The Black Forest

Six years ago in mid-winter, Lydia, her husband and their two sons took me to a special restaurant high in the Black Forest. You pick out the trout you want from a large outdoor tank, then go inside and wait for it to be cooked to perfection. Some of my favorite memories are of the long drive through the Forest filled with deep-winter snow, the patterns made on the snow by cross-country skiers, and the warmth of the thick-walled German lodge.

It was a delight to return to the Forest in early springtime with Lydia and Mary. We left early in the morning in order to have as much time as possible before catching the train to Nancy in France.

The beauty of the grass- and flower-covered rolling mountains is almost painful to remember – because I long to return and spend days hiking the trails and painting the scenes, eating bread and cheese on sweet-smelling grassy hillsides, and dozing in the sunshine. These pleasures are in Lydia’s backyard, only moments from Emmendingen. Frequently, she borrows a horse and rides on these mountain trails, wandering far from the tension that plagues even good daily lives.

On our morning in the Forest, we were heading for the ruins of the Emmendingen castle. A few years ago, my brother Charles and his wife were here with Lydia. She told me how much fun he had exploring all the levels, exulting in flying here and there just like a kid! There are six children in my family, us three older ones (Mike, me, Sally), and three younger ones (Charles, Jon, Lydia). I was 10 when Charles came along, and he was a trial! An explorer as soon as he could walk, it was not unusual for the whole family to be searching for the tiny toddler blocks from home. I loved picturing him as a grownup bounding all over the castle with as much glee as when he was a youngster.

Parking at the bottom of the castle’s hill, we hiked up a grassy path through meadows thick with dandelions, yellow cups, purple lupin, and white Queen Anne’s lace. Apple trees shaded the soft brown most contented cows in the world. Thick stands of other trees sang with birds (invisible, you remember from my walk in Dijon), and in the background rang distant sheep bells. I felt closer to being Heidi than ever in my life.

A recent Final Jeopardy answer was Heidi, and none of the young contestants got it! Has it really been relegated to the classics bookshelf that no-one reads anymore? What a loss that would be.

I loved the castle. It seemed so German, evoking Wagner’s Siegfried and Isolde. In the far distance was Witch’s Mountain where witches dance during lightning storms. The castle is on the peak of a mountain with one half clinging onto the steep cliff-like mountainside. How did they do that!! Look! The stones are heavy, weighing down the foundation. I can’t begin to imagine the forethought and labor it took. But what fun to be there, imagining how life might have been for the women whose task was to make a welcoming home out of such a formidable place.

Local people, proud of their castle, keep it in repair and are rebuilding the sections as much as they can, depending on donations of money and labor.

This dedication is an example of the indomitable spirit that rebuilt Germany after World War II when bombing raids had leveled most of it. Freiburg, that beautiful city, was rebuilt mostly by the women since a large part of the men were killed in the war. The city took its time to rebuild and look the way it used to, going slowly, using old techniques that the original builders had used, and salvaging as much of the original materials as possible. The result is a lovely city, modern in amenities, but old and comfortable in look and feel.

Freiburg - Trolleys, Food, and Shoes

On Monday morning, Lydia had to go into Freiburg to teach her art students. She gave us minute directions on how to take the train, where to get off, how to catch the trolley and where to get off to meet her for lunch. No matter how detailed the directions are, the person giving them doesn’t anticipate the little things that can go wrong when a stranger attempts to follow them.

At the Emmendingen train station, just a couple of blocks from Lydia’s home, I saw this brave yellow daisy (botanists call these things dyds for “darned yellow daisy” because they are so ubiquitous and have a jillion different possible classifications, so I’m just calling it a daisy) in the middle of the tracks. Along came a train, whizzing over it, yet afterwards the little plant was still standing tall. That says something about the seed that’s sown in a horrible place but flourishes anyway.

Freiburg is rife with streetcars (trolleys or whatever you want to call them). The walking directions from the train stop to the trolley stop turned out to be not as intuitive as Lydia had thought. However, as we neared what we hoped was the right place, we saw a trolley with the right name on it heading almost where we thought it would be. Noticing where it stopped, we got there and hopped on the next one.

Helpful people – I love helpful people, and they are everywhere! – made sure we got off at the right spot to meet Lydia. It was an island in the center of a four-lane, heavily-trafficked boulevard. I couldn’t imagine that she would be able to drive up, stop, and pick us up without causing a major snafu, so we looked for alternatives. A pedestrian tunnel led under the street to either side. We chose the right side, which ended at a pretty little park, and waited for what seemed a long time. Then we went back to the island and waited until Mary decided to go to the left side and wait there.

I kept looking for Lydia’s car, rather than for Lydia. “Vickie!” I heard right behind me. There she was on the island, on foot. Mary saw her about this same time and came back.

“I’ve been waiting here, wondering if you’d missed the trolley,” she said. She must have arrived shortly after we left to go hunting for her. Of course, I realized, she would have parked and met us this way. Duh.

