Witnesses of silence

Books on my bookshelves
A collection of time spent
Not talking a word.

Looking out on cornfields

Prompt:

"The corn was head high, rustling its heavy, dusty leaves, and for a while anyway it had nothing to do with her."

Lila, by Marilynne Robinson

She hides in the attic amongst discarded pieces of broken furniture. Too precious to burn. No longer deemed worthy of fixing. Instead, they gather dust on their wooden surfaces, the grim and rust in their joints leave stains on her shirt and shorts as she crawls to the round window open at the gable of the roof. A cool breeze dries the pearls of sweat on her forehead. 

Sinking into cushions, she forms a makeshift fort, grasping the softest one, its floral pattern faded by sunlight, and hugging it close to her chest. Pushing down, trying to stave off the waves of disappointment and hurt building up inside of her. Her mother's categorical no still echoes in her ears. Her one chance of escape shattered.

  
Now there is nothing to do but wait and watch each day pass by in repetition of nothingness. She swallows the bitterness, choking. Tears begin to fall. 

History

I used to go to Würzburg to the Benedictine monastery to learn Tai Chi.

A Chinese Catholic priest from Barcelona came to teach. He told us the story of escaping China with Catholic missionaries when their lives were threatened by the Red Army.

Thirty years later, he returned to visit his sister, his only living relative. He said that, instead of recounting the details of their struggles, they sat together in silence, knowing that their suffering was too deep to put into words. 

Still not there yet

What little I know about forgiveness has been milked from shrivelled memories. Some say it is possible to forgive, yet not forget. I'm not so sure of that. Forgiveness happens so slowly because it needs constant nourishment given from happiness and joyfulness. How is that going to happen if I cannot forget the hurtful deeds, the unkind criticisms, or wrongful decisions? Holding tight to those memories makes it impossible for anything other to surface.

I worry that I will pass on my suffering to my children and my life partner. There is so much child-like, childish hurt bottled up inside of me that I put on a shelf in my subconscious. Only on days like today do I take it out and polish the glass sides, checking whether the seal is still air-tight.

Deep inside, I hope the hurt will miraculously evaporate, leaving an ether of forgiveness that permeates the walls of my heart.

They are no longer here. Surely it is time to let the hurt die as well. For no one deserves to be measured only by their mistakes, inadequacies, or their worst deeds. I yearn to put those to rest. I want to love them again, as I did as a child, before the suffering began.

My AI writing coach

Last week, I sent the manuscript of the first twenty-two of twenty-seven chapters of my memoir to an editor. It is what I hope will prove to be a good first draft. The editor is someone I trust to do a thorough line edit as well as provide creative feedback.

What surprised me most was not that I had finished twenty-two chapters. It was that this was probably the strongest first draft I have written in all my years as a content developer. Granted, writing a memoir is another kettle of fish, and I still have to hear back from the editor; they might see it otherwise.

What I am anxious to find out is whether working with an AI writing coach has truly paid off in this initial phase, as far as the quality of output. What is indisputable is that the experience of using an agent changed how I approached my writing. I had more time to write and less time to brood.

After reading Dr. Philippa Hartman’s article, The “Cognitive Offloading” Paradox, I was fascinated to discover that many of the ways I had instinctively been working with AI closely matched what she describes as “committed, strategic offloading,” a predictor of positive, even transformative learning.

Hartman discusses six principles to follow.

Principle 1: Offload to AI substantially, or not at all.

When it comes to writing, up until now, I have used ChatGPT, together with Grammarly and Claude, to edit my spelling and grammar.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to give ChatGPT more complicated editing tasks to do, but found this dissatisfying. This is partially because the AI tools introduced certain language patterns I don’t like at all, such as em dashes, one-sentence paragraphs, and an overuse of adjectives. As well, at the Pro project level, ChatGPT only seemed able to process tasks involving documents up to ten pages long. If, for instance, I asked it to remove the time lines and clean up the text of a podcast transcript longer than fifteen pages, the results were suboptimal: missing sections, cut-off sentences, and hallucinations. Any discussion with ChatGPT about how to alter my prompts to achieve consistently reliable results failed.

Admittedly, the problem might have been on my side, but I didn’t want to spend more time trying to get the model to produce better outcomes. I also didn’t want to run the risk of my book reading as though AI had stomped all over it, leaving the language flat and the imagery matted. I found two friends with the required expertise to do the editing. Human writing for human readers.

