A Peace of Wholeness : The Reptilian Era

Germany has welcomed me with open arms, as if to say let me lead you into a world of hidden lessons. It has been a bit of a trip (pun intended) to be somewhere that is so similar to the culture I am used to yet so different. You expect things to be the same, for people to understand you when you speak. It does not get any easier each time you have no choice but to shake your head and shrug your brows hoping that will convey your lack of proficiency in the German language. Usually, it just comes off rudely as I'm sorry your cat died, or you're batshit crazy. Some are irritated, others are compassionate. While we were walking yesterday, a woman stopped in her car to ask if we had been looking for the entrance to some special garden. Both in awe at her unrequested hospitality, my sister and I thanked her graciously and silently agreed not to announce that we had really been more curious about the run down building with the fire escape. Sequoia claims it to be the only building she has come across in the country that has a fire-escape; I was previously ignorant to her keen eye for spotting safety equipment. Regrettably, the mystery of the potential old paint brush factory was left unsolved. However, our bummed-out-ed-ness was quickly reversed upon the sighting of a fascinatingly shingled house. Unlike your average abode, this one was adorned with square stone shingles that had been plastered not to the roof of the house, but to the side of the house. It ended up producing a silvery scaled look which I suppose marks the beginning of the reptilian era of architecture. You heard it here first, folks.

Further on down the road we stumbled upon a graveyard which, after its initial creepiness wore off, was actually rather captivating. It is always the times you don't have your camera that you end up needing it most, ey? The gated space was cholk-full of large stone coffins decorated with names and dates, some so old that they had begun sinking into the soft, wet ground. The most interesting part was the density and assortment of flora that was strewn across the coffins. Each stone had at least one large pot of dry looking flowering plants in what I can only describe as a morbid color scheme. Mauve, lavender, and sage colored plants stole our vision. We wondered if there were guidelines for the type of plants one could bring to the graveyard and supposed that the only way for that quantity to be maintained would be by means of a tender of some sort.

After leaving the graveyard, we discussed my art school application project about objects in everyday life that we tend to overlook. Moss was one we came up with. Pigeons were another.

I guess the hardest part about figuring out things we overlook, is that they are so easy to overlook.

Nighttime is when homesickness is at its most vivid. I subsist by reminding myself of the characteristics that flow throughout all earthly locales:

shadows