Have you ever, come June let's say, noticed a lovely fragrance in the air? I have. Now, later in summer as I write this, the scent has faded or as my brother suggested, been overlaid with other more redolent summer smells, but cast your mind back to those early summer evenings...
For me it's a hallmark of that time, late late spring or early summer. You can smell it anywhere there's anything green growing. Maybe it's somewhat fainter downtown where it's mostly asphalt and buildings, but where we live it's streets lined with apartment buildings, having bits of green here and there and trees sticking up through their little allotted slots in the pavement. Of course behind the buildings the irregularly-shaped courtyards have their plantings of flowers and grass and trees too. And the scent is strong.
When I come home of a pleasant June evening, or later as it's just getting dark, the delicious sweet smell surrounds me, tantalizing, captivating.
What is it? It doesn't seem to come from anywhere in particular; it's all over the place. My best guess is that it's tree pollen, but I have yet to have a botanist confirm this.
And the smell itself - what's it like? It's pleasant; it's sweetish. Well we all know smells are notoriously hard to pin down. Add to that my own personal poorly developed sense of taste especially. If I am given a slice of bread with jam on it, I have a hard time identifying it, especially if I don't see what color it is. If I see Red, then I can rule out a bunch. But in any case I taste it, and somehow know the taste, but can't put my finger on it till I'm told "Peach, of course!" and then I slap my forehead and say "Oh, yeah, sure." This may be some kind of deficiency on my part.
But in any case this scent I'm talking about is a really delightful facet of those warm, glowing evenings: the sun sets late, the light lingers long; it's shirtsleeve weather. And as you walk up the block to your door every breath you takes in this sweet, almost magical smell.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Botanical and Ornithological Musings
Recently here in Berlin we have been somewhat blessed by little wisps of white, floating on the breeze. I look out of the window and I can see these bits of cotton here and there, anywhere in town it seems. It seems obvious that they are coming from some trees or other, but I am a bit challenged as the parlance goes, concerning trees. Birds now, I can rattle off your English and your German names as well, but trees? Hmm, not so good.
In my teaching of English as a foreign language to Germans, I often throw out questions to them
to compare things in America to here in Germany. Recycling, cell phones, hot water heaters. This time it was little wisps of cottony stuff floating almost wherever you look.
They said, unanimously I believe, that the stuff came from Pappeln, poplar trees in English. Oh, I said, having in my mind a generic picture of a poplar as a tall thin columnar tree which you often see lining roads in pictures of Tuscany and other such romantic places. I further told them that I remembered back from Denver that at some time of year you would have a similar phenomenon, but it would come from a different tree altogether, which we call a cottonwood. The stus got a laugh out of that, after translating cotton back into German: Baumwoll, to get Baumwollbaum. We laughed.
So today I went online to expand my knowledge of this poplar tree which causes these spring snow flurries to fall. I find it's a large family of trees which include the aspens, those lovely trees with the gold bark and bright yellow leaves when they turn in autumn, up in Colorado's Rockies. And - hey! What do you know. The family also includes my 'completely different tree', the cottonwood. Did I feel sheepish. But online here too, I then asked my brother if the same phenomenon was going on now there too, back in Denver. He said no, but he remembered that cottonwoods do that too at some point in the year.
Well. I think of myself as a bit of a naturalist, in some respects. I am a birder, am interested in sky phenomena and astronomy; but as I say trees and plants are not my strong suit. Now with birds, it is interesting to compare the avifauna of Europe with that of North America. The species on the two continents are different for the most part, though many are related. So you will find jays on both land masses, but the lovely though raucous Blue Jay looks quite different than the mostly tan european Jay. As I understand it this is tied to the geological history of the Earth, the continents having once been one connected land mass. As they parted, the species became differentiated more and more over time. A few kinds are interestingly the same on European and North American soil however, like the Magpie, or Elster as they say here in Germany. Same bird.
Having read about this, I naturally assumed the same to be true for trees, and indeed it does seem to be. The cottonwood is in the same family as the Black Poplar of Europe but is a different species. I'm learning. For example, I have always loved the word sycamore. What a lovely name for a tree, one which I thought was a peculiarly North American kind. On researching, I see that again I was wrong - it's a member of the plane tree family, which is found throughout Europe too with other species. In German it's Platane. I've heard of them, sure, but never connected them with sycamores because I never really knew what a sycamore looked like, just liked the name.
You know:
Pennies in a stream
Falling leaves - a sycamore
Moonlight in Vermont
But to go back to the topic, yes the tree species on the two continents seem to have split over the eons into different versions of similar trees. Interesting, like the birds.
In North America there are many more different species of birds than in Europe, also because of geologic history, as I have read. During the various Ice Ages, the ice sheets covered all of Europe down to the Alps I believe, wiping out many species which had been there before. As the ice receded, only animals which had been able to survive in more southerly areas were able to repopulate the country. In North America on the other hand the ice only came down to the middle of what is now the United States of America; hence there was still a great buffer zone to the south for birds to retreat to - the continent was not competely covered. The birds simply moved north again as the ice receded. More species survived.
In my teaching of English as a foreign language to Germans, I often throw out questions to them
to compare things in America to here in Germany. Recycling, cell phones, hot water heaters. This time it was little wisps of cottony stuff floating almost wherever you look.
They said, unanimously I believe, that the stuff came from Pappeln, poplar trees in English. Oh, I said, having in my mind a generic picture of a poplar as a tall thin columnar tree which you often see lining roads in pictures of Tuscany and other such romantic places. I further told them that I remembered back from Denver that at some time of year you would have a similar phenomenon, but it would come from a different tree altogether, which we call a cottonwood. The stus got a laugh out of that, after translating cotton back into German: Baumwoll, to get Baumwollbaum. We laughed.
So today I went online to expand my knowledge of this poplar tree which causes these spring snow flurries to fall. I find it's a large family of trees which include the aspens, those lovely trees with the gold bark and bright yellow leaves when they turn in autumn, up in Colorado's Rockies. And - hey! What do you know. The family also includes my 'completely different tree', the cottonwood. Did I feel sheepish. But online here too, I then asked my brother if the same phenomenon was going on now there too, back in Denver. He said no, but he remembered that cottonwoods do that too at some point in the year.
