some new things for Schaufenster for pretty much the first time this summer.

At home I poured myself a glass of wine and started crafting, with one of my YouTube playlists playing in the background. I hadn't listened to this particular playlist in a while and I made another great (re)discovery of one of my favorite classical singers, the Spanish Mezzo-Soprano Teresa Berganza singing several songs composed by Federico Garcia Lorca (yes, as in the famous poet. Apparently he also sometimes composed songs.) Truly beautiful. I thought I'd post them here because they just might change your mind about classical singing (assuming that, like most people, you don't particularly care for it....)

Lessons Learned

So I learned a lot of valuable lessons today. Lesson Number One: Do not take a small child who is already potty trained to a museum where the bathroom is far away from the exhibits not to mention two floors down in the basement when you already know said child has a case of the runs.
Lesson Number Two: You will become your parents. I always hated telling my dad I had to go to the bathroom when we were in the car on long road trips between California and Arizona because his inevitable, irritated question was always "Why didn't you go the last time?"
But today, when Miss Mia told me she had to go diarrhea I rushed her and little Little Li across the museum and into the elevator as fast as their little toddler legs could carry them. Once we finally got to the bathroom she told me she didn't have to go anymore. We took the elevator back up and started looking at the dinosaurs only to have her tell me ten minutes later that she had to go. I scolded her. "Why didn't you go the last time?" I said. This time she really did have to go, so how can I blame her (and yes, in case you're wondering, we did make it on time.)
Lesson Number Three: When you are trying to wean a child who is very adamant about not being weaned as in screaming, flailing limbs, pawing at your chest, etc. do not, I repeat, do not wear that cute little vintage dress that you can not zip up or down by yourself in case giving in is simply the best solution.
Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity has probably figured out the museum I went to was the beloved Naturkunde Museum, i.e. Museum of Natural History. (you can click here to read a post I wrote about it in May). And yes, even with all these lessons being learned I still has time to snap a few photos and contemplate on why exactly it is that I'm so fascinated by dead things. ;)

Somebody's Mother

A few days ago Miss Mia and I had our photograph taken together at the photo booth on Zossenerstrasse next to Rossmann drugstore. We sat on the swivel chair, once painted to look a toad stool but now kind of brown and gunky-looking, put 2 Euros in the slot, smiled into the glass plate in front of the camera and then waited five minutes for the photographs to come out of the slot.
We've already taken photographs from this photo booth before. They are all hanging up on the metal utility box in our hallway; long strips of four, passport size old school black and white photos. I knew what to expect. But when this strip came out and was finally dry enough to touch, something was a little different. I looked at my smiling face in each of the photographs and thought "Oh my god. I look like somebody's mother."
Of course, it dawned on me about a half a second later that I AM somebody's mother, two somebodies even. But how did this ever happen? And what exactly does it mean to be "somebody's mother"? No question about it, the word "mother" certainly is loaded....
On several occasions I've run into old girlfriends of Jasper's, all of whom are lawyers or judges or professors. Although all of them were nice, things always got a little sticky each time they asked me what I do. I told them I've taught, I write, I sing and, oh yeah, I stay at home with the kids. Each time I mentioned this I could see that same flash in their eyes, that same faint outline of a smirk. "The woman who Jasper married is just a mother."
Sometimes I think this is a way in which feminism has gone wrong. Certainly it was necessary for women to emancipate themselves and it was terrible when motherhood was the only respectable choice they really had. But to be "just a mother" is certainly a derogatory term, especially among women; somehow, as a woman, you are less. Still, I have to admit the women who live in the land of Mommydom are the ones I feel the hardest to be around. You can see them at just about every playground, dressed in sweatpants and talking about pre-schools and after-school programs and baby yoga and diapers. I hope they are happy in Mommydom and, if they are, then more power to them, but the truth is, they freaking scare me....
But what does it really mean then, to be somebody's mother? It means a lot of things, but one of the main ones is sacrifice: For a long time, your needs simply come second. I don't mean you do this out of responsibility, though that is of course part of it, but simply because this is what they deserve. Everyone in the world deserves to have a beginning where they are cherished and loved, where they are kept warm and safe, where they are the first priority, but so many people don't. This is your chance to give that to another person and, really, it's an honor. If they don't get it now they will search for it the rest of their life and there's a good chance they will never find it.
No one in the world can probably wound you as deeply as your mother can wound you. I've found this scary sometimes and I think it's the reason so many mothers feel the pressure to be perfect. But you're only human and you do have needs and they are important even if they often come in second. And wounds do heal. They can and they do, but in their place there will always be a scar. Then again, the most interesting people I know are the people who have scars.

