Blütenlese E-Book

Candace Carter

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Deutsch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Blütenlese war bis ins 18. Jahrhundert die Bezeichnung für ausgewählte Werke von einzelnen oder mehreren Literat:nnen. Später setzte sich der Begriff Anthologie durch, um diese Art der Literaturgattung zu umschreiben. Doch mir gefiel Blütenlese als Titel für diese Auswahl von Essays, Reflektionen und Publikationen aus den letzten dreißig Jahren. Die Texte sind in Deutsch, in Englisch und einige auch in beiden Sprachen gefasst. Viele kennen mich als bildende Künstlerin, doch um die Sache klarzustellen: Lange bevor ich je einen Pinsel in die Hand nahm, schrieb ich.

Leseprobe

For my brother Jared Carter

In yonder valley there flows sweet union

Be a feather on the scale

It’s the only power God gives us in this world

And it makes a difference

Inhalt / Contents

Introduction

Vorwort

Loss 2020 - 2023

Sorting

A special Day

Visits

Ariadne’s Thread

Ariadnes Faden

It was a sunny Day

Es war ein sonniger Tag

The old Doctor

Sicherlich, er war alt

Was bleibt

Mundane

Healing

Pencil Stubs

Time and Truth

Tagebuch an Tutilo

Coffee

Staycation Tchibo Coffee

Staycation Tchibo Kaffee

Water sustains

Das Wasser trägt

Fading

Ephemeral Embraces

Growing Old

Goodnight Moon

Loss

Gifts

Reflections 2021 – 2022

Fragments

Fierce Mom

Borrowed Time

The Jail Card

Garden Mites

Eating her Words

Ice Cubes

Life is messy

Feng Shui as such

Sahara Sand

After the Staycation

Essence, Connection and Abundance

The Pursuit of Happiness

Purpose

Prosperity

Wann ist jemand allein?

What counts

Grandeur and Horror

Heritage

Appropriate

Angemessen

Pliable

Biegsam

Safe

Sicher

Gemäß

Choice and Democracy

www and away

Eclectic Zapping

Publications 1994 – 2023

Gedanken zum “Frauenaltar”

Berührt von Leid und Leidenschaft

Gott ohne Halsband

Hingabe und Macht

Installation „Foot – Age“

Eine Nase voraus

Gedanken zur Installation „Wir retten die Welt“

„Engel, Kreutz und Körper“

Vorwort „Wir retten die Welt“

Forward „We save the World“

Rede St. Stephan Bilder Einweihung

Stories 2008 – 2024

Es war einmal ein Junge

Zwei Frauen

Two Women

Es war einmal eine Karotte

The Boy on the Beach

Der Junge am Strand

The Laundromat

Der Waschsalon

Groß und Klein

Schrödingers Katze

Gifts 2005 – 2023

Fragmente

Depression

Bipolar

Letter to a Friend

Vision

2011 Godwomb

Bonds and Grace

Bindung und Gnade

Silence

Die Stille

The Awe

Das Staunen

Acknowledgements / Dank

Introduction

Before and into the 18th century, the term “Blütenlese” (as in the collecting of blossoms) defined a chosen selection of works from one or more authors. Later the word “anthology” was more widely used in reference to this genre. I took a liking to the older term and decided to name this collection of essays, stories, reflections and publications of the last thirty years “Blütenlese”. Some may know me as a fine arts artist, but just to set the story straight: Long before I ever picked up a brush to paint, I have been writing.

I liked to draw as a child but not nearly as much as I loved to write. Coming to Germany at the age of nineteen, I wished to study. Unfortunately, as I was not in the possession of the German “Abitur” (high school diploma) many fields were not open to me. When I discovered I could study Fine Arts on the Hamburg Academy, I thought, why not give it a try? Now, at the age of 73, I have been working free-lance in the field for over forty years. The fact that I also write, is not as widely known.