Happily, we all drove to Oma’s Kuchen (Grandmother’s Kitchen) for a spectacular outdoor lunch. By “spectacular” I mean ordinary simple fare made glorious by fresh ingredients prepared with love and imagination. FYI, I had a salad and polenta with white sauce and a veggie that was similar to the popular white asparagus which is quite different from our green asparagus. The restaurant is on the corner in a residential (apartments) district with tall trees shading the tables. Perfect, and only known to locals.

Lydia had another class to teach, so Mary and I went sightseeing and window shopping. The Munster (cathedral) was wonderful! I noticed that one of the male statues had two left feet. Sure, shoes weren’t usually differentiated as to side of body, but these – look at the photo and you’ll agree.

The outside is being cleaned to approach the beauty it had when it was first started back in the 1100s. The picture of the crane shows how it’s done, but the pedestal was moving as the cleaner rubbed it. I’m always flabbergasted by the architectural wonders that were built without the engineering helps we have today or even a hundred years ago. Not just European cathedrals, either, but spectacular achievements all over the world in all cultures.

Being a calligrapher, I was thrilled to see the work (first pic) by a master on the face of a printer's shop. Gorgeous, eh? Being an appreciator of graffiti when it doesn’t deface or degrade, I was not pleased to see the junk on this beautiful old doorway. We saw too much of this in Freiburg.

Window shopping – always awed by the shoes.

Am morgen, gehen wir zu Schwarzwald! (Tomorrow to the Black Forest!, and probably my German is incorrect. It’s hard to be correct in German with its odd rules of grammar and weird feminines and masculines – but I’d love to know it better.)

Over the Rhine to Germany

Early Sunday morning, May first, we trained to Colmar where my sister Lydia met us and drove us to her home in Emmendingen, Germany. On the way, we crossed over the Rhine river, stopping to watch ships navigate through the locks. It was fascinating to see how the big boats lead the way, find their places along the side, then the small boats follow and snuggle up even closer to the sides. Then all are raised slowly by infilling water until the right level is reached and they are let out to continue up the river.

You can see there was quite a large crowd enjoying this. It was rather like a party where a magician is entertaining everyone with impossibly gigantic and unreasonable tricks -- the huge gates that raise and lower, the giant boats, the mass of water, and the small personal boats tagging along behind, everything in order, but everything wondrous, too.

Lydia, having lived in Germany for 20 years or so, speaks English with a German accent and has trouble remembering some English words. Even though her sons tease her about the few mistakes she still makes, she is perfectly competent with everyone – the storekeepers, her art students, the landlord, the bureaucracy, etc. That lovely lady with the big smile is Lydia, and I was lucky to get her picture since she usually ducks and covers.

France and Germany have had difficult relations probably since before the Rhine separated the barbaric Germans from the Romanized Gauls of what became France. Mary and I, being Francophiles, had to tone down our enthusiasm for the French in Lydia’s presence. She’s lived in Germany long enough to have absorbed their prejudices against the free-flowing Franks.

I asked her what about them bothered her most. She replied, “They drive too close.”

We laughed, but she was serious. She’s right, too, but it never bothered me.

When we were in Germany in 1961, the people we met were not happy to see us. They had been through World War II, rebuilt their country afterwards and – I’m not sure what the reason was, but Mary and I felt unwelcome. One man is indelibly etched on both our memories. We had gotten used to jaywalking in New York, London, and Paris, but when we did it in Frankfurt, a man followed us for two blocks scolding us in German. I had had a year of German in college, so could understand a bit and speak a bit more, and though it wasn’t ideal, it was better than if we’d tried speaking English all the time.

Six years ago, I returned to visit my daughter who was in the Army stationed in Bavaria, and also the family of a boy who had been an exchange student with my husband’s family years before, and, of course, Lydia. Then and this time, I felt so welcome everywhere I went! The atmosphere was totally different. It wasn’t only because I had people to visit, because I traveled on my own between places and found friendly, helpful people everywhere. Time heals, and I’m glad.

I’ll tell about Emmendingen, Freiburg, and the Black Forest in the next post. They deserve their own space.

Forever After and Gate Crashing

From our bus ride through Dijon, I got the idea that there weren’t a whole lot of interesting things to see here. I was wrong!

A clever ad agency or municipal booster several years ago came up with the brilliant idea of making a tiny owl the symbol of the city. Perhaps taking a clue from Aix en Provence, where brass plates in the sidewalks guide the tourist to various Cezanne historical sites, the owlet guides you around Dijon. It's called the "Chouette," and was originally a tiny owl carved in stone on the side of one of the churches. Everyone wants to touch it for good luck, so it's worn down to bumps. We followed the little plaques all over town, especially enjoying the museums that showed reconstructions of kitchens and living quarters from the 1600s onward.

