The Breakfast in Germany or [as freedom is a breakfastfood]

I met her someplace in Germany - I know not where exactly but it was the place where I became enamored of Nutella. Not so much the product as the concept that this was perfectly reasonable item to eat for breakfast. Everyone thought so. Gone were the Berkeley admonitions ringing in my ears of the evils of sugar in any form for breakfast, and gone in one fell swoop like a harmless butter knife smoothing rich chocolate paste into the soft spongy bowl of a hard crusted golden bread bun. I loved the stout German matrons who smiled at us in ironed house coats and wooden clogs and set the white plastic topped jars down on the dining tables. I loved the clean floors of the youth hostel and thought the cleanliness was almost perfect happiness. I didn’t much care for my teenage peers or the excruciating German lessons we had to follow to learn phrases like “Wo ist der Bus?” after long sessions first exhausting the word “Vough” for an hour and then “Boose” etc. but I liked Kathy, a reddish blond with freckles. Maybe it was because I too was a reddish blond with freckles, or maybe it was because we both saw things a little differently. While the some others (fellow Americans on the American Field Service Summer European Trip) in our cultural assimilation class (mandatory before we were let loose into the general population) were astonished that German citizens could in fact own garages and drove cars with rubber wheels as opposed to stone wheels, Kathy and I discussed art. We both liked art and poems. We both thought Nutella was good too, but I think just about everyone saw the light on this issue. And then on the practical side we understood there was a difference in power voltage in Europe and were not surprised when my hairdryer continued to function.

We stayed in touch after the summer in Germany. Kathy posted items to me up in Northern California --fantastical colorful drawings -- from her native Southern California with poems of ee cummings strewn around on the paper. I have since moved too too much to have them in my possession now. I still see her drawings in my mind though; I have carried them around with me in this manner.

I was terribly pleased to have heard a “Yes” (and maybe it was a “Yes” with a big sigh and a grumpily mumbled “Okay, dammit I’ll do it,” trailing after the “Yes”) when I asked Kathy to draw the maps for our walking guide book for Gouda, “The Bee’s Tour of Gouda, Buzzing Through Vinita’s Lens”.

Thank you and in the spirit of celebrating creativity….two poems I share (not mine):

[as freedom is a breakfastfood]

as freedom is a breakfastfood
or truth can live with right and wrong
or molehills are from mountains made
—long enough and just so long
will being pay the rent of seem
and genius please the talentgang
and water most encourage flame

as hatracks into peachtrees grow
or hopes dance best on bald men’s hair
and every finger is a toe
and any courage is a fear
—long enough and just so long
will the impure think all things pure
and hornets wail by children stung

or as the seeing are the blind
and robins never welcome spring
nor flatfolk prove their world is round
nor dingsters die at break of dong
and common’s rare and millstones float
—long enough and just so long
tomorrow will not be too late

worms are the words but joy’s the voice
down shall go which and up come who
breasts will be breasts thighs will be thighs
deeds cannot dream what dreams can do
—time is a tree (this life one leaf)
but love is the sky and i am for you
just so long and long enough

ee cummings

L’Art
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
Ezra Pound