Writing became the center of my work around 2015 as I began my first novel. “We Save the World” ist Part 1 of the trilogy “New News from the West”. I published the novel in German, but the English version, along with the second book of the trilogy, “Sequence” (in English) are waiting in line, since I decided to first publish “Blütenlese”.

In “Blütenlese”, some of the texts are in English, others in German and several I have written in both languages. The art work dates back to the Nineties.

There are no limits as to how the creative process can manifest. I am of the opinion, that through time, artists’ works have usually centered around the themes of love, meaning and death.

At this point in my life, I find writing the most appropriate form to address these themes.

Vorwort

„Blütenlese“ war bis ins 18. Jahrhundert die Bezeichnung für ausgewählte Werke von einzelnen oder mehreren Literat:innen. Später setzte sich der Begriff „Anthologie“ durch, um diese Art der Literaturgattung zu umschreiben. Doch mir gefiel „Blütenlese“ als Titel für diese Auswahl von Essays, Geschichten und Publikationen aus den letzten dreißig Jahren. Viele kennen mich als bildende Künstlerin, doch um die Sache klarzustellen: Lange bevor ich je einen Pinsel in die Hand nahm, schrieb ich.

Ich zeichnete auch gerne als Kind, doch nie mit der gleichen Intensität wie ich schrieb. Als ich mit neunzehn Jahren nach Deutschland kam, wollte ich studieren. Aber ohne deutsches Abitur waren viele Studiengänge ausgeschlossen. Doch das Studium der freien Kunst an der Akademie in Hamburg war möglich. Also, dachte ich, warum nicht? Jetzt, mit dreiundsiebzig, bin ich seit über vierzig Jahre freischaffend als bildende Künstlerin tätig. Die Tatsache, dass ich ebenfalls schreibe, ist weniger bekannt.

Das Schreiben rückte immer mehr in den Mittelpunkt meines Schaffens seit ich 2015 den ersten Roman „Wir retten die Welt“ in Angriff nahm. „Wir retten die Welt“ ist Band 1 einer vorgesehenen Trilogie „Im Westen viel Neues“. Die englische Übersetzung davon sowie Band 2 der Trilogie, „Sequence“ (in Englisch gefasst), stehen fertig in der Warteschlange. Trotzdem entschied ich vorerst „Blütenlese“ zu veröffentlichen. Einige Texte sind nur in Englisch, andere in Deutsch und eine Auswahl in beiden Sprachen. Alle Bilder sind von mir und ebenfalls in den letzten dreißig Jahren entstanden.

Der kreative Prozess kann sich in unzähligen Variationen manifestieren. Meine Theorie ist, dass sich Künstler:innen, über die Zeit hinweg, überwiegend den Themen Liebe, Sinn und Vergänglichkeit gewidmet haben.

Ich ebenso, und zu diesem Zeitpunkt in meinem Leben, wähle ich dafür das Schreiben.

Loss

2020 - 2023

Gebückte, Filzstift auf Styrodur 2018

2020

Sorting

In the beginning, after his death, all she could do was sit in his studio. He had partitioned his “art-cave” into smaller compartments. A person could come in and at first not even notice him in his old comfy chair behind the door. Now she sat there, morning for morning, watching the light play on paintings, on tables covered with notes, drawings, bottles and dried plants. She too, was hidden, protected. No one heard her moan, saw her tears, was witness to her still talking to him, asking why he had left her alone. Here she could open his books, hungry for sentences he had underlined, caress the old radio, put on his reading glasses or breathe in his faint smell still lingering in the old work apron.

Eventually, she would get up and begin to sort. Friends often asked if it were not a burden, going through all his collected paraphernalia, not to mention curating the hundreds of drawings and paintings. Even in grief, she would answer, she savored the privilege of time for farewells to this still-existing universe. She was sure, when all had been transformed into lasting soul-nourishment, she would be able to let go of the real space.