Having dyslexia meant I still relied on Grammarly as a spell checker.

The one area I was excited to work with AI was as a writing coach. This is the first time I have written a book, and I needed guidance. After taking numerous online courses in creative nonfiction writing, I felt more confused than motivated. I needed a writing coach to help me with structure and form. Fortunately, a good friend worked with me and programmed an AI agent as a writing coach.

Principle 2: Frame AI as a partner, not a tool.

My writing coach was not so much a partner as an informed expert, possessing a skill set I needed. I’ve probably read dozens and dozens of memoirs in my life, some of them among my favourites, but I knew nothing about what makes a memoir engaging and appealing to today’s readers. For this, I needed feedback from someone or something that could review my work from a publisher’s perspective, and also had the ability to support my writing process without creative intrusion.

What I was seeking was a coach who would listen to my questions and answer them with specificity. I was also hoping the coach could help me distance myself from what I was writing, so that I could make changes out of conviction that they would add cohesiveness and clarity, rather than out of desperation or insecurity.

The final selling point was the ability to converse with this coach about anything that came to mind, and at times convenient for me. I didn’t need to feel beholden to this coach, nor was I concerned about testing the boundaries of the relationship. This freedom of when, where, and what of our so-called partnership was joyful.

Principle 3: Build verification into the workflow, not the preamble.

One of the core tasks I assigned the coach to do was to analyse each chapter for what was working, what needed improvement, and what was missing. The book has four parts with varying numbers of chapters, so I asked the agent to make sure each chapter supported the central theme of its respective part and that each part was identifiable from the others.

The coach would write an analysis of what worked and what didn’t in the version I submitted of each chapter. As I read through the response, I registered whether I “liked” what was being said or not. Everything I liked went into a “maybe true” bucket. I didn’t feel I could necessarily trust the positive comments as being true, but neither could I dismiss them. I gave myself permission to let them stand for the moment. It was reassuring to hear these comments and soothed my doubts, which enabled me to continue writing with momentum.

Then there was the feedback I didn’t like reading. This tended to fall into two other buckets. The first was the “whatever” bucket. These were nice-to-have suggestions, but not for this round of revisions. Advice about how I could build an even higher sandcastle. Things that would take too much time and not substantially improve the current version.

There were also comments so unhelpful that I questioned the feasibility of continuing to use the AI coach. I treated these as anomalies and discarded them almost immediately.

Then there were comments or ideas I didn’t like or were resistant to, but that provoked a response that made me want to explore them further. One suggestion was that I move an entire chapter to a different part of the book. My immediate reaction was, “Absolutely not.” Two days later, I realised the suggestion exposed a weakness in the structure, even though I ultimately solved the problem differently. Those were the conversations that taught me the most.

If a suggestion made me pause, I’d ask the agent to give me some examples and ask follow-up questions. What would be an alternative to what I’m doing now? Why is this suggestion useful? What will it improve? Then a conversation would ensue. Not between adversaries, but between two parties working toward a common outcome. I was well aware that the AI agent was not a committed partner, but the thread of discussion often felt as though it was.

Principle 4: Make the learner think first, AI second.

In the creative process of writing a book, I am the learner, so it is up to me to do the work, both the heavy lifting and the light touches. Using the coach reminds me of something my father used to say: “The best thing about buying your first car is paying for it.” As someone who has never owned a car, I do not have direct experience with this, yet I do know the satisfaction of taking a piece of advice from the agent, rewriting part of a chapter or expanding on an idea, and recognising that the piece is now better.

The coach could make suggestions endlessly, but until I wrestled with those suggestions myself, nothing had really been learned. The learning happened in the rewriting, not in reading the feedback. Every decision remained mine. Sometimes I accepted a suggestion wholeheartedly. Sometimes I rejected it immediately. More often, one suggestion led me to an entirely different solution that neither the coach nor I had imagined at the outset.

All learning begins with baby steps. Sometimes I felt very wobbly on my legs, the way babies learning to walk resemble drunken sailors. I would take a group of suggestions and begin revising, only to abandon the whole approach halfway through. Since I was using Scrivener as my writing platform, wobbling back to the starting line was no problem.

I never tracked changes. Instead, I rewrote the text, paused for a day or two, and then read the chapter again. I asked myself whether it now flowed smoothly and whether the ideas followed one another more naturally. If not, I returned to the previous version and tried another approach. If it felt right, I moved on to the next chapter and let the revised one rest for a while before returning to it once again with fresh eyes.

