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Tag Archives: Grieving

Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Texas 6

18 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Christianity, Disabilities, Grieving, Home, Pilgrimage, politics, Racism, Texas, travel

I lie in bed this morning a little longer, listening to the strangely comforting drone of the oxygen machine. We have no plans for today. Today it’s family time. It will be an up-day for Rhett, and there is time for me to read some of the magazine articles Natalie has written, chat with Rhett and Natalie, and share photographs of my family over the past year. Perhaps I can show them a little of my life before Peter died. I can show photos of family members who traveled across the world to attend his funeral. Perhaps I can go for a walk in Rhett and Natalie’s neighborhood, exercising off some of all that delicious food I have consumed in the past five days.

I think about Rhett and Natalie’s life. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have a terminal illness and be sick, year after year, wondering when the last breath will be. It has always my worst nightmare thought, as an asthma patient who suffered horrifying asthma attacks in younger years, to think of inhaling less and less air until you finally suffocate. Thank God I haven’t had one of these in decades. Still, the fear lingers. Rhett tries to reassure me, telling me he feels no pain. His oxygen machine can always adjust, giving him the level of oxygen he needs. Still. What a life. To have ever-diminishing energy.

I find in Natalie a kindred spirit and an inspiration. I have always found her to be gracious, calm, even-tempered, kind, and able to joke about some of the less pleasant things she is forced to endure. For me, she is the epitome of the devoted Christian wife, as I also strove to be. She has to constantly adapt her life to the ups and downs of her husband, as I had to do after Peter’s stroke. She has to find a way to live a life of her own, while always being available for whatever could befall her husband. And she does this with apparent ease, at least as far as I, an outsider, can see. She sees people. I have already met some of them – her cousin and her dear friend, both of whom she is close to and sees regularly. She does get out and take part in interesting things of life. She is active in their church, she sees the grandchildren whenever possible; she talks to her friends, her kids and grandchildren on the phone when too busy to get together. She reads and watches television sometimes. Natalie is beginning to feel more like a sister-in-law than a cousin-in-law. I guess that is only fitting, since Rhett was the brother I never had until I was six. In spite of the hardship each of them has to face, I find myself a little jealous of one thing. They are both of sound mind. They can carry on an adult conversation. This was hardly possible for me after Peter’s stroke. He was often in an entirely different world and unable to grasp his situation. It was a gift from heaven to have a husband I could care for and share some things with, after the agony of watching him in a waking coma for months, but I often felt lonely not being able to talk about my life with him in a way he could respond to. I missed my husband, even as he sat before me, even as we sat at the dinner table together, eating meals he helped me prepare.

I get up and walk into the kitchen, where Natalie is preparing breakfast. I share some of my thoughts with her. She laughs. “I’m no hero,” she says. Exactly what I told people who told me the same thing.

Rhett joins us for breakfast. It feels almost normal.

They tell me about a cruise they took to Alaska last year. Rhett would like to be able to travel with Natalie to Europe and go to England with me, where we could visit the homes, farms, churches and towns in Cornwall our ancestors dwelt in. Could he do this? They tell me how they traveled to the West Coast with oxygen machines, apparatus and all equipment necessary for survival, in addition to their suitcases. “A cruise is a great way to travel when you’re disabled,” they assure me. Rhett slept in the berth in their cabin on his down days, and on the up days he could participate fully in life on board. They met and became friends with another couple – it was wonderful! But could we do this? Rhett assures me he could, by flying first-class to England. Natalie’s expression reveals skepticism.

We look at family photos and then chat about this and that, and various family members. Eventually we get down to the subject I’ve been hoping to talk about – their view on the political scene in America.

“What do you think about Trump’s plan to build a wall on the Mexican border?” I ask. “You live in a border state. You see how many Mexicans and Hispanics are here.” Knowing that my cousins are politically conservative, I assume they will agree with Trump on everything.

“We don’t need a wall,” both chime in with one firm voice. “Even our Republican Governor doesn’t think we need one.” I feel reassured again. Maybe we’re pretty much on the same page.

I mention that I have downloaded the audio book Becoming, by Michelle Obama, onto my cell phone. I know my cousin doesn’t think much of President or Michelle Obama. This leads to a discussion of the “Black Lives Matter” movement. I have read a little about it and about police brutality, but I must admit, I am not very well informed. Here I get a very different response to the one about immigrants and the wall. “I think Michelle Obama has been a divisive force on this subject,” they say. “She approves uncritically of everything this movement stands for, and this movement is divisive. They have spread outright lies about some of the stories you hear in the news.” They go on for a while about how divisive America has become.

“Why can’t people just listen to each other, even when they disagree, without tearing each other apart?” they say. I heard the same thing from my sister when I visited her at Christmas. I decided while visiting her and her family that I would ask my questions of everyone I talked to on this trip, whether it raised hackles or not. I would express my opinions as well, in as kind and inclusive manner as possible. Why be part of the silent, frustrated masses, afraid to open their mouths because they have been shut down the few times they dared to talk about the issues that matter to them? Surely it is possible if we remain polite and respectful. I will not keep silent. I say to Americans, keep speaking. But even more than that, keep listening, and always stay respectful. I hope this culture of mutual respect and honest sharing of opinions while listening to one another can grow in the land I am proud to be a citizen of. I may not live there anymore, have questions about where home is, and been influenced by my life abroad, but I am still a loyal American. And I want to see our country’s people open up to each other! I am sure we have more uniting us than dividing us.

