At 66, Life is just Beginning

 

Last week I turned 66 - in German we would say this is a Schnapszahl ("liquor number" meaning repdigit). There is a song by Austrian singer Udo Jürgens called "Mit 66 Jahren" (at 66 years) and one line goes "Mit 66 Jahren, da fängt das Leben an" (at 66, life is just beginning) - I take that!

I met with my good friend Lyz and we walked around the lake. The weather was mild and sunny and this was the first time in months that we walked together again, since Lyz had had knee surgery last year. We both enjoyed it so much to be able to walk together again, albeit slowly. But who cares? We had so much to catch up on anyway.

This Great Egret perched right on top of this tree and was observing his surroundings - he must have had a great view from up there.

Afterwards we went for lunch to a Mediterranean restaurant - I had half a chicken fajita wrap and sweet potato fries. It was so good.

Lyz is a quilter and she had made these beautiful placemats for me. They are now sitting on our dinner table and are such happy color spots.

In the evening, the Geek and I had some bubbly - that's how we celebrate our birthdays. This is for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday.

My birthday wish was to have dinner with our good friends Bim and Patti - you have met them on this blog several times. They came on Saturday evening for cheese fondue. Only a week before they had returned from their annual vacation in Hawai'i and they had brought us wonderful Hawai'ian peaberry coffee. This coffee is so good, smooth and full of flavor.

On top of that, they gave me this photo that Bim had taken on Quadra Island, BC several years ago. Both Patti and I love rock cairns. I put it in a frame and it is now sitting on my work table in my studio.

Luminiscence in Münster

 

Kaefer and one of her colleagues were lucky to get tickets for Luminiscence in the cathedral of Münster, the St-Paulus-Dom. Luminiscence is a 360º immersive show of illumination, voice and music. Since my explanation might not be sufficient, here's an example (all photos and videos except for the one of the outside of the Dom are by Kaefer):

https://youtube.com/shorts/sFknNgcbEto?feature=share

The 50 minutes long show tells the story of the Dom, or better, the Dom tells its history. Quite an achievement to crowd 800 years of history into 50 minutes! This is what the Dom looks like:

It is simple and inornate on the inside and therefore offers a perfect "stage" for this kind of show.

This one reminds me of Van Gogh's "Starry Night":

The program has four acts and I'm not quite sure which video relates to which act (with the exception of the last one). I sometimes could make a guess from the voice of the speaker, but there isn't much speaking in the videos my daughter took. If you watch the videos I'd recommend to either turn up the volume or put on headphones, the sound experience is so much more impressive.

Light and shadow with Vivaldi's "Four Seasons":

https://youtube.com/shorts/0jabu1a6SsM?feature=share

"The measure of fleeting, irretrievable time" with Händel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks":

https://youtube.com/shorts/t29cPUy3jhE?feature=share

An organ light show with Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor - definitely turn up the volume!

https://youtube.com/shorts/Z_MokEcBFIc?feature=share

A little calm in blue.

Finally, the grand finale, "A symbol of eternity".

https://youtu.be/ZNWmlOW27dc

I hope you enjoyed this show of light and music. I'm very glad that Kaefer had the chance to experience this and that she shared her photos and videos with us.

Right after Thanksgiving her closest friend from their time at UC Davis came to visit her. Here they are at the Christmas market in Berlin, drinking either hot cider or white Glühwein (mulled wine). This is for Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday.

Those of you who celebrate it, I wish you a merry and peaceful Christmas.

If the videos don't play for you, you can copy the link beneath each one and paste it into your browser.

Community

 

Today I'm not only joining Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday, but this post is also for their Second on the 2nd. Actually this is a third - I published this post two years ago, but I first wrote it several years ago for Vision and Verb. Since this is the time of advent when everywhere in Germany the most beautiful Christmas markets pop up, I thought it is the perfect time to repost this.

I remember the third weekend in December back in Tübingen, Germany, where I spent more than twenty years of my life. It's a medieval university town with its typical old buildings that look like they're straight out of a fairy tale by the Grimm Brothers. Narrow lanes wind among medieval timber-framed houses and cars are not allowed within the city center (except for residents living there). It's a huge pedestrian zone that makes wandering the old alleys so peaceful.

