The Lilac in my Garden

 

Lilac - or French Lilac as it is called here, "Flieder" in German - is a shrub or small tree that you can find all over Germany. There, it usually blooms in May and fills the air with its wonderful scent. California is not the best place for lilac - the summers are too hot (at least in many areas) and the winters are too mild. Lilac needs a good and decent winter chill to perform to its full glory.

And still I have lilac in my garden. This year they are doing especiallywell - maybe because we had some pretty cold days in the winter.

I planted this particular one in memory of my dad who passed away in 2014.

He loved lilac. Specifically, he liked the scent of lilac. Whenever he saw a blooming lilac he would go there and put his nose close to the flower, inhaling the typical lilac perfume. Sometimes we would all be in the car - my parents, my brother and I - driving somewhere when he would suddenly stop and jump out of the car. He had seen a lilac by the side of the road and of course! he had to smell it. This didn't happen once but several times. I remember that I felt rather embarrassed as a child about this behavior.

Today, I understand him so much better! I wish he could smell my lilac.

This is one of my fondest memories of my dad. He was a difficult man and we often argued, but the older I get the more important the good memories become - and this is perfectly fine with me. I only wish I had told him how many good memories I have of him.

And since this is a post for Elizabeth's T stands for Tuesday and I'm writing about my dad, I'm sharing a drink my dad often enjoyed - a cold German beer (this picture, however, I had taken in a German restaurant in Manhattan).

This was June!

Social distanced Happy Hour with the neighbors

In June I gave myself a little challenge of taking at least one photo each day. I had become rather lazy with photography and I hadn't used my big camera since February when I last visited the beach. Thankfully there were several occasions in June when I finally used the big camera again - it felt so good.

Sometime in late April or early May (I can't remember exactly when) the neighbors in our corner started to gather for a happy hour on Fridays at five in the afternoon. We first were sitting by the side of the street; everybody brought their chair and drink of choice and we would sit 6ft. apart from each other and chat. It was wonderful to meet up. After a few weeks one of the neighbors had the genius idea to move to the cul-de-sac at the corner - it's quieter and it also offers more shade. Since then we have met up every Friday for an hour and a half to two hours and it is one of the highlights of the week.

The little girl a couple houses down turned four and we did a drive-by birthday "party" for her. It was a lot of fun to see the decorated cars and bicycles pass by, honking their horns and ringing their bells.

During June I continued my walks, discovering the back alleys in the historical district of the town. These back alleys are very quiet and have almost a rural feel - it's hard to believe that we are not far from downtown when you walk here. They offer a lot of shade and unpaved trails.

I enjoyed my June garden a lot. The poppies were the bright spots and happily displayed their beauty. They all came from the poppies that I had first sown eight years ago. Since then they have self-sown every year - so easy.

Oh - and we had some very hot days in June when I simply wasn't up to cooking dinner. So I made tuna poké with seaweed, rice, avocado, and lots of sesame.

I was very happy when the Rural Cemetery was re-opened at the end of May. I've been there many times and each time I discover something new and see something from a different perspective. That place is never crowded, there are nature trails and lots of space to walk.

The glowing bear - Lumibär - at our entrance is from Germany. I bought it when the Geek and I were still dating. We were walking to our favorite café in Tübingen when we passed a shop that had several of these bears in different colors in their windows. There was no price, however. The Geek went inside to inquire about the price - it wasn't exactly cheap, but not very expensive either. Over some coffee and breakfast I pondered about it and decided that it would be fun to have it. When we entered the store the clerk greeted us with the words "Which color should it be?" We had to laugh about that. I chose the orange Lumibär (of course!) - that was in 1996. He moved with us to the US, he was in our evacuation "bag" - and next year he will turn 25. He shines in the mornings and evenings and the kids in the neighborhood love him. Some call him the "giant gummy bear".

We celebrated a big event in June - Kaefer graduated from the University of California, Davis. On June 12th was the virtual commencement celebration that we watched together. Of course it was very different from the "real" thing, but the important thing is that she graduated. She will now do her Masters, either in Munich or in London. She got in both programs and now has to decide where she wants to go.

The middle of June brought more days in the garden and walks through the - like-minded - neighborhood. Friends of us came over for a social distanced couple of hours of good conversation and good wine, lots of laughing and the faint feeling of some kind of normalcy. One Sunday we visited the Lavender Labyrinth at a lavender farm which was fun - more pictures will probably follow in another blogpost.

