What do Babies and Manuscripts Have in Common?
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 my mom came to visit and I had a new baby in the house. I was obsessed at the time with the number of errands I could accomplish before the […]
Rituals for Starting Work: medieval construction, coal mining, printing presses
Medieval construction workers building Schloss Horst. ©Laurel Decher, 2015 Over the weekend, I visited a castle, the Schloss Horst Museum in Gelsenkirchen, a printing press, the Historische Druckwerkstatt that offered a trip to the age of lead, and a coal mine, Bergbaustollen Nordsternpark. Schloss Horst turned out to be a museum that drops you into […]
Four Paintings for Writers in Cologne’s Wallraf Museum
The magical inscription on this painting reads: “We cannot lay her in the dark earth,” said the dwarfs and so they had a transparent glass coffin made so that she could be seen from every side laid her in it and wrote on it her name and that she was a kings daughter. Then they […]
Exploring: A word in favor of happy bees
A blurry bee is a happy bee. Good Advice About Moving to a New Place In graduate school, my major professor, Dr. Sandra Melnick, gave me some good advice about moving to a new place: “You have to find out what you can do there that you can’t do anywhere else. And then try it […]
Exploring: Hatzenport to Eltz Castle on the Path of Dreams
Grassy trail above Mosel river valley in Germany. The Path of Dreams – Traumpfad One morning, in early spring, my husband and I decided to walk to Burg Eltz (Eltz castle) from the tiny village of Hatzenport. We had asked the innkeeper if he thought Burg Eltz was do-able and he said, “Why shouldn’t it […]
Exploring: the vineyard-covered Ahr valley
The village of Mayschoß in Germany’s lovely Ahr valley says “spring” all over. The name of the village means “lap of May” and even though it’s only April, you can see why. It’s easy to imagine an earlier era . . . This is a view to feed your soul, so I’ll keep the words […]
Blast from the past in the National Park
This sign says: “Risk of loss of life! Walking outside of the marked trails is absolutely forbidden. Vogelsang was used for military exercises until 2005. Risk of loss of life . . . Wear a hat and long-sleeved shirt against ticks and sunburn and cover your skin against frostbite. Don’t leave your toothpaste or bacon […]