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
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
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
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.
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
How is a manuscript like a baby? These baby flamingoes in Weltvogelpark Walsrode don’t look anything like their parents. I’m thinking about the time when