That ownership turned out to be essential. The coach could accelerate my thinking, but it could never replace it.

Principle 5: Use AI to identify errors, not fix them.

I love this use of the AI agent most of all. The best feedback I receive is when I ask, “What improvements or changes should I make? What is missing?” Especially the latter question exposed obvious oversights or prodded tender blind spots. Since the information came from a machine, nothing it said felt personal. I only had to ask myself whether what it said made sense or not. Nothing more.

There were two aspects of identifying errors where my AI coach fell short. One was that it had no concept of “good enough.” If I asked it whether the current version of a chapter was good enough as a first draft, whether it had reached a comparable level to the other chapters, the answer was always yes-and-no. There were always things that still needed fixing.

The other shortcoming was that no text was considered beyond saving. No matter how weak or incomprehensible a piece was, it apparently merited practical suggestions for how to improve it. Of course, the coach never said it was a mess.

It happened twice that I worked and worked on a chapter, allowing the AI agent to lead me down the garden path, only to realise that all my efforts were useless. I had to throw the chapters away and start again. Somehow, I wasn’t willing to give up as long as the agent kept making suggestions. This was a valuable lesson to learn. Like the Monty Python sketch about the Black Plague, my text was piled onto the wagon headed for a mass burial, and the agent was singing, “Not dead yet!”

Principle 6: Assess without the scaffolding.

This is where I am now, waiting for my editor’s verdict. If the feedback is largely positive, I will send the manuscript to the second editor. I fully expect many changes, but I also hope they will confirm that the heart of the book is there.

If that happens, I will decide whether to continue using the model in the next round or whether it has already served its purpose.

If the feedback reveals more fundamental problems, I will have to examine not only the manuscript but also the way I used AI throughout the process. That may bruise my ego, but learning something new often does.

In the end, Hartman’s article may prove to be right. The real question was never whether AI could write my book. It couldn’t. The question was whether it could help me become a better writer. That is something only another human being, my editor, can now help me answer.

Baby brother

Tina sits in her bedroom, hiding under her mommy's winter coat, which she dragged from the front corridor. Her eyes are squinted shut. She's covering her ears and singing lalala, trying to unhear the noises in the next room.

Her baby brother is crying again. He's always crying. He never stops. Every time she tries to hold him, he screams and cries, and then her mommy quickly takes him away, with a look.

She hates that look. It makes her feel like a bad girl. She runs back to her room and hides because she doesn't want her mommy to see what she's thinking.

She wishes her baby brother would stop crying. Disappear. Or go away for a long time so her mommy would stop pushing her away from hugging her.

Definition of lush

Work slop, AI slop
What a divine way to call
Something so useless.

#booksIlove: Titus Groan

Title: Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
First time I read the book: when I was dancing full-time at Les Grand Ballet after returning from Cannes, France

I recently decided to download this book as an audiobook, and I am delighting in this book again. I remember being enthralled by the strangeness of the world he presents and how relatable his characters were. They were not nice people, nor were they intrinsically bad. They were, rather, just flawed.

Not a plea for pity

I've always wanted to sing, and in my heart, when I do, I hit notes true. Yet, when Mr. Vincent, the only male teacher in our all-girls private school, whom all the girls have a massive crush on, though he knows I know he has a crush on Sasha, on one of the male ballet dancers at Les Grand Ballet Canadiens where I study dance "seriously", and therefore, he kind likes me more than any of the other frivolous girls with their insipid emotions, listens to me sing, and instead of letting me sing one of the solos, or in the choir during our Christmas concert, we are giving in the beautiful Saint James church down the street, he gives me bells to jingle and a leather strap to snap, which I foolishly interpret as a kind of solo, until my friend Ann jokingly expounds about my tone deafness, many years later, to my teenage kids, as we rest at the top of Mount Royal Park looking down at the city, and while everyone laughs, I shrink inward because I had never been on the joke, even back then.

#booksIlove: Teaching a Stone to Talk

Title: Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters, by Annie Dillard
First time I read the book: when it was first printed in 1982

This book has always been one of my Top Ten Favourite Books. Annie Dillard is a singularly brilliant writer about creativity, writing, life, loss, and everything in between. She has such finesse in how she puts her ideas on paper.

This is the book I restored at the bookbinding workshop I took this week because it was falling apart and I wanted to make sure it always has its proper place on my bookshelf.

