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essays | places
Germany
on track on time
Münster / Germany · 2018 busy with ice cream
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Germany, you function too well. You’re always way too early to be on time. Your work ethos is spelled o-v-e-r-d-e-d-i-c-a-t-i-o-n. Your etiquette is too adequate. Your plans drag on for too long. And you’re a little uptight – you know that right? And why oh way do you always have to complain?
Well, that’s the official version anyway. But whenever the neighbors aren’t watching you are naughty, aren’t you? That’s when I wonder whether you are freer a thinker or freer a spirit, whether you’re more progressive or compassionate, more hipster or underground, more electro or rap. You are warmer underneath and you “have your heart in the right place,” as the Rhinelanders say.
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a glimpse
passages ELECTRIFIED | In the beginning we created the light. And we saw that it was good. Now there is so much light, so much power, source enough for good and bad, for better or worse. Today our high-tech church is benevolent bliss built on a greedy grid. Tomorrow it will be a sanctuary or a ruin.
passages DAY IN MAY | On a rainy day in May I cast my doubts aside, because it felt too easy when the sun was bright. Now I don’t mind the ripe sky, hanging low and heavy, or the faith that has long since left me, as rain is growth and small soon tall. Best make it a flash flood to wash that grime off of my mind, so I can jumpstart my heart and make the way I depart my art.
Cologne / Germany · 2018 Kranhaus
where he took flight
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Koblenz / Germany · 2018 skateboard outboard
where the flying car stranded
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Cologne / Germany · 2021 golden bird
Meckenheim / Germany · 2018 fishing in the creek
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places / stories
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NRW / Heart in the Right Place
Bonn / Germany · 2018 into the domestic wild
Thankfully, they had installed enough rules and norms to break them at every corner.
Lake Laach / Germany · 2018 lumberjack
Bonn / Germany · 2018 bent sign
Everything was arranged neatly and organized thoughtfully, and there were good reasons for this reasoning. A no-nonsense country made sense.
Münster / Germany · 2018 algae allergy
Münster / Germany · 2018 a neat arrangement of cozy colors
Münster / Germany · 2018 only love letters
Plans were good, but more plans were better, and longer plans best. Like long-term, you know?
Ahrweiler / Germany · 2018 time portal
Because you can’t borrow from tomorrow. And why worry about tomorrow tomorrow, if you can worry about it today and then tomorrow with interest?
Aachen / Germany · 2018 glassy womb
The nation advanced earnestly, but with the awkwardness of a lanky adolescent taking two stairs at a time.
Bonn / Germany · 2018 black blossom
Meckenheim / Germany · 2018 excursion
All mocking aside, Germany did come through when it mattered. With heart, compassion, spontaneity, flexibility, openness, fierceness, and love.
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elsewhere
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