A special Day

It would be a special day. She knew this, still in bed, the cat purring at her side. A special day, a day to savor, to remember, to pull out of her soul and again experience, when the sun was not shining so beautifully through the window as it was on this new autumn morning. She needed this day, needed it desperately. She wanted to relish every single moment, to give thanks to every move, every voice, every person taking part. It would be one of those days that, if it were your last, it would be right. She would see them on this day, those she loved most in the world. Only one would be missing, having gone the road ahead. He would be waiting for her when she took the last bend, but for now he was not. Two children they had raised. Two children, who had become good, caring adults. Adults who had found partners they were worthy of and the partners of them. This would be their day together.

She took her time leisurely bathing, breakfasting and preparing the room for their small gathering. Things had become so wonderfully intimate in Covid! She loved the chance to really spend time with loved ones. Time to talk, to laugh, to share opinions. Time to have a coffee after the meal in a café close by. To take a walk in the sun around familiar streets, kicking up leaves and talking, talking, talking until they would all head back in the early dusk.

How soon it was evening. Grateful she was for this jewel of a day, for the nourishment given, nourishment needed in the coming time of unknowing and unset circumstances. The goodbyes were simple. In the pandemic, there were no hugs or kisses, instead, loving bows and eyes of compassion for one another. The door closed behind them and she ran to the balcony for one last glimpse. She kept a lighter there and quickly held it up for them to see as they got in their cars. A light in the dark. A light for them to take with them, for her to keep.

Then they were gone. She knew the tears would come. She knew she must moan and cry and that she needed to do this until she could then wash the dishes. Why would anyone ever want to separate joy and loss? Why would anyone ever be afraid to love because it might include pain? She held on to love like a dog to a bone. But she would not bury the bone, rather, hold the lighter up, lit.

Visits

Some mornings she would take her coffee and bike to the cemetery. She had carefully studied the regulations for the grounds, composed in true-German style, that is, detailed rules chiefly concerned with what was not allowed. Bike riding on the premises, for example, or gatherings other than funerals, or loud music. Surprisingly enough, it was permitted to move the benches, so she had dragged one in front of his grave. One day an older woman accosted her angrily for moving the bench. Inquiring if the woman needed it, the response was no, but that it had stood on its former place for thirty years. The woman facing her had obviously been coming to the cemetery for at least this length of time. Finding the bench moved must have for her felt like a familiar tree had been felled. Politely, the woman asked which of the graves the other visited and attended to. The question caught the upset woman offguard. The angry look in her face softened as she pointed to a grave down the path on the opposite side. Standing together in front of said grave, the woman listened to her neighbor’s story: The parents had died over thirty years before, but her husband only two years earlier. The last four years of his life, he had suffered from severe Alzheimer’s, but she had managed to care for him at home. It had not mattered to her if at times he didn’t know who she was, only that they had been together to the last. From that day forward, she was always greeted with a friendly wave from the woman across the way.

In general, more women than men visited the cemetery, confirming the long tradition of women tending the graves of husbands who had died in wars or after fifty hard years on the job, or of children taken early by disease or disaster. Now she, too, was a member of this resilient feminine force who came regularly, armed with garden tools and watering pots. In spite of the many regulations, there were no rules for how one kept the graves. Some were majestic mausoleums, complete with stone angels and pillars. Others, like hers, simple. Most of the flowers she and the children had planted were starts from her own garden or plants she had found in the cemetery compost. Saving them reminded her of coming home with dried up examples from the grocery store trash and his commenting, she had a hospice, not a garden. She loved to dig her hands into the earth, to plant and tend to this new small garden. Often friends stopped by and together they shared both grief and joyful memories. She knew, sitting with her coffee before his grave, this would also be her last resting place.

