Saturday & Sunday May 16 & 17, 2009 (diary, Louise Erdrich, memories)

Saturday morning I drive to Nightcliff for another swim, then a sushi lunch in Casuarina, before heading towards the Darwin Bridge Club for this afternoon's competition. Dev who agreed to play with me, is already there when I arrive. At first we are struggling to find one another's style of play, but halfway through things start to improve gradually. Overall not a good performance though. But no doubt we will do better next week.

Sunday morning I watch as usual the Insiders program on ABC TV and on the Sport segment the subject of last Monday's Four Corners program is discussed at length. The general consensus of the journalists is that we have reached a watershed for the moral conduct towards woman of players in all football codes. Will this prove to be true or are we having "just another wake up call when nobody wakes up" ??

After lunch in Palmerston I go to the Library to exchange some books. My eyes are attracted by a rather unusual tittle The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich, an author from German descent but living in Minnesota (USA).

Now into my early 70s and still healthy I feel I am going through one of the best periods of my life. No more anxieties, responsibilities, pressures and restrictions from work or worries about money. I am free to do what I like each day and full of memories of a very interesting and varied life behind me. These can be triggered off by the most trivial things.

Die Gedanken sind frei Wer kann sie erraten Sie fliehen vorbei Wie nächtliche Schatten Kein Mensch kann sie wissen Kein Jäger erschiessen Es bleibet dabei Die Gedanken sind frei....

Back home I open Louise Erdrich's book. The first page contains as preamble a German song ("Thoughts Are Free"), Louise's father used to sing to her. I know it well as I too have sung it often, so many many years ago. This happened during the summer camps near the small North Sea seaside village of Vrouwenpolder on the island Walcheren of Friesland, the far South Western province of The Netherlands. The camps were organised by the Vrije Jeugdkerk ("Free Youth Church") in Rotterdam. I joined the summer camps as a teenager from age 14 to 20, and although already becoming an agnostic during that period I thoroughly enjoyed the camps.

We lived in tents on a meadow right behind the dunes, through which a narrow track led to the beach where we had our daily morning swim. The days were well organised with a set structure every day.
The social centre of the camp was the heksen kring ("Witches circle"), a large circle formed by tied bunches of twigs, on which we sat during breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and later in the evening, then with a campfire in the middle. This was where we sang at all occasions from Het Kampse Lied a bundle of songs in Dutch, English (including Scottish songs and Negro Spirituals), German, French, Italian put together by some of the founding members of the Vrije Jeugdkerk. "Die Gedanken sind frei" was one of them.

There were separate boys and girls camps located about 500 metres apart. But we would come together at least once every day for the ritual Elf Uur Moment ("Eleven O'clock Moment"), when we marched towards each other carrying the eleven Provincial Flags meeting halfway and holding a minute silence (lowering the flags) to reflect on the wars and disasters around the World. We would look out of the corners of our eyes at the girls, when lucky exchanging quick shy smiles with the one we fancied. There were also a few social occasions when we met around the camp fire in the evening.

This is how I met one of my first girl friends Ariette van Rossum, a young ballet dancer who in her late teens joined the Amsterdam Ballet. But because the focus of her life (we then thought) was to remain in Holland, while I as a young geologist planned to leave the country, even Europe, possibly forever, the relationship ended with some regrets on both sides.
How surprised I was therefore to meet her again (now as Ariette Taylor), almost 25 years later in Adelaide in 1980. She had met and married in the 60s the then young English ballet choreographer Jonathan Taylor during his stint with the Amsterdam Ballet. After some time in England they migrated to Australia where Jonathan was offered the post of Artistic Director of the Adelaide Dance Theatre which he elevated to worldwide fame with his modern productions in the 1980s. Ariette too was active in ballet especially working with young people. We met up a few times but through pressures of her work and my music study we lost touch.

Monday May 18, 2009 (diary, Louise Erdrich, memories)

Last night I watched on SBS TV the Eurovision Song Festival held in Moscow this year and was most impressed. The contest opened and closed with mesmerising performances by the Cirque du Soleil. The song presentations from the 25 finalist countries themselves were also outstanding and the songs, without exception, were all pretty good. I felt very much heartened by the exuberance and happy energy radiating from all those young performers. They strangely made me feel proud to be a European.
Today another quiet day. In the afternoon there is a refreshing downpour of rain but only in a small area inland where I am, not in Darwin itself as I later discover. Bridge with Mairead in the evening is again most pleasant.

Only a dozen pages into The Master Butchers Singing Club I get another memory flash back :
The main character of the book, Fidelis Waldvogel, a young qualified master butcher, has, after three years serving as a sniper in WW1, just returned to his village in Germany. One day one of the villagers receives a parcel sent from the USA containing a loaf of bread. He shows a slice of it on the village square to some of his friends. Fidelis admires the perfectly machine cut square piece of white bread with its gold brown evenly coloured crust and beautifully soft white texture. He is most impressed and over a few months the experience gradually instills in him the desire to go where that bread came from and soon after migrates to the USA.

Towards the end of WW2 I and my family were staying with my German grandparents in Wismar. By the Spring in 1945 the Russian army was rapidly approaching from the East, while the Allied forces advanced from the West, with us slap bang caught in the middle.

