Karinaland River

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...

  Tikkun Olam Pledges Saturday, I start lining the patio with chairs, Afghani stools, and benches, to create a big oval space. Around the perimeter I pin fabric from all over the world. This funky outdoor living room will be holding together the circle of guests and food, memories and hope. For four decades, I collected them: keffiyehs from Syria and Palestine, embroidered fabric from Mexico, Guatemala and India, woven cloth from Berber nomads in Sinai. I envisage these weavings to embrace all of us so we can become courageous, caring world citizens.  It just so happens that no photos are taken at my Citizenship Celebration on  Sunday October 20  here in Karinaland . Is it divine direction?    War, chaos, disaster – it has happened before, it is happening right now all over the world. I myself was born into moral and literal physical rubble of post-war Germany. Till age 27, I grew up in an era of slow collective reckoning with a horrific unimaginable past. ...

  Looking at you… f aintly the handwriting reads:    Karina & Bob, Here’s looking at you in 1994 With best regards, Howard   Back when he studied T’ai Chi with me for a few years, Howard was already older, a fine, eccentric gentleman. And a very good and well-known artist. With a deeply philosophical side to him which made him enjoy my way of teaching the Art and Principles of this ancient practice. He’d have questions, comments, always delighted by insights, his or mine.   In the hallway I often pass his small watercolor, with its (faded by now) inscription to Bob and me. Bob’s birthday will be in three days on May 18.  If alive, my late husband – who died in October of 2016 – would turn ninety-five this year. Suddenly I feel the presence of time in my heart, swirling about back and forth, swooshing from chamber to chamber, expanding. Howard’s greeting from 1994 – thirty years later, I am now seventy, about the age he was back then.  Suddenly I am...

  Surprise On Friday I am reminded of how much I savor surprise. The need for quick adjustment tests my agility, mentally, emotionally, physically. How it enlivens. Even bad surprises do that. In the morning I am reflecting and journaling. It is my late husband’s seventh death day. October 20, 2016 – he leaves the world with a last breath in the early morning, here at home. As response, I cuddle close in bed, my hand on his heart, an occasional beat still fluttering for a long while…. He is on his journey. It is not a surprise, and yet I am stunned. Utterly bereft. A deep wailing song erupts from my throat as I keep striking my big brass tube with the mallet, soaring through the empty house, just before dawn on a warm autumn morning – seven years ago.  My commemoration in 2022   here – each year so different.  On silent paws, transcendence has been setting in, another kind of closeness. The loss' pain, the disorientation and the grieving, all became compost for my i...

  Mustering courage to keep speaking out loud     On Sunday February 5, 2023, the world is changed with four shots. Three shots into Marya’s back, coming from her second husband Chuck, then one shot for himself. Both dead, a murder suicide. Losing Marya this way – my 54-year-old step daughter who I was close with especially in recent years – is utterly shocking and incomprehensible. That evening, she tries to leave the home, perhaps a fight. We will never know. He was a veteran. May both rest in peace.    Altar for Marya   I knew Marya for 32 years, first as a beautiful, feisty, angry, insecure and often arrogant young woman, who goes off to study at Humboldt State University in Arcata. Then getting married to Andy Jensen, and being a dedicated mother of two girls, Jennifer and Sarah, extensively volunteering at their schools. Later she becomes a grateful daughter who greatly appreciates the devotion with which I was caring for her dad Bob Blauner, my late ...