October is a golden month here in California – it is the light that softens, allowing for golden hues. This ordinary midweek day ends with a balmy evening. The sunset turns golden, endlessly golden… The air is still, the bay lies calm – our Atmospheric River on the weekend has cleaned out all harshness… The neighborhood is quiet, my cicadas in the front patio are chirping steadily. Their loud polyrhythms add another level of magical contentedness. Pleasing moisture in the air soothes each breath and makes me forget the never-ending brutal dryness of the long long summer months. As the night falls, shades of pink and light blue in the sky paint moments of timelessness and endings…fading into darkness… alive with cicada song….
Let Us Be Careful The last few days, a feeling of being adrift in a vast tumultuous ocean…. I am stirred deeply. Uneasy. The recent bizarre speeches of American politicians in Germany have left me strangely irritated. The arrogant tone, the hostility. As most of you know, I am now officially both a German Citizen and an American Citizen . Both countries with their histories and cultures are lodged in my bones. Ich bin tief verbunden . In telephone talks with my two siblings, I try to find out how things are evolving in Germany, the country I left 44 years ago. In recent years, cultural transformations of unknown outcome have been happening. Again, times of war in Europe. It does not bode well for the future. The weight of the Unknown. Generational and personal memories keep arising. In 1992, I arrange for my (Chicago born Jewish) late husband Bob Blauner and me (München born German) a personal tour of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. W...
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