I had to have a small skin cancer removed yesterday. It’s nothing dangerous or life threatening. It’s nothing to worry about, truly. I mention it because as I lay back at the dermatologist’s with my eyes averted, I thought about how we’re almost in winter now, and I am glad. The sky is a stormy gray out, and wind whistles over the chimney. When my husband and I hiked last weekend, the sky was gray, the trees were naked and gray, and the trail was thick with copper brown leaves. We were bundled in hats and gloves, and my cheeks were cold and red.
I was surprised when I traveled from Palma de Mallorca in Spain to Munich in Germany, and of the two, I fell in love with Munich. I connected with the atmosphere, the landscape, the trees. I instantly connected in my soul. It rained almost the whole time we were there. The sky was gray, the puddles were gray. I wore black boots to walk and a black coat with a black furry collar. I could see my breath, and I walked with my hands shoved in my pockets. And I loved it. I loved the moodiness, I loved the brisk air. I loved the cozy shops and the dripping leaves.
I used to think I wanted to live in an eternal summer. As I lay under the knife yesterday to have a skin cancer removed, I was grateful for winter, and for days that aren’t sunny.
A zipper clinks in the dryer as a pair of jeans tumbles round and round. The refrigerator hums. Shower water patters in our bathroom, and a brush clacks on the vanity in our daughter’s bathroom as she gets ready for work. Our son left a few minutes ago to go back to college, and the house is quiet except for these sounds.
I returned last weekend from two weeks away and went straight into Thanksgiving. Thanks to the holiday, our son was here for my homecoming, and that was the best homecoming I could ask for. I worked for one day to try to catch up on a few things, but took the rest of the week off to be with my family. I needed the break after being on and in work mode for two weeks straight. Being present with our kids soothed and rejuvinated me.
Our kids are more adult than children now, and they’re my favorite people to hang out with. We laughed a lot this week. We played Euchre a few times, Scattergories once, and our son taught us a new solitaire that I can’t remember the name of. Our son got us hooked on the excellent show The Bear, and we introduced him to Our Flag Means Death. On Thanksgiving day, we made cocktails for all of us (Tom Collins for our son, rum sour for our daughter, martinis for my husband and me) so they can get a taste for the finer things instead of the crappy stuff kids drink when the objective is to get drunk instead of enjoy a nice drink.
From Thanksgiving, we went into Christmas within a day. Friday was the only day we’d all be together until mid-December, which is later than we want to get our Christmas tree. So on Black Friday, we were at Spruce Ridge Tree Farm for our annual family outing to select our tree. We lit a fire that night and decorated together while we drank hot cocoa spiked with Irish cream.
Now, our living room looks like a Christmas jungle. The mantle is lined with candles, greenery, and conical tabletop trees in silvers and holly berry red. Snake plants flank the fireplace, palm fronds wave airily in the corner, and the monstera is taking over the front windows. And opposite those tropical plants is a beautiful temperate evergreen dressed in twinkling white lights and glittering ornaments.
Outside, the aloe on the deck is brown and deflated; its droopy leaves melt over the side of the pot like Dalí’s clocks. The first frost came while I was away. The trees are now naked and the landscape is brown; autumn is over.
Inside, the house smells of fir and white pine. Our son’s door is open and his room is empty. December is just around the corner, though, and he’ll be home again. Soon after that, the calendar will change over to 2024. And then we’ll be in the year our daughter leaves home and we enter a completely different stage of our lives.
I’ve started drawing. On my recent work trip to Germany, my team lead told us she did a random thing in the airport that she would have never expected to do. She needed a new nib for one of the fountain pens she uses for drawing. When she was in the Berlin airport, one of the airport convenience stores had a whole display of LAMY fountain pens. That in itself was pretty unusual — have you ever been to an airport convenience store that sells fountain pens? She was delighted! LAMY is the pen type she needed a nib for. And at this airport convenience store in Berlin, not only did they sell the pens, they also sold nibs. So while she waited for her flight, my lead was able to complete the task of purchasing and changing her pen’s nib.
I have a LAMY fountain pen. I wanted to see a LAMY fountain pen display in an airport. But more than that, I was intrigued by the thought of using my LAMY pen for drawing. This isn’t the first time this has occurred to me (see My friends are all drawing from October 2020). Back then, though, I got discouraged pretty quickly. My focus was on a finished product: I expected a drawing that looked like the thing I was drawing. When that didn’t happen, I stopped drawing.