Well. I think of myself as a bit of a naturalist, in some respects. I am a birder, am interested in sky phenomena and astronomy; but as I say trees and plants are not my strong suit. Now with birds, it is interesting to compare the avifauna of Europe with that of North America. The species on the two continents are different for the most part, though many are related. So you will find jays on both land masses, but the lovely though raucous Blue Jay looks quite different than the mostly tan european Jay. As I understand it this is tied to the geological history of the Earth, the continents having once been one connected land mass. As they parted, the species became differentiated more and more over time. A few kinds are interestingly the same on European and North American soil however, like the Magpie, or Elster as they say here in Germany. Same bird.
Having read about this, I naturally assumed the same to be true for trees, and indeed it does seem to be. The cottonwood is in the same family as the Black Poplar of Europe but is a different species. I'm learning. For example, I have always loved the word sycamore. What a lovely name for a tree, one which I thought was a peculiarly North American kind. On researching, I see that again I was wrong - it's a member of the plane tree family, which is found throughout Europe too with other species. In German it's Platane. I've heard of them, sure, but never connected them with sycamores because I never really knew what a sycamore looked like, just liked the name.
You know:
Pennies in a stream
Falling leaves - a sycamore
Moonlight in Vermont
But to go back to the topic, yes the tree species on the two continents seem to have split over the eons into different versions of similar trees. Interesting, like the birds.
In North America there are many more different species of birds than in Europe, also because of geologic history, as I have read. During the various Ice Ages, the ice sheets covered all of Europe down to the Alps I believe, wiping out many species which had been there before. As the ice receded, only animals which had been able to survive in more southerly areas were able to repopulate the country. In North America on the other hand the ice only came down to the middle of what is now the United States of America; hence there was still a great buffer zone to the south for birds to retreat to - the continent was not competely covered. The birds simply moved north again as the ice receded. More species survived.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Asparagus Time
Here in Berlin, Germany's capital, there's a delightful, a quaint, even to say a delicious aspect of the culture which rolls around this time of year, from April to June or thereabouts.
Yes, as the title up there says, it's the Asparagus Season. Asparagus, Spargel in German, is grown locally and eaten here during these few months. There is a whole culture which has grown up around it, something nearly harmless which really has a quaint aspect to it and which hurts hardly anybody. That can't be said of many things nowadays.
It reminds me of the culture surrounding the cultivation of pipeweed in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Then too, another similarity strikes my mind. Here in the Dahlem district of Berlin there is a huge labyrinth of a museum, really a number of museums all knitted together in one sprawling complex, the "Dahlem Museums". You have to go through Asia, India and then through the Gold Chamber, down half a flight and through Africa, up three or is it four more flights, way up till you're under the roof and you come to a small gallery, the half to the one side holding the Musical Instruments collection, the other side containing a really delightful collection of Japanese Folk Arts.
These are little figures, games, miscellaneous objects each belonging to one specific locality in Japan, each relating to a very local custom, be it a festival or anniversary or whatever. Each is beautiful in its own way, completely strange and unintelligible to outsiders. Granted, these seem to be very localized customs, whereas the Spargel culture does seem to be more or less nationwide in Germany; I do, however, get the same feeling of quaintness out of both, and the fact that each represents a rather minor part of the national culture as a whole but one which people do look forward to.
It starts, for most of us here in town it starts around the middle of April, when we begin looking for these little stands to appear on less-cluttered street corners, advertising Beelitzer Spargel for some ridiculously high price per kilo. €15, €16, €18! And some people will pay it, at the beginning of the season that is. Pretty soon the price becomes much more reasonable, eventually leveling off at around €5 per kilo. Oh, and the Beelitz part? Why, that's the town south of Berlin whose name is synonymous with the growing of asparagus in these parts. For miles around there you can find large and small asparagus fields. So Beelitzer Spargel tells us that we're getting the genuine article there, not having some imported goods foisted off on us.
Exactly when those stands begin popping up depends mostly on how the weather has been in the few months before, whether the outgoing winter has already released its grip or if there's still been snow recently. This year the latter part of the winter was rather severe so the season was a bit late in getting started. I was out birding on Easter Sunday and saw maybe one stand; that was April 14 this year. But I did see a number of those characteristic fields.
The Germans love white asparagus, the spears cut just as the tips begin to break the sandy soil. When the head has come through and turned violet and then green by sunlight, it is considered a somewhat inferior product, although as far as I know green asparagus is the standard type available in the States, imported year-round from Peru as I have read. To produce white asparagus, the plants are cultivated in long ridges, their tops perfectly flat, their sides beveled inwards. The whole ridge is then covered in dark or light plastic, depending on the weather as I understand - the dark side absorbs heat, the light side reflects it. The plastic is neatly tucked into the base of the ridge. Specially built machines do all these various steps as they move down the rows. In home gardens of course the ridges are not so perfectly formed: they are lower and are much more uneven.
Go down to the Beelitz area any day you like from mid-April to the end of May, especially in the early morning, and you will see people at work in these Spargel fields. Most of the workers come over from Poland for the day to help in the harvest. The commercial outfits prepare things for them, depositing little collections of mineral water bottles at each row, and especially leaving a kind of Spargel wheelbarrow there too. This is a little one-wheeled affair with a plastic box in the middle to receive the cut stalks, the whole just big enough to roll between the asparagus ridges, propelled by a single handle. The harvesters use a kind of long screwdriver, the tip bent over to one side, flattened and sharpened to cut the spears. They find where one is just deforming the soil surface, stick the tool down into the ground to cut it off at the base. It takes quite a bit of skill to do it without mangling the stalk, I'm told.
Down around Beelitz and the surrounding villages - Zauchwitz, Schlunkendorf and so on, you will find many stands to buy your Spargel and nearly as many places to eat it. Our favorite little place is just east of Beelitz itself, a couple kilometers out, on the left side of the road where a dirt road leads between the asparagus fields. There's a little stand at the side of the field where the stalks are as fresh as they come. You may even have to wait a bit for the next batch to come in off the fields - off in the distance you can see the workers gathering it. We usually buy ours there and cook it at home, but all around are big commercial outfits which run eating establishments during the season. To one side you can enter a building and buy the goods too, while sometimes you can even watch a production line to see how the spears are processed mostly by machine. There are various steps they go through in a production line, being washed, peeled, sorted and finally collected in plastic tubs.