The special, unexpected treat came at the Cathedral of St. Benigne. As we were wandering around the outside, admiring the architecture, the bells began to peal vigorously. The guide book said that St. B’s has the highest bell tower in town. That may be, but more impressive the most beautiful sounding bells I’ve heard. Coming in late to the song was a gorgeous, deep, resonant baritone bell that made it all extraordinarily joyous. What could be the occasion? It wasn’t Sunday.

We tried the side door, which was opened by a young boy who looked surprised to see us. Peeking past him, I saw a number of other young boys similarly dressed in white shirts and red ties. Were they altar boys? No. They were part of a wedding party, and we weren’t invited. We apologized for the interruption and continued walking around the building until we came to the front.

A crowd of cheerful, nicely-dressed people were filing in, coming from all directions, having found parking on the narrow streets or walked from their homes. We joined other onlookers in the little plaza across the way to watch. Soon we heard a car horn playing a raucous song and then down the street whizzed a red open convertible sports car festooned with flowers, carrying the lovely white-gowned bride. She got out and three boys dressed in white rushed to help keep the long train from getting stuck or dirty. I thought that was très gallant, but the boys were called away by the lady in charge to go and join the flower girls.

The scene was full of joy as tourists and friend photographed the bride who was soon joined by her father.

After the bride was inside the church, and many people had followed her inside, the large doors began go close. I was half afraid Mary would dash through them to watch the ceremony, leaving me behind. It happened 50 years ago, not at a wedding, but at one of the most famous theater complexes in the world, the Festspielhaus in Salzburg.

Here it is, just as I wrote it in August,1961 when all of Salzburg was given over to the music festival:

What an amazing city! Each evening two or more major events are performed. There are five, maybe six, different theaters – the Domplatz, which is outside in front of the cathedral and used for medieval mystery plays; the “Mozarteum” for Mozart; the New Festspielhaus which is the modern addition to the Old Festspielhaus [both together are now called the Grand Festival Theater]; the churches for Mozart's Masses, or anyone's; the something-or-other-Schule which is outside like the Greek Theater in L.A., and undoubtedly some others I've forgotten.

Even though we couldn't get tickets to anything (I would have stood on top of the trombones to see the “Rite of Spring” which included the ballet and was performed by the Vienna Philharmonic) we still got a thrill, at least I did, thanks to Mary.

Monday we ended up at the new Festspielhaus. It's a splendid feeling for me to see these places that I know so well from reading and studying about them. I kind of feel that I have a right to see inside them. But there were guards everywhere not letting anyone in, and signs that stated very clearly that no-one except performers and workers would be allowed into the theaters until after the festival closed on August 31. We wouldn’t be here then and I ached to see the backstage. Really, I could have cried, seeing the privileged ones going through and me being left outside.

Mary and I decided we would have to latch onto someone who could get us in. “We have to talk to someone,” she said, and the next second was gone. No sign of her. I waited for twenty minutes, maybe more, then gave up and went sightseeing to two churches, nothing great, then returned. She was waiting for me out front and, oh jealousy of jealousies! She had gotten inside and backstage! She just walked in with no idea of the significance of what she was seeing, except for what I had told her.

Not wanting to spend the next month dealing with me sulking, she told me to follow, so I did. We went up to the guard, told him – in English -- she had to see someone inside and I was with her. He was confused and sent us to the other guard, who was busy. While waiting for him, and while neither was looking, we dashed down the nearest corridor and around a few corners, not meeting a soul. We were in!

Through the walls we could hear the orchestra and chorus rehearsing, and on we went to the stage door. How I panic at opening a stage door during a performance! I know something awful will happen like I'll throw light onto the wrong place or the door will squeak or I'll knock down a stagehand. But god-bless-Mary walked up, opened it, nothing happened and in we went! The only visible person was a young stagehand listening to the music. We got talking to him.

He gave us a tour of the bottom, middle and top levels of the stage. There is an elevator that goes to each level and a permanent walkway going completely around the stage at each one, five above and the one below. Millions of feet of wiring lined the walls and formed roofs over these walkways. It was simply amazing! The lighting setup is outstanding and as nearly perfect for this theater as you could ever get.

The auditorium is nice but not pleasantly decorated and the seats are hard and straight-backed. It reminds me a little of Schoenberg Hall at UCLA, but much bigger and not as comfortable. There is a funny pattern of different shaded woods on the wall, rather loud and in poor taste, sort of like the ghastly designs you find in all the French and German dime stores. Really, I'm not being snooty, it's true.

Even though I couldn't hear anything except the snatch of a rehearsal, it was a terrific experience! I have been backstage at the New Festspielhaus! I should have a Master's Degree just for that. Mary gets a Ph.D. in gate-crashing.

------

If I traveled alone, my intermittent shyness would make it impossible to have such unique encounters. Thank goodness people are not all alike. My weaknesses are countered by another’s strengths, and my strengths can help someone else’s weaknesses. It’s part of the great balance of nature and creation.