On our trips to Palma and Munich, my team lead would take time every day to draw or paint. She had a sketchpad that I immediately coveted. It’s small and flips open like a journalist’s notepad: you lift the cover up instead of to the left. It’s the perfect size for traveling or keeping in a purse so that you have it with you at all times. We talked a lot about her drawing and painting practice, how soothing and meditative it is for her. She continually used her phone to snap photos of things she wanted to paint or sketch: tangerines on a tree, a cocktail glass, teammates. The more we talked, and the more I saw her seeing things she wanted to draw, the more I itched to try it again. Not for the finished drawings, but for the process.
When we went to Munich, she wanted to go to an art supply store, so my teammates and I tagged along. I was toying with the idea of buying myself a pocket-sized sketchpad like hers. And maybe a couple of drawing pens.
At the shop, I found a German-made sketchbook exactly like I wanted: small and unintimidating. I also picked up three Sakura pigma micron fineliners. I wanted something different from my fountain pens. The shopkeeper bagged my tiny purchases in a plastic bag for me to protect them from the rain.
When we emerged from the shop, I was excited. On our meetup in Palma, our team lead led us in an exercise to do blind contour drawings of one another: we spent one minute looking at a teammate and drawing them without looking at the paper and without lifting our pens from the paper. The results were hilarious and fun and forced us to reject perfectionism. This exercise opened the door for me to not take drawing so seriously. I laughed and signed the portrait I made of my teammate as if it were a work of genius.
As we walked down the sidewalk away from the shop, my lead was excited for me. She talked about how how much fun it is to be fearless in drawing, to not worry about what it looks like, but to just do it for the hell of it, because the process is fun, or meditative, or whatever good feeling it gives. It got me to thinking about writing, and how much writers block ourselves by self-editing before we even write a word on the page. The joy in writing for me is not getting it perfect: the joy is in letting words spill out. Maybe I’ll fix them up, maybe I won’t, but I enjoy just letting the words flow.
As soon as I got back to my hotel room, I sat down and drew. I drew the Glockenspiel. The next day, I drew my coffee cup and cakes from the cake shop. The third day I drew a Munich surfer, the fourth a swan on the lake I walked every morning, the fifth a leaf with raindrops on it. On the 10 hour flight home, I picked up doodling, and I spent hours just drawing lines and shapes. The plane was frigid as we flew over the Atlantic, so I plugged in the headphones and turned on the crackling fireplace relaxation video they had on the in-flight entertainment. I’d read for a little while, then pull out my sketchpad and doodle to the snap and pop of a video fire, then read some more.
Since I’ve been home, I’ve drawn every day as well: a ginkgo leaf I saw by our son’s car, the apple pie from Thanksgiving. With each drawing I do, I find a technique I want to learn. I want to learn how to do textures, I want to learn how to shade. Sometimes I find myself wishing my drawings were better, and I have to remind myself that perfection is not the point. Aiming for perfection makes it feel more like work than play, and it’s no fun anymore. But when I draw just because I like the feeling of the pen on the paper, and when I try to improve one little thing at a time — like texture, like shading — I feel invigorated, and I love it.
Some drawings. The coffee & cake drawing and the tangerine were done with my LAMY Safari fountain pen
P.S. I did see a LAMY fountain pen display in the Munich airport!Fountain pens in the airport, home of Leuchtturm paper… Germany is my kind of place.
P.P.S. I approach my blog posts these days like I approach drawing: they’re messy, and don’t necessarily make sense, and they’re far from perfect. When I aim for something clean and tidy and meaningful, something “well-written”, I end up not blogging. And I’d rather blog than not, so here we are.
When I travel for work, I have a hard time fitting in physical activity. Running shoes are too big to pack for the small amount of use they’ll get since I only wear them for running. Swim gear is small, though, and there were pools both places I went on my recent work trip. I brought a swimsuit, cap, and goggles, which fit easily in my suitcase. However, the pool the first week was outside and cold, and the pool the second week was indoors but closed. So I didn’t get to swim.
By the time we got to Munich, after I’d been sedentary and eating delicious food non-stop for a full week in Palma de Mallorca, I was desperate for physical activity. It turns out Munich is a wonderfully walkable city, if cold and wet in November. For my second week away, instead of running or swimming, I laced up my boots and I walked.
Day One: city center shopping and Munich American High School
On our first day in Munich, I discovered to my delight that we were only one block away from access to natural beauty, with walking paths and without cars. Our hotel was called Hilton Munich Park, but until I looked at the map and saw huge green spaces everywhere, I didn’t put it together that the hotel was named for its proximity to the Englischer Garten, one of the largest urban parks in the world. Our first morning in Munich, I walked out under the grey sky into the park, and I fell in love. I walked there every day.