Dancing with angels

 “Oh human being, learn to dance,
otherwise the angels in heaven
will not know what to do with you.”

— Aurelius Augustinus

This is such a relief, for if there is one thing I know, it is how to dance. How to follow a lead. How to dance with abandon.

Will the dancing in heaven be a silent rave, each of us hearing the music inside our heads or bodies separately? The only noise heard: the creaking of bones and the occasional beatboxing beneath the breath of someone who has forgotten the rules. Or will it be a beautiful orgy of sounds, body limbs swirling, bending, sliding to the rhythm of the music?

It does not matter, I’m ready for anything. That is, if I can choose my costume: a light green satin gown of my younger body, the burnt-orange cashmere cummerbund of a mother-wife who finally loves and is loved, all draped in a midnight-blue sequined tulle of this older me, whose heart and brain are those of a warrior.

What a dancer I will be.

Finding my way back

 VORSATZ

Auf dem Weg nach vorn 
mit der Flut der Wörter 
die ungenauer werden 
je häufiger man sie ausspricht  

gehen wir zurück
Wort für Wort
einzuholen
was uns vorschwebt  

Heinz Kattner

I'm running ahead with writing the book, chapter after chapter I kept a quick pace. Now, I have reached a point, the pinnacle of my journey and the words have run out. I can't seem to figure out how to climb this last incline. It's about what Dave taught me about sailing and life, but it is actually about dying and death.  

Each time I write the chapter, I take so many detours that the results are confusing and convoluted to the point there is nothing to do but start again. No morsel to clasp onto. No passage to save.  

I write and write, thinking this is going somewhere. Then I reread what I've written a few days later and discover what I've written is completely trash. Thus the need to start again. Or maybe I should go back before going forward. Find some way to use what I have written in the other chapters to prompt me into this chapter about Dave.

Don't you love it!

Mother in hijab
Alone with her three young sons
Steering an e-boat.

Not playing by the rules

In January, I took a fascinating ten-day course offered by Alison Jones called, The 10-day Business Book Proposal Challenge. The course was fabulous and resulted in my writing a book proposal for my book, which I would never have been able to do without taking the course.  Jones, a publisher herself, walked us step-by-step through this document, explaining what is needed from a publisher’s perspective.

 
My resulting book proposal is a very solid first draft. I would recommend the course to anyone wanting to write a non-fiction business book, or even, as in my case, a creative non-fiction book, whether you are going to seek a publisher or self-publish.

It was very challenging to write a book proposal about a book that was, at that time, only in my head. Yet the process has helped me enormously now that I have started writing the book.

I have continued to ruminate on Jones’ insights into the world of publishing and about being a first-time author. I did not know whether to seek a publisher or self-publish. It took a conversation with my son to make up my mind. He’s a solution architect, i.e., a computer scientist, and not an author. This made his perspective even more intriguing to me because I have also not yet published a book.

His advice was to self-publish. He suggested I pay a freelance editor and layouter and not worry about branding and marketing the book. He also said that the bottom line is that if 30 people end up reading my book, that’s fine. There is no correlation between the number of readers you have and the book's worth.
He believes, much in the way that is happening on social media, that bookshelves will soon become inundated with AI-generated books. This will, for a while, make it difficult for readers to find books written by human authors, other than those who already have a name. The probability of a first-time author finding a large readership with their first book is small.

There is also the reality that publishers, who give their heart and soul to publishing books, are no longer able to do much more than carry the editing, layout, and printing costs. There is an expectation from their side that you, as a new author, will dedicate a fair amount of your time each day to setting the stage, as it were, while you are writing the book.

Then, in the days leading up to the book launch, and in the weeks and months afterwards, you work full-time writing blog articles, getting yourself invited onto podcasts, and writing editorials or articles for online magazines or newspapers. Much in the way actors are expected to do the circuit when a film they perform in premieres, most writers now have to enter this circuit as well.

I think my friend, Charlotte, did a brilliant job of marketing of her new book, We Need New Leaders. She probably surpassed the expectations of her publisher. It was inspiring to witness.

Even though we have been friends for over twenty years, she still has the capacity to awe me. The way she stepped up to writing the book in six months, handled all the marketing and sales, and turned it into a bestseller was amazing. Yet, her journey made me realise how little I am presently capable of, or willing to, follow the same path.

This does not mean that I will not approach publishers. Never say never. Rather, my plans for the moment are to consult with a publisher, pay an editor to do the final edit, hire a graphic designer for the cover page, and probably do the layout myself. It will be an interesting and less costly process.