Rhett tells me about one of the favorite causes of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, the killing of black man Michael Brown by policeman Darren Wilson. He defends the policeman, who he says was terrified for his own life, and did what anyone would do in self-defense. I haven’t followed the story carefully, living in Europe, so don’t really have an opinion one way or another. But I tell Rhett and Natalie that my black relatives have told many stories about how they have experienced racism. We are listening and speaking respectfully to each other.

For the record, here is what former President Obama has to say about “Black Lies Matter”. I found this quote in an article in the online publication “The Undefeated“.

“I know that there’s some who have criticized even the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ as if the notion is as if other lives don’t matter. We get ‘All Lives Matter’ or ‘Blue Lives Matter.’ I understand the point they’re trying to make. I think it’s also important for us to understand that the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African-Americans that needs to be addressed. It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability and so we shouldn’t get too caught up somehow in this notion that people who are asking for fair treatment are somehow automatically anti-police or trying to only look out for black lives as opposed to others. I think we have to be careful about playing that game because, obviously, that’s not what is intended.”

Rhett then goes on to tell me a story of something that happened in his own childhood, while living in Virginia. His father, my uncle, was a US Naval officer and the family was continually on the move. They lived in Brazil, Portugal, and various parts of the United States. I believe travel broadens one’s perspective on life, and so it was with my aunt, uncle and their family. At this time, my uncle’s navy career had brought him and the family to Virginia. My aunt and uncle didn’t believe in school segregation, so they sent their all their children to public desegregated schools. Almost everyone they knew was sending their children to private, segregated schools, but they courageously chose a different path for their children. One evening the family looked out their living room window to see a cross burning on their lawn. The Ku Klux Klan had targeted their family. The children remained in their public, integrated schools.

We go out that evening for dinner, oxygen machine and all, with a family friend of theirs. Over dinner I learn that this friend, a stranger to me, prayed for my husband with Rhett and Natalie faithfully for four years after he suffered his stroke, until he finally passed away last year. Something melts inside my heart. This is family, here in Texas, so far away from the northern State I grew up in, but we are tied together. Their lives are very different from mine, and we don’t always agree about everything. But here are people I can truly count on. I feel more settled and relaxed than I have felt in a long time.

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Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Texas 5

15 Monday Jul 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Grieving, Illness, Marble Falls, Texas, Tourism, travel, Wine

Now we’re finally getting weather more like I hoped to find in the South! I brought along clothes for every kind of weather imaginable – from bitter cold and snow, which I experienced in New York City for a couple of days, to sleeveless tops. We’re not there yet, but the sun is shining, and I only need a light jacket or sweater on top of my normal winter clothes when outdoors. Not so bad! And the sun is shining.

Rhett will be down for most of the day today, so it’s a day out for Natalie and me. We join her friend Jill and head for the Texas Hill Country, a geographically unique area and the border between the Southwest and the Southeast. It’s a pleasant drive through rolling hills wooded with live oak trees. Live oaks, I have been told, are oak trees that don’t shed their leaves in winter, hence the term “live oak”. You can find huge oak trees here that are hundreds of years old.

Live oak tree

Our destination is Myrtle Falls, where we are booked for lunch at the famed Blue Bonnet Café. Apparently this restaurant is so popular, you have to book days ahead of time to get a table here. “Wait till you try their pies,” promises Natalie. “They’re spectacular.”

There is a line outside the café when we arrive, but we don’t have to wait long to get inside, where we have to wait several more minutes. We peruse reviews of the restaurant posted on the walls from newspapers as far away as New York City’s Wall Street Journal.

Texas-sized pies here!

We peer at the pies displayed in the glass cases along the corridor. Massive piles of meringue or whipped cream alongside more modest-looking fruit pies. Hm-m-m. What kind of pie shall I order for dessert? But first we need a table, a menu, and then we can order.

I’ve been seeing catfish on the menus of the restaurants I’ve been in thus far in Texas. Apparently catfish is a popular southern, or Texas item. I’m familiar with catfish, having grown up in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes. But in Minnesota, with its huge northern lakes and Lake Superior, the largest fresh-water lake in the world, catfish is considered inferior. In Minnesota, walleyes, lake or river trout and northern pikes are much more prized. But we’re in the South – or rather Texas, where the lakes seem to be man-made reservoirs. I order fried catfish. It comes with corn on the cob, green beans and a salad. It’s not bad, much better than I had imagined. Jill has ordered deep-fried okra as her vegetable. I try a piece. Wow! I thought I didn’t like okra, but this has everything – mushiness, rich flavor and a crispy crust. All the meals come with tender, luscious dinner rolls, which seem to be popular in the Texas restaurants.

Catfish for lunch!

And now for the hard decision – which pie to order. I love the tang of lemon, so opt for a lemon cream pie and coffee. It arrives with at least a cup of whipped cream on top! The other two order chocolate cream pie – one with meringue and the other with whipped cream. The pieces are huge, but I have to admit, I am a bit disappointed. In my piece I can barely discern the lemon. It is wonderfully creamy, but there is no tang to this pie. Give me a tarte au citron any day! Or my mom’s lemon meringue pie. That was was mouth-puckering tangy! The chocolate pies are likewise lacking in intensity. Oh, well. The pies are fine otherwise, and the lunch was, on the whole, delicious.