Kaefer went back to Davis to pack more of her things and I drove over one day to take graduation pictures of her and one of her best friends who was also her work mate. We took photos at different locations on campus that have had some meaning for them during those four years, and also a picture of her and myself. From that day on Kaefer has been staying with us which is a big gift for us before she will move to Europe.

I have started knitting a summer sweater for her, but I'm getting second thoughts about the neckline. It is a technique I have never done before and I'm a bit nervous about it. Maybe I should practice before!

The last week of June... Kaefer and I went to the lavender garden of Matanzas Creek Winery (I wrote about those gardens here, here and here) to take a few more graduation photos. I simply love this place. I also finally went back to Crane Creek Regional Park - I'm still avoiding the lake since there are just too many people who don't distance or wear masks, but it's safe in Crane Creek - not many people and those I met were wearing masks when we were passing each other. This is another place that feeds my soul and I just hope that they don't close the parks again. Unfortunately the number of cases are going up again rather speedily (which I think results from opening up too early and too fast) and I wouldn't be surprised if we took a few steps back again.

Since the second week of June I'm officially on summer break. I had my last class with the German School on June 10th (I decided to offer two conversation classes of four weeks each) and am glad to have some "real" free time. However, I'm also on the "re-opening" committee of the German School where we work on different strategies on how to re-open our school in the fall. That is a ton of work!

How was your June? What are you doing this summer?

To all of you in the US - have a happy Fourth!

The Mother of All Cathedrals

Sometimes things happen thousands of miles away that slice right through your heart.

On Monday after I had left work I saw that my daughter had sent me a text, asking me whether I had heard about the big fire in Notre-Dame. I had not - I don't check my phone at work and I don't go online outside of work-related tasks. Therefore, I was oblivious what had happened that evening in Paris.

I checked in on the European news when I came home, and what I saw filled me with deep sadness. Watching that beautiful steeple fall in the flames... on top, the smoke and the fire raised very unpleasant memories. Someone once said that there is a forest in the roof of the cathedral - centuries-old timber of oaks - and it burned up like that. Half of that roof was still from the 13th century (in comparison, the roof of the Cologne cathedral was built with steel in the 19th century, a decision that was very controversial at that time but proved to be a wise choice).

I saw footage of a robot vehicle sent into the cathedral to retrieve some of the artwork. Firefighters tried to save some of these treasures. It seems that a lot was saved - but there is artwork that is lost forever.

The beautiful stained glass windows - many of them made with medieval glass (just think about that!) - seem to have survived the fire. Those big windows in the choir are stunning and how much do I love the rose windows.

Since there was a lot of renovating and reconstruction work going on (maybe the cause of the fire?) it was just luck that many of the bronze statues on the outside of the church like the apostles were removed just a week before or so.

When I was in Paris the last time I visited Notre-Dame while there was a mass going on inside which added a special atmosphere to this place of worship (and I'm not a religious person).

Like in so many catholic churches and cathedrals in Europe there were many places where you could light a candle. Their warm light put a beautiful glow in so many nooks and corners (and no, as far as I know they didn't cause this fire).

So many details on the outside of Notre-Dame - you could spend a lot of time looking at them and probably still haven't seen all of them.

I do hope they will rebuild. For me it's the heart of Paris. It's on the Île de la Cité where Paris began. Notre-Dame is the mother of all cathedrals, serving as a sample for so many Gothic cathedrals. I can't even imagine what this loss means to the French people.

And I'm forever grateful that my daughter was able to visit Notre-Dame back in the summer of 2014 and could also listen to the magnificent ringing of the bells.

Memories of A Lost Land

Back in March I wrote about the Puna District on the Big Island of Hawai'i that I love so much. The last time we had been there was in January - and had I known that it literally would be the last time that I'd see it this way I probably would have taken way more photos than I actually did. But the memories of this now lost land are in my heart and it's where they will stay.

A big part of Puna has changed forever and is still changing every day. While it comes as no surprise that an active volcano would behave - well, actively - it is still heart breaking. Having your home being consumed by lava that creeps into your backyard is simply terrible. Even though the people had enough time to save a lot of their things, their homes are lost, and even those houses that remain standing may be unreachable because of the lava flow.

This beautiful road along the coast - Highway 137 - is cut off in several places, covered by lava. The lava flew down from Leilani Estates, crossed the highway and entered the ocean.

I fell in love with Puna during our first visit to the Big Island, and most of these pictures are from the summer of 2016.

It's a rugged coast, rough and black. No white sandy beaches are found here, only lava beaches, either rocky or with black sand. There's an abundance of palm trees and, since this is the rainy side of the island, rich and plentiful vegetation. It rains a lot here.