Less costly because, as a first-time author trying to get a publisher interested in taking on your book, the book not only has to fit within the scope of their catalogue, but you also have to say upfront how many hundreds of copies you are willing to buy from the run of the first print. The more you are willing to buy, the more likely they are to take your book on. I did some research and believe the upfront costs of self-publishing are on par with those of working with a smaller publisher.

It is such a paradox. Even before writing my book, I am getting tangled in a game I know I have little talent for. Is it possible to write a book the old way? To take this time in my life and dedicate it to mastering the art of writing?

Not as an act of self-indulgence, but as a creative practice. One I have carried out behind closed doors my whole life.

It has been a fascinating six months learning about the publishing world and how first-time writers can successfully publish their books. For now, though, I will take my son's advice and write the book and self-publish, knowing that the book may only be read by a few people, but hopefully loved by those who do.

By the pool house

I remember the lime tree growing precariously on a small patch of grass that sloped down to the lip of the cliff. Waves broke sonorously over the reef, exposing its coral tips when the tide was low. Salted winds roared up the cliffside and over the edge, drawing the moisture from the grass and curling the fallen leaves. Only the green limes survived the battering of the elements.

The sugar pot on the corner table

Sitting at the corner table of her favourite café with one of her friends, she listens attentively to what her friend is saying, all the while sipping her tea as punctuation. The quiet within her body resembles that of a brooding hen.

Her friend folds out all her despair onto the table: the hateful words her lover spoke, how the situation had escalated into a full-blown, almighty fight, the hurt, the pleading, the slammed door, the grabbing of keys, and the sound of the car engine as he drove away. The silence of his not picking up his phone.

Her friend recounts every detail, as if rubbing away a stain that will not disappear. “Out, damned spot, out, I say!”

She is at a loss as to what she can say to her friend. She who has never loved before, never allowed herself the indulgence of deep despair or blissful pleasure. Her mind wanders away from the stream of words her friend is speaking in her direction, but not to her.

As if her friend notices the lull in attention, she stops talking and looks over, waiting for some words of consolation. She moves her gaze away from wherever it had wandered and back in the direction of her friend’s dilemma.

She accidentally tips over the sugar pot. Her friend continues talking while she scoops up the sugar and places it back into the pot.

The man outside the bakery

His morning routine passes by slowly with the ticking of the grandfather clock standing in the corner of his miniature living room.

Tick. He feeds his dog, a miniature poodle. Tock. He opens the two small windows in his tiny, dark, low-ceiling apartment, all the while the dog pit-pats beside him. Tick. Time to do a cat’s wash. Tock. He makes his bed. Tick. He gets dressed. Tock. He waters his plants. Tick. He puts on his jacket and swoops up his dog, cuddling it in the crook of his left elbow next to his beating heart.

His dishevelled looks and formless clothes speak of elder neglect and loneliness. The health of his dog and the tenderness of their relationship tell another story. Slowly, he walks across the street and sits in the corner seat outside the Turkish bakery.

At this time of day, there is no one else sitting outside at the bakery, only a constant stream of kids on their way to school, as well as adults heading to work. The old man sits there patiently with his dog on his lap, watching the neighbourhood waking to the day.

When there is finally a lull at the bakery, someone comes out with a cup of filter coffee, two sugars, and a dash of cream, and places it in front of the man. He gives a short greeting and hands over a two-euro coin. The two spend a few minutes chatting until a group of school kids, almost late for school, rush in to buy their bread rolls.

Sometime later, when tired shoppers or other older people begin to sit outdoors at the bakery’s tables, the old man and his dog go back home, leaving the empty coffee cup behind.

I meet you… in the sea.

You are full of joy. You greet the waves like old friends as you swim.

 
Blue is your favourite colour.

 
You let go and enjoy being carried.

 
I am afraid when I can no longer see the ground beneath me. The vastness and depth of the water make me uneasy. But you lie calmly on the surface and let it move around you. No worries about what lies below. You trust.

 
You tell me, “It’s so beautiful to be carried by the water. Let yourself be carried.” I take it to heart.

Today I can swim in deep blue water. I can jump bravely from a boat into the sea. I have taken your words to heart, just as I have taken your love for the sea. It lives in me now. And every time I swim in the sea, I think of you.

Written by Lisi Sperber
Photo by Evan Bollag on Unsplash 

I meet you… by my childhood bed.

