Search This Blog

Thursday 16 April 2015

keine photos

For some reason lately, German phrases pop into my head.  It's been about 40 years since I actually spoke German, and since I learned it from adverts on TV and without the aid of a grammar base, I could only speak in the present tense, so it's not really a grand feat.

I'm guessing it might have something to do with the nostalgia binge I've been on in the last while.  When I was readying my post about Chris's birthday, I spent time looking for photos of when we were in Germany, and when I say "looking for" I mean avidly examining every photo I have from the three years we were there.  There aren't a whole lot of them because when Garry and I broke up, I took the kids and he got most of the photos.  He later included them in a document fire he used as part of his post-marriage clean-up. 

I still have vivid memories of that time though---it was my first time living at a distance from my parents and siblings, and I wrote home constantly with tales of beautiful countrysides,  superior shoes and wonderful bread.  My mother saved those letters and every once in a while, I pull out the album with my extra-light air mail paper and randomly choose one to re-read.  It always sets off stories and memories that I felt so lucky to be able to share with my family.  In those days, even though my parents had access to RCAF flights, it would never have occurred to them to undertake anything so frivolous as a trip to Germany, so I wrote detailed letters about the village I lived in, the markets, the teeny-tiny fridge, the flash heater on my cold water tap that I could use to make instant coffee, my neighbours who were all multilingual but urged us to learn German anyway, my red convertible Beetle, which cost me $87 CDN and conspired with me to endanger my children when we drove by leaving Chris to wander all over the backseat while Sarah lay next to me in an open wicker basket on the passenger seat.

Entschuldigen Sie, es macht mich weinen.

2 comments: