Er Ist's

Einen jeden Frühling wieder kommt mir Möricke in den Sinn, seines Frühlings luftiges Flatterband, der "leise Harfenton"

Und ja, vergangenen Samstag war's mir, als würde auch ich ihn leise, leise vernehmen können.

Ein herrlich beschwingtes Gefühl überkommt einen dann, man lächelt in sich hinein, man blinzelt in die Sonne und stellt sich vor, wie alles sein mag, wenn das erste Grün in den Bäumen schimmert. Man kann es kaum erwarten, ist selbst wie ein Knospe, zum Bersten voll mit Vorfreude.

Ein sicheres Zeichen, dass Lenzens Ankunft nicht mehr lange auf sich warten lassen kann, ist die jährliche Wiedereröffnung der "Eis Christina", einem Eis Café auf der Eckenheimer Landstraße an der Ecke zur Wielandstraße. Wenn sich nach der Winterpause die Jalousien heben und die Tür und das Verkaufsfenster wieder geöffnet werden, ist es egal, wie kühl oder regnerisch es noch sein mag, dann ist es als ob Hoffnung in Überzeugung übergeht.

Das Eis der Eis Christina gehört in den Reigen der Dinge, die jährlich wiederkehren, die uns ein wenig Gewissheit und Ruhe schenken im Trubel, im Rausch, dem wir, zu oft, folgen sollen, müssen. Ihr Schliessen im Herbst hat immer etwas Wehmütiges. Und das Warten darauf, dass wieder Eis verkauft wird, ist genau wie das Warten auf den Frühling. Man ist versucht, die Tage zu zählen, man hofft, man schaut täglich nach, ob sich schon etwas getan hat, man schleicht an der Café Tür vorbei in der Hoffnung, ein Zeichen zu erhaschen, dass es bald so weit sein möge.

Eis Christina gehört in diesem Viertel fest in den Jahreslauf. Ihre Süße, ihre Kühle, ein kräftiger samtiger Espresso, das Sonne-Aufsaugen auf dem Bänkchen vor der Tür - all das ist Sinnlichkeit in ihrer schönsten Form, und sie durchströmt einen und lässt einen zufrieden sein und glücklich.

Hier kommt der Frühling... mit einer Eiswaffel in der Hand.

Christmas Leftovers

I took a stroll this sunny Saturday morning through my neighbourhood, I was eager to soak up the sun, this first gentle breeze, this promise that spring may be on the way.

Walking back home through Neuhofstraße, I passed Gethsemane Church and spotted a couple of dried up trees shoved into a corner, that must have been Christmas decorations this December gone. Perhaps they had been standing inside the church, perhaps they had been collected from
the neighbouring houses. I could not tell.

I was vividly reminded of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Fir Tree" and somehow surprised to see that these skeletons had not been picked up yet by the city's ever present cleaners.

Usually, people cannot wait to get rid of their Christmas clutter, the same clutter they were so eager to put up, to hang up.
And whenever I walk past those dried up trees and wreaths in early January, I feel saddened, feel pity for them, feel like they must not understand quite what is happening. One minute they are the much admired centre of any living room, the next they are tossed out into the street. Left to die, left to be taken away, to be burned or shredded or fed to animals in the Zoo.

Neither can I help but feel that we people are so much like Andersen's fir tree, who is so eager for his bright future to start, for ever greater things that must surely be just around the corner to take place in his life, that he fails to appreciate the here and now. And so we, too race from one festivity to the next, from one moment to the next, hoping, the very next one will be just perfect and great. We do not even stop to listen, to take it all in. We hurry past the moments in our lives like we are sitting in a car in which we may not even occupy the driver's seat.
There is this ever-restless rushing towards... what?

Winter Thought

Just a quick note or nodd to the void out there.

I feel a bit empty, a bit deflated and tired, perhaps also disappointed.

Why I cannot really say.

Nothing of import happened today. Just little things.

Like wandering past a house with a tiny front garden, all shrubs, bushes seemingly rolled in on themselves, closed for Winter. And then this lilac tree with last year's blooms still holding on to the branches. And I found myself wondering, why they were still there. Had they been forgotten by the gardener? Perhaps they felt like not letting go after Summer and decided to stick around. Perhaps they wanted to feel what it was like to be out in the cold, to see everything else go to sleep?

Were they bored hanging there? No bees, no birds, no people to admire them. Because frankly, they looked a bit tattered and torn, those darkish brown puffs that once had been pretty and soft, scenting the May air in this part of town. Now, they could only remember what it had been like; maybe they talked among themselves, softly under their breaths, with their withered little faces looking out onto the naked garden, the street, the people passing by. Now they watched instead of being looked at. Perhaps that is what they wanted to do. See what it was like in Winter, not having to die and end up on top of a compost heap at the end of Fall.

That is what I wondered while I wandered back home.

It was cold, very cold and I, too dreamed a little of Summer's warmth.

The other day in town, I stopped in front of a shop, rummaging through my bag for something or other, as you do and by chance looked up into the sky only to see this naked tree in the yard behind a row of houses. Its branches like arms lifted up to the sky as if in prayer, reaching, stretching up and up and there, right in the crown, was caught a ballon in the shape of a heart.

What the view must have been like from up there.

This heart was gently waving in the breeze, bopping from side to side.

Should I go and float on or should I rest here a bit longer. Look at all the people below, rushing here and there, and me up here, invisible. Unreachable. The hand that had held me by a string was so tiny and had tried to hold on but I slipped away and up and up.

Thus may have thought the heart.

I wonder now whether it was blown out of the tree and further across town or whether after a while it plunged down and caught on one of the spiky branches and with a soft pop its body melted onto the wood, its shiny red skin rustling softly from time to time like a rasping last breath.

Did it whisper something?

A tiny unheard farewell?