After lunch we explore the town a bit. It reminds me of Georgetwon, with small, tasteful boutiques along the main street. But there don’t seem to be many shops to choose from, so the town somehow lacks the charm that I sense in Georgetown. We find a lovely gift shop, though, and I buy some soap scented with blue bonnets. Oh, to be in Texas when the lupines, as blue bonnets are also called, bloom! Rhett has rhapodized about the field across the street from their house, transformed into a blue carpet humming with bees every spring. I have to settle for a picture post card. Texas is the “blue bonnet State,” it informs me.

Texas – the lupine State! But I can only see them in a photo on this card I have photographed.
Myrtle Falls, Texas

We drive a little outside the town and admire the landscape. Here I can really see that I am no longer in the eastern part of the United States. Not only are there live oaks, but also prickly pear cactuses. The homes look very different too, almost Mediterranean.

Prickly pear cactus in Texas Hill Country
Near Myrtle Falls, in the middle of Texas Hill Country
Palms and prickly pear cactus grace this Texas home

We drive on. We want to do a Texas wine tasting. Natalie explains that viniculture is becoming increasingly popular in Texas. We stop at the Flat Creek Estate, a short drive out of Marble Falls. It is beautifully serene, tidy with precisely pruned vines, reminiscent of vineyards I have seen in the rolling hillsides of Italy and France. I love the Meditarranean-style wine-tasting room! I could spend a couple of days here, which is entirely possible, because they rent rooms here.

Neatly clipped vines at Flat Creek Estate, Marble Falls, Texas
The wine-tasting room at Flat Creek Estate

We sit down at a table in the tasting room and order two wine-tastings, one red wine and the other white. We are going to mix and share. The friendly sommelier explains that most of the wines they sell are combined from several vineyards and mixed here. This is unexpected. In the vineyards I have seen in Europe, each vineyard tends to sell exclusively their own wines and not to mix, although I have seen shops that sell both wines from the vineyard and imported wines bottled elsewhere. Jill doesn’t like wine, so will not taste. Natalie and I sample the wines. We both discover that we like the same wines. As we leave, she asks me, “What did you think of the wines?”

“They were nice,” I say, “but I must say, I prefer the European wines I have had in Europe.”

“That’s just what your Peter said, last time y’all were here.” So, Peter and I shared the same opinon. I don’t remember either of us having tasted wine the last time we were here, but Natalie remembers. I am comforted, affirmed in my judgment from beyond the grave. I always thought Peter had excellent taste in wines. I sense companionship with him, even though he is on the other side of eternity. We are still in accord with one another, even in how we perceive Texas wine.

I finally get to pay for our wine-tasting. Natalie has been paying for me wherever we go, and I am impressed with her generous hospitality. Is this also Texas?

We drive home in the late-afternoon sunlight, and stop for gas. What a deal! Today, premium gas is going for $2.55 a gallon. The last I checked in Germany, it was about €1.50 a liter! Natalie explains. “Petroleum products are hardly taxed in Texas.”

Price of gas in Texas, February, 2019

We drop Jill off and drive home. Rhett is finally awake and up, and we can talk about the day. Natalie has brought two pieces of pie home for him, and he eagerly opens the cardboard box. He is so sick, but how lovely to be able to enjoy things like a piece of pie, no matter how ill we are.

Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – Texas 4

13 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Christianity, Food, Georgetwon, Grieving, Home, Pilgrimage, Retirement, Senior Univeristy, Texas, travel

Today is a “down day” for Rhett, but Natalie has it all planned for me, and it sounds good! I am opening up more and more to life in Texas. Natalie has written articles in a local magazine about various aspects of life in Georgetown, and from what I have read in snippets here and there, Texan life as it is lived in Georgetown sounds wholesome, a quality that appeals to me very much. I like the fact that the Christian faith is presented in this part of the country frankly, unapologetically and naturally. Of course it isn’t the only religion in America, but this faith and life philosophy is represented by a huge number of Americans. Why not be matter-of-fact about it, not overly defending it, but not castigating it either? Of course, in New York City, where I’ve just come from and where I lived for so many years, most people I knew don’t go to church, and there are probably many more non-Christians as well as people who practice different religions in New York than in Texas. Maybe for that reason, faith as expressed in organized religion seems to get pushed into the background of conversation and in the pages of newspapers and magazines.

We meet Natalie’s cousin Sandy for lunch. “Here we are – at Dos Salsas – the best place in all of Goergetown for chicken tortilla soup,” she suggests. The soup is delicious. My Peter would have loved it. I wish for a moment he could be sitting with me here eating chicken tortilla soup. We chat while eating, and I learn a lot about life for the retired in Texas from Sandy, who is taking courses at a “senior university”. She is taking one course in memoir writing and another on espionage during the Cold War. All students and professors at this senior university are senior citizens. I have never heard of such a thing – a university for senior citizens? “Oh,” Natalie and Sandy chime in together, “Georgetown is a mecca for senior citizens. You should see Sun City. This is a part of Georgetown where only senior citizens are allowed to live, and they have their own university.” I feel a pang of longing tugging at my heart. How I would love to take a creative writing course in English. Courses are offered in German here. But I don’t write in German. I could take an online course – I have a friend who has done this. But how nice it would be to have classmates you could share your writing with, people you could interact with face-to-face. Sandy says there are courses on all sorts of subjects. I’m not sure, on the other hand, what the big deal is about all these courses for senior citizens. I have no problem being in a learning environment with younger people.

Natalie and I leave Sandy and drive into the Georgetown town center. There is a main street in this town, and charming little shops and boutiques. I am reminded of Bill Bryson’s book The Lost Continent, where he travels from one small town to another, all over the United States, finding an appalling dearth of charm. The town centers, he says, have all disappeared, giving way to strip malls, chain food restaurants and shopping malls. He would be happy to discover Georgetown. Unfortunately for me, the day is rainy, so we have to walk through the streets with umbrellas.