My parents decided this was not a very safe place to be and we started moving on two bicycles towards the West. For a short period we stayed at a large farm, but then moved on farther West to eventually cross the frontline and stopping in a small town (possibly Ratzeburg ?) held by the Allies, by far our preferred option. We then slowly drove back to Wismar after its capture (from the very bravely defending Hitler Jugend) by the Allies (see Note).

On our way back to Wismar we drive at one point alongside a canal (or perhaps narrow river). I am sitting on the back of my Dad's bicycle looking out over the water and suddenly notice a square piece of sparkling white bread floating on the surface. I am absolutely amazed. It is the very first piece of white bread I have ever seen in my life, and to see it carelessly discarded (by the army), floating away on the water is just incredible. "Is this what peace is all about ?" goes through my mind.

Later when we are staying in a refugee camp, waiting to be transported back to Holland, I get to hold a slice of white bread in my hands and eat it, feeling its soft texture in my mouth and experiencing its great taste. - Not a single food experience throughout the rest of my life since then has had such an enormous emotional impact on me. And as you no doubt have gathered from reading my Blog, I much enjoy my food.

In the years just after the war a few other memorable food experiences occurred : my very first ice cream around 1948 (there was a great scandal in Holland at the time when one producer made ice cream using rotten duck eggs causing several food poisonings) and that other American invention making my own ice cream soda.
And after that my first loempia (giant Indonesian spring roll) around 1952, when the first Indonesian-Chinese restaurant opened in Zutphen right opposite the entrance of our Hichschool the Baudartius Lyceum. They both too were great culinary experiences, but they could not match that piece of white bread floating on the water and into my life.

Note
The initial demarcation line between the Russian and Allied armies ran NS a few kilometers East of Wismar. Much to my parents' anger I marched once or twice with the Allied replacement guards towards this line and was strictly forbidden to ever attempt this again.
Later the official line to become the Iron curtain (shown by thick red dashes on this map. Also see story) was moved farther to the West placing Wismar well within the East German zone. My grandparents fled Wismar a few years later settling in Hannover, losing all their worldly possessions.
Incredibly my sister Wivica managed to reobtain my grandparents property in 1992, after the Iron Curtain had finally come down (in 1989) and East and West Germany had been reunited.

Tuesday May 19 , 2009 (diary, memories)

I have my pastel painting class again today. This time the project is to paint something with a reflection in the water. I took this terrific photo from the Medieval wall and moat around Dinkelsbühl. I found this painting not at all easy to do and believed I really stuffed it up, but looking now at the photo it is not too bad. Anyway, a step in the right direction.
Dinkelsbühl is one of the main four Medieval towns on the Romantische Strasse which I traveled last year. From South going Northwards they are Füssen, Nördlingen, Dinkelsbühl and Rotenburg ob der Tauber. Of these I liked Nördlingen best, it was the least touristic, small and felt very "real". The four towns are spaced at about a day's soldiers march from one another and all played a significant roll during the 30 years German war around 1630.

Upon my return home I find that there has been a significant downpour here inland as I step from my car right into a puddle of water. The night is wonderfully cool and fresh.
Later I watch a Swedish movie on SBS TV, about a young boy being sent from Finland to live with a family in Sweden during WW2. Many children were sent across this way as Finland feared an invasion by Russia.
I identified strongly with the young boy in the film who felt very awkward in this strange country not fitting in well with the Swedish children and at school. I felt very much the same when I went to school in Wismar for one year during WW2 in 1944-45, absolutely hating it in fact.
I received extra private lessons in German after school from one of the teachers who lived just out of town. I had to go there once a week and on one occasion was caught unexpectedly by a midday air raid of Allied fighter planes strafing the streets with bullets. I remember running from one manhole to the next or sheltering behind big tree trunks to get to her home.

Wednesday May 20, 2009 (diary)

Wednesday is my usual day to the Stokes Hill Wharf for lunch. Before I do I ring the tyre people, my spare Michelin tyre has arrived. If I got time I will collect it today. After lunch I drive to Nightcliff for a swim in the pool, 28°C it says on the notice board. Three degrees warmer than last Saturday. We have had a few warmer days explains the attendant. Sure but up 3 whole degrees ? Anyway the water feel slightly warmer and is wonderful. When I get out it is to late to get my new tyre, so I will do that tomorrow.

In the evening I watch the last episode of the Trawlermen TV series on SBS. It has been quite a nice series documenting the ups and downs of the trawler fishing boats on the North Sea and Atlantic. I have really enjoyed it and hope they will produce a new series soon.

I have this great need to be creative, almost on a daily basis. If I am I am happy, if not I become frustrated. Fortunately I have a range of different activities I can immerse myself in : music - writing my Blog - working on new lessons and courses - painting - photography - playing bridge.
I tend to switch from one to the other as my mood or fancy changes. So this evening I suddenly feel like writing and playing some blues. I make a number of recordings and finally select one to upload online : Blu4u, a 12 bar blues in the key of Db. It is OK, I am quite happy with it.   I play and listen to my music until well past midnight, then make some fried eggs on toast at about 2.30 AM before finally falling into bed.