Gigabytes

The other day I happened to be in the Apple Store, looking at different iTouch options with my son.  Aside from choosing from two colors, we pondered options for the device's memory capacity - 8 Gigabyte (GB), 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB.  It did boggle my mind, how such a small device could have that much memory capacity!  We decided, that 16 GB was definitely enough, 64 GB was unimaginable and almost too much.  Who would use it to that extent?  What would you need so much memory on hand for?  I kept thinking more about the concept of memory, external harddrives, with the latter one sometimes referring to a stickie note in my busy days or a way to explain to my boys, why we can't remember everything, and need an external harddrive ourselves, aka a stickie note, a journal or calendar, hoping that my technology jargon would enter their memory... and not the junk folder.

It is a subtle line between remembering something in order to do it,  or to remember something in order to cherish that memory.  We even categorize our memories or place them in the same vicinity in our brain as smell, which sometimes serves as a sort of shortcut or intensifier of memories.  In our fast-paced and multitasking world, we don't always take the time to cherish our memories, remembering serves more the purpose of trying to keep all our plates spinning without forgetting one.

What we also forget, is that memories are being made every minute of our day.  We may not consciously do so, but we have the opportunity every day to create one special moment, that we want to hold on to for future retrieval.  Whether it be sitting around the fire pit in the fall with my family, sipping hot cocoa and roasting marshmallows, or a romantic outing with my husband, a laugh with a friend, snuggling with my pooch and a good book, making that first step towards a new professional endeavor - the list could go on and on - it is a memory, that we each store and cherish in our way, sometimes safer in it's own file, sometimes shared across a network, much like a document on our many electronic devices.  Some files get locked,  others edited, some are only to be viewed and many get lost.  

That iTouch my son decided to buy, might just be one way for him, to make his own memories, but it will never quite replace our wonderful brain, which with the use of all of our senses will make sure that the memory will be as vivid as possible when being surfaced from our neural archives.  Memories can lead to story telling, to healing, to connecting with other people - and there is the technology reference again, "connecting to other people".  Isn't that what we do via our personal and professional networks on the internet every day?  And what about cultivating our memories?  There are some memories, that are definitely always on our personal top ten list, we wage those "classics" against new ones, and thereby change the ranking on the list every day.  Feel uneasy about how quickly technology becomes outdated or needs an upgrade?  Then consider this:  we can upgrade our personal memory for free every day!  I don't even know exactly how many Gigabytes that would be... but it sure sounds like an enormous amount.  Now that is a fantastic deal - don't waste it!  Go for that upgrade and pass it on to others.

History's Forgotten Coast

My family just returned from our first trip to Florida.  Most people assumed, that having two children, we probably ventured on the mandatory odyssey to any of the top theme parks located in that state.  Much to the amazement of others - we did not.  As a matter of fact, we have never even gone to any roller coaster park as a family, partly because two of the family members do not do well physically while being strapped into cars that race at lighting speed across a track or seem to be dropped from outer space.  At the end, we saved a lot of money and stuck to our family mantra to travel off the beaten path.  Our google search criteria always includes the word "secluded".

With pooch in tow (well, not literally of course), we drove south, excited to see a new part of the country.  As we succumbed to the monotony of Interstate 95, we eventually noticed that the vegetation started to change.  Among the leafy hardwood trees that we are used to in our region, more and more pine trees, palmetto palms and Spanish moss appeared, indicating, that the soil structure changed from heavy clay to sandier ground.  The landscape was interspersed with swamps and wetlands, naked tree stumps sticking out like skinny arms.  It reminded me of swamp scenes in "Lord of the Rings" .

Eventually we left the well-known East coast traffic corridor with its neverending string of cookie cutter rest stops - one looking like the last one:  truck stop, gas stations, fast food chains - and took off on Interstate 10, which stirred up a bit of nostalgia in my Los Angeles born husband.  He thought the sign should read his California City of Angels as the final destination.  Off we went, deeper into the south, where people use "y'all" and have a lovely accent, yet turning onto a lesser known highway until we hit the gulf coast.  We were amazed at how flat the land was, the gulf was still and stretched until the horizon, a few huge white thunder clouds in the distance decorating the top if the line, where the sky meets the water.

