Back To Shore

Lyrics: “Josephine” – Frank Turner, 2015

I’m 2/3 through a much needed three day weekend. With lots of rain and thus lots of staying in, which was fine by me. I needed that. Work has been quite busy this past week with an important strategic meeting, which I had been worrying about in the days leading up to it. Of course I did, I’m a worrier. Thankfully I don not worry as much as I used to and I often enough manage to put it all in perspective, but some tiny underlying worry was and probably will always be going on in the back of my mind nonetheless.
The meeting itself went fine. Of course it did. After over a decade in this job I finally start believing that I’m doing a good job and that I know my stuff! Either way, it was a big relief to have that meeting out of the way and having gotten approval of my plan for the next few months.

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Earlier this week Stuart Alexander, a Scottish director / editor, who had directed the music video of Frank Turner’s “Somewhere Inbetween”, put out a 30 minutes conversation he had with Frank on drugs & addiction on Youtube (audio only). It’s a follow-up piece to a similar conversation about imposter syndrome they had around shooting the video about a year ago. Even 12 years in I’m still such a fangirl that I usually try to watch / read new interviews with Frank right away. But I was dragging my feet on this one until I felt I was in the right head space. Drugs & addiction is a heavy topic and Frank never holds back when he talks about it, which in general I appreciate. Even though I never ever did drugs of any kind I know myself well enough by now to acknoweldge my own bad habits / addictions of some kind. Those might not be physcially harmful, but they are not helping my mental health either, if you get my drift. Seeking distraction via reading book after book or (re)watching TV shows or scrolling on my phone much longer than I should or just being in my head too much and not in a productive way, but in a ruminating, paralysing way. So often I feel like it’s so much more comfortable and safer to keep thinking things through and going in circles instead of just going ahead and do things, you know? That kind of thinking, that kind of habit, definitely not helpful!

Anyway, I listened to the drugs & addiction talk today and it wasn’t as “bad” as I had feared. It gave me a few things to think about . Yes I get the irony of that statement after just having stated that I am thinking too much. But hey, I also finally cleaned out and reorganized two of my kitchen cupboards today. It might sound silly to some / most of you, but it felt like such a daunting task, that I kept starting it postponed for ages. Until I did. And it didn’t even take that long and wasn’t such a big deal.

These past few weeks I’ve at least managed to do less ruminating and instead kept my mind busy with various podcasts episodes. Preferable none of the selfcare / selfcare variety, because as helpful as they can be and were in the past, at the moment I feel like they keep me in the “thinking instead of doing” headspace too much. So for a while now I’m trying to listen to more regular podcasts, where a host or two talk to interesting people; with a focus on social issues in the broadest sense. Preferable with female hosts, because I think there are more than enough male podcast hosts around anyway. If you’ve got interesting ones that fall into this category hit me up. I did the cupboard sorting while listening to the second half of a German politics podcast on toxic masculinity with a focus on the younger generation of men.

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This week I was reminded of a time in my life a few years ago when I was working on a super cool project at work. A project that took me to Manchester three times in about 18 months to engage in workshops and meetings and site visits and such. I had the chance to spend some time at the Lowry, a gallery / theatre / culture complex back then.

The reason my mind pulled that memory out from some deep hidden corner, was of course, that the Operation Mincemeat World Tour will start at the Lowry in February 2026. The first scenes of this musical saw the light of day at a scratch night for new aspiring writers at the Lowry or as the Lowry itself says

Lowry has been involved with Operation Mincemeat from the very start, co-commissioning the show and providing support, funding and mentorship through its early development. We’re delighted to be opening the tour – giving our audiences the first opportunity to see the show outside of London and New York!

So, of course I want to be there, when the show has it’s glorious return and I’m grateful my friend bought a ticket for me as well. We’ll hopefully see the original cast there, but you never know. Anyway, Manchester is always worth a visit and I haven’t been there since 2019. Pre-Covid. Six (then seven) years not just feel like it’s been a long time. It actually is.

It’s always nice to have plans lined up for the future, right? Especially in this grim and scary looking time we live in at the moment. But now I’m off to bed to catch a few hours of sleep before I plan to watch the Tony Awards. I hope it’s working the way I plan. But if my silly little yellow show wins anything, I want to be there. A good thing it’s a three days weekend and I can sleep all I want tomorrow morning.

A new month. Again. Already. Why did no one tell me that time flies when you get older? Or is it just me? I’ve once again made the vague resolution to be more present. On here with posting a bit more, even if it’s not elaborate deep pondering on the state of the world (are my posts ever?). But also be more present in my life in general. Let’s how it goes.

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The new conservative chancellor thinks and states that we Germans need to work more. His party and his conservative part of the government agree. “We” need to be more productive, create more wealth or as he puts it do it to “maintain the current state of wealth”. He only ever mentions the term “work – life – balance” in a derogative way and turns it into something silly and “woke” and wonders why we all don’t just consider our work our life. I know I paraphrase and simplify here. But this whole idea that we all can and need and should want to spend more hours working reeks of such a typical old white male privileged view of the world. It equally drives me mad and makes me despair. There are more eloquent pieces out there disproving his “facts” and masterfully arguing that our society would collapse if we all spend more hours at work and less with activities which benefit our society as a whole, but not contribute to the gross national product. Unpaid care work. All the volunteers running so many corners of our lives (more on that later) without getting paid for it.

