Party

Reverb 10, December 9 – Party. 
What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author: Shauna Reid)

Fun, loud, crowded, friends.

Accordions.

Pretzels.

Lederhosen.

Dancing on tables.

Oktoberfest.

Munich, 2010

Beautifully Different

Reverb 10, December 8 – Beautifully Different.
Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

Something about me is that I love trying new things. I'm sure practically everybody gets excited by novelty and escape from the hum-drum. My perfect calendar includes big plans for the weekend, new menus, and reading guidebooks. I'm a sucker for crystal-clear or blue or tie-die Pepsi. I avoid watching a movie for the 2nd time, cooking a recipe with the same ingredients I used before, and cleaning.

Something about trying new things is that they sometimes flop. I've spoiled way too many meals for guests than is appropriate for someone who "likes to cook," I routinely get my family lost in unfamiliar cities, and I have this bottle of dark blue nail polish that I will probably never open.

Something that makes me different is that, when trying New Thing and sensing Flop's approach, I never give up. I can almost taste the botched final product, but I continue on, bolstered by hope and giddy with nerves. Sometimes Flop wins, and sometimes I'm lucky. For better or for worse, I rarely follow the advice of my doubts.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my friends are coming over and I think that this would be a perfect time to try my hand at a cheese souffle. 

Community

Reverb 10, December 7 – Community. 
Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)

I am sure lucky that English is my native language at this point in world history. Our family can travel with the comfort of knowing that tourist offices, not to mention most educated people, will be able to understand us if we need help. We can move to Germany and, while trying to speak German, be able to develop deeper relationships in English than our German would otherwise allow us to. I love having people to really talk to about the culture and the insider hints about what's available for kids here.

The English-speaking German families who have reached out to me and Daisy are my most prized community this year. Here are some snapshots of Daisy and her friends this year; viewers must imagine the corresponding mother who was chatting with me while the picture was taken.

Casper, Thea, and Daisy jumping on the bed at home

Konstantin and Daisy at K's
3rd birthday party

Berenike and Daisy out for lunch

Daisy and Lis at the zoo

2011? We'll be in a new place, so hopefully we'll get some more friendly fams around us. What would be truly wonderful would be to continue keeping in touch with these special friends we've made here for years to come. I dream of doing "exchanges" with them when our kids are teenagers!

Make

Reverb 10, December 6 – Make.
What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author: Gretchen Rubin)
I am always in the middle of projects. I start a new one and forget about the old one for a while, but I almost always return to it eventually when the inspiration returns. I guess I never really treat arts and crafts time as a rigorous operation. It's similar to the way I meander through stacks of books. Chris just told me this morning that I could never survive as him and that he could never survive as me. It's true. He doesn't read something unless it's cover-to-cover, with no breaks for other books. That's the discipline that makes him such a good chemist, though. I'm sure my non-discipline is useful somehow...

Anyway, my current projects include:

1) A sweater shirt that I am attempting to knit for Daisy without a pattern. I took her to the yarn store and let her pick out her yarn, which was fun. She chose a dusty orange cashmere blend which is easy to work with on my size 7 needles. I get overwhelmed with counting stitches, so I'm kind of estimating, which gives the whole project an air of suspense.

2) A set of folded golden stars that look kind of like gift bows. I'm making them out of strips of metallic gold paper, four strips per star. They're pretty, I like them a lot. It's supposedly a Danish pattern, which I'm actually following in this craft.

3) My grandmother has a quilt with specialty squares featuring embroidered names and images for the grandchildren. My job is to make a square for Daisy - I'm so not skilled in stitching (patience! carefulness!), but I love contributing to the quilt in my own puckered way.

Future project:
I would love to make a quilt for Daisy's bed, make a stained glass window, design a house, paint a canvas based on one of my photographs of Venice, write a pop song, assemble photo albums from our trips, write a book, carve wooden toys, and found an American version of the open air folk museums I've visited in Scandinavia. There is much much more that I can't remember right now. As I look at this list, I realize that I'll either lead a remarkable life or I'll never be happy.

Let Go

Reverb 10, December 5 – Let Go.
What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Author: Alice Bradley)
I really have no idea where to go with this prompt, even though I've thought about it for a while, but it makes me think of something that's more like "holding on."

This year was my 10 year high school reunion. I didn't go (did I let it go?), but I thought about it a lot as the date came and went. Of course, reunions aren't as meaningful these days, since we can keep track of who's gotten married and who has kids over the internet. But the theme of post-reunion chatter, that people grow up yet mainly stay the same - is fascinating.

Also this year, I had the opportunity to reconnect with a few old school friends (Jenny and Sara) who are now living in Europe. These are the kinds of friends who went to the same birthday parties as me but we never hung out one-on-one. People that I, under pre-Facebook circumstances, would definitely not end up scheduling weekend getaways with because we would have lost touch long ago.

I loved reestablishing our friendships. There's something special about spending time with people I've known since we were kids; we know each other. They've seen my mistakes and my parents and my teeth before I got braces. I know their laughs and who they danced with at our high school prom. Even though we've celebrated many milestones, learned new skills, made more mistakes, and met new people since then, our shared pasts are still part of us, which makes us almost part of each other. And now I'm starting to sound new agey and weird, so I think it's time to go to bed.

Anyway - here's to not letting go of childhood.

Wonder

Reverb 10, December 4 – Wonder.
How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year? (Author: Jeffrey Davis)

I definitely never set out to cultivate wonder this year, but it was there just the same. Off the bat, I can think of three things in my life that made this year especially wonder-ful.