Oh and while you're in the area you can visit one of Germany's three Asparagus museums, directly in Schlunkendorf. It's a small building, once a single-family house it seems, with information on history and cultivation, complete with historical Spargel utensils. It's a fun little stop, and doesn't take itself too seriously - you can visit while you're waiting for the next load of the product to be delivered from the fields.
And of course there are innumerable ways to prepare the asparagus: in soup, baked, in a casserole, with mushrooms, wrapped in prosciutto ham, and on and on. I recently tasted a spoonful of asparagus ice cream, which I'm not sure I would recommend. I think I like it best when my wife prepares it in the simplest way, very traditionally. It is boiled or steamed, the spears presented on a plate with some chilled slices of boiled ham and some boiled potatoes. Hollandaise sauce over the asparagus completes the dish, or simply a little melted butter. That way you really can appreciate the delicate flavor of the tender vegetable itself without anything to distract from it.
Oh, lovely Spargelzeit, something to look forward to as winter draws to a close. In these times when supermarkets offer produce from halfway around the world, in and out of season all year round, it's pleasant and heartening to participate in this much more local custom, buying and consuming local products, and still having to experience that anticipation as the season draws near.
Yes, as the title up there says, it's the Asparagus Season. Asparagus, Spargel in German, is grown locally and eaten here during these few months. There is a whole culture which has grown up around it, something nearly harmless which really has a quaint aspect to it and which hurts hardly anybody. That can't be said of many things nowadays.
It reminds me of the culture surrounding the cultivation of pipeweed in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Then too, another similarity strikes my mind. Here in the Dahlem district of Berlin there is a huge labyrinth of a museum, really a number of museums all knitted together in one sprawling complex, the "Dahlem Museums". You have to go through Asia, India and then through the Gold Chamber, down half a flight and through Africa, up three or is it four more flights, way up till you're under the roof and you come to a small gallery, the half to the one side holding the Musical Instruments collection, the other side containing a really delightful collection of Japanese Folk Arts.
These are little figures, games, miscellaneous objects each belonging to one specific locality in Japan, each relating to a very local custom, be it a festival or anniversary or whatever. Each is beautiful in its own way, completely strange and unintelligible to outsiders. Granted, these seem to be very localized customs, whereas the Spargel culture does seem to be more or less nationwide in Germany; I do, however, get the same feeling of quaintness out of both, and the fact that each represents a rather minor part of the national culture as a whole but one which people do look forward to.
It starts, for most of us here in town it starts around the middle of April, when we begin looking for these little stands to appear on less-cluttered street corners, advertising Beelitzer Spargel for some ridiculously high price per kilo. €15, €16, €18! And some people will pay it, at the beginning of the season that is. Pretty soon the price becomes much more reasonable, eventually leveling off at around €5 per kilo. Oh, and the Beelitz part? Why, that's the town south of Berlin whose name is synonymous with the growing of asparagus in these parts. For miles around there you can find large and small asparagus fields. So Beelitzer Spargel tells us that we're getting the genuine article there, not having some imported goods foisted off on us.
Exactly when those stands begin popping up depends mostly on how the weather has been in the few months before, whether the outgoing winter has already released its grip or if there's still been snow recently. This year the latter part of the winter was rather severe so the season was a bit late in getting started. I was out birding on Easter Sunday and saw maybe one stand; that was April 14 this year. But I did see a number of those characteristic fields.
The Germans love white asparagus, the spears cut just as the tips begin to break the sandy soil. When the head has come through and turned violet and then green by sunlight, it is considered a somewhat inferior product, although as far as I know green asparagus is the standard type available in the States, imported year-round from Peru as I have read. To produce white asparagus, the plants are cultivated in long ridges, their tops perfectly flat, their sides beveled inwards. The whole ridge is then covered in dark or light plastic, depending on the weather as I understand - the dark side absorbs heat, the light side reflects it. The plastic is neatly tucked into the base of the ridge. Specially built machines do all these various steps as they move down the rows. In home gardens of course the ridges are not so perfectly formed: they are lower and are much more uneven.
Go down to the Beelitz area any day you like from mid-April to the end of May, especially in the early morning, and you will see people at work in these Spargel fields. Most of the workers come over from Poland for the day to help in the harvest. The commercial outfits prepare things for them, depositing little collections of mineral water bottles at each row, and especially leaving a kind of Spargel wheelbarrow there too. This is a little one-wheeled affair with a plastic box in the middle to receive the cut stalks, the whole just big enough to roll between the asparagus ridges, propelled by a single handle. The harvesters use a kind of long screwdriver, the tip bent over to one side, flattened and sharpened to cut the spears. They find where one is just deforming the soil surface, stick the tool down into the ground to cut it off at the base. It takes quite a bit of skill to do it without mangling the stalk, I'm told.
Down around Beelitz and the surrounding villages - Zauchwitz, Schlunkendorf and so on, you will find many stands to buy your Spargel and nearly as many places to eat it. Our favorite little place is just east of Beelitz itself, a couple kilometers out, on the left side of the road where a dirt road leads between the asparagus fields. There's a little stand at the side of the field where the stalks are as fresh as they come. You may even have to wait a bit for the next batch to come in off the fields - off in the distance you can see the workers gathering it. We usually buy ours there and cook it at home, but all around are big commercial outfits which run eating establishments during the season. To one side you can enter a building and buy the goods too, while sometimes you can even watch a production line to see how the spears are processed mostly by machine. There are various steps they go through in a production line, being washed, peeled, sorted and finally collected in plastic tubs.
Oh and while you're in the area you can visit one of Germany's three Asparagus museums, directly in Schlunkendorf. It's a small building, once a single-family house it seems, with information on history and cultivation, complete with historical Spargel utensils. It's a fun little stop, and doesn't take itself too seriously - you can visit while you're waiting for the next load of the product to be delivered from the fields.
And of course there are innumerable ways to prepare the asparagus: in soup, baked, in a casserole, with mushrooms, wrapped in prosciutto ham, and on and on. I recently tasted a spoonful of asparagus ice cream, which I'm not sure I would recommend. I think I like it best when my wife prepares it in the simplest way, very traditionally. It is boiled or steamed, the spears presented on a plate with some chilled slices of boiled ham and some boiled potatoes. Hollandaise sauce over the asparagus completes the dish, or simply a little melted butter. That way you really can appreciate the delicate flavor of the tender vegetable itself without anything to distract from it.
Oh, lovely Spargelzeit, something to look forward to as winter draws to a close. In these times when supermarkets offer produce from halfway around the world, in and out of season all year round, it's pleasant and heartening to participate in this much more local custom, buying and consuming local products, and still having to experience that anticipation as the season draws near.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Blithe Amusement at Curious-looking People
These thoughts were running around my head today, on my way to work through a late winter wet snow drizzler. I don't know what reminded me, but the image came up of a droll-looking pair of twin sisters I encountered some months ago at a do-it-yourself market south of Berlin where I live.
I got out of my car and saw these two implausible, identical figures on their way into the place way in front of me there in the parking lot. They seemed to be female from their attire, but were tall, thin as sticks and dressed alike. They each had on a long, brownish raincoat-like affair. They were shiny plastic-looking things. that reached to below their knees. Of course I was seeing them from the back, but I could also see that each was wearing a light colored knitted cap too, covering her short hair. They reminded me faintly of witches. I was amused and wanted to get a look at them closer up.
I went in, took the escalator up and found what I was looking for after some searching. In the meantime I had glimpses of these two odd personages down this aisle or at the paint counter. I further saw they each had squarish dark rimmed glasses on too, each with a beak of a nose protruding out the middle. You couldn't say they were attractive in any sense but they sure were characters. They strode purposefully about in their dark green rain boots, grey leggings tucked primly into the tops of them. It was a wet day, after all.
They were so fun to look at. As one goes through life one encounters people who just have a look about them, you just have to smile as I did. They really made my day, and I got an especial thrill as I noticed one of the sisters in front of me, looking through the €1.00 bins near the registers when I was ready to check out.
I always check them out too anyway, so I went over. In a pleasant speaking voice she exchanged notes with me about the kitchen sponges. I think I started the desultory conversation. I often do that over here in Germany; most Germans won't give you the time of day on their own, but just to be contrary I often make eye contact and give them a 'Guten Tag' in passing. They often respond. But my new friend here seemed fine with talking to a stranger. She even mentioned something about her sister.
That was about it; we parted, she going into her little world and I into mine, a little brighter for our chance bumping into one another.
As I said up top, their image appeared to me while changing lanes in the light sleetfall. And then I thought of another person who'd struck me in a somewhat comical way. I got to thinking about Willis Conover.
Way back in the early 90's I became aware of a voice on the radio. We still had AFN here then, Armed Forces Network, and I started catching this jazz show while driving around. The announcer had this deliberate, slow delivery, and spoke in an ancient sounding, nasal kind of voice. "This is Willis Conover..." I sat up and listened, as the voice seemed so unusual for radio. What was this 198-year-old sounding guy doing? It seemed so funny to me at the time. I smiled to hear him, and by and by began getting into the music. His theme song was a sizzling rendition of "Take the 'A' Train", for example, and he seemed less to be about free form or experimental jazz and more about the traditional kind with a beat - Duke Ellington, Dizzie Gillespie and company. Right up my alley too, I realized, so I began to look forward to hearing him every week.
Not many folks in the States knew about him, but he was a huge ambassador of American culture especially in Eastern Europe all through the Cold War on Voice of America radio. His show introduced millions to jazz, and he thousands flocked to see him at appearances in Prague and at the Red Square. The molasses-slow delivery was a trademark of VOA, which they called Special English. Announcers would use simpler words and speak very slowly so non-native speakers would have a better chance of understanding them.
I discovered Mr. Conover near the end of his career, as it turned out. Some later shows I heard were made up of earlier recordings where he'd host the leading jazz lights of the day, and then his voice! It was a deep, resonant baritone, full of control, elegant and gracious, completely different from the now obvious wreck of that voice I'd become familiar with. I could no longer just think how droll it was that this ancient guy was still broadcasting. He now seemed to be one very sick man, and indeed it actually was near the end of his life that I'd discovered him, as he died of lung cancer in 1996.
Yes both of these encounters somehow touched my life at least initially in a funny way. I had to smile when I saw or heard them. But of course the second one I described ended tragically. I wanted to say something profound about it, something about the human condition. But now that I've gotten here I can't think how or what to say without making it sound trite or pretentious or preachy. I always say I'm not very good about being philosophical. But if I could formulate it, I would say something about the stories everyone carries around with them, tragic or otherwise. I would like to say that maybe I was too young to appreciate Mr. Conover for what he was and what he was going through. Little kids laugh, often cruelly, at people different from them. Not that I was being cruel, in either of these situations, no I don't think so. But perhaps a bit ignorant, maybe somewhat arrogant even, just looking at things from my own little bubble. OK, well what else can one do, one might ask. I think maybe I'm trying to get to a point to say one ought to understand where the other is coming from, to put yourself in their shoes for a bit. I'm confused on the point, because should one not find things to get a smile from in the world around one? Of course, and try to retain some kind of sense of childlike wonder. Are the two aspects mutually exclusive? I don't know, and as this rambling paragraph shows, I can't come to a real synthesis or even conclusion.
But as the little wet bits of snow came down as I was on my way to work, I thought "Hey, I'd like to write something about that." So there you are.
Remind me sometime to tell you the story of the Oracle of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz.
I got out of my car and saw these two implausible, identical figures on their way into the place way in front of me there in the parking lot. They seemed to be female from their attire, but were tall, thin as sticks and dressed alike. They each had on a long, brownish raincoat-like affair. They were shiny plastic-looking things. that reached to below their knees. Of course I was seeing them from the back, but I could also see that each was wearing a light colored knitted cap too, covering her short hair. They reminded me faintly of witches. I was amused and wanted to get a look at them closer up.
I went in, took the escalator up and found what I was looking for after some searching. In the meantime I had glimpses of these two odd personages down this aisle or at the paint counter. I further saw they each had squarish dark rimmed glasses on too, each with a beak of a nose protruding out the middle. You couldn't say they were attractive in any sense but they sure were characters. They strode purposefully about in their dark green rain boots, grey leggings tucked primly into the tops of them. It was a wet day, after all.
They were so fun to look at. As one goes through life one encounters people who just have a look about them, you just have to smile as I did. They really made my day, and I got an especial thrill as I noticed one of the sisters in front of me, looking through the €1.00 bins near the registers when I was ready to check out.
I always check them out too anyway, so I went over. In a pleasant speaking voice she exchanged notes with me about the kitchen sponges. I think I started the desultory conversation. I often do that over here in Germany; most Germans won't give you the time of day on their own, but just to be contrary I often make eye contact and give them a 'Guten Tag' in passing. They often respond. But my new friend here seemed fine with talking to a stranger. She even mentioned something about her sister.
That was about it; we parted, she going into her little world and I into mine, a little brighter for our chance bumping into one another.
As I said up top, their image appeared to me while changing lanes in the light sleetfall. And then I thought of another person who'd struck me in a somewhat comical way. I got to thinking about Willis Conover.
Way back in the early 90's I became aware of a voice on the radio. We still had AFN here then, Armed Forces Network, and I started catching this jazz show while driving around. The announcer had this deliberate, slow delivery, and spoke in an ancient sounding, nasal kind of voice. "This is Willis Conover..." I sat up and listened, as the voice seemed so unusual for radio. What was this 198-year-old sounding guy doing? It seemed so funny to me at the time. I smiled to hear him, and by and by began getting into the music. His theme song was a sizzling rendition of "Take the 'A' Train", for example, and he seemed less to be about free form or experimental jazz and more about the traditional kind with a beat - Duke Ellington, Dizzie Gillespie and company. Right up my alley too, I realized, so I began to look forward to hearing him every week.
Not many folks in the States knew about him, but he was a huge ambassador of American culture especially in Eastern Europe all through the Cold War on Voice of America radio. His show introduced millions to jazz, and he thousands flocked to see him at appearances in Prague and at the Red Square. The molasses-slow delivery was a trademark of VOA, which they called Special English. Announcers would use simpler words and speak very slowly so non-native speakers would have a better chance of understanding them.
I discovered Mr. Conover near the end of his career, as it turned out. Some later shows I heard were made up of earlier recordings where he'd host the leading jazz lights of the day, and then his voice! It was a deep, resonant baritone, full of control, elegant and gracious, completely different from the now obvious wreck of that voice I'd become familiar with. I could no longer just think how droll it was that this ancient guy was still broadcasting. He now seemed to be one very sick man, and indeed it actually was near the end of his life that I'd discovered him, as he died of lung cancer in 1996.
Yes both of these encounters somehow touched my life at least initially in a funny way. I had to smile when I saw or heard them. But of course the second one I described ended tragically. I wanted to say something profound about it, something about the human condition. But now that I've gotten here I can't think how or what to say without making it sound trite or pretentious or preachy. I always say I'm not very good about being philosophical. But if I could formulate it, I would say something about the stories everyone carries around with them, tragic or otherwise. I would like to say that maybe I was too young to appreciate Mr. Conover for what he was and what he was going through. Little kids laugh, often cruelly, at people different from them. Not that I was being cruel, in either of these situations, no I don't think so. But perhaps a bit ignorant, maybe somewhat arrogant even, just looking at things from my own little bubble. OK, well what else can one do, one might ask. I think maybe I'm trying to get to a point to say one ought to understand where the other is coming from, to put yourself in their shoes for a bit. I'm confused on the point, because should one not find things to get a smile from in the world around one? Of course, and try to retain some kind of sense of childlike wonder. Are the two aspects mutually exclusive? I don't know, and as this rambling paragraph shows, I can't come to a real synthesis or even conclusion.
But as the little wet bits of snow came down as I was on my way to work, I thought "Hey, I'd like to write something about that." So there you are.
Remind me sometime to tell you the story of the Oracle of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Platz.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The Bell's Palsy Chronicles, Part Five.
Here we are in March, 2009. Phase Three of my Bell's Palsy is chugging along, I can always point to my left eyebrow to show that at least something has been happening. The three-month mark has passed. It is getting a little discouraging that I have nothing more to show for it but a little movement in the left eyebrow.
But on Saturday, February 28, 2009 I got up as usual and did my facial grimaces in the mirror, just to check don't you know. I thought there was some tiny movement below my left eye. But wasn't it only the right side pulling the skin across the nose as I'd noticed before? Hmm. It was impossible to tell. Over that weekend I kept peering into my face in the mirror to see, was there? Was there? And by the end of the first day I was convinced that there indeed was. Some movement of the cheek below the eye, a new wrinkle below the eye would appear.
As the workweek began, I eagerly and proudly started showing coworkers and students, and got mostly mystified looks or polite reactions. They obviously couldn't see much. But that Tuesday I think it was, March 4 2009, I was in the bathroom at work and actually noticed some movement around my mouth. If I gave a tiny, wintry smile, the left corner of the mouth went up too. Only slightly, but there it was. That really made my day, even though others could hardly see it.
From where I now sit, Saturday March 14 2009, there seems to have been a constant development in the last two weeks. The at first nearly imagined movement has in the meantime become really obvious. At first I had to look in the mirror to actually tell I was doing something, but in the meantime I can feel it, and can tell it with my hand to my cheek.
Still though I get these mystified looks when I point out my regained ability. Perhaps this is because it's normally the easiest thing in the world to smile. You don't think about it. So why is this guy so proudly showing off his crooked smile? Or maybe the restrained reactions from those who know me come from the fact that the amount I can move my left facial side is not yet really impressive. But I am happy that there's some improvement.
But on Saturday, February 28, 2009 I got up as usual and did my facial grimaces in the mirror, just to check don't you know. I thought there was some tiny movement below my left eye. But wasn't it only the right side pulling the skin across the nose as I'd noticed before? Hmm. It was impossible to tell. Over that weekend I kept peering into my face in the mirror to see, was there? Was there? And by the end of the first day I was convinced that there indeed was. Some movement of the cheek below the eye, a new wrinkle below the eye would appear.
As the workweek began, I eagerly and proudly started showing coworkers and students, and got mostly mystified looks or polite reactions. They obviously couldn't see much. But that Tuesday I think it was, March 4 2009, I was in the bathroom at work and actually noticed some movement around my mouth. If I gave a tiny, wintry smile, the left corner of the mouth went up too. Only slightly, but there it was. That really made my day, even though others could hardly see it.
From where I now sit, Saturday March 14 2009, there seems to have been a constant development in the last two weeks. The at first nearly imagined movement has in the meantime become really obvious. At first I had to look in the mirror to actually tell I was doing something, but in the meantime I can feel it, and can tell it with my hand to my cheek.
Still though I get these mystified looks when I point out my regained ability. Perhaps this is because it's normally the easiest thing in the world to smile. You don't think about it. So why is this guy so proudly showing off his crooked smile? Or maybe the restrained reactions from those who know me come from the fact that the amount I can move my left facial side is not yet really impressive. But I am happy that there's some improvement.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The Bell's Palsy Chronicles, Part Four.
So we were talking about January 2009. I had had the condition nearly two months already. It was interesting that I kept hearing about friends of friends, acquaintances and relatives who had had it too, and my first question was always how long did they have it. I heard widely varying accounts of two, three, to six months or more than a year. The latter of which was rather discouraging, but most often the average seemed to be around three months. And also interesting was the fact that invariably, at the start of a new week someone would say 'Oh! you're looking better this week!" I would thank them, with a two-ton grain of salt.
Well here I was approaching the two month mark and nothing seemed to be happening for the better. Every day upon waking up, I'd go into the bathroom and take off the bandage that protected my left eye at night, since it doesn't close all the way. The bottom lid is immobile so it doesn't come up to meet the top one. An open slit remains at bottom, so I cover the whole with a kind of bandage to protect it and prevent it from drying out at night. It has become my nightly ritual.
So in the morning there I stand, and after it all comes off I look intently into my sagging face to see if there's any change. I grimace and raise my eyebrows and - hey! On the morning of January 20 I think I can move my left eyebrow a tiny little bit. Or is it the right side pulling the left up, as I've noticed before? Hmm. I'm not really positive but I think it's really independent movement. I'm excited, and that little tiny possible change makes my day.
So that's how the Third Phase started, and indeed by the second or third day it was obvious that there was some real movement there. A little line would appear above the outer corner of the left eyebrow as if to say 'look what I can do too'. It seemed to me maybe this would be the start of a thawing process, my face would slowly begin coming back to life.
However, after about a week or two the eyebrow seemed to have reached some limit of its own beyond which it was as yet unwilling to go. After a while I found myself telling people about it the second or third time when they asked about any recent developments. I had to accept the fact that I'd reached the next plateau, that again there was nothing new happening for a while, but I did have a partly working left eyebrow to show for it.
Well here I was approaching the two month mark and nothing seemed to be happening for the better. Every day upon waking up, I'd go into the bathroom and take off the bandage that protected my left eye at night, since it doesn't close all the way. The bottom lid is immobile so it doesn't come up to meet the top one. An open slit remains at bottom, so I cover the whole with a kind of bandage to protect it and prevent it from drying out at night. It has become my nightly ritual.
So in the morning there I stand, and after it all comes off I look intently into my sagging face to see if there's any change. I grimace and raise my eyebrows and - hey! On the morning of January 20 I think I can move my left eyebrow a tiny little bit. Or is it the right side pulling the left up, as I've noticed before? Hmm. I'm not really positive but I think it's really independent movement. I'm excited, and that little tiny possible change makes my day.
So that's how the Third Phase started, and indeed by the second or third day it was obvious that there was some real movement there. A little line would appear above the outer corner of the left eyebrow as if to say 'look what I can do too'. It seemed to me maybe this would be the start of a thawing process, my face would slowly begin coming back to life.
However, after about a week or two the eyebrow seemed to have reached some limit of its own beyond which it was as yet unwilling to go. After a while I found myself telling people about it the second or third time when they asked about any recent developments. I had to accept the fact that I'd reached the next plateau, that again there was nothing new happening for a while, but I did have a partly working left eyebrow to show for it.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Bell's Palsy Chronicles, Part Three.
January, 2009. Now there came what I am calling Phase Two. The condition had settled down, the headaches had stopped, nothing was really happening.
Soon after the New Year, some five weeks into the facial paralysis, I started again going to my band practice. We had taken a holiday break and started up again the second Friday in the year, January 9. It's a brass band of about thirty members, and I play clarinet in it. Well of course I couldn't play at the moment, as I couldn't control the left side of my mouth, and the air came spilling out to the left of the mouthpiece. But I went anyway, as I'm the key-man and all around general custodian around the place where we practice.
I was soon asked whether I wanted to help out in the percussion department, and the first time I sat down there I had to cover my ears when the band began to play. I had forgotten that sensitivity to loud noises I'd early on noticed by chance, and later read about in various accounts. Being surrounded by many instruments all sounding at once constituted a loud noise. I was surprised at the painful, jangling sounds, because in my daily life I had seldom had problems of that kind.
After trying some rolled-up tissue in each ear I later used some wax earplugs which are commercially available. These I could form as I needed and found I could sort of close the ear partway, and still have no problems.
This increased consciousness of the ear sensitivity problem I'm calling Phase Two, as only now had it really made itself noticeable. In fact over the following weeks it seemed to increase somewhat. I didn't have this checked out by a specialist, and suspect it just seemed so as I was more aware of it. Even listening to the car radio I had to keep the volume down at times, most recently I can remember while listening to a soprano opera singer. Loud, especially high frequency sounds are painful for the left ear, and it seems as though the hearing partially cuts out, like a kind of overload.
I took it as something that went with the territory, used those earplugs while with the band, and tried otherwise to avoid high loud sounds. As an aside, let me say I looked around and thought I might try playing the tuba. It's a completely different instrument, but I thought with its big mouthpiece I could cover the left side of my mouth and so get around the air-spilling thing. One of our tuba players let me try his and indeed I was able to get a sound out of it. So a couple weeks later he gave me my first lesson on it and I have since been practicing on a sousaphone, the marching version of the tuba. Perhaps the tension and vibration produced in the lips may be of some help.