I recently spoke to a guy who’s running his own construction company with a dozen or so employees. He’s doing it successfully and I’m happy for him. He then mentioned the 60-70 hours of work he puts in each week. It wasn’t necessarily meant as an accolade, but it was implied that it’s normal for that kind of job. He’s married with two children in their teens. Of course he can put in 60-70 hours of work each week, because he’s got a wife at home taking care of everything else. We don’t know each other well enough for me to comment on any of that, but of course I thought it.

Our new government also wants to loosen up on maximum hours of work per day / week. Which might be an ok idea for people who want to work more hours each day or each week. Though most of those I’d assume are already on contracts where they can be flexible with their hours and where they get paid for any overtime. They can work more hours already. But what about all those jobs where your boss decides your hours and then all of a sudden you’re on for 4 x 12 hours shifts and then get a day off. But your a single mum and day care doesn’t cover 12 hours shifts. What do you then? Not to mention all the physically taxing jobs, which already with the mere regular working hours ruin your health before you reach retiring age. Argh!

And no, of course nobody considers maybe taxing the uber rich in Germany a tiny bit more to provide the cash influx our nation obviously needs to pay for social security, infrastructure and all the rest.

Do I sound jaded? Damn right I am. Jaded and frustrated and tired of it all.

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Feeling jaded and frustrated and tired is also the reason why I’m phasing out of my involvement with politics on a local level by the end of the summer. I’ve been actively engaged with it for over 20 years now. Not quite half my life but not that far off either. I enjoyed doing it for most of the time and thought my contribution (time and mental energy) to the cause was a worthy one. And it still might be or rather I know it would be, but I’m at a point where I just can’t bring myself to care. For a variety of reasons: systematic ones and interpersonal ones and of course personal ones. I felt like that for a while but just this year I’ve finally reached the state of mind where I need to put my own mental well being first. These activities drain my mental energy more than they replenish it so it’s actually a quite simple decision.

Or it should have been, had not my inherent (personal? educated as a woman?) need to not let other people down and to take care of stuff, because others won’t and someone has to, kept me bound to it as long as it has. I still feel a tiny bit guilty about stepping down and not being as engaged any more, but I’ll get over it. I hope.

Politics on a local level rely on people being willing to volunteer their time and energy. Just as so many other community services do. Health support groups, churches, help for refugees, the local art scene, libraries, every single sports club offering activities for all ages. I witnessed that yesterday when I visited a U 17 tournament about 30 minutes drive away, because a relative I haven’t seen in decades is coaching a participating team. Taking this youth tournament as example: it needs parents or just regular people interested in that sport, who are willing to give up their time to

• coach
• drive / chaperone
• do all the necessary admin
• take care of the catering for teams and visitors
• referee or judge

The list goes on and on. Who is going to do all that when we are forced to work 50 hour weeks to create more wealth. Wealth of what kind? And for whom?

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Thursday was a public holiday here and I had the day off work on Friday as well, so I decided to do something to replenish my mental energy. I took the train to Düsseldorf to visit a museum with two exhibitions which interested me; one of which is closing today. I brought my camera and took lots of photos in the museum and during the stroll towards the very posh city centre as well. I had been aiming for street art, but in the end focused on decals / stickers. They are everywhere on lampposts, traffic lights, hand rails and it was an interesting experience to walk through a city with my eyes sometimes focused on those. There will be tons of photos of the exhibitions and the decals, but I need to sort through them first.

But here is one from the pitch I visited yesterday: “Form Gangs”, it says. Which is always a good idea in my mind. Find your people. Band together. Support each other.

Lyrics: “Polaroid Picture” – Frank Turner, 2013

Did I start living so outrageously, that I forgot all about this blog, you might wonder after this month long radion silence? No, I did not. I just didn’t find the time or topic or mood to write anything. Whenever I thought about doing a recap of the past four weeks it felt too overwhelming so I didn’t start writing anything. I won’t do a proper recap now either.

I had a lovely time celebration my 50th birthday. I spent a few nice days in Antwerp. After that regular life took over with work and schedules and things to do. With things to procrastinate on or get distracted by. The usual for me. There also has been some more introspection and the constant inner work of figuring things out, but I won’t bore you with that. Let’s just start over with a few photos from today, ok?

For my 50th birthday some friends gifted me an “outdoor escape room” / digital scavenger hunt experience in Cologne. We did that today and it was lots of fun. We spent 2.5 hours exploring the Ehrenfeld quarter, which is characterized by it’s diverse scene. People from various countries and cultures, pubs, cafe’s, little shops and lots of street art, galeries and just a vibrant atmosphere. On the trail we had to follow we passed through various streets I remembered having parked my car in when I went to a gig nearby and we even passed a small venue I have been to once in the past decade. For Will Varley in 2018 / 2019? I don’t exactly recall. I’ve gone to quite q few gigs in Cologne in the past 20 or so years. It felt a bit weird to be back there in the daylight, but not in a bad way.

I plan to definitely be back for a proper street photography tour in Ehrenfeld the summer. Here now are just a few shots from today: