Report from the Clouds: Munich Edition
Hallo from our new home in Deutschland!
At the end of March, after six of the best months, we said goodbye to Manchester. I always knew it was going to be temporary, but that didn’t soothe the sting. I now think of Manchester as my “soul city.” We just got each other, you know?
After the move, my husband and I hopped over to Venice for a quick trip before spending the rest of April in the U.S. visiting family and friends. I’m starting to believe the best part of moving abroad are these extended trips home, when your SOLE PURPOSE is to spend as much quality time with all the people you love. 🫶
Now, we’ve started a new chapter in Munich, Germany!
Funnily enough, I packed away my journal Cloud during the transition. Since February, I had used Cloud to pull writing inspiration from everyday life and document little moments in Manchester, Paris, and Ireland. I was in a writing rut and desperately needed her help. She certainly delivered — I wrote a new short story this spring! (In fact, I plan to expand that short story into a novel this November for NaNoWriMo… wish me luck and maybe try to talk me out of it.)
During April, I really started to miss documenting the little moments… After freeing her from her luggage prison, Cloud is back!!!
Here are some moments I’ve captured during the first few weeks in our new city:
5.3.24: I walk by the children’s hospital at the same time a family leaves. The father has his strong arms wrapped around a young boy, maybe 3 or 4 years old. I can really only see the boy’s head poking out of the embrace, plus a little white cast on his arm. Every few seconds, the boy whimpers. The family crosses the street to get to their car, and the mother opens the back door and slides in. The father passes the boy to the mother, and she embraces him tightly in her lap. The father gets into the driver seat and off they go. While this must be such a difficult day for that family, I’m left with the thought that boy is quite literally wrapped in his parents’ love.
5.4.24: A group of teenage girls wait at the train stop, adorned in their gorgeous dirndls that they wore for their town’s Maibaum festival. When our train arrives, there’s a chorus of “Tschüss! Tschüss! Ciao!!!!” as two of the girls get on, leaving the other one on the platform. The two girls sit at the window, waving and waving. When the train begins to move, the girl on the platform runs alongside it, to the absolute delight of her friends on the train. They dissolve into giggles, stars in their own little movie. And me, on the far end of the carriage, can’t help but smile, their sole audience.
5.7.24: We go to a bakery to buy baked goods for Erik’s coworkers. The young woman behind the counter has the widest, kindest grin on her face. We start to order in our shaky German. “I also speak English,” the woman says, and somehow her smile grows, “but if you want to practice your German, you can!” So we do. We trip and stumble our way through the order, but she is always there to catch us (…in English). Vielen dank.
5.8.24: I get on the subway and stand by the door. As we begin to move, a chorus of little “aaahhhhh” sound from behind me. I spin around and see a class of kindergartners in tiny cute raincoats and matching neon vests, holding on to each other as if they’re riding the Best Ride Ever at the amusement park. Let’s make more of an effort to experience the world through kindergartners’ eyes.
5.8.24: Someone drops something on the escalator. All of us pause to hear it rattle its way down, down, down the metal steps. As I get to the bottom, I see a 2-Euro coin clanging noisily against the edge of the escalator. If you reach for the money, your fingers will get ripped up by those scary metal teeth. I know if I ever wrote this scene in a story, my writer friends would roll their eyes and say, “Paige. It’s way too heavy-handed.” And I’d say, “It happened! I swear!!!!”
5.8.24: A father and daughter run towards the tram hand in hand. As I step off and they step on, I hear the father say in accented English and a big laugh, “No hurry, no worry!”
5.9.24: We visit the Deutsches Museum. They have an entire room devoted to robots, and the little speculative fiction writer inside of me squeals with joy. There are German and English blurbs about each robot, and my favorite part is the existential questions at the end of each blurb. Inspiration for a future story, perhaps?
Do robots even have a gender? And if so, which gender?
Will real robots also be capable of human behaviour one day? Will they then take on our negative characteristics, too? And if so, how will we deal with that?
Nevertheless, a human being remains control over this technology. It is, however, surely only a matter of time until weapons will make decisions autonomously. How will we deal with that?
5.9.24: I try out a writers group for the first time. We meet on Zoom due to the holiday. One of the writers says, “I have a general comment…” and salutes. A few others laugh and salute back. She continues on with her critique and the joke finally hits me. General comment.🫡 I love writers.
I dedicate this post to my mom. She said these “small snippets” are her favorite kind of posts. Happy Mother’s Day! xoxoxoxo
You inspire me.
"No hurry, no worry." Brilliant.
Wonderful little stories 💜