Our island retreat on St. George Island was everything we had yearned for:  remote, quiet, unknown, a virgin tourist paradise.  There was not much to research online about this place, and it seemed to fit its Floridian nickname "The Forgotten Coast".  The nearest town was "Apalachicola", where we could stock our fridge at the local Piggly Wiggly, which had its own smokehouse in the parking lot - great rotisserie chicken!

One afternoon, we had to give in to our location's spot on the map, and venture out to find an Internet cafe of some sort.  Thank Goodness, there was no Starbucks or similar establishments, but a very charming, artsy and warm coffeehouse on the riverfront, owned by a Venezuelan woman and run by a French man.  On the handwritten coffee menu, it said in white chalk "Wir sprechen Deutsch" - "We speak German".  Now, German tourists can be found almost anywhere on this planet, but in Apalachicola, Florida - far away from the Everglades and Key West?  I was curious and had to ask.  It turned out that the French gentleman behind the counter spoke fluent German, we had a quick conversation and it seemed to me that he did not want to share why he decided to stay in this part of the United States, other than for its natural beauty and artsy flair, a place, where people are proud of their history and always have a little story to share.  He admitted he would much rather live in New York, but feeling that living right here, in that little town, may not have been his choice, I left it at that.  I am sure he had a very good reason.  So, I enjoyed the fact that people came and went into the coffeehouse, greeting him by his first name.  He whistled and sang while making coffee, later he pointed out his paintings on the wall next to other local artists.

Being more curious about this place, my husband and I ventured out to get a feel for this town of fishermen.  It reminded us of some outpost in the Wild West, a place where you would have seen saloons, markets and small hotels - a historic crossroad, where people from all walks of life and all parts of the world may have come for business, news or ship repairs.  And so it was!  Reaching the riverfront again after looping through the town, we came to a tiny park, where we saw a historic plaque. It said:" When the River was King".  Form reading the sign, we learned that Apalachicola was a thriving port town in the 1800s, in fact, it used to be the third largest cotton trading city and ran a dominant fish canning industry, with domestic and foreign steamboats docking on this river inlet from the gulf.  Where we were standing, one was able to imagine the bustle of a port town about 150 years ago, that made up to $14,000,000,000 in business in 1860!  Despite the dollar being worth less then, it was still an amazing number and ranked Apalachicola before Boston Harbor in terms of trade volume. How rich it must have been.  Markets and hotels, even a French consulate once lined this street and named the town "Queen of the River".

Today, you don't see the wealth, but you do see potential, just like the young artist from France.  It is a quaint town, the sticky summer heat gives it something nostalgic with folks taking it easy on the front porch during the heat of the day.  Adventurers and hopefuls have started small shops and restaurants, I real venture capital.  The local owner of an antique shop shares her story of growing up here, when she owned nothing but her clothes, her doll and a bike when she was in third grade.  So different from her grandchildren, she tells me, they know how to work those computers and own ATVs.  Despite her daughter's criticism, she still has her doll in her bedroom - there is a cute wicker bed in the store next door, she shares, it would be perfect for that doll and would fit her wicker bedroom furniture at home.  But that young business lady from next door is new, she charges too much and opens her store late.  There is that suspicion towards the hopefuls from outside this town.

A little further down we come across a more traditional souvenir store, signs of "Tupela Honey" have caught our eye.  We had seen signs before, along the country rode, where old men were selling homemade honey among Spanish moss covered oaks.  Entering the store, the owner greets us enthusiastically, engages us into a conversation very quickly, and before we even realize what happend, we are part of an expert lecture about Tupela Honey.  We learn to look for just the right color, the proper yellow bottle cap and understand that the Tupela flower grows in the swamps up the river and will only produce the purest honey for two weeks in the spring.  This honey never crystalizes and due to a different kind of sugar is good for diabetics.  Of course we had to buy a bottle!  Our son was mesmerized by the old-fashioned cash register - no laser scanner, but lots of brass colored buttons, a ring and a huge drawer pushing open!  And just like you would expect in a small town, our offspring was asked to come behind the counter and give the register a try himself.  How cool was that!

