Wasser ist Leben   

Water is life       Agua es vida       Lebenswasser

Eau de vie :)

Water can also be deadly, sweep us away, trap, kill, and drown us. Like it happened to 165 people ­– the numbers still rising – in Germany, Holland and Belgium, just a couple of days ago. “Climate Change” needs to be renamed: CLIMATE EMERGENCY. Now that disasters are hitting more and more wealthy parts of the world, this might help to bring about the right mindset and determination to meet the rapidly accumulating catastrophes worldwide. The earth needs no saving; she is rebalancing herself with the help of the atmosphere and cosmos. We humans need a major reset, a humble and creative attitude. My sister Dinah and her husband – in Germany – are among those scientists who have been warning us for the past 40 years. In the end, it comes down to the simple and difficult fact that affluent countries need to consume less.

In the sixties, my inventive father started insulating our refrigerator and walls. He put hard-to-find solar panels he constructed himself on the roof for hot water. All around us thought he was nuts. He though knew what was coming, 6o yeas ago. We grew up in very frugal ways, including rationing of our food. But Mama and Papa made it fun for us three siblings. Adventure, experimentation, art – it did us good, kept us creative and awake.

All of our furniture, including lamps, were hand-built. Our home looked quite different from a typical, still very conformist post-war German household. Being poor meant making the most out of everything: repair, recycle, refurbish, re-use, invent. (60 years ahead.) Every boring hand-down clothing, skirts, boots, jackets, I painted with intense colors. I begged my mother to let me chose use brightly patterned fabric for the pants she sewed me. On my way home from school being ridiculed, even stoned and beaten by other kids, I fought back like a lioness. Not just to protect my brother or my own skin, but also to tell the world that different does not mean less. You have money for candy, comic books, and new shoes – we have riches you don’t know: music, art, poetry, Rilke, Balzac, Heine, Bach, Mozart. We were odd outsiders, neither bohemian, nor true lower working class. We were lonely, but “rich” in my child’s view.

Water was our main drink. Sometimes Mama put a tiny bit of sugar in it. After the 6 kilometers hike up the hill from school, we would gobble and gobble, gulping it down loudly. Wasser und Brot. Water and bread. Wonderful.

How come we are not more concerned about protecting and conserving water

and true riches for our grand children?

Wasser ist Leben.