Along this coast there are (or should I say "were") bays and beaches where you could stop, just hang out, surf, talk to the locals or just sit in a chair and look out over the ocean. Often someone brought fruit for everyone to share.

Some of these places still exist since the lava didn't go everywhere, but it might be a challenge to reach these spots.

I'm pretty sure that this road no longer exists. It leads to Kapoho Bay - with wonderful tide pools and great snorkeling. The lava from fissure 8 has entered the ocean here and Kapoho Bay is no more.

While all of this is incredibly sad, it is also amazing and beautiful at the same time. Nature definitely never stops to fascinates, and it does what it wants. No way we can manage it. We can be smart and prepared, but in the end we can only react to what nature has in store for us - much of it as a result of our own destructive behavior. Remember the principle of the seventh generation I wrote about? It certainly doesn't apply to an active volcano, but it's still good to keep in mind.

This is what hot lava looks like (this is the lava flow in 2016) - you can see more pictures here:

I am forever grateful that I could experience Puna in January one more time. The avocado tree house is still standing, but it is difficult to get there. Highway 130 from Pāhoa to Kalapana has several cracks that are worrisome, but as far as I know you can still drive there (only if you're a resident though). At the moment an emergency road is bulldozed through the lava across Chain of Craters Road in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park (where I took the pictures of the lava above), but that would be a huge detour. Still, better than having no way out...

An Image and Its Story - May 2018

Oh May - so many photos of flowers and plants in my garden. Every time I was out there I discovered something new that I had to take a photo of. It's a wonderful month in the garden.

And of course it's the time of the poppy. Not the California Poppy but the Papaver.

There was a time when I had an abundance of Papaver poppies in my garden. In fact, there were so many that they were smothering other flowers, taking away light and water. It had reached a point where I said "Enough" and pulled out the poppies as soon as they were gone. As a result I'm having less poppies in my garden this spring. These, however, do the "poppy thing" and pop with their brilliant red.

They always remind me of Germany. They are flowering a little bit later in the year than here in California due to a much harsher climate. But when they do it's breath taking. Fields and fields of green (grass), red (poppies) and blue (bachelor's buttons or cornflower) with the red playing the dominant role. I've loved them when I was a child and I still do. It's something I miss here - but then we have the fields of orange poppies in the spring which are stunning as well. They just don't carry all the memories the red poppies do.

Even the name is beautiful. We call this flower "Klatschmohn" for which I can't offer you an adequate translation. The dictionary says "poppy" which of course is correct, but it doesn't completely reflect this special name. It's just another one of those German words that are impossible to translate.

This particular poppy in the photo showed its beauty one morning when I did my first round of the day through the garden. A completely new flower, just having escaped its green shell/skin, not yet opened to the light. It will not take long until the bees will discover this new kid on the block and buzz around it.

Laughter And Joy Were Living Here

This house... a regular, completely unspectacular Ranch style house, sitting in a neighborhood nestled among the slopes of hills. Work was in walking distance and so was the elementary school.

The California poppies loved it here, too.

There was a Liquidambar next to the house that exploded in the most fantastic colors in the fall.

And so did the Crepe Myrtles in front of the house.

The mailbox was guarded by a colorful coyote and the house was decorated for Halloween and Christmas.

The backyard had a colorful garden that became more beautiful each year.

It had a pear tree with a purple clematis growing into it.

At Easter there were egg hunts in the backyard with the help of whichever neighborhood cat was residing there at that moment.

We lived a lot in that backyard. Roasting marshmallows over the fire pit, drinking wine in the evening and chatting with each other, having breakfast on the beautiful redwood deck with pancakes and homemade plum jam made by my friend Jo who had picked the fruit from our plum tree.

The plum tree is not there anymore...

We celebrated many birthdays here...

baked cookies for Christmas...

and the girl learned how to inline skate, do hula hoops with the Geek and cheered for the German soccer team.

We took photos for Christmas cards - and not all of them made it in the final selection.

In 2012 we bought our own house and left the neighborhood, but we still stayed in touch with some of our neighbors here. These were 11 very happy years when we made a lot of memories.

We will need those memories.

Last weekend, we went up to our old neighborhood. There isn't much left.

When she was little, Kaefer loved to climb this gate in front of our house.

The gate survived the fire. As did the street sign - sort of.

And the school? It completely burned down. It hurts to see what is left of it. This was Kaefer's kindergarten class.

I prefer to remember her first school this way...

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The Redwood Credit Union, our local paper The Press Democrat and our State Senator Mike McGuire have set up the North Bay Fire Relief Fund where every donated dollar goes directly to aid relief efforts and help the victims of the fires.