From Berlin...
I hope you missed me a bit. I missed you.
Moving from Berlin to Bavaria gave me a very hard time - sometimes I thought that it was too much and I would never make it, going over the top.
For FOUR weeks I packed - all by myself - can you imagine that?
I packed 124 removal crates. And (really!) lost my sense of time.
Felt like King Barbarossa who sat banished in The Kyffhäuser Mountains - or like Rip van Winkle, who fell asleep for 20 years in the Catskill Mountains.
My huge apartment in Berlin had 175 square meters.
My "tiny" secondary home in Bavaria has about 80 square meters.
Both homes were fully furnished by me...
The worst was the choice what to keep and what should go to another place, that's why I had to do the packing all by myself. Of course I had hired (very expensive) movers - but they should not decide which Berlin books would accompany me to Bavaria.
I felt like Hamlet - but instead of "To be or not to be?" you heard me mutter "To keep or not to keep?"
My self-image became some deep dents.
"Am I a hoarder? A pack-rat?" I spoke under my breath.
In Berlin there were so many THINGS. Well: 175 square meters gave me widths and place.
I packed for three destinations: 64 removal crates for my new home in Bavaria. Many many crates for my house in Hildesheim - the attic was my rescue.
Come on, Britta - get a hold of yourself! You were not forced to move - there was no other reason than your own decision to move - because it became a little bit tiring to run to and fro between Bavaria and Berlin! And YES: you pondered a long time, choosing between the capital of Germany, your DREAM-CITY since you were 14 - and your dear, dear triplet-grandchildren.
Heart won. Reason too.
I can rent a suite in the best hotel in Berlin for the money I will save now. And even I am not getting younger! I love my family. I can... Here I stop, don't want to bore you.
I am happy. Exhausted, but happy.
And that is a very good feeling.
Moving is ALWAYS a difficult event, even if the choice was yours and even if the new home was a satisfying decision. I once sold and gave away 1000 books, which took forever, and I wasn't even moving.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the new place.
Dear Helen, as almost always: you are the first to reply! Thank you! Yes - books were one of the many things I gave away.
DeleteAnd what do I do after having unpacked the crates? Buy some new ones! It's Christmas time, and I hope to be able to read - just as I read as a younger person - and I feel that I become calmer (a bit).
I start to draw again too, I start to enjoy cooking - though still I get easily tired in the evening. But as a grown-up I can go to bed at what time I wish - even earlier than later! Ha!
New Zealanders are first awake in each new day and Australians are second :)
DeleteThat's the solution of the riddle! :-) murmured the lark who always thought she was the first to rise...
DeleteYou made such a right and wise decision, I wish you much happiness with your beloved trio.
ReplyDeleteThank you, dear Yael! I wish you and your family with all my heart peace and festivity and having the chance to getting back to "normal".
DeleteIt is never boring to hear about your family... especially the adorable triplets. We moved a lot when I was a child. I hate doing all that work. I believe you will be happy living near your family. Merry Christmas
ReplyDeleteDear Mimmylynn, I always enjoy your comments, thank you!
ReplyDeleteI wrote a long answer to your words - it vanished in the air - and now I hope very much that this one will make it.
Yes, as you said: moving can be very energy-zapping. I still can't sleep very well. But hope that by long walks through the countryside, and the rural festivities here, and of course the fun with the triplets I will be able to be myself again soon.
I wish you a Merry Christmas!
My dear Britta,
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you. In these calmer days after the festivities, I've finally been able to sit and catch up with your post about the move. I felt busy over Christmas in the familiar way one always does, but beside what you have accomplished, it feels almost negligible. Your weeks of packing, choosing, releasing, and enduring were of an entirely different order.
What you achieved, largely on your own, is nothing short of heroic. Four weeks of packing, crate after crate, while time itself seemed to loosen its grip, sounds less like a domestic task and more like a passage through some private, mythic landscape. Your references to Barbarossa and Rip van Winkle made me smile, but they also rang true. Such prolonged effort alters one’s sense of self, and it's no wonder you felt dented by the process. To ask oneself repeatedly “to keep or not to keep” is no small philosophical exercise, especially when one’s life has been so thoughtfully furnished, both materially and intellectually.