1) Learning // We're living in Europe and we travel a fair amount. For me, travel equals learning. Beyond absorbing the specific facts in my guidebooks or on commemorative plaques, the way my understanding of history and culture shifts from cloudy to clear when I travel has given me what feels like another college degree. I know that there will always be things to learn, even when we're not scampering around Europe; the tricky part will be having the sense to honor whatever is new around me with the same expectation of wonder that I grant famous landmarks. And maybe I just stumbled upon it right there - the cultivation of wonder is the expectation of it.

2) Watching // Specifically, the way my daughter explodes with new skills and ideas, the way she demands order and routine, the way she differs from other kids her own age... Life is amazing, and watching someone grow up is very Front Row.

3) Suspending // I don't know where we will be moving next summer, but we will be moving and starting a new chapter of life. Watching the pieces fall into place - albeit slowly - is riveting.

Out of the Quiet

Reverb 10, December 3 – Moment.
Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)


Between the ages of 10 and 21, I sat under many conductors in various bands. Since I played the flute, I became accustomed to life in the Front Row. Front Row meant that I sometimes helped by picking up the conductor's baton, which was accidentally flung in a dramatic moment. Front Row meant that I felt the sweat drops and spit flung in other dramatic moments. Front Row meant that I made eye contact and paid attention to everything the dramatic conductor said. I learned the right answers to all the questions.


"What is staccato?" the conductor would put his arms down and innocently ask.
"Short!" someone from Back Row would shout.
"Wrong!" came the gleeful answer.
I volunteered my FR wisdom, "Dry and separated."
We had some brief eye contact conveying approval, and then the conductor would say (spray?), "You're playing the staccato notes too short - give them some more lift." And he'd pick up his baton and on we would go.


Something else I learned was how to make a crescendo get louder. By blowing harder? Nope. By leaning forward? No, but creative idea. The Front Row answer is: by starting softer. Only by creating that contrast, by expanding the decibel spectrum, can the loud sound be heard for what it is.


At first, when I saw this prompt, I wished that I had gardened in the past year. Or given birth, that would have been a good one. However, I'd like to consider the idea that the moments that I've felt most alive have actually corresponded with revelations about the frailty of life. Call me morbid, but I feel most alive when I consider life's end. It sounds loudest when it comes out of the quiet.


My daughter is almost three and I recently - two days ago, in fact - needed to take her to a Children's Cancer Clinic at the University hospital. Her pediatrician was concerned about some large, resistant lymph nodes and just wanted a specialist to look her over. It was an emotionally draining visit; I am not even going to go into the sounds and smells and voices in that clinic because I would never stop bawling. I'm unspeakably relieved that she has since been declared healthy, but during the hours of unknowing I forged an empathy for parents who only dream of hearing that happy news. Perhaps the worst thing on this earth is suffering children.


During this whirlwind of an experience, I rediscovered the simplicity of parenting. Like I was in a centrifuge, I felt the superficial, life-sucking worries and dilemmas of parenthood float away. A noble sediment was revealed: My desire is [still] to take care of my darling child. I don't need her to be any different from the way she is. I will help her find joy in life. That's the same graceful, loving responsibility that I've admired so much in other caregivers I've seen. Beyond this simple realization, I've been jolted into activism. The questions of "What am I passing on to my daughter?" and "How can goodness and beauty and truth and justice and health be spread?" as well as "How can I support cancer research?" are the spurs that have been kicking me into "alive" mode these past couple of days. It's nice to have all of these questions in the Front Row again.

I'm Not a Writer

Reverb 10, Prompt #2:
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)
First of all, I signed up for this program without being able to preview the prompts. I would never have agreed to write about how I'm a writer, treating writing like some sort of lofty aspiration. My writing is basic and unpolished and definitely a low priority in my life. Sniffing at something that "doesn't contribute to my writing" seems appropriate for Nicole Krauss or J.K. Rowling or even Sandra Boynton, but not for me. Please don't get the impression that I think very highly of my word choice or structure or that I pride myself on finding that resonant metaphor - because I don't.

And that's exactly the kind of very eliminate-able thinking that does not contribute to my writing.

Reverb 10: First post

I laughed out loud at a cartoon I recently saw in The New Yorker. A mother and her teenage daughter were going through the mom's boxes of memorabilia from her youth: yearbooks, journals... The mom smiled fondly at a book labeled Diary. The caption, spoken by the daughter: "What was the point of having a blog that no one else could read?"

At the risk of joining in the sin of over-sharing on the internet, I'm embarking on a series of creative prompts via Reverb 10 designed to encourage end-of-the-year reflection. In other words, I'm publishing my journal on my blog. It's only for one month and then I'll be done, I promise.

After that enthusiastic introduction, here is my entry for December 1.

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today. What would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

2010: Suitcase
It's true, we've done a lot of traveling this year. Our number of nights in a hotel exceeds 40. However, even our time at home has been suitcasey. Everything we buy is weighed in terms of if it's worth shipping back to the US when it's time to leave. This leads a bizarre collection at home: we have a tartan blanket from Scotland and a poster from Oktoberfest, but I have lived without a microwave or hair dryer for two years. Even more abstractly, our time in Europe has been filled with moments of not feeling at home; we can't help people who ask us for directions even if we understand the question in the first place. Chris and I don't have a regular doctor, and we're lucky if we make it to the dentist once a year. We're living out of a suitcase, metaphorically.

2011: Settling
Once Chris starts his new job as a professor, it will be first time that we've decided to live somewhere for an open-ended period of time. We will finally haul all of our old boxes of memorabilia out of our parents' garages, yearbooks and outmoded diaries included. We'll take seriously our role in the community. I hope that, in the midst of saying goodbye to Europe, we will be excited by this change and be happily spreading out roots in our new American home by this time next year.