Natalie is an expert on Georgetown, having researched and written so many articles about her town. She tells me that in 1976 an ordinance was passed in order to protect all the historic buildings in the town center. The roads and many buildings were also restored during this time. In 1977 the historic district was placed on a National Register of Historic Places.

Historic Town Center of Georgetown, Texas

Natalie takes me to the courthouse. What’s so special about a courthouse? I wonder. But I dutifully follow her into a splendid wood-paneled courtroom. “This is the room where the first trial against the Ku Klux Klan was won,” she says. “This trial took place inthe 1920s, and the room has not changed since that time.” She recounts the tale of what were actually several trials. The Ku Klux Klan practiced hate crimes against more than black people, she says. In this particular case, there was a white traveling salesman, Robert Burleson, who happened to be in Georgetown when the Klan targeted him, flogging and tarring him. Perhaps he held more liberal views than those of the Klan members. They were prosecuted by the young District Attorney, Dan Moody, who won a series of trials against the Klan. The jury gave the Klan members the maximum possible punishment in all cases, and from that time the power of the Klan in Texas was weakened. Moody went on later to become the Governor of Texas.

Courtroom in Georgetown, Texas. The first KKK trials to defeat the Klan took place here in 1923 and 1924.

We stroll along Main Street. Natalie takes me into a consignment craft shop. It is beautiful, with tasteful objects like quilts, pottery and gifts sewn by artisans from around Georgetwon. “This shop is run by senior citizens,” she says. “You have to be over fifty years old in order to display or sell your work here.” Even the women working behind the counter, volunteers, are over fifty.

Craft shop with articles created solely by senior citizens

I find a bib someone inscribed with “Spit happens.” This is just too cute. I buy it for my future grandson, who will be born in a few months, along with another small item, a cotton flannel padded burping cloth with a pattern of old-fashioned locomotives. I chat with one of the volunteers at the cash register, a German woman who now lives in Texas. It’s fun speaking German in this strange setting!

We continue along Main Street, browsing for a few minutes in a chic boutique. There seem to be no chain stores in this town. Everything is local and tasteful. We stop in a toy store/ice cream parlor. “You know how you were just speaking German? This place is run by Germans,” Natalie says. The toys are the kind I would see in a German toy stores, wooden Brico trains, wooden puzzles, and plenty of Playmobil and Lego. “The ice cream is a big drawing factor,” she says. People love to shop here and the kids get to combine it with ice cream.” There are unusual flavors here, like amaretto cheesecake, and more traditional ones like chocolate or strawberry. We each order a dish of ice cream and sit down and enjoy being kids again for a few minutes.

I am impressed with Georgetown. Yes, I could imagine living here!

Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – New York 3

29 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Christianity, Grieving, Pilgrimage, Tourism, travel

Sunday, our second full day in the City, we go to church. We are all committed Christians, and finding a church we may have heard about as far away as Germany becomes as much a part of our touristic experience as any other. In preparation for this trip, Johanna mentioned a church I had been to once before with Peter, Redeemer Presbyterian Church https://www.redeemer.com/ on Park Avenue. It has the reputation for having good, solid theology, a church that thinking people can go to and be challenged by. I opt for the classic service because the time works well for us, so we go there together. Timo wants to go to a church where young people would feel more comfortable, so he and Patrick go to Hillsong Church. https://hillsong.com/nyc/manhattan/

At Redeemer Presbyterian Church, I notice that there is not a single black person in the entire congregation, but there are many Asians. There are also a few families there. The music is definitely classical, with a string quartet and old church hymns. It is the first Sunday of the month, so there is communion. For the communion, ushers come to us in our chairs, serving first bread and later grape juice.

After the service, Johanna asks if the way communion was served is the American way. It is not necessarily, but it is the reformed/dissenting church way, the way they usually do it in my Baptist church in Cologne too. But Johanna belongs to a Lutheran church, where everyone walks to the front of the church, and they stand in a circle together. “I don’t like this passive way of doing communion,” she says. “It’s so impersonal, perfunctory.” I ask her how much she understood of the sermon. “I got the gist,” she says. This was not a good choice of church for Johanna. As for me, it also feels a bit dry, but at least it is not offensive to me theologically. I have heard many cringe-worthy sermons in my life.

Johanna meets Patrick and Timo, and I separate to do some shopping. But we do talk on the phone before we part. Patrick and Timo loved the services they attended.

I have arranged to have dinner with my sister Beth and niece Gillian. I want my German friends to meet more of the English-speaking people in my life. Beth is the sister my sisters and I adopted, and she adopted us, at the time of the marriage of my sister to Beth’s brother. Gillian, living in Australia, has never been able to meet Beth, who has never been to our big family reunions, although most of us we have met up at smaller gatherings. But Gillian just happens to be in New York on business this week, and we have arranged to meet. The logistics aren’t all that easy. Beth has difficulty walking for more than about a block. Gillian has celiac disease and can’t tolerate gluten, but she is hoping to eat Italian food. The Italian restaurant Beth recommended has no gluten-free options – I went there and asked. So I go online, looking for restaurants in the neighborhood that have gluten-free pasta. I find one, the Serafina Osteria. https://serafinarestaurant.com/serafina-italian-restaurant-osteria-new-york

This is good news, but Beth tells me she can’t walk all the way to the restaurant. I call the restaurant and find that they deliver. We eat in, “at home”. After all, we are staying in a sort of apartment, complete with dishes, cutlery and wine glasses. Gillian brings wine. Beth brings us beautiful long-stemmed roses.

fresh flowers for our night in

I organize more dishes, cutlery and glasses. Beth and Gillian, and my Germans all meet for the first time, in our apartment. We eat a delicios meal at home in peace and quiet, a rare thing in New York City restaurants, and laugh and talk, communicating in a language that doesn’t come very easily to Johanna or Patrick. Timo blends right in. After dinner, we watch the super bowl together on TV, the same activity millions of Americans across the country are doing in their homes too. American football is not a German sport, but Patrick loves American football. I am no football fan, and know very little, so my German friend Patrick explains the moves of the game to his American friend.

Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – New York 2

25 Thursday Apr 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Christianity, Grieving, Home, Pilgrimage, Spirituality, Tourism, travel

We wake up to another day of frigid temperatures in New York City. New York is much colder than Cologne! But we will not let a bit of cold weather deter us from our plans. My friends enjoy a breakfast of bagels and coffee. I eat cooked oatmeal, the same breakfast I always eat in the winter. We put on our long underwear and head out for Central Park. Central Park turns out to be my favorite part of the day, perhaps the highlight of the week, because of a couple of wonderful discoveries. We see lots of squirrels scurrying throgh the park, but one in particular catches our attention. It runs back and forth between the ground and its burrow in a hole in a tree. I love it – nature in New York! This squirrel knows nothing about rental prices in the city or gentrification. He lives the same lifestyle squirrels have been living for thousands of years, and it’s comforting for me to see this in Central Park.

This squirrel feels right at home in Central Park!

The other discovery is a community of cardinals in the park. My last trip to New York City I saw a cardinal and thought it must be a rare occasion, because the only birds I usually notice are sparrows and robins. But here there must be twenty of them flitting around. What a wonderful aesthetic experience to see flecks of red hopping around the ground, then darting into the air and back down again!

One of manycardinals

On we march southwards, through the city. It is only noon, and my feet are already tired, and all we have seen is Central Park. We glimpse at the ice skaters at Rockefeller Center, and walk into St. Thomas Church and witness a wedding in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I love St. Thomas Church and walk in there almost every time I am in New York City. I once went to an unforgettable Christmas Eve choral service there. I love their boys’ choir and the liturgy of the service. But it is my first time in the St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I am not Catholic, so never found a need to be inside this church, but Patrick is. I am impressed by its size. Surely it must be the larget Catholic church in America, I think. It isn’t, but it is the largest in New York City. We walk past the New York Public Library. This is another place I have never set foot inside, but I have been told it is a worthy tourist attraction, its lobby so beautiful, you can rent it for weddings – for upwards of $60,000! https://www.nypl.org/space-rental/your-event

If only my Peter had seen this place, is the main thing I think, walking around the beautiful rooms with carved oak walls, golden molded ceilings and gorgeous masonry. This would have been heaven to my husband, who loved books – and maps – so much. He used to spend hours at a time, just studying maps. Once visiting friends in England, they drove us to visit a town none of us had been to, but they thought they knew the way. We would have gotten lost, had we followed their directions, but Peter assured us, he knew the way. He did, and they marveled at his sense of direction.

The NY public library has a room dedicated to maps. I mourn my husband as I marvel over the most amazing globes I have ever seen.

One of several amazing globes at the NY Public Library
Map room at the NY Public Library
A reading table at the library

On we go, southwards on Fifth Avenue ever since Central Park. By now it is a bit late in the afternoon, and we are all feeling the effects of our long hike in our legs and feet. Now we are headed for our last destination, the Rooftop Bar at 25rd Street. A friend of mine in Germany told me about this place, not written up in the tourist guides, but known by many young people, including her son, who spent a semester at a language school near New York City. It turns out that there are several rooftop bars in New York, but this one seems to attract mostly young people. That’s what we see at this one at 230 Fifth Avenue. https://www.230-fifth.com/ The interesting thing about this place, to me, is the heated plastic igloos where you can sit and enjoy the view.

Empre State Building, seen from the Rooftop Bar at 230 Fifth Avenue
An igloo at the Rooftop Bar


We drink a cup of hot chocolate for $10. We have to hurry, because the bar closes at 5 pm. The hefty price is worth it. We leave, inspired and strengthened for our return home. We have seen enough for the day.

Two hours later, friends of mine join us at our suite. We have a drink together, and head out again for dinner at Der Krung, a tiny Thai restaurant only New Yorkers would know about, it is so far west of Fifth Avenue. Because of its location and tiny size, the prices are reasonable. It’s fun exploring New York with New Yorkers. I enjoy introducing my German friends to friends from New York. I am in the middle, part of each culture. This must be symbolic of who I am. Am I a bridge between cultures?

Is It Still Home? My Trip to America – New York City

23 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Expat, Grieving, Home, Pilgrimage, Spirituality, Tourism, travel

Perhaps the two questions ex-pats ask themselves more than any other are, “Where is home?”  And “What is home?”  I certainly do.  I recently heard a travel commercial today, trying to entice people to come to Denmark on vacation.  They asked this very question, “Where is home?”  For them, the answer was, home is where you feel secure and comfortable, and this is a state of mind.  Therefore, presumably, you could travel to Denmark and be right at home.