At Least One Pair of Impractical Shoes A Day

I have not exactly been leading a high-heel life these past few years. Then again, I've always had problems with heels in Berlin. A lot of the streets and most of the sidewalks are made of uneven cobblestones and, believe you me, nothing shreds a good pair of heels faster. My feet have also gotten a bit wider over the years and, since heels tend to run narrow, this means a rather painful breaking in process. But I walk a lot (no car in Berlin) and I don't really like pain. These reasons combined with the fact that I've been spending so much time in sandboxes means that I just don't wear heels all that much. But I still love them. Every time I go thrifting I inevitably buy a pair or two even though I know they will probably just end up gathering dust in the back of my closet....


But my life has changed. Baby Li is now at pre-school five hours a day along with Miss Mia and I've been riding my bike all over town. Although high-heels still aren't the most ideal biking shoes, it's still much easier than walking around in them all day. So that's my goal: At least one pair of impractical shoes a day to celebrate my new found freedom. The shoes that I started the post with are actually pretty comfortable (for heels, that is..) I wore them the other day to Flughaften Tempelhof where I found a nice, secluded place off of hidden path with the lovely view above of the amber waves of grain (give me a break. I just remembered it's the 4th of July! ;) ) and the old radio tower.


I laid down my bike on its side, tossed my purse aside and pulled out a writing notebook along with Blancy, my Meisterstück Mont Blanc fountain pen.


The pen was actually a "wedding present" from my first husband (in " " because we didn't really have a wedding, just an elopement for green card purposes.....but that's another story that shall be told at another time...) because I wanted him to prove to me that he could give me something beautiful and expensive yet also luxurious and unnecessary. He did do it, but it totally went against his nature as, by nature he was very cheap. I think he literally broke out in hives afterwards....I couldn't use the pen for a few years after we split up, but now it seems enough time has passed that I feel ok about it. And there's nothing like writing with a fountain pen, let alone a Mont Blanc.


I also went over some of the songs Marcio and I are working on. We have a pretty good line up now of some jazz standards, some samba and bossa nova and some latin pieces. Now we just are on the look-out for other musicians as well as a low-key gig where we can get started. We'll see....For now I'm just so happy I have my bag, my bike, my heels and Tempelhof. ;)

One Woman, One Camera, One Love

I had my two babies when I was ready to have my two babies and I've never regretted it. Still, what no one tells you before you get that bun in the oven is that, with small children, it will be several years before your life is truly your own again. If you're breastfeeding forget about going out at night because there's nothing like getting that "Come home now for a midnight feeding," call when you're hanging out in some swanky cocktail bar. Not that you will even have the energy for swanky cocktail bars or, indeed, swankiness of any kind because running after small children all day and dealing with tantrums and wiping little bottoms clean can take it out of you in a way that almost nothing else can...But now that my youngest, Little Li is finally in pre-school and (nearly) weaned, my life finally has some more room for, well, me.


Today I met up with Erica, a good friend of mine who is also an American ex-pat (a Michigander) who has lived in Berlin just a few months less than me (counting in at ten years, baby!) We strolled down Oranienstrasse, my old haunt and still where she currently hangs, where I relived old times.


Oranienstrasse is still in Kreuzberg, but it's Kreuzberg SO36, not Kreuzberg 61 where I live. For anyone who knows San Francisco, the difference between the two areas is like the difference between The Mission and Noe Valley: one is grittier, more intense, younger and quite hipster-filled while the other is a bit older, with organic food loving parents of small children who still want to live an urban life. Although I still go to Oranienstrasse sometimes, I mainly spend my time in Bergmann and Graefekiez, so spending the afternoon there is like visiting an old friend. And with my camera in hand...




I peeked in at Bierhimmel, a gay run cafe with an 80 percent gay clientele where I used to spend a lot of time. Just look at these gorgeous cakes they have there. Gooey and decadent but, unlike their American counterparts, none of them will be sickly sweet. If I weren't trying to loose a bit of weight this summer, I swear....;)


Afterward Erica and I headed for Bateau Ivre, a very hip cafe with good coffee and tapas and, also, notoriously bad hipster service (when we asked the waiter for the bill he mutter a very surly "Sure." and then disappeared for at least 20 minutes. Ach, Berlin!) We had lots of good girl talk there...


...and drank some good coffee....


...and did some good people watching through the large window open onto the street.



When I went to the bathroom I took a self portrait in the mirror, a habit that has a well-established tradition for me at Bateau Ivre (the second picture is a self portrait I took in that very same bathroom circa 2005.)









After we had somehow managed to pay the bill at Bateau Ivre (they were lucky we just didn't walk out as we easily could have...) I went with Erica and sat with her as she had a Sushi special, delicious and only 5 Euros baby. Berlin, thank you oh so much for still being so ridiculously affordable....



After sushi, Erica and I wandered down Oranienstrasse which had now transformed itself....


...into Christopher Street Day. The second one this month. This one had the march.
















Happy CSD, happy freedom, happy shutter bugging and to all a good night. ;)