108 posts (pt. 2)

I walked around the lake and stopped at various points to look at the ducks, or the landscape or look back around and see how far I'd come. I looked at the amazing houses with the huge backyards and private docks with old railroad tracks leading into the lake for boat loading. People in their backyards sunning themselves. I passed a Kinder Spielplatz I guess it was kinda like a park that can be rented out for parties. They had a tepee and trampoline and a picture on the door of one of those big parachute things that I loved playing with as a kid. I finally decided it was time to either turn back, or sit and write for a bit. When I set out in the morning, I realized, I had only brought a red pen. So when I sat down at the best possible spot I could have found, I found myself without the ability to take a picture or sketch my view. I was forced to only use my words to describe it. I wrote that the mountains remind me of mythical times when soldiers set off on quests that were doomed to fail. Mountains filled to the brim with the unknown. Dark corners and caves, filled with treasure, beasts, dragons, death, hope, life, witches and strangers waiting to jump out from the shadows and rob you and trick you. Places that only exist in stories that no one cares about any more unless they're produced by Disney, places that no one fears any more because nothing is unknown. Everything is linked up by satellite and GPS and GoogleEarth, every inch of the Earth has been trodden upon by humans and documented and studied and all mystery has been destroyed by Wikipedia and scientific inquiry. I wrote that the dock silhouetting the mountains seemed out of place. Viewing an old wooden dock and snow-capped mountains seemed impossible. The angled wood, mirrored by the crystal lake making zig-zags that quaver in the reflection of the water and disappear into the blue void. The water itself was every possible color of blue. Reflecting the cloud-pocked sky, the blue trees on the surrounding hills, the misty mountains obscured by distance and the pre-dusk haze. Ducks dove for fish, making ripples in the water. Some, flying just above the surface of the lake. A church directly across from me solidified my mythical sensibility. None of this a camera or a picture could have captured. I walked back to reality, the city, the internet, phones and technology. I had a chocolate ice cream, took in more of the idyllic scene and felt part of a Manet painting.
Sunday I woke up around noon, had some breakfast and headed out to catch the end of the St. Patrick's Day parade. Bagpipes and drums. People drinking Irish beer and sporting patriotic green. I had a Guinness and a Kilkenny and a steak simmel and decided it was time for tea, or a nap. Turns out, I had both. I met up with Leah and Luke at Schneider Weiss for dinner and beer. I had Obazter with two brezen. Exactly what I needed. Afterwards, we went to an outdoors bar with heaters right next to the Frauenkirche where we had gone last week. We had a great time and on the way back, I showed them the plaque on the wall saying where the composer Richard Strauss was born. It's now an office building for a department store. Another reminder of the effects of the war.
Monday, I went to Leah's and had a few Irish beers to celebrate St. Patrick's Day (again). We talked about writing, what we wanted about life and our realization of what we actually have. Great jobs, apartments in the middle of one of the best cities to live in Germany, the ability to travel all over Europe, cheaply and easily. I told her about my writing about the lake on Saturday. That's when she brought up her writing. She said she didn't feel like she was writing that much. Meaning, not writing short stories or novels, etc. But she had 108 blog posts. I told her that artists, like Rembradt, need little practices like that. That's why they have notebooks full of drawings of hands or eyes or shoulders. So that he has at least that one body part perfected for the time when he was to make a painting the size of a small bus. My grandfather once told me when I told him I was interested in writing that I should practice describing the corner of a room. Instead, I practiced describing an Alpine lake in Bavaria. I think after a while, we agreed that life is good here. What more could you want out of life...except for everything.