Walk in the park
This day was our day off between meetups, and after breakfast, the four of us from my team who’d come over from Mallorca walked all around the city center to watch the Glockenspiel strike noon, to shop for art supplies, kitchen supplies, and a photography backpack, and to eat pretzels and drink beer.
Glockenspiel, a teacup Christmas tree, and beer and pretzels
After lunch, I ventured out on my own to see if I could find my mom’s high school. All my life I’ve heard her talk about Munich American High School, the school she graduated from in 1969. Her dad was in the US Air Force and was stationed in a small town in Italy where there wasn’t a high school for Mom and my uncle to go to, so they shipped off to Munich.
I rode the tram to the stop near the address my mom had given me. The rain had finally started falling after threatening all day, and when I got off the tram, I went straight to the supermarket to buy an umbrella. I walked for about an hour, all around the area where my mom’s high school used to be. The school isn’t there anymore, but I got to walk a wooded path by the schools that replaced it, and I got a feel for the area.
Where Munich American High School used to be
I got in 19,000 steps that day, and it felt so good.
Day Two: Surfers, Palace, Hofbrauhaus, and cake
This was the travel day for the meetup, meaning that most people from the company would arrive today. I started my day with a morning walk, as I ended up doing every day in Munich. On this day I tested waking at 6am and walking at 7am (sunrise was 7:20) to see if I could walk around the lake and get back by 8am for breakfast. If it worked, I planned to make that my routine for the rest of the week.
It did work, and I followed that routine every day: wake and shower, do a little work, walk, then head to breakfast, when I had meetings scheduled nearly every day. My daily walk was a perfect way to start each day. I loved seeing the lake in different light and weather.
Morning at the lake
Since I couldn’t find Mom’s high school the day before, I asked her for any other landmarks to visit. She remembered the Glockenspiel, and she also told me about a beer house she used to go to — Hofbrauhaus — where she could get a liter of beer for 50 cents. So the second day, that was my primary quest. My team lead also told us that Germany is good at cake, so we needed to also meet for cake. That was my secondary quest. First beer, then cake.
After my morning walk and catching up with some work stuff, a friend from my team walked with me through a different part of the park to get to the city center and Hofbrauhaus. The river through the park is flowing fiercely right now, and there are places in the river that create continual waves.
And these continual waves attract surfers.
So on our way to the beer house, we stopped to watch some surfers, decked out in full wetsuits, surf the river wave. We also walked through the grounds of the Munich Residenz, the palace that was home to Bavarian kings and queens, and Feldherrnhalle, the site of the battle that ended Hitler’s failed coup to take over the Bavarian state in 1923. He was subsequently arrested and found guilty of treason. He wrote Mein Kampf from prison after that arrest.
Surfers in the distance, about to drop inBathing verbotenPalace groundsPalace courtyardCorner of FeldherrnhalleOn our walk to Hofbrauhaus
My coworker and friend, Kris, joined me on my venture to Hofbrauhaus. As soon as we turned the corner and I saw the crowned HB on a building, I recognized it from a stoneware beer stein we’ve had in our house my entire life. I always liked it because my dad and mom are Henry and Beth: HB.
At Hofbrauhaus, I had the best meal I think I ate in Munich. We got a bread basket that included rye rolls and seeded breadsticks with fried onions and crispy cheese on top. The bread in Munich is amazing. Our team lead told us that mushroom foraging is big in Germany, so I ordered a seasonal special of mushroom ragout. And of course, I had to get a liter of beer, the Hofbräu Dunkel. The mug was bigger than my head.
My mom’s high school doesn’t exist anymore, but the beer house she frequented does
I could barely walk when we left, I was so full. And we were due for cake in 30 minutes with our teammates. So we set out on foot again and headed for the cake shop, Konditorei Erbshäuser, where we shared 5 pieces of cake among 4 of us: Prinzregententorte (many thin layers), Sachertorte (my favorite! all chocolate), almond cheesecake, apricot cheesecake, and Mohnkuchen (German poppy seed cake). It was raining when we finished, but we walked through the rain to another shop anyway before catching an Uber back to the hotel.
Cake quest
Days 3-6
Our meetup officially started on our third day in Munich, which means I had less time to move and get active. But I still walked every day in the park.