She believed in the power of rituals and had always held a fascination for the rites through the centuries honoring the dead. The Egyptians mummified their deceased. The Tibetans placed them open on a hill as nourishment for the vultures. In India, people waded into the Ganges to pour the ashes of their loved ones into the river. The Muslims wrapped the bodies only in linen while in Christian cultures people were buried in coffins or urns. She had read, that in earlier times in the Black Forest a designated person jumped over the casket before it was lowered into the ground. There were mass graves for those gassed in prison camps and graves of the famous and powerful in cathedrals. One story had stayed with her. The gist of the ritual went so: If a villager died, the body was displayed in the center of the settlement. Each household brought a gift of food, placing it directly on the corpse. In addition to prayers and chants, the anointed “sin-eater” came and ate as much of the food as possible, taking the remains back to his hut. He must then survive on the leftovers until the next death. She remembered people bringing food to the house after her grandmother died, but the sin-eater had another function: It was believed, the more he was able to immediately eat, the less sins the deceased would have to take with them to the next world.

In modern times, people often wanted anonymous sites or wished to have their ashes thrown to the wind over fields or water. She however, was thankful for a gravesite she could visit, a place for healing, honoring and remembering. It was also a new place, not one she had shared with him. For her it was easier to spend time there than it was to walk alone on the castle grounds or sit at their favorite café.

Living together for decades, partners often take on each other’s traits, resembling in time old trees with separate trunks but joining roots and intertwined branches. Providing the love they shared had also allowed for independence, the chances for the one to survive the loss of the other were greatly improved. Even now he could surprise her with small wisps of his essence: an old man on a bicycle, a voice similar to his in the streetcar, a ray of sunlight on her coffee cup. She also felt that he, on leaving, had grafted some of his roots onto hers. She found herself more tolerant, less likely to judge, the present and the passing enhanced. Her children were connected to their father biologically and character wise, but he also lived on in her.

Ariadne’s Thread

She wanted to put it down on paper: The perception of Ariadne’s thread, connecting the Here with the Beyond. At times he would call out to her, comfort her, tell her all was well. There was no way for her to prepare for his passing through her soul, for those fleeting encounters provoking suffering as well as healing. For his whisperings, wonderful and terrible.

In his studio, she had come across a letter he had written to a close friend a year after his death. The letter had been a man’s letter to another man, finely composed with both humor and depth. He wrote of anecdotes, of times shared over decades, of his respect for the other’s work. He remembered the time the friend had admitted praying daily and commented, though they seldom spoke of such, he believed their shared belief in the Beyond was what really sealed their friendship. But he apologized also. Intuitively knowing the friend was already moving on, all he had talked about by their last encounter was soccer.

Reading the letter hit home to her. Again, she was by his bedside as he was dying. Again, she was reminded of the asinine things she had done during the final days. It was a consolation to her, that her husband had done likewise. Could it be, facing death, we shy away from the knowing? One we love is leaving. Not just for a day, a month or a year, but for forever from our Here. So to dull the pain, we speak of mundane things, get a coffee or make some calls.

Ariadnes Faden

Sie wollte es zu Papier bringen: das Erleben von Ariadnes Faden, der die Wirklichkeit mit der Wirklichkeit hinter der Wirklichkeit verbindet. Manchmal rief er zu ihr, tröstete sie, sagte ihr, dass alles in Ordnung sei. Sie war nie darauf vorbereitet, auf diese flüchtigen Begegnungen. Wie er durch ihre Seele ging, sowohl Leid als auch Heilung hervorrufend. Sein Flüstern, wunderbar und schrecklich.

In seinem Atelier war sie auf einen Brief gestoßen, den er an einen engen Freund geschrieben hatte, ein Jahr nach dem dieser gestorben war. Es war der Brief eines Mannes an einen anderen Mann, fein komponiert, humorvoll und tiefgründig zugleich. Er schrieb von Anekdoten, von gemeinsamen Zeiten über Jahrzehnte hinweg, von seinem Respekt für die Arbeit des Anderen. Er erinnerte sich an die Zeit, in der der Freund zugegeben hatte, täglich zu beten. Er beschrieb seine Gewissheit, dass der gemeinsame Glaube an das Jenseits die Freundschaft wirklich besiegelt hatte, obwohl sie selten darüber gesprochen hatten. Aber er entschuldigte sich auch. Obwohl intuitiv wahrnehmend, dass der Freund bereits am sich Verabschieden war, hatte er bei ihrer letzten Begegnung nur über Fußball gesprochen.