This phase lasted well over the four weeks I've been talking about per phase. As I write this it's actually the 8th of March 2009, so I'm looking back at this past January. And it's only now in the past week or so, that I feel a lessening of this ear thing.
Soon after the New Year, some five weeks into the facial paralysis, I started again going to my band practice. We had taken a holiday break and started up again the second Friday in the year, January 9. It's a brass band of about thirty members, and I play clarinet in it. Well of course I couldn't play at the moment, as I couldn't control the left side of my mouth, and the air came spilling out to the left of the mouthpiece. But I went anyway, as I'm the key-man and all around general custodian around the place where we practice.
I was soon asked whether I wanted to help out in the percussion department, and the first time I sat down there I had to cover my ears when the band began to play. I had forgotten that sensitivity to loud noises I'd early on noticed by chance, and later read about in various accounts. Being surrounded by many instruments all sounding at once constituted a loud noise. I was surprised at the painful, jangling sounds, because in my daily life I had seldom had problems of that kind.
After trying some rolled-up tissue in each ear I later used some wax earplugs which are commercially available. These I could form as I needed and found I could sort of close the ear partway, and still have no problems.
This increased consciousness of the ear sensitivity problem I'm calling Phase Two, as only now had it really made itself noticeable. In fact over the following weeks it seemed to increase somewhat. I didn't have this checked out by a specialist, and suspect it just seemed so as I was more aware of it. Even listening to the car radio I had to keep the volume down at times, most recently I can remember while listening to a soprano opera singer. Loud, especially high frequency sounds are painful for the left ear, and it seems as though the hearing partially cuts out, like a kind of overload.
I took it as something that went with the territory, used those earplugs while with the band, and tried otherwise to avoid high loud sounds. As an aside, let me say I looked around and thought I might try playing the tuba. It's a completely different instrument, but I thought with its big mouthpiece I could cover the left side of my mouth and so get around the air-spilling thing. One of our tuba players let me try his and indeed I was able to get a sound out of it. So a couple weeks later he gave me my first lesson on it and I have since been practicing on a sousaphone, the marching version of the tuba. Perhaps the tension and vibration produced in the lips may be of some help.
This phase lasted well over the four weeks I've been talking about per phase. As I write this it's actually the 8th of March 2009, so I'm looking back at this past January. And it's only now in the past week or so, that I feel a lessening of this ear thing.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
The Bell's Palsy Chronicles, Part Two.
December 2008. So I am in the first phase. I am having bad headaches or neckaches. One thing about them I forgot to mention - the neurologist I went to described the path of the affected facial nerve and it turned out it followed exactly the areas where I was having the pains!
This went on for a few weeks. I counted every Sunday as a one-week-more milestone, and remembered as laughable that hospital doctor's opinion that I might feel some improvement the next day! The thing became somewhat more bearable, psychologically, as I got used to it. I even had fun being able make impossible grimaces, winking the right eye with the left wide wide open, for example. My students did not seem much bothered by my condition, with its accompanying difficulty in pronunciation. Only words with an 'F' sound seemed very difficult.
Sometimes though I did feel an extreme alienation, like I was not of this race of beings but something apart. I noticed startled looks on passers-by. One time in there I recall I had a bad Monster Attack. I was out on the street doing some shopping, and came to feel that I couldn't stand the people looking at me. I pulled my hat down over my eyes and kept my eyes down, not being able to make eye contact as I usually try to do.
By the end of December, the headaches thankfully tapered off. I had finished my cortisone treatment a week before, the dose by the end decreasing to only 2.5 mg, down from 250 mg on the first day. Also the anti virus drug had come to an end.
I call that the end of the first phase. I was free of headaches, but no change on the other symptoms. The headaches though had really been worrying me, these pains in the back of the head or on the side, low down, almost like a stiff neck. I was making the worst out of these pains, in my own mind, despite the relieving words of the neurologist that everything was as it should be with Bell's Palsy.
The stage I had reached was one of marking time. The left side of my face was completely immobile, but I had no unpleasant additional effects - no pain.
This went on for a few weeks. I counted every Sunday as a one-week-more milestone, and remembered as laughable that hospital doctor's opinion that I might feel some improvement the next day! The thing became somewhat more bearable, psychologically, as I got used to it. I even had fun being able make impossible grimaces, winking the right eye with the left wide wide open, for example. My students did not seem much bothered by my condition, with its accompanying difficulty in pronunciation. Only words with an 'F' sound seemed very difficult.
Sometimes though I did feel an extreme alienation, like I was not of this race of beings but something apart. I noticed startled looks on passers-by. One time in there I recall I had a bad Monster Attack. I was out on the street doing some shopping, and came to feel that I couldn't stand the people looking at me. I pulled my hat down over my eyes and kept my eyes down, not being able to make eye contact as I usually try to do.
By the end of December, the headaches thankfully tapered off. I had finished my cortisone treatment a week before, the dose by the end decreasing to only 2.5 mg, down from 250 mg on the first day. Also the anti virus drug had come to an end.
I call that the end of the first phase. I was free of headaches, but no change on the other symptoms. The headaches though had really been worrying me, these pains in the back of the head or on the side, low down, almost like a stiff neck. I was making the worst out of these pains, in my own mind, despite the relieving words of the neurologist that everything was as it should be with Bell's Palsy.
The stage I had reached was one of marking time. The left side of my face was completely immobile, but I had no unpleasant additional effects - no pain.
The Bell's Palsy Chronicles, Part One.
The Bell's Palsy Chronicles
March 6 2009, Friday. I'm starting this somewhat late in the game, but hope to put in all the important phases as I have seen them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ November 21 2009, Friday. Before I went to my band practise this Friday I took two aspirin for a weird headache I had in the back bottom left section of my head. They did the trick. I had no more problems that evening.
November 22 2009, Saturday. The headache came back, but aspirin banished it again. I didn't think much about it, though I had never had a headache in that area before.
November 23 2009, Sunday. I woke up and went in the bathroom, and saw I looked odd. My left eye seemed to be wider open than the right; altogether, the left side seemed weak. I could still move it but not as much or as strongly as the other side. I was afraid, but immediately thought it had something to do with the bad tooth on the upper left side, last molar up there, that I'd been neglecting. Sabine thought we should wait and see what Monday brought. Of course to my mind came the thought of a stroke, but I did wait on Monday after all.