Walking at sunriseWalking in the rain
On the final day of our work meetup, I went a different direction on my walk than my normal lakeside routine. I walked toward the palace and found a different part of the park I hadn’t seen yet. I walked along the river and found more waves and small waterfalls. It was too early for surfers, but in a calm pool in the river, in the early part of the day just after sunrise, before many people were out walking and running, two people bathed naked in the river. I wore a warm hat, a coat, long underwear, and wool socks, and these two were just hanging out in the barely-above-freezing water with nothing on. Apparently this is fairly normal, nudists in Germany. In winter, surfers wear hooded wetsuits, but in summer it’s not unusual to see them surf naked.
That night, our company booked tables for more than 300 people, and we were treated to dinner and beer at Augustinerkeller, a beer garden and hall that’s been around since the early 1800s. I got another liter of beer, because why not, I was in Germany, and though the walk was short and cold, we did walk around the garden where people in liederhosen played matches of curling in the rain. We stood around a raised fire bowl and sipped our wegbier — “beer for the way” — or walking-around beer. Because of course there’s a German word for the beer you carry with you.
Final day in Munich
I didn’t have any idea what to expect of Munich, but I fell in love with it. I could spend a lot more time there.
This week I am in the cold and wet of Munich, Germany for a work trip. Last week I was in sunny Spain. This week I’m walking in the rain with an umbrella, surrounded by brilliant fall colors like at home, eating sausages and pretzels and drinking beer. Last week I was in a villa with citrus and olive groves, surrounded by palm trees and sunshine, eating cheeses and cured meats and drinking wine.
I love both places. My Munich photos aren’t as good as my Palma ones, so for now I’ll just share pictures from the island in the Mediterranean, where I ate tangerines fresh off the tree, and where rosemary grew wild on a rocky hike to the sea.
Finca Rústica Felostal villa where our team stayedOur first day at the villa
In the mornings I sat outside on the terrace to eat my breakfast of Greek yogurt with almonds and honey. On the one day it wasn’t sunny, wind blew through palms, pomegranate trees, and bouganvilla, while rain pattered on the Spanish tile roof. I journaled at a worn wooden table with a small fluffy cat curled up in the pad of the chair next to me. My teammate’s yoga mat lay on the tile terrace outside her room’s glass door to the garden.
Eight of us from my team were able to make it to the meetup, and we rented a van since the villa wasn’t walking distance to restaurants or the market. Plus, we were on an island, and we wanted to see the sea. One day we piled into the minivan to go for a team hike, and it was spectacular.
By the seaHike to a cove
After a wild and stressful year, this was a soothing time together to slow down, reflect, and get inspired for 2024. We made meals together, we processed 2023 together, and we enjoyed the calm, rejuvinating peace of the villa.
Herbs, olives, and orangesSo pretty I loved this little table under the tree
Leaves are a lot more fun in the forest, where I can marvel over their pretty colors, photograph them, and move on.
Our lawn and back hill were covered in a blanket of oak leaves on Sunday. I’d planned to spend the day putting the garden to bed for the winter — cutting back perennials, turning the compost, and pulling weeds. I wound up spending nearly six hours sweeping leaves off the deck, raking, and mowing over piles of oak crisps to chop them into a mulch.
Sunday dawned warm. Mid-morning, I was in short sleeves under a blue sky, listening to the rustle of wind. I started the morning with my shears, cutting back the Shasta daisies and goldenrod. I filled the wheelbarrow, and after one attempt to push it up the hill to dump the dead stems, slipping and sliding on the leaves on the steep hill, I had to stop cutting back the perennials and switch to raking leaves. I needed to clear a path from the bottom of the hill to the top so I’d have enough traction to get the wheelbarrow up to the compost pile. I dragged maybe 8-10 tarps full of leaves to the top of the hill. The leaves were crispy and light, like coppery paper cutouts. I mowed them over to make them small, and their dust blew into my face as I chopped them up.
After a few hours and a break for lunch, I’d cleared enough of a path that I could finally continue my original work of cutting back the daisies, the goldenrod, and the milkweed I grew from seed. I didn’t deadhead the milkweed this year, and their section of the garden looked like a cotton patch. Their seed pods had burst open, and the fine tendrils of floss that helps the hundreds of seeds drift on the wind had all clumped together in a silky white poof, stuck in the stems of the dried out plants. I cut the stems back and freed the silky seeds. Maybe they’ll make their way somewhere they can take root and grow and feed some monarch caterpillars.
At the end of my gardening day, the lawn was covered again in a blanket of oak sheddings. The tree’s crown is still half full of coppery foliage. With each breath of wind, scores of papery leaves drift gracefully down and then tick to the ground.
Butterfly Mind 