Das Lesen des Briefes traf sie wie ein Schlag ins Gesicht. Wieder war sie an seinem Bett, als er im Sterben lag. Wieder wurde sie an die dummen Dinge erinnert, mit denen sie beschäftigt war. Es war ein Trost für sie zu wissen, dass ihr Mann ähnlich gehandelt hatte bei seinem Freund. Könnte es sein, dass wir im Angesicht des Todes vor dem Wissen zurückschrecken? Jemand, den wir lieben, ist am Gehen. Nicht nur für einen Tag, einen Monat oder ein Jahr. Für immer. Um den Schmerz zu betäuben, sprechen wir von ganz alltäglichen Dingen, gehen einen Kaffee trinken oder erledigen ein paar Telefonate.

It was a sunny Day

It was a sunny day, so she decided to sweep the balcony. Funny how one can be in an apartment for over thirty years and only really live in parts of it. The balcony had been his. He had planted and watered the flowers and spent hours on the ladder, devising elaborate wire mesh systems so the morning glories could grow up and around. He sat there daily after lunch in the old chair, with half a cup of barely warm coffee and the cat on his lap. Balconia, he called this time: thinking, looking, listening, dozing…chilling, as their children would put it. He was extremely proficient in this art. It was, so to say, his natural state of being. She, in turn, had the garden out back. For months after his death, she couldn’t bear to go there. It wasn’t his presence she missed, for he seldom spent time in her small green space. It was his head, popping out of the kitchen window, calling her to breakfast. She had always been an early bird, he a night owl. That was, to say the least, only the tip of the iceberg in terms of their many differences.

Strangely enough, she took on the additional plant chores of the balcony with some ease. It, too, was slowly becoming hers. She kept the tablecloths freshly washed, the clay pots scrubbed free of lime scale. The geraniums were coming to bloom on the railing and the starts of forget-me-nots and garden columbine were almost big enough to replant in the garden.

After his death, she had moved the small table from their bedroom to the balcony to use as flower space and for the occasional lunch tray. As with the balcony, he had for decades sat at that table by the window, observing and sketching: cars, bikers, pedestrians, birds, weather, the seasons. He had especially enjoyed drawing people waiting for the light to turn green. He kept these scribbles in an old drawer, choosing from time to time a figure for a larger composition. She loved the drawer. For her the sketches offered an intimate conduit to his being. She spent hours sifting through the contents, holding the images in her hands. Closing her eyes, she would press a drawing to her face and breathe in deeply, longing for the still faint scent of his hand on the paper. It was almost like caressing his face.

But on this morning, she swept. Not only because she was in general more orderly, but simply because she thoroughly enjoyed sweeping as such. He would often tease her about this, saying, if she were ever declared a saint, she would later be carved in stone, standing in some vast church, holding a broom as her symbol of salvation. Quipping still, he would add, at any moment she might mount the broom and fly away.

Her dustpan was soon full with the earth her cat loved to dig from the pots and the various paraphernalia the crows threw down from the drainpipes. One small corner of the balcony, however, she had yet to clean. She had avoided it up to then, knowing what she would find there. Every year the tree stood in the children’s room from Christmas Eve until Candlemas on February 2nd. Were the forty days of Christmas complete and the decorations boxed up for the following year, the tree went to the balcony. Months later, when it was dry and brown, her husband would cut off the branches and dispose of them, but leave the stems sitting in this particular corner. Broom in hand, she found herself staring at the corpses of at least twelve trees. The corner had practically become a biotope, complete with spiders and webs and adorned with minute holes housing who knows what variety of insects. It had been her plan to bring the stems to the compost, but the minute she lifted one from the corner, the Christmases of Christmas past flooded in.