November 24 2009, Monday. After calling in sick I went over to see my Doctor, Dr. Aman at the Franziskus Hospital. Based on some symptoms he thought it was not a stroke; I remember one was that I could wrinkle one side of my forehead and not the other, whereas in a stroke the whole forehead is lamed. Another point was that my vision was not affected, while with a stroke there's a loss of peripheral vision on one side.
Dr. Aman sent me to the Gertrauden Hospital, where in the first aid area they looked at me and sent me up to Ear-Nose-Throat, NOT to Neurology. I had many tests done on me over the course of the late morning to afternoon. At one point I was told to go have something in the cafeteria and come back in an hour. There in the cafeteria I had a first taste of the Monster Syndrome, where I feel I must look so weird I don't want people looking at me. I wanted to hide, and couldn't eat or drink normally. I was continually slurping and slobbering because the left side of my mouth didn't close properly.
I went back upstairs later and had many varied tests done on my ears and eyes mostly. Oh there was a taste test too. I actually had noticed when brushing my teeth already on Sunday and maybe even Saturday that I had an odd taste in my mouth, not like toothpaste but indefinable, almost metallic. So in the hospital a nice nurse took a cotton swab and touched various places on my tongue and I was tuo say Sweet, Sour, Salty or Bitter. Most of them were completely unidentifiable to me, like that odd toothpaste taste. Once I could taste Sweet, but otherwise a total washout.
The ear tests had me wearing headphones and listening to various beeps, some painfully loud. Sometimes I had to respond to them, sometimes not. The eye tests entailed lying on a slab with a foot-long black horizontal bar suspended over my head, running left to right directly above my eyes as I was lying there. The nice young lady nurse put some black goggly things over my eyes, and said part of this test would be the flushing of some warm water in each ear in turn. First she opened one goggle eye so I could now see a red light moving from end to end on that black bar. I think that was to calibrate some thing which was measuring the movements of my eyeballs. So I was put in the dark again and she began squeezing that warm water with a big syringe into my right ear. Beforehand she said I might feel a little dizziness. Har. Funny thing though, I remember having this ear-flushing procedure as a kid, a number of times. So she started, and soon after the rushing sound of the warm water in my ears, I did start to feel dizzy with a vengeance! The world was spinning, and my eyes too of course, which they were monitoring. Then they did the left ear, which didn't seem to have the same strong dizzy effect as the first ear.
Nevertheless, some time later I finally went in to see the main doctor to get the lowdown. I still had the fear that it was some stroke like thing. I asked him and he said no, definitely not with those symptoms. So he wanted to start me on a treatment of cortisone IV shots, with a lessening dose each day for three weeks. He gave me three options, first to stay in the hospital for one daily IV treatment, or second to come to the hospital every day to get the IV, or third to have my regular doctor do it for me. After a call to Dr. Aman to ask whether he'd be willing and able to do that, I opted for the third course. The doctor in the hospital gave me the first IV, told me some things I should know, such as that I had to cover my left eye with a compress before going to bed to prevent its drying out. The accepted therapy for this facial paralysis included three drugs he told me, first the cortisone, then an anti viral tablet and third a circulation promoting pill. The last he was a bit hesitant about, asking me if I had any cardiac rhythm disturbance, which I said no to. Asked how long this thing would last, the doctor said he hoped I'd see some improvement the next day already!
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Beginning the next day, November 24 2009, I went to my doctor every day to follow the list of doses for the cortisone the hospital doctor had given me. I had to run around to various pharmacies to get the goods. The regimen was to last three weeks more or less, with the dose decreasing every day and finally changing to pills for the last several doses. There was a problem with the first weekend, but my doctor invited me to come to his place to get my IVs. That was quite fun. Also I was taking the anti virus pills every day, big ones and four a day. I missed several at first so I was taking an average of three a day at first. The third medication, for circulation, was a failure for me. I took one the first evening as I believe they were supposed to be taken, but in the middle of the night got up with my heart racing, too fast, too fast. I had no pain but only this fast heartbeat. It slowly came down again, but I didn't take any more of those pills. One of the first days I went to my doctor for a treatment, I was crossing the street and sneezed. With my hand over my mouth, somehow it sounded very loud on the left side. That was the first inkling I had of the increased sensitivity to loud sounds I was later to experience. Seems to be another typical symptom as I later read online.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thus began the first phase of my bout of Bell's Palsy. That's how the thing seems to have articulated itself over time, in phases of three weeks more or less. In that first phase I worried a lot; wondered if there was a tumor in there causing this; one main phenomenon was the headaches I was getting nearly every day. They would come in that same back lower left part of my head, and become a kind of stiff neck feeling on the left side of my head, in front of and below my left ear. Later in December I went to a neurologist downtown at Potsdamer Platz and he did a lot to relieve my worries - everything I was experiencing was part of the typical picture of Bell's Palsy, including the headaches. I had had the opportunity extended to me by one of two doctors I happen to have as evening students, to get an appointment for an MRI scan. My neurologist however said there was no need for that at all, except if the condition didn't go away; so I cancelled the temporary appointment my doctor friend had set up with his MRI colleague. Actually at this remove I am mixing up the chronology a bit. I cancelled the appointment, only to have my regular doctor say it was not a bad idea to do it after all; it wouldn't hurt and such MRI appointments were hard to get at short notice. I called the MRI place back to reactivate the appointment but she said it had already been cancelled at nine that morning, and did I realize that the treatment would cost €400? So I let it go, but mentioned this later to my doctor friend who'd set it up for me in the first place. He was scandalized, and promised to straighten things out with them. But by the time we next talked, the idea of having the scan had gone by the wayside.
And so it ran. I went back to work at the end of the first week, teaching English as a foreign language. I found it wasn't a problem to make myself understood, and that most people were sympathetic and understanding. Especially at the beginning it was a great strain after a long day at work, trying to make myself understood. I found I was exaggerating my pronunciation, pulling my mouth way over to the right side. I sensed I could thus better pronounce things, but actually I think that was a hindrance and also a strain, naturally. Over time I learned to try to avoid that, although sometimes when I felt nervous for example it would happen on its own.
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More next time . . .
More next time . . .
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