An Epic Tree
My husband and I went looking for a half-circle of oaks he knew from thirty years ago. (No comments from the peanut gallery 😉 He said their group held hands around it because it was so big (nearly 8 meters around and 24 meters tall!). It’s gotta be old: 600-800 years!
Contrast with Apple Blossoms, Bach, and Story
These blossoms and buds look like visual staccato and legato notes. Short, sharp. Open, sweet. Sometimes learning something that you had given up on changes your whole view of the world. James Rhodes’ How to Play Piano teaches rank beginners how to play J.S. Bach’s Prelude in C Major. I never learned to read the […]
Hero at the Bus Stop
This year, my husband gave me a Page-a-Day calendar to learn Italian. Today’s page was a dialogue between two men at a bus stop, getting ready to go to work. One said his boss was nicer than his colleagues. The other said his colleagues were nicer than his boss. [*cough* We’re learning vocabulary here. Cut […]
The Day the Wall Fell
A whole world in a tiny valley. The town of Mayschoß in the Ahr River valley. © Laurel Decher, 2016. Every year on October 3, Germany celebrates the Tag der Deutschen Einheit, (literally, the “Day of German Unity.”) It’s the day when East and West Germany came back together after World War II. Once as […]
Marc Chagall’s stunning gift of reconciliation
St. Stephan’s church in Mainz, Germany has stunning stained glass windows. The church burned on February 27, 1945 and Marc Chagall designed most of the current windows in the late 1970’s.
The windows show love stories of all kinds: Colorful people and angels float in a sea of blue glass. In light of the Holocaust, I was especially touched by the window of Abraham pleading with three angels to spare Sodom and Gomorrah.
Create something new: Lessons from a re-cycled Convent, a Peacock with a Looking Glass, and a Cow with a Drinking Problem
Roman pipeline to convent to farm. Gut Schillingskapellen, Dünstekoven. © Laurel Decher, 2016. In the small village of Swisstal-Dünstekoven, a one-time convent was built solely with materials scavenged from the Roman water line. Now it’s a farm with Scottish Highland cows and reflective peacocks. Lesson #1: Try a bit of creative re-cycling. If Roman ruins are […]
A parable of physics teaching assistants: elegance, battlefields, and intimacy
Fencing with an unfamiliar foe. Source: “Fencing Match between St.-Georges and ‘La chevalière D’Eon’” on April 9, 1787, by Abbé Alexandre-Auguste Robineau (1747–1828) – www.royalcollection.org.uk, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11260912 Invitation or Attack? As an undergraduate, I took physics because I wanted to go to medical school. Physics promptly took over the structure of my week. Three […]
Spring is coming. Let’s not give up on hospitality yet.
Forest road in spring green with a blue sky above. Kottenforst, Germany. © Laurel Decher, 2016. Is Migration Our Lot? Lately, I’ve been wondering if migration is our natural lot and living peacefully in one place all our lives a rarity. Cranes are migrating and their calls remind me of spring. The current news shows […]
Noblesse oblige, libraries, trees, and cyberbullying prevention
What can you do with your heritage? Noblesse oblige for the modern age. If you inherited a castle, what would you do with it? In a nearby village, the lovely Burg Satzvey was built in the early 1300’s and hosts jousting and other medieval-themed shows for the entertainment of the populace. Half-timbered houses cluster around […]
Skin-colored Felt: Doing Other People’s Cultures Wrong
Skin-colored felt is not easy to find, even if you know what color you’re looking for. My youngest and I are sewing figures for a Christmas nativity scene. So far, we’ve made the palm tree (brown corduroy). Glue overdose means the only original figures are the baby Jesus and the Rastafarian Joseph, named for his […]
Collateral damage: What if there’s no one to vouch for you?
Collateral damage: Ruins of the Castle of Are (Ahr) built by Theodorich of Are around 1100 A.D. What would you do if you lost your identity? Or had no way to prove you were one of the “good guys”? A reputation is a thing you don’t think about until it’s lost. There are so many […]
Impossible things to try before breakfast: Bicycle Gymnasts and JINX’S MAGIC
Things you never knew were possible on a bike. @Jan Decher, 2015. What makes us decide to try impossible things? A thing can call to us, but we still don’t try it. Some of it must be inborn and some must be the recognition that a thing is possible. In Crossing Unmarked Snow, William Stafford […]