I only have one major regret in life – I didn’t buy my apartment in New York City when I had the chance.  My building was going coop, and I could have bought my studio apartment for $50,000.  My father could have easily financed it for me too, but I didn’t want to owe him anything, so I never asked him.  That apartment is now worth over $400,000, and there’s no way I could afford it, even it were available.  If I had bought that apartment, I would have had my own abode in New York, the only place that has ever really felt like home.  Or does it only feel like home when I return to visit, because nowhere else feels like it either?  Because I got so sick of my entire life in New York City – twice, I only wanted to leave, and eventually did.  But did I find home?

I don’t think of New York City as a place where I feel secure or even comfortable.  But I do feel like I fit in.  There’s room for everybody in New York!  And there are eight hundred languages spoken there, making it the most ethnically diverse city on earth, according to the World Population Review.  http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/new-york-city-population/

I have an inquisitive, curious nature, and I like to be involved in interesting discussions.  New York is discussion paradise.  People philosophize about everything, and they’re really interested in what others think.  Here, if you overhear someone talking about something while waiting on line for your coffee (they say “on line” in NYC, not “in line”), you can jump right into the conversation.  People in New York are passionate about life and all its details.   You won’t find passive bystanders here, but active participants engaged in conversation wherever you go.  They make eye contact on the subway and smile at one another when they find something ironic or amusing.  Life is shared in New York.

There is so much to do in this city, I’m never bored.  Home for me is not a place where I have to stay indoors to feel good.   I can go outdoors and join the rest of the world in New York City any time I please.  When I want to feel secure and comfortable, I can stay indoors and watch the same TV shows, cook the same foods, read the same books, or water the same plants I would anywhere else.  But where else could I find such interesting people to invite over for dinner, if that was what I wanted to do?  Where else could I sit in a café and enjoy such an intense discussion?  That is the DNA of New York.  Once New York gets into your blood, it’s like getting the hepatitis virus.  My blood type is irretrievably changed after having lived there twice, for a total of ten years.  I’m infected with the NYC virus.  My blood type is NYC – both positive and negative.

And now here I am, returning to NYC – from Germany, my adopted country, with German friends.  I was here a year ago after my sister’s funeral, where I attended the funeral of my friend’s father, and stayed with my sister. This time I have arranged to spend a week there as a tourist, spending very little time with family and friends.  In fact, we will be staying in a time share apartment, just like many other tourists.  Most Germans I know have never heard of a time share, something most Americans know about, so this is something of my culture I can share with my friends. How will this week be?  How will New York feel to me, experiencing it again, but with Germans?

We – that is Johanna, Patrick, their son Timo and I – arrive at JFK airport on the bitterly cold afternoon of February 1. It is cold in Germany, but this cold is insane! Minus ten degrees Celsius and a huge wind chill factor. We can feel it walking off the plane into the terminal.

It takes an age to get through immigration, even for me, with the luck of going through the US citizen line. This time no one asks me any silly or loaded questions, simply welcoming me to the United States. When I arrived in Seattle, the agent leafed through my passport, noticed all the stamps from previous trips to Egypt and Turkey and asked in a friendly voice if I had family over there. It was only hours later that I realized this agent wasn’t merely making small talk with me. He was feeling me out to see if I was trying to smuggle some people from Muslim countries into the USA. That experience didn’t feel very welcoming. Today feels better, even though I’m separated from my friends, who aren’t allowed to go through the line with me.

I wait for over a half hour for my friends, wondering if they have somehow gotten through before me and are waiting for me somewhere. But no – immigration takes very long these days, especially if you’re not American.

We finally meet again, and leave the airport for the Airtrain, a monorail that circuits between the terminals and the Sutphin Boulevard subway stop on the E line, which is also the Long Island Railroad stop. I don’t know how to work the machines to get a ticket. I am just as much a tourist as my friends. We end up buying a ticket from a salesman at a kiosk, paying him a tip for the privilege of buying from him.

We enter the subway train and are immediately entertained by a performer who does incredible acrobatics on the train. I have seen performances like this many times in New York, so this feels familiar to me, and I know he expects about a dollar from each of us, which we gladly fork out to him. He leaves the car by forcing the door to the next car open, something that is strictly prohibited by the Transit Authority. But perhaps I am the only one who knows that, because everyone smiles, waving him a farewell as he leaves.

I had forgotten how long the ride is from the airport to 53rd Street and Lexington. Almost an hour long! New York is a huge city. We leave the train and I am disoriented and begin walking in the wrong direction until Johanna asks, “Aren’t we going in the wrong direction?” What is wrong with me? I have always been able to get around Manhattan. I just stand somewhere, figure out whether the Hudson River on my right or left is. If it’s on my right, I’m heading south. But this time I can’t figure out which side of me the Hudson is on.

Before we left Germany, I checked online where the nearest supermarket is. Morton Williams on 57th Street. I have never heard of Morton Williams. Another change in New York. There is also Whole Foods at Columbus Circle. I read about how Amazon bought them. When I lived in New York there was no such thing as Whole Foods.

Our suite is really nice! We will be living in more luxury than I have ever enjoyed in NewYork. I have a huge bed all to myself and my own bathroom. We have a microwave to heat food in, and a little drip coffee machine. I inquire and find that they renew the coffee supply each day, as they also do with dishwasher tabs. My time share is again proving itself worthy of the money I pay each year!

