unorthodox punk

Today at my train platform in Bordesholm I was surrounded as usual by a group of local punks. Against my beliefs that people can be inherently good despite their actions and appearances, I´ve grown to despise these kids - they seem to be everywhere in northern Germany! They all seem to share the same wardrobe of tight black and white hoodies, chuck taylors, and wear their hair and piercings (all intended to be totally original) basically in similar variations and color patterns of each other, standing around shouting obnoxious trendy slang, sharing cigarettes stolen from their older siblings. They linger at every bank, every corner, by pay phones, waste mills, you can´t escape them. They even taint my favorite little ice cream and coffee shop. I gave up long ago on trying not to judge, and have formed a bitter bubble around myself while we wait at the station every Monday and Wednesday in an effort to avoid any encounters. On this occasion, I happened to be standing behind such a kid who was telling his friend something seemingly vulgar. As we waited for the train to pull up, I inspected his ridiculously intricate shaving designs along the buzzed sides of his color-striped hair. I laughed to myself smugly, wondering what more this punk could possibly to do conform to his comrades. The train doors opened, and a woman struggled to exit with her massive grandchild´s baby buggy. Without stopping his vulgar conversation, the kid thoughtlessly stepped up and lowered the buggy down with ease, much to the warm thanks of the older woman. As we climbed the steps, I noticed the conversation shift as his friend started to mock him for being a "softie - mama´s boy" and such. I didn´t break my now-concrete instinct to part ways from the young crowd (let´s be realistic now) and quickly found peace in a quiet seat on the other side of the train, but will admit that I wish I know how that conversation had ended. Anyways, if nothing else it just helped to soften my bitter judgment of our local Bordesholm youth. Maybe they aren´t all so bad.

On this same train I found an abandoned purse. Remembering my own wallet disaster on this very same train, and our eventual reunion (even though there was only one cent left when I finally got it back!), it felt nice to be able to take this purse under wing and safely deliver it to the information booth in Kiel. Sort of a way to pay back the mysterious kind soul who returned my own wallet last month. Maybe "pay it forward" works after all - who knows. Why not humor idealism for a bit? :)

After a shamelessly lazy weekend, my Monday began with a bit of a whirlwind. I stayed up ridiculously late last night with the intention of napping while the children were in school today. Of course, today Emmi woke with a sore neck and Claudia told me to keep her home from Kindergarten... no nap for me today, should have known better. Mondays are very long to begin with, as I leave directly from shuttling Paul Luis to chess lessons in the afternoon for my train (no matter how well I plan ahead I always end up sprinting to catch this train!) to the community German night class in Kiel. By the time I get back to Bordesholm, it is dark and the day is over. As usual, though, I expect the week to fly and I´ll have another lazy weekend at my disposal soon enough. I did make an attempt last weekend to be a bit more social, and had fun going dancing with my Swedish friend Kristin at a club that is built like an old ship. But for some reason I really have very little desire to get out with friends lately. I´ve been at my happiest simply riding my bike alone, taking walks, painting and sketching, working in the garden, reading new books, "knitting" (I get to about 8 rows and start over again with no direction, as it is too warm to make scarves and I don´t really know how to make anything else, nor do I have the initiative to try to learn complicated new stitches). I am so ancient, but for some reason I need this right now. It will probably pass soon enough as I get restless, but I´ll admit that it feels good to try to save a bit of money and have time to sort of be "inside" of my self for the time being.

Friday my host parents threw a big neighborhood Maifest garden party to celebrate the start of the new month and changing season. Around 30-40 people arrived, mostly their friends and children. I actually knew some of the parents of the children better than Claudia and Torsten! The setting led to some kind of awkward small talk attempts on my part, and I busied myself with keeping wood on the fires and cooking rosemary potatoes. I was relieved when the grandfather, Opa Lothar arrived. He also felt out of place, I think, and joined me by the fire. After a while he shared war stories and some of his tragic family history (all in German, and I actually understood everything - for some reason Opa is easier for me to understand than the others, and is more patient with me when I do struggle), and we bonded. He revisited their old family farm in Poland last year, from which his family was evicted during the war when he was a child, and promised me to show me some photos if I pay him a visit for coffee soon. I´m actually really excited about this, and realized how much I really miss special visits to my own grandparents - flipping through old family photos and listening to stories over coffee and cake.

Well now, I should bring this to a close. Sorry this post is kind of unimpressive and not well pieced together. I´ll try to improve next time - maybe finally with photos?

All the best.