We left the gulf coast amazed by the fact, that we had never know about this area, how lucky we were to find it and how we could never live here since getting here meant driving through some very poor looking towns, whose glimmer was lost when the railway stopped to connect these communities to the rest of the country during the hay day of the industrial age.  People are still fishermen down here, like they have always been, going out in tiny wooden boats with tongs used for scraping the ground for oysters.  They have learned to live with the weather, the humidity, the flooding, the storms. These folks are resilient and they have not forgotten their history!

The Pursuit of Happiness

As we are celebrating America's Independence Day, I get reminded of the values deeply anchored in the text of the historic document on display in the Archives in Washington D.C.  "The Pursuit of Happiness" is one of those values that the newly founded nation hopes to achieve.  Oceans were crossed to leave countries and societies that were not providing conditions for the pursuit of happiness.  The Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan ambitiously established Gross National Happiness as an alternative to Gross National Product to measure a nation's progress.  International conferences have been held on this subject to find out how we can put an economic value to what we understand to be a fundamental human right.  Bhutan is not a member of the G20, the world's leading economic powerhouses, but ranks first when you measure its people's happiness.  They have spiritually been able to figure out that even though we are responsible for our own happiness, it is essential to understand that we are all connected, that our actions define consequences not just in our immediate community, but in our globalized world.  Whether that is figuring out how we can achieve world peace, how to eradicate disease, or achieve women's rights, education for all, or environmental sustainability - we all share this responsibility.  Once we truly understand that, our actions will change to be mindful about how we define and pursue happiness.  I still believe it is a right that everyone should have, but it is our joint effort to make it happen.  It might start with being grateful for what we have, much more difficult to practice than one might think.  Happiness is like concentric circles, it starts with a drop (or a seed that traveled from afar), that ripples the water, moving outward in even bigger circles.  We all feel happy for different reasons, but is based on the very basic needs that all humans share:  a home, a loving family, friends, community, food, health.  In our modern world, we have to add to those:  education, peace, equality, freedom.  That is what holds true to Thomas Jefferson's Pursuit of Happiness in the Declaration of Independence.

My Grandmother - Of Wisdom, Survival and Poetry

Raising children has to be one of the most difficult, challenging, rewarding, hair-greying, important jobs one can ever have.  My grandmother used to say "Small children, small problems - big children, big problems."  How wise she was, born in 1914, raising 4 children during and after the second world war.  When my husband and I had moved around the globe, first as a couple with cat, later as a young family with two sons, I would call my grandmother frequently, checking in on her and trying to explain where I lived, what it is like and how our boys are growing.  She was always amazed how we had relocated, packed up our belongings, calling a new house our home, making friends, all just to pack up again and bloom where we were to be planted.  My grandmother thought it was amazing, daring and difficult.  I reminded her that it was nothing compared to what she had to endure during the war, when my mother was a toddler, who grew up in bomb shelters, no nurturing place for a little girl and a young mother, whose husband worked in a field hospital at the front.  Surfacing from their underground safe haven after each attack, they had to accept over and over again, that they lost all belongings, fleeing to relatives in the countryside, away from the industrial targets attacked.  Being from that generation, my grandmother had never talked about these difficult times in much detail.  She much rather liked to remember funny anecdotes, that surprisingly did occur during those war times as well.  Packing up belongings during the war was not a difficult thing to do, it was not a choice required by our nomadic existence, but rather survival, something you had to do.  The war years went by, and my mother's family settled in East Germany, before the wall was built.  They truly bloomed during these years of peace, not due to wealth and possessions, but due to human relationships, family and friendships, that ran deeper than we can imagine.  Having nothing, starting all over again after the war, was the glue that held people together.  Making sure, there was always an extra, empty plate on the table for someone, a homeless soldier returning, a long lost relative, who might show up unexpectedly. Those years of deprivation turned into years of political suppression, which resulted in my family to flee to West Germany before the wall was built.  With only a few suitcases holding the most important, not precious, items and trust in God's will, my grandparents and their four children found themselves in a refugee camp in a country that shared their heritage and language, yet seemed so foreign.  There was no glue to connect them to others.  They were the "odd ones", having nothing, starting over again in a country that had already risen out of the ashes. Again, perseverance became the family theme.  Never did my grandparents talk about how difficult things were, how they struggled during and after the war.  It was never talked about, however shaped not just their generation, but also the generation of my parents.  The only anecdotes I remember, where how resourceful you had to be to stretch ingredients for another meal or how to sew new clothing out of a coat, how my grandfather was paid in goods, the mischief my uncle got himself into, and how my mother was interrogated weekly in school about my grandparents' decision against joining the party.  Wrapping my mind around all these challenging times throughout history, I can't help but smile about my grandmother's reaction to our nomadic lifestyle being courageous.  It does not compare to what she had to endure, as a human being, a wife, a mother.  But she bloomed and was graciously accepting fate.  She was a strong person, who was modest about everything she accomplished.  One of her best kept "secrets" was her talent for writing poetry.  She also taught me two important things:  first - never go to bed angry at your spouse and second - love your child for who he is.  I now know how right she was.