I understand your struggle completely. Books, especially, are the hardest companions to part with. Biographies and cookery books may yield more easily, but the rest resist categorisation by joy alone. The KonMari question often feels too blunt for lives as layered and intellectually inquisitive as mine.
And yet, I find myself encouraged and inspired by the work of the Belgian interior designer Axel Vervoordt. His spare, contemplative interiors, so deeply shaped by Japanese aesthetics, possess a serene wisdom of their own. They remind us that space, light, and even breath are forms of beauty, and that restraint can speak with an eloquence equal to abundance. Perhaps, in this light, you may come to see your move not as a renunciation, but as a thoughtful refinement.
I was especially moved by your decision to send the diaries to Hildesheim. What an act of trust that is, both in memory and in the future self who may one day return to them. And how reassuring it is that parts of your life now live in several places, as if your story itself has chosen to be generously distributed rather than confined.
Your reflections on Berlin and Bavaria were deeply touching. Berlin will always be woven into you and your heart, the dream-city of your youth, the place of width and possibility. But Bavaria offers something no city can compete with, and I can already imagine the mountains, the long country walks, the garden alive with children’s voices, toys scattered on the lawn, and lemonade stands in summer. These are not replacements for what was left behind, but gifts of a different and enduring kind.
Now that the worst is over, I hope you'll be gentle with yourself. Exhaustion earned through love is still exhaustion, and it deserves care and rest. May the calm of your new surroundings slowly settle into you, and may this new year bring peace after the strain, joy after effort, and the deep satisfaction of having chosen well.
And if, in the quiet moments, there should be any sense of absence lingering in your heart, may it be met and gently filled by the laughter of your grandchildren and by the steady presence of the Bavarian mountains, whose serene grandeur and magnanimity have a way of restoring what feels momentarily diminished and filling every void with their enduring majesty.
I am thinking of you with admiration, warmth, and the truest good wishes for this new chapter.
With my deepest admiration,
ASD
P.S. Please take as long as you like to rest and settle in, and do not feel any need to reply to this long, meandering message. I understand perfectly that after all you have done, your energy rightly belongs to yourself.
My dear friend,
Deletethank you for this most highly treasured letter from you!
You cannot imagine my surprise, when, just coming back "on deck" after a heavy Influenza A (I was vaccinated, that made it a bit milder I think) I found two parcels under the Christmas tree - NAY - they didn't lay under that tree, they radiated on the table with Birthday presents! A birthday I have skipped this year, slept through, I wasn't there... 29th of December - I'd dropped a stitch...but as I already have a long chain of birthday pearls it didn't matter that much, I thought.
But as Einstein said (can you imagine: at his time he lived in the same Bavarian Quarter in Berlin as I - only a few houses away) "The universe is infinite", or 'no energy is lost' - and so dear You and dear Pip came, laden with Soul food, Love and Enthusiasm - and so much more: I am still unwrapping.
That was such a moving experience - one that is really engraved in my soul. Thank you, thank you so much, my Soulmates!
I wish you a Happy New Year , a beautiful, fulfilling, happy 2026. Your true friend Britta
Dearest Britta,
ReplyDeleteI'm so late to this farewell (to Berlin) party, but have meanwhile become armed with the knowledge that you are languishing under the grip of "la grippe". I well understand now from whence it sprang: exhaustion! You have moved mountains with bare hands and the determination that comes from the anxiety of deadlines, so a physical reset with a crashing halt to all your activity is such a common reaction by one's body.
I rather expect that your devotion to the triplets would see them at safe arms-length from you, although I am sure they would love to nurse you round the clock with the diligence and enthusiasm of wimpled Florence Nightingales, so perhaps in your isolated state you have to contend with a touch of ennui, to boot?
Still mindful of your need to rest and recuperate, I am yet brimming with questions: where, for inst., did all your furniture go?? 175 sq m is almost double my own place and the thought of squeezing in another chair or bed or table defies my own vivid imagination, let alone more gorgeous bibelots, of which I am sure you own in spades. And you are to grapple with a mere 80?? Books are a dilemma all of their own as you need metres of shelf space. Do you have walls enough? I know I do not. I break my own rule of one in/one out time and again, and the little piles everywhere continue to grow as there is no room to house them, so an influx of even a couple of dozen at a go would be tricky.
Plus, I had to search your blog to find the source of your mysterious and teasing reference to Hildesheim. You have another house, which judging from the attic photos must be enormous! I somehow missed this. More questions ... !