It is after 10 p.m. Too late for a child my age, but you allow it.

 
My head rests on the cuddle blanket. It smells like me. (I only realise that much later.) You gently stroke my back. 
We talk about the day that has passed. Maybe also about the one to come.

 
At some point I grow quieter. Sleep comes soon.

You wish me good night. Again and again.

 
For so many evenings. I feel safe.

Written by Lisi Sperber
 Photo by ashley on Unsplash

I meet you… on the sofa.

Knitting.

 
On the far-right corner of the sofa. Your corner. Beside your sewing box and your basket of yarn. Under the soft light.

 
You have something on the television.

 
You’re keeping yourself informed with news and documentaries, but you like to look at something to laugh to as well. Now and then, Franconian expressions of disbelief or outrage slip into the room.

 
Your grey knitting needles click together. You knit almost without thinking. Socks. Following Marianne’s pattern.

 
Though you haven’t needed the pattern for a long time. By now, your socks are spread all across Erlangen and beyond.

 
Everywhere, a piece of you keeps the feet of many dear people warm.

Written by Lisi Sperber
Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

I meet you… playing Schafkopf.

Four of you are at the table. With a cheeky smile on your face, you lean back easily in your chair.

 
Your Franconian sayings make me laugh. You play with a kind of ease and confidence. No long thinking, no dwelling on missed chances. At least once in every round comes a firm, “Nachgekaddelt wird net!”

And, you don’t even deny it, you like to peek at the other players’ cards. Which makes your advice on what should be played even more helpful.

 
Everyone somehow tolerates it. You do it with such charming cheek that no one can really object.

 
And again and again, an almost outrageously bold laugh escapes you.

While playing, I see a different side of you. Not the sensible mother, but the mischievous, carefree Maria. It brings me joy to see you like this.

 
One day, I want to play Schafkopf with the same confidence.

 
Maybe with a little less cheating.

Written by Lisi Sperber
Photo by Sven Ciupka on Unsplash

I meet you… at yoga.

Wednesday evening. On your red mat.

 
In winter, on the one with the sheepskin. 

At Marga’s class, just five minutes away by bike.

 
I got my flexibility from you. You move easily into downward dog and pedal your feet. You like the relief it gives your back.

 
But what you love most is curling up on your back like a ball and gently rocking from side to side.

 
Only now do I realise that you were often quite tired after the day. That you wanted to relax. Not to have to exert yourself too much, even in yoga. Your energy often seemed endless, but on the mat, you were looking for calm and rest.

I would have liked to know what you were thinking about, or whether you were able to switch your mind off.

 
You brought yoga into my life. It stays with me almost every day now.

 
Often, when I’m on the mat, I think of you.

Written by Lisi Sperber

Photo by Sweetyoga Justine on Unsplash

I meet you… behind the wheel.

You’re driving the dragon-green Sharan.

 
The roads wind in curves through the Italian landscape. 
The Tarzan soundtrack is playing; Phil Collins is singing. I have the window down on the passenger side.

 
You’re driving a bit too fast and everyone except you is a little afraid. You’re having fun and laughing out loud. 

Cheeky. Young. Carefree.

 
The wind brushes over my sun-browned, salty skin and the air smells of macchia.

 
I feel free and full of joy for life. Yours has rubbed off on me.

Written by Lisi Sperber
Photo by Marco Conzadori on Unsplash

I meet you… by the pond.

In every season. But you prefer it in the sunshine; the cold wind doesn’t suit you.

It matters to you to get outside a little every day and keep moving.

The loop around the pond has become a ritual. “Shall we do the short round or the long one? Oh, come on, the long one—we have time.”

 
Often, we talk through heavier things while walking, because the conversation flows more easily. So much so, that when I suggest an innocent walk, you sometimes grow a little suspicious: is there something bad to share?

 
Sometimes it isn’t about talking at all, but about noticing what has changed in this familiar landscape since our last walk together. A kind of mindfulness practice. Has a tree begun to bud yet? Has the pond been drained? Are the swans nesting again? How many cygnets are there this year?

Even though you’ve probably walked the same path hundreds of times, you always have a sense of wonder for the small things, finding joy in recognition, in seeing them again, in the natural world.

Written by Lisi Sperber

Photo by Nikolay Loubet on Unsplash

I’ll meet you… in the hammock.

Under the apple tree. It’s in bloom. The tomcat in front of you on the grass. You’re listening to an audiobook or sleeping. It’s one of your favourite places to be. 