This is the setting for one of the most beautiful traditions of the town: the Christmas Market. It's nothing like its big siblings in Nürnberg, Stuttgart or München and so many other cities. First, it only takes place from Friday to Sunday and not during weeks and weeks and weeks. Second, it's not commercial. There are tons of local artists who sell their work, school classes who raise funds for their annual end-of-the-year trip, small local environmental groups who fight for preservation, neighborhoods who try to raise awareness and money for the disabled - the list could go on and on.

So that's the eye-candy. The next is the food - just one word: delicious. The food is mainly local specialities, the best time to eat "Bubaspitzle mit Sauerkraut" (a thin rolled kind of potato pasta with sauerkraut and sometimes bacon), one of my fondest memories in the food department. There was a guy with a complicated portable special oven who made Swiss Raclette that was to die for. Of course there was Glühwein (mulled wine), very welcome in the cold. None of the food or the drink was allowed in any kind of plastic or paper container, everything had to be re-usable! So you bought a beautiful mug with the words "Tübinger Weihnachtsmarkt" written on it and this could be refilled at any booth that offered Glühwein or juice punch. I still have a few of these mugs and they are my ticket to T Tuesday. Most of the plates were edible - envision big sturdy waffles for apple strudel! No trash!

Throughout the market you could listen to music. Children were singing, little choirs stood at the fountain in the market square, someone played the violin, another one the bagpipe, and again another one the flute. There was a cantata concert in the main church. There were jugglers and clowns. It was a very festive atmosphere. 

And of course there was “Paupersingen”. The Paupersingen (paupers singing) is a tradition that originated in the Middle Ages. "pauper" is a Latin word and means poor, and in this case it refers to poor students of Latin who paid part of their school fee by singing during church services and at funerals. During Advent they wandered through the narrow lanes of the town, wearing their black scholar cloaks and singing in front of every house, hoping for some donations.

Today it's the children's choirs who start out at different parts of Tübingen and slowly, with several stops in between, walk to the market square, all the way singing the old Christmas carols. They all meet at the huge Christmas tree where all of them together sing for another half hour or so. The donations today go to some charity of their choice.

We felt like a community, we were a community. People spend three days in the cold in order to help someone else. To serve others. To share stories. To entertain children and their stressed parents. To bring smiles on the cold faces, red cheeks from the mulled wine.

That third weekend in December was spent in the streets among those medieval buildings, no matter whether the sun was shining, it was raining or snowing. It was freezing cold - always. But everyone was there. Community.

Early Morning Walk

 

Last week I did a couple early morning walks in the neighborhood. While most mornings were foggy, one was lovely. But in typical Northern California manner, the morning was very chilly. I left the house right when the sun was rising over the hills and threw some light onto the pavement.

So early, my shadow went across the entire intersection.

While some trees were already pretty bare, a lot of them were still wearing their autumn dress. It was particularly beautiful when the leaves were backlit.

With the sun climbing higher, my shadow became gradually shorter.

On my way I picked up a few leaves that had fallen to the ground. I will be using them in my journal.

Back home it was time for breakfast and a nice cup of coffee, which is also my ticket to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's T Tuesday.

To those of you who live in the US, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving.

Autumn in a Breton Village

 

In April I wrote about the tiny Breton village Meneham and its guardhouse. At that time I promised to come back and show its beautiful fall decoration that we saw during our visit in October of last year.

The Meneham site was originally a guardhouse, strategically located to protect the coastline of Northern Brittany. At the end of the 18th century, the militia occupying the site were replaced by customs officers. They were the first real inhabitants of Meneham and settled in the barracks with their families in the mid-19th century. Later, fishermen, seaweed growers and farmers moved in.

The village of Meneham is clocely linked with the history of fishing and the trade of seaweed harvesting in Brittany. Daily life, far away from any town or trading center, wasn't easy for the residents. Their tasks and chores included fishing, harvesting seaweed, drying and burning it in dedicated ovens, working the land, raising livestock and washing clothes.

But there were also Pagan festivals and their festivities - dancing, singing and laughter.

The village's history is also closely linked to the myth of the shipwreckers - for a long time, the inhabitants were considered to be wreck raiders who would cause shipwrecks on stormy nights. However, in reality, Pagan country is a land of sharing and mutual aid, where festive customs have endured.