But, let us for a moment celebrate the notion of your being able to swan in to Berlin and take a suite at a glamorous hotel, and not have to tidy up and set everything to your high standard before returning home to Bavaria. Any time you like!
Well done, dear friend, for being so decisive with your life and seeing it through. Rest well and enjoy the fresh start of this new chapter! xx
Dear Pip, thank you so much for this beautiful birthday present!
ReplyDeleteIf I still needed a confirmation that soulmates exist, I would have found it here. Because (shortly after Christmas) I wrote you a very long e-mail and used the address that I found on your blog.
I started with "Where are you?" - a question that really bothered me: such a long time that I saw no post of you!
Well: the answer came two days ago: Apple mail told me that they were not able to deliver that mail! I do not know why - fact is that you didn't get it.
So it is even more astonishing that you wrote to me, that your long letter above showed me that we thought of each other at almost the same time! I might speak of C.G. Jung's "synchronicity" - I prefer congeniality of spirit.
What I love so much is your sharp wit that makes us laugh about the same things - Pip, the older I grow the fewer people I met with whom I can share a good laugh. My sister is a laudable exception - and of course the triplets, now 6 and a half year, are sharing laughter and joy of living and sometimes even (very) tiny buds of irony!
Pip, YOU are the one who will understand when I write:
"As I talked to a few people in the village about my move from Berlin to Bavaria, I suddenly heard a somehow familiar yet foreign-sounding voice saying: "My apartment in Berlin has 175 square meters! And a "Mercedes, sauna and a musical bidet...Classical of course."
(Believe me: that was the last time I talked about my Berlin apartment!)
So: Influenza A for me is over - and for the whole family. Thank God. And it were the little Florence Nightingales who brought it to me - I was "the last man standing"
Did you know that in Berlin - and that is NO joke - you can change your sex EVERY day? You go to the administration and say: "Today I feel like a man!" "Your passport please - we will change the entry in a minute. No, it doesn't cost a penny." Again: that is the truth, and nothing as the truth! It was one of the very important laws that the last government created - now the new conservative one is working hard to change that back.
I was the last who got influenza, although I was vaccinated, but maybe that made it - relatively, hahaha - mild.
I missed my birthday! Forever young!
You asked about the many things that went to Hildesheim: I own a house there, with five flats, a house built in 1902 which is listed. We lived there almost 20 years till son went to study. The longest time ever I lived in one (beautiful) place, then we moved to Hamburg where I worked 8 years, then to Berlin where we rented the flat for 15 years. Husband worked all the time at the university in Hildesheim (the last years as emeritus) - so there was much movement in our life. (Would I do it again? I wonder).
So the whole attic in Hildesheim was ready to be filled - in spring I will go there and put things into the big wardrobes to be able to find something that is now hidden in chests.
I am looking forward to hear from you, and can still wish you a Happy New Year with all my heart.
Yours, Britta X
Dearest Britta,
DeleteYes, a congeniality of spirit! I do like the expression and wholeheartedly endorse the sentiment! And may I also take the opportunity to say that I never imagined my modest foray into the blogging world would lead to making such a wonderful friend as you - Soulmates, indeed! And that we so readily embrace the same humour is critical really, I feel, as life is oftentimes grim and too many today have lost the ability to laugh at themselves and the world. So boring to wallow in the sloughs of despond that we all must face, (be our despair personal, political or existential), and not nice manners either, and it is our Duty to focus on the beauteous and amusing around these pages. And laugh merrily and plentifully!
I'm sorry to have missed your birthday, but I was in good company as you did, too. I shall mark the diary for the next one. December 27? 29? I think I gleaned from scanning your blog for the aforementioned Hildesheim references. It sounds even more intriguing now, and I adore the idea it is an Art Nouveau mansionhouse with its capacious attic stuffed with your Life and your flatdwellers beneath are oblivious to the treasures it holds. A steady diet of "Antiques Roadshow" on the telly confirms that this is where all treasures are found, not maps marked with an X, mind!
I have no notion what went wrong with the email address I have left on my blog. Smudged into illegibility somehow from scuffing around in the bottom of my proverbial handbag? I cannot say. Thank you for trying, however; an email would have been a delightful surprise!
P xx