My bedroom

Our kitchen/dining room/living room
Our lving/dining room

After checking into our suite and unpacking we head out for Morton Williams. I recognize Carnegie Hall on the way, and right across the street from there is Calvary Baptist Church, the church I belonged to when I last lived in New York. I scarcely recognize it now, a tiny structure sandwiched between two very high buildings. Normally, my trips to New York don’t take me to 57th Street or midtown Manhattan. No wonder everything seems so strange! But I am familiar with the choices available in a New York supermarket. We find everything we will need for breakfast tomorrow, when Timo will go out again and buy bagels. The bagels look really good. When it is time to pay, I am again overwhelmed. There are many cash registers with numbers. It seems you have to stand on line, like at the bank, and wait for the next available cash register. Some are unattended. Apparently you have to scan your own groceries and pay with a credit card. Can I do this? I can. I manage this as easily as if I had been doing this my entire life. I even ask for cash back, and get it. But only $50. Johanna and Patrick don’t know about cash back. I learned about cash back in Germany, where they even use the English word for this system of getting cash off your debit card when you pay for something with it.

Johanna and Patrick have a comfortable sofa bed they make up each day in the living room. Timo has a rollaway bed in the corner of the living room. We have a comfortable home for the week.

Is it Still Home? My Trip to America

08 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by noreennanz in Uncategorized

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America, Christianity, Grieving, personal change, Pilgrimage, politics, travel

Prologue “What do you think you’ll do, now that Peter has gone?”  My sister Jenna had flown halfway around the world, all the way from Australia to Germany, to keep me company, and to say her last good-byes to my husband Peter.  I had done the same in reverse when her husband died.  Our son and his wife arrived from their home in Korea in time to be with Papa for his final hours on this earth, and stayed for the burial. August 24, our wedding anniversary, was the day we said our final farewell to him. Now my kids were leaving, tearing another hole out of my heart. Why does my family have to choose homes impossibly far and fantastically expensive to reach?

My family of origin, which consisted of seven children, now down to six still living, is literally a micro-United Nations. We have all married or live with people from different cultures, races and countries. I went to Germany and married a German. There’s Australia, where Jenna and her family live. Japan, where my brother Simon lives with his Japanese wife and family. One brother is living in America, but with a woman from Bangladesh. My brother Jason, who also lives in America, married a Malaysian. Naila’s Sam is African American. Their son Blair longs to go back to Asia to live, where he went to music conservatory. Knowing my family, that is what he will end up doing. My son went to Korea to study, and met and married a lovely Korean girl, and settled down with her in Seoul.

Because my family is so spread apart, there are many places for me to go to. “Go on some long trips and visit all the people I love,” I answered. I had already been to Korea and Japan last summer, so I wouldn’t go there just now. I would go back to America, the land where I spent the first thirty-six years of my life.

I’ve been back “home” so many times over the years, but there are people dear to me whom I haven’t seen very often, some not in years, who live in America.  Besides people, there are also places in America leaving holes in my heart, just like people.  Places like New York City, where my soul seems to be drawn, like a magnet to its pole.  The aching hole in my heart keeps finding reasons to go back to New York City and be filled again.  There are a couple other places I love too.  The Boundary Waters of Minnesota, too, where I was conceived and kept returning to, year after year during my childhood.  The wild coast of Oregon, the State where my sister lives.  She brings me back to the coast each time I visit her.  Other places I’m not so familiar with, and there are still one or two others where friends live, but whose homes I have never seen.  There is plenty for me to discover in the land of my birth. Where to go on this long trip back home?

My wonderful, strange friend “Serendipity” had already stepped in for me, months before I had any thoughts of going back to America. I had just come back from the States, where I attended both my sister’s funeral and that of my friend’s father. I wasn’t really looking to return to the States. But Serenditpity came in the form of a phone call a couple months after my return.  My timeshare company wanted to know if there was some location my husband and I would like to travel to.  “What? Didn’t you know?  My husband had a massive stroke over three years ago and can’t travel!”

That was one of the biggest losses I have had to face since Peter’s stroke. He and I were such good travelers, and he was never as interesting or stimulating as when traveling. We fed off and nourished each other’s curiosity with our contrasting insights and information.

“Oh – I’m so sorry,” the voice on the other end said.  After a pause, “Maybe YOU would like to get away somewhere.  Is there anywhere you would love to travel to?” I couldn’t think of anywhere.  All there was now was family, and I didn’t need a timeshare for that. A twinge of self-pity threatened to tug at a corner of my heart.  Then, just as I was about to hang up in disappointment, I remembered New York City.  “Well, there is New York City, but you never have any openings there.”   

“Let me just check,” the agent said.  “Ah, there is an opening at a hotel called The Manhattan Club for the first week in February.  Would you like that?  It is a suite that can sleep four.”

“Yes!” I said, with no questions or doubts in my voice.  So, months before Peter died, the seeds of a trip to the US were planted.  I would be a tourist again in the city I spent ten years of my life in. As soon as Jenna asked her question about what I would do, I knew I would make a long trip out of this week in New York City. I also knew just how I would do it. I had already found friends, people who had supported Peter and me throughout Peter’s entire illness. These friends had recently asked if they could travel with me to New York City sometime. And the rest was there, sitting in front of my imagination like a trayful of goodies.

America seems to be slipping away from me, the longer I spend away from it.  People watch TV differently. Now at least those of us with internet have Netflix and Prime, no matter what country we live in, but what do people in America watch? They eat different things too than they used to. What would I discover in the culinary landscape of America? New words keep creeping in, new expressions, new fads, new phobias. I am way out of touch with the bureaucratic side of America. I don’t have to deal with Obamacare or group health plans, thank God. But I wonder how other Americans deal with getting sick. How do they face longterm illness like I had just spent four years dealing with, as I became acquainted with the German system? By now, I know more about how Germans live than Americans, the people Germans keep asking me about. The longer I spend away, the less I know.