You helped create it. Spent decades here. 

After all the children’s noise of past decades, there is more quiet in the garden now. You appreciate that fully and with deep-hearted awareness. 

I’m sure of it. You’ve told me that often. 

How beautiful the garden is. How safe it feels in the hammock. You take the time to rest. You’ve always done that. That’s something I learned from you.

Written by Lisi Sperber
 Photo by Esther Masscheleyn on Unsplash

I meet you… on the terrace.

With coffee. A latte macchiato, of course, with the layers neatly separated. 

You’re wrapped up in your winter jacket. It’s cold, but the sun is shining.

 
The garden is still quite bare. I like it anyway. And I like that I get to share your ritual.

You’ve propped your feet up on the chair opposite, still in your Birkenstocks. You take a sip of coffee with quiet enjoyment.

I don’t think you really need the caffeine, but you use the coffee as a reason to pause. As time for yourself. To breathe between one part of the day and the next. You sort through your thoughts, but rarely speak them out loud.

Afterwards, there is a short nap. Then you carry on.
You make use of the day. You keep yourself occupied.

Until the next pause.

Written by Lisi Sperber

Photo by Artiom Grishenkov on Unsplash

I meet you… on your bicycle.

Your way of getting around. Every day. Often several times.

When we ride together, I sometimes speed ahead in youthful high spirits or to prove how fast I am. 

Sometimes that annoys you, but mostly you don’t let it unsettle you. 

You are a steady rider. You like to chat while cycling. 
On the way into town, you often run into people you know in the Wiesengrund. 

On longer rides, you don’t enjoy cycling uphill, but you rarely get off to push, you keep pedalling steadily.

You take pleasure in riding. When the bike rolls, you feel the wind and the speed. You like moving forward under your own power. 

The bicycle is simply part of your everyday life.

Written by Lisi Sperber

Photo by Richard Ludwig on Unsplash

I meet you at… the breakfast table.

You wake up before everyone else. You go and get the newspaper outside our front door, set the table, and make black tea. In the white pot with the slender bamboo handle that always drips a little when you pour. We call her “Pinkelbirte.”

Last night you baked a cheesecake. The kitchen still smells of it. Now you eat a piece of cheesecake for breakfast. You don’t question whether it’s good or healthy. You’ve been doing this for a long time. It simply tastes too good.

You welcome me with a smile when I come down the stairs. I feel seen and loved. This is home.

 
Written by Lisi Sperber
 Photo by DFY® 디에프와이 on Unsplash

Certainly worth celebrating

After months and months of hearing my body scream and my bones creak, I woke this morning in silence.

Christmas lights blinking in my brain

 

 
As I was travelling on a train to and from Kiel the other day, I listened to this brilliant podcast with Trevor Noah, Eugene Khoza, and Vic Mensa. What I enjoy so much about their conversation is the depth and breadth of the topics they explore, the warm camaraderie they share, and their genuine curiosity to follow ideas wherever they lead. There is also a willingness to change their opinions, or at least to do some careful pruning of their tree of knowledge.
 
I have always been someone who likes to listen in on other people’s conversations. A group of friends sitting next to me on a train, or a couple on a date at the next table while I am eating alone in a restaurant. I am constantly making up stories about interesting-looking people while people-watching. So having the opportunity to be a fly on the wall and listen to Noah and Khoza talk with Mensa felt like someone had switched on Christmas tree lights in my brain.
 
More so than with other podcasts I follow, I generally find myself drawn in every time I listen to the podcast. Perhaps it is the dynamic between these close friends, their repartee, and their apparent lack of agenda. It creates a kind of magic that puts their guests at ease and invites a simple, unspoken agreement: let us entertain each other.
 
The person being interviewed does not have to perform. They simply have to relax. They are not required to be funny, wise, or overly knowledgeable. They are there because Noah and Khoza are genuinely delighted to have them sitting at the same table as them, and they want to hear their guest’s experiences and stories, however long it takes.
 
It is no surprise that this approach puts their guests at ease. And then, the magic happens.

While on a train to Kiel

Travelling up north
Rapeseed fields and lakes with swans
A poem passes by.

Yes, hallelujah!

While gazing out the train window at the passing rapeseed fields, I wonder how that bright yellow seems to reach up into the blue of the sky. It is as if the yellow of those fields, together with the sun’s rays, transforms the eggshell blue-grey of the winter sky and punches it with a hallelujah: spring is here!