We learned about all of this by going into some of the charming thatched cottages that were partly museum and partly little shops. Outside, we enjoyed the fall decorations throughout the tiny village.

Meneham also offers workshops and events throughout the year. We saw kids creating simple fall decorations and admired the beautiful and intricate works of lace.

It was a very relaxing autumn afternoon.

Staying with the autumn theme, last Saturday I cooked a autumn-like meal with roasted potatoes, butternut squash, eggplant, Mexican zucchini (from my garden) and bell pepper. 

With it we enjoyed a bottle of delicious Pinot Noir from one of our favorite wineries. We had bought the bottle when we visited there in September with our relatives from Germany. 

With this I join Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T Tuesday. Cheers!

The Grand Staircase

 

After three days in Bryce Canyon and a visit to Kodachrome Basin it was time for us to move on. Highway 12 in Utah is a "scenic byway" that traverses the vast, 1.9 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Before the Highway 12 route was built, traveling through this region was slow, hard work. As late as 1940, some of the places here still recived their mail by mule train for part of the year. The Civilian Conservation Corps had completed part of the road in 1933, allowing vehicle traffic in summertime. But when winter snows closed that road, the only routes between the little towns were wagon trails through the canyons. In 1935 CCC crews began to build more parts of the road - it took five years, backbreaking effort, ingenuity, and many tons of dynamite to complete.

The part of the road after leaving Bryce Canyon and passing the turn-off to Kodachrome Basin is rather tame. It was a grey morning that was reflected in the landscape we passed through.

But soon the landscape changed. You can see where the road winds along the sandstone formations.

The sandstone is rather pale and exhibits interesting texture. A geologist would have a hayday in this environment.

But soon the paleness of the sandstone turned to an increasingly reddish color and the landscape with its canyons, sculpted by the Escalante River, became more dramatic. 

This is some of the wildest lands in the United States. The last area to be mapped in the lower 48 states, this rugged region remains a sparsely roaded frontier. And indeed, we were almost alone on this more than 100 miles (about 160 km) long stretch of road. We have driven this stunningly beautiful byway several times, usually in winter, and every time we feel like the only people in this area. 

It is one of my most favorite and beloved roads in the US.

One feels small and completely insignificant - and honestly, totally dispensable - in this vast wilderness.

I'm always amazed in what hostile places trees and shrubs still grow. It might have been cold this day, but in the summer it's blazingly hot. Not an environment where you think plants would thrive.

But they do.

One of the most thrilling parts of Highway 12 is Hell's Backbone. I've written about it here, coming from the other side at that time. It's just a short stretch of road, less than five miles (8 km), but the land to the left as well as to the right drops down steeply to the canyons beneath it. You virtually drive on the backbone. It's a winding road with sharp curves and the recommended speed is 25mph (40 kmh) - that is fast enough. 

The views from Hell's Backbone are stunning (yes, there are small parking spots along the road).

Pinyon Pines (Pinus edulis) grow everywhere here; the cones are beautiful and some still held a few pine nuts.

After Hell's Backbone the landscape and color changed again. The entire highway passes a rather diverse environment.

Solitary trees - dead or alive - could be seen almost anywhere.

Then the landscape changed again and looked more like a high desert.

I saw a lot of winter remains of plants, but have no idea what they are.

These are some kind of galls I assume.

This elevation looked intriguing.

The road climbed higher and higher and - you guessed it - another change in landscape was waiting for us. This time it was forest.

We had reached the Dixie National Forest. This part of the road was the last part to be completed, in 1985 and it was now possible to drive from Bryce Canyon to Capitol Reef National Park in about three hours (without stops). The road is lined with Aspen trees which at this time of year were winter dormant. In the fall, it is a brilliant display of autumn colors.

This part of the Dixie National Forest is called Boulder Mountain, also known as Bluebell Knoll and Boulder Top. It offers the first view of what is to come - Capitol Reef. It always make my heart beat a little bit faster, even though I have seen this view so often. It never ever gets old.

More trees and snow.

Of course we had to take another shadow portrait.

Then we climbed into the car for the last part of this spectacular road, descending to Capitol Reef (Henry Mountains in the background).

Now I need a drink for T Tuesday, otherwise Bleubeard and Elizabeth throw me out. Here's my morning coffee in a mug with California poppies, made by a potter neighbor.