The Cultural Blanket

It occurred to me, that we oftentimes talk about culture as "baggage", something heavy, that we carry with us on our journey of life, that might also hinder us from moving on, if it is too heavy or bulky.  Considering myself a global nomad who  has pitched her tent in many different places before, I prefer to look at culture as a blanket, something that is ours, that feels comforting and safe.  A blanket made of different fabrics, having many different patterns, different shapes, yet providing the same purpose, no matter where you live and who uses it.  It can be rolled up to rest a heavy head, tied across a mother's back to hold an infant, placed over a table to provide a child with a secret cave and keeps you warm when it seems chilly.

Exposing ourselves to different cultural norms, demands from us to peak out from underneath that blanket, to observe what is new and to take in what seems strange.  Someone once told me that our lives are like tapestries, that are not always a perfect texture, but might have an odd string of yarn woven crookedly through it, our journey through life, sticking out for everyone to see.  That reminded me of a quilt, which represents a story, patched together from scraps and sown by different hands, who all contributed to create that special blanket.  It is not the sort of blanket that is folded up inside a linen closet or tossed hastily over a chair; it is displayed, evenly spread across a bed, for everyone to admire.

I love having my own cultural blanket.  It did certainly come in handy when culture shock had set in after an international move, and I could not get myself to peek out from underneath.  My blanket felt too familiar, and I was not going to give up that comfort quite yet.  Eventually, I realized that it is ok to peek, maybe carry a small piece of that blanket with me, much like "Owen"in the adorable book by "Kevin Henkes", who is so attached to his fuzzy and worn security blanket, that his mother decided to cut it into small pieces when Owen started school.

Having a small piece of our cultural blanket in my heart, allowed me to find the courage to "confront" new cultures, which enriched my life so much, that it felt like I had exchanged small pieces of my cultural blanket with friends I made when making their country my home.  It allowed me to bloom where I was planted.

Gretl: K-9 Companion and Savor or Carpe Diem

This morning, like every morning, I walk around our nearby lake with our labrador mix, rescue dog and trusty K-9 companion by my side.  I remember when my husband and two sons expressed the wish to own a dog.  They knew they had to get my agreement first, so they practiced patience and perseverance at their best!

Now, almost 3 years after adopting this black, energetic and very determined pooch, it is hard for me to imagine not having her around.  Her wagging tail, which is always curled upward and moves in constant perpetual motion, is testimony of her happiness as much as ours.

Over time, we have created an entire parallel universe around her existence, an accumulation of stories adding to her already vivid personality.  These "tales" give us so much fun, that even my teenage son finds it to be a distraction from life's challenges.

Beyond the unconditional love that we all receive from our dogs in particular, we also learn to look at the world from their perspective.  There are treasures out there that we might overlook in our busy lives, would it not be for our dog's nose persistently scoping out the unknown.  It invites us to stop, admire, smell the flowers, listen to the birds, spotting a turtle and practice more "carpe diem".

Now, that the "dog days" of Virginia have started to announce summer over night, our dog will take things a little slower, find a cool spot under the table and probably miss the crisp mornings, when she felt like she had to greet the world with an extra amount of friskiness.