when we shall again be in Bloomington

I know I've written about this before, but I've been thinking about what it might take to recreate the parts of Berlin life I like, back in Bloomington.

Yesterday I thought: I was so happy and content in my life in Bloomington before we left, and so unhappy here at first, and now it's good here so what does that mean - I do so want to reconnect with my wonderful Bloomington friends when I get back, and at the same time I want to meet new people in Bloomington, do more new different things.

So yesterday's new thought was: I want to be in some groups in Bloomington that are open, to which I can invite new people whenever or wherever I might happen to meet new people whom I like. I think that is definitely one of the things making it all come together for me here right now. It's exciting to meet new people and fun to connect them.

And today's new thought, not an idea so much for a strategy so much as a recognition, is: I think that one reason I'm enjoying myself so freely and wildly here - which is, actually, heavily connected to why I was so lonely and unhappy here at the beginning - is that our family life is VERY different here. On the one hand we are intensely together sometimes, but on the other hand we are all and each more independent. 1. There is public transportation so children and adults alike can go off in different directions on their own and come home on their own; 2. We are in this hilarious and intense dormlike situation with families and people all around us with connections for each of us, so there too we have more options to separate out and each of us be engaged with others outside the family without involving the other family members; 3. hubby is I think way more constantly and happily and busily involved with other people (this is the part that was most about me being lonely at first and me being freer to bop around town now) - it's not like at home he was always begging me to do things together, if anything maybe even the other way around, but still somehow there was more pressure to be home; 4. the HOUSE, the house, the house is a bit of a millstone ain't it, whereas here we are in a little apt. that isn't even ours, so I think that there is just less to do, less to worry about.

Hmmm. Not sure at all how all this will translate but I'm thinking as hard as I can!

Love,

smalltown girl in bigtown place

Southwest Airlines / Psychology Today

I do so love Southwest Airlines. And why is that? Well, where to start: they're cheap, they fly me from Indianapolis to California without much fuss and around inside California with even much less fuss than that. They let me change my dates around without asking for any extra money; they're just a little simpler than everybody else.

On the Southwest flight from Indianapolis to Ontario (no, not Canada; southern California - nearest airport to my parents' in Claremont) via Las Vegas, I read a bunch of things I had bought for myself in Indy. I bought three novels (one hardback) and two magazines for pots of money; but then again, while in Bloomington I really didn't spend much money. (I mooched off Jenny an awful lot for one thing - sorry, Jenny! if you're wondering where that next-to-last brownie went, I have to confess!)

Anyway, I bought the blasted things and on the way to Las Vegas I read the entire most recent #1 Ladies Detective Agency, all of a Psychology Today, and part of another book which had a terrible title but which I rather quite liked (my usual test: would I have been happy to write this book? and the answer: resoundingly yes). Anyway, after I finished the Psychology Today I tucked it into the seat pocket in front of me and left it there; while we were on the ground in Las Vegas for 35 minutes I moved seats, further frontwards, but figured I'd leave the Psychology Today where it was.

So then while I was sitting in my new seat (we couldn't move till after the friendly flight attendant had counted all of our six heads that were staying on the flight for the next leg) (don't worry, more people got on; the second leg was as 100% full as the first one) - anyway, I"m sitting there in my new seat and I'm thinking: that article I read in Psychology Today, about which personality types relocate more and less and why and how - I'd like to maybe blog about it or in some other ways refer back to it. But do I want to go back to my old seat and pull it out?

Meanwhile, all the flight attendants are swarming the seats and cleaning and pulling out stuff and tidying and tossing and all of that - they are, as they often remind us, the cleaning crew. And sure enough, the very pleasant man who'd been in charge of my row of seats (and who did the head count) pulled out my Psychology Today out of my old seat pocket (so much for leaving it for the next person, which I thought I was doing) and came forward with it - I'm still thinking: so, do I reclaim it now before he throws it away? And then he walked down the aisle with it and said: does anybody want a Psychology Today. I hesitated (what personality type does that make me?) and nobody else said anything either and he said something along the lines of (oh, I don't have to make it up, I see I wrote down his exact words:) "Anyone for a Psychology Today? I didn't think so - it isn't exactly a hot seller."