Photo by Gianmarco Avigni on Unsplash

The no man’s land of being an immigrant

My grandfather immigrated to Canada at the end of the 1800s. His parents scraped together enough money to sail from Ireland to Quebec City, and then on to Montreal, in a vain attempt to escape the desperate poverty they were suffering. The promise of (almost) “free” farmland and a brighter future for their children spurred them to leave everything behind, with what might be called reckless optimism.

Surprisingly, all the children survived the journey, and what followed was a story similar to that of thousands of Irish immigrants of that time. Poverty casts a long shadow across the lives of those who come because they might be needed, yet they remain forever unwelcome.

When my great-great-grandparents arrived in Montreal, they took up farming a plot of land some relatives had secured for them. They were faced with constant destitution and disillusionment. Their home was a wooden cabin with no insulation, two small windows, and a leaky fireplace for cooking. Their plot of land was more stone than soil, and they all had to work to put food on the table.

During the winters, they “farmed out” their children to more successful farmers, who would offer food and board in exchange for work caring for animals. According to my grandfather, he considered himself lucky to be able to sleep next to the stove in the kitchen; otherwise, he would have had to sleep in the barn with the animals.

In the spring, all the children would return to the one-room cabin and help their parents from before dawn until after dusk. This was their life for ten years, until my grandfather’s oldest brother moved to Montreal and found work on the production line of a furniture factory. One by one, each of the nine boys (there was only one sister) moved to the city and followed their brother working in factories. By doing this, they were able to bring their parents and sister into the city, where they crowded together in a place in a poor neighbourhood near Atwater.

My grandfather worked his way up to become a shift supervisor. His was the success story of his family and of those in his neighbourhood. Whereas his brothers were a mixed bunch. Some worked only sporadically, others got into trouble and were forced to “go out west” so they would no longer be a burden to their parents. My grandfather was constantly helping one or another—finding them places to live or giving them money for necessities.

In his case, this constant drain on his emotional and financial resources eventually made him a dour, bitter man. Where once his siblings had helped each other move from the farm to the city, by the time he was able to leave poverty behind and afford a home in the suburbs, he had to do so despite their constant demands rather than with their support.

He made his mother proud, but among his siblings, there was rivalry, and his success—modest by many standards—became an endless source of expectation. This clash of expectations led to tensions throughout his life.

I see a pattern with my friends who came to Germany as refugees over ten years ago. Having survived a harrowing escape from northern Iran to Germany, they moved in small increments—from a refugee camp to a small apartment in a rough neighbourhood to a slightly better place. Their story is one of success, if only because the husband found a job relatively early on, thanks to his IT skills and willingness to be underpaid.

As a result, they’ve become the ones everyone turns to whenever they are in need or in trouble with the state.

Seeing them carry this constant collective burden, and being pulled back the moment they begin to move forward, makes my heart hurt. It is also humbling, because I know I would not have the moral strength to do the same. Recently, they had to choose between paying off a monthly loan and hiring a lawyer for their cousin, whose application for an extension on his residence visa had been rejected.

It is as if migration creates a life where forward movement is constantly pulled back by obligation, leaving people suspended in a kind of no man’s land, never fully arriving. The pressure of that life does not stay confined to the larger crises. It seeps into everything.

It is present when they speak to their children’s teachers and wonder whether they are being heard in the same way as other parents. It is there when they wait for the landlord to respond and tell them when he will arrange to have their heater repaired. They are unsure how much they can insist before being seen as difficult. It is there in the constant need to prove reliability, patience, and gratitude.

They speak German well. But so much is written between the lines. Tone, expectation, what is said indirectly, what is left unsaid. There is always the sense that something important might be missed, or misunderstood, or judged.

These are ordinary situations. But they are not experienced in an ordinary way.

At the same time, their lives remain tied to those who have not found even this level of stability. Requests for help do not stop. Legal problems, financial strain, uncertainty about visas. Just as they begin to move forward, something pulls them back again.

In this space, it becomes difficult to know where one stands. Who will help, and who will not? What is secure, and what is conditional? They are building a life, but on ground that never fully settles.

They have recently become German citizens. It is something they worked toward for years, something of great importance that should mark an arrival. And yet, in their own understanding, they remain Kurdish.

My grandfather lived eighty of his ninety years in Canada. He always insisted he was Irish.

For both of them, arrival is not something they can fully imagine. 

Photo by Tasha Lyn on Unsplash