!!!!!??????

So then I really couldn't confess and reclaim anymore. I let my Psychology Today (which, by the way, I had found in the Men's Interest section of the magazine rack - why?) be consigned to the dustheap of history, and so I have to tell you from very vague-ish memory (this I didn't write down) - essentially, if you're a friendly and happy person, you stay put and don't keep moving away town to town. I thought this was very, very, very interesting indeed. All my dear friends who have ended up not moving away from Bloomington: you hear that!?

(Also, just by the by: inside the Psychology Today there were a few references to their online site and I thought: why do I read so very few and always the same things online I wonder? at the newsstand I'm interested in all sorts of things; online I go to the New York Times, Huffington Post, Salon.com, Slate, and maybe sometimes Divine Caroline and Digg.com and very occasionally Youtube (I don't go there so very often for one reason because there's almost always somebody nearby who will be disturbed by the noise . . . !) - I know why I don't go to the New Yorker online even though I've been made aware of it, it's because I don't want to spoil the print version for myself. But it's a real question: why am I stuck in these very few sites? Even when I have all the time in the world to surf the web, which is of course not by any means always?)

all kinds of writing

I want so much to be writing in this year and I've been struggling with what kinds and my most recent decision is: all kinds!

In my various writing groups it keeps coming back, in the context of trying to do fiction, to the fact that I continue to be very drawn to poetry.

In the context of trying to do more literary writing daily I was considering giving up the blogging entirely but then I decided - nooo! There were a few technical things I really wanted to figure out (as in: how do I make the entries have little short parts that appear and then be continued elsewhere, which I see on so many blogs!? - so I can write a long thing but it doesn't clog the blog) but I still haven't figured it out and so I'm blogging anyway. A couple friends have been kind enough to notice the absence of entries and so here I am, back again.

Writing Things I'm doing:

as of yesterday, a daily haiku exercise that I really, really like! (found it on the web - more maybe in a separate post)

also as of yesterday, a daily prose exercise that forces an enormous amount of action in a short short piece - I loved this one!

Writing Groups I'm in:

2nd and 4th Saturday afternoons of the month, a German-speaking group that meets at a cafe that takes me 45 minutes to travel to - we write for about an hour on our own things, then we talk, then we do a couple of writing exercises, and then maybe we talk more. Yesterday we talked more, very very inspiring and helpful and stimulating, and there too, maybe more in a separate post.

1st Friday night of the month, a German-English group where we read to each other and critique rather than writing together (although you can come an hour early to do writing exercises). There were about 25 people when I was there in January (only time I've gone so far). 

every Friday morning, organized by me from people from the German-English group: an English-speaking group that meets in a cafe and does writing exercises, that so far I have arranged (from books I have and the web) - also very good this week!

Still hoping to go to: once-a-month women's poetry group on a Wednesday night (this coming Wednesday night, when it meets, my play-reading group is taking a break so it's perfect): in that one as far as I can tell we do poetry exercises together, which is wonderful!

OK, more anon, it's 8:42 a.m. (January 25th in Berlin, don't believe whatever it says up there) and I want to still breakfast (my daily oatmeal/blueberries/banana), stretch, move the living room all around again, make fruit salad and frittata and get the table set up for 10 people for brunch at eleven this morning. 

Fabulous poetry group

I wrote about the amazing play reading group. Well, it's been so long since I've written there's been another meeting of that, but in the meantime there was also a wonderful poetry group. I can't even go on and on about it right now because it was so long ago, but we're going to meet once a month, and the Germans are unbelievably well educated, and we read one German poem and one English poem and they were both by young men who each ended up dead within a few months of the poem. It was 

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen and

Grodek by Georg Trakl

I don't think I will reprint them here but I do so recommend googling them and going to read. But it wasn't just reading them, it was talking through them. Made me very happy. Wish that were every week too like the play reading group, not just once a month.

I told my play reading group about the poetry reading group and they laughed and said what, and bowling on Tuesday nights? Which I thought was funny, because they themselves are obviously doing this weekly play thing with me!