And then there’s the political scene. What on earth is going on in America, that a man like Trump can be President? How could the evangelical Christians ever support such a person? I consider myself an evangelical, but I sure don’t share any values with this man. Or at least, I don’t think so, but then we don’t get Fox TV in Germany. Still, I get enough information to ask how myself how Christians can explain their support for the current President and administration. It was time for a lengthy visit.

February is a strange month to travel, one would think.  It’s dark and deathly cold.  But nothing beats the winter blues like traveling, and where do many Americans travel to in the winter?  To the South!  It was clear to me that since the week of my timeshare stay in New York City was the first week in February, I would follow that week up by traveling to the three peope dear to me who live in the South.  Everyone was excited at the idea of my coming, so I planned a trip lasting five to six weeks. I would not travel north this time to my brother in Minnesota. I had seen him last year at our sister’s funeral, and Minnesota is infamously cold and snowy in February. It would have to be the South – and New York, which is cold enough.  

From New York I would fly down to Austin, Texas and visit my cousin and his wife.  From there I would somehow get to Louisiana and visit an old friend from college.  And I would travel by some unknown means from there to Tennessee to visit my brother Jason and family, who recently moved to Tennessee from California and were having some problems with their adjustment.  Then I would travel back to New York City from Tennessee and have plenty of time for family and friends.  I checked Google Maps.  The distances between  each of these places were quite far, but doable, either by renting a car or traveling by bus.  Why not?  I could take the Greyhound bus, just like Simon or Garfunkel does with Kathy in that song about being lost and looking for America.  That kind of fits me, I thought.   I feel lost too, and am looking for America.

But first there was Christmas to get through.  One piece of advice I got after Peter’s death was, “Whatever you do, don’t spend this first Christmas alone.  Go visit someone in your family.”

By the end of October, the days were getting cold and the nights long.  I sat in my living room, imagining Christmas.  Would I buy a tree?  No way!  Why would I lug a tree from my car, spreading needles and scratching myself, spreading pine resin on my fingers,  just for myself?  The idea of decorating a tree and then sitting there all by myself to look at it made me so depressed, I knew I could not spend Christmas at home.  I also missed my only other living sister Naila, who had not been able to come to the funeral.   I hadn’t had much contact with her since we’d seen each other in Minnesota after our sister’s death the December before.  Soon after her return home, a double whammy of bad news came to her.  Both she and her husband had cancer!  Naila ovarian and Sam prostate cancer.  And both would need  treatment.  Naila went in for six months of chemotherapy, and Sam radiation therapy.  Naila was told she needed to take time out from the world and go into a long hibernation of several months.  She was too vulnerable to infections.  She was also exhausted from chemotherapy.  We wrote, but she didn’t want to share her burdens over the phone. 

I risked phoning her on that long, cold night in October.  Chemotherapy would soon be over and she was feeling stronger.  Yes, she was up to talking now.  “I miss you, Naila,” I said.  “I wish I could just fly out there and see you for Christmas,” popped out of my mouth.

“Why don’t you do that?” she said.  “We’d LOVE to have you!  I just saw a commercial on TV from Condor Airlines.  It looks like they have cheap, direct flights from Frankfurt to Portland.”  Naila lives in Portland.

And so I booked another flight – to Portland, Oregon, but it wasn’t direct.  I’d have to fly to Seattle first.

In November, my dear friend Miriam from Seattle came to visit me for three weeks.  Unable to come to be with me for the funeral, she offered to come and keep me company for three weeks.  What a wonderful buffer that was from the pain of being alone!  We went on a couple of short trips to nearby tourist sites, did Thanksgiving together, another hurdle I needed to somehow clamber over.    We talked and cried nonstop for three weeks.  And then, before I knew it, it was time to fly to the States. 

Going to Oregon for Christmas was the perfect thing to do.  Both my sister and her husband were feeling pretty good by the time I arrived.  I was a caterpillar cocooned in familial warmth.  My nephew Blair, living for the time being with his parents, is a fabulous cook and we were treated each evening to feasts.  The Christmas tree was decorated when I arrived, and everything was as I remembered a Christmas or two in the past, spent with my sister.  But there were stabs of pain, too.  Remembering a Christmas and other visits to Oregon with Peter stung.  He loved Oregon.  We had sat on the living room couch, opening Christmas presents together. Now I had to sleep alone in the same bed we both had slept in on our many trips to Oregon.  Mornings, we would gaze together at Mount Hood, sometimes peeking through our bedroom window, sometimes hiding from view.    

Mount Hood is showing itself this morning!

Together we discovered a popular Oregon activity – tide-pooling. On several vacations at the beach we would head for the rock pools formed at low tide, identification book in hand, identifying and marveling over the sea stars and anemones.  Sometimes we would see little crabs climbing miniature rock cliffs. We had enjoyed the seagulls and pounding waves together.  Sam and Naila’s home is our son’s American home, and Oregon became our home away from home, after my parents had both passed away and their house was sold.

But there is comfort in shared sorrow.  There is healing in pain that is shared.  I felt warm and secure, spending Christmas with my family.  The warmth spread over the pain like a balsam.

I had asked Naila if there were any choral concerts in Portland during the Christmas season we could go to.  I love the Christmas concerts in Germany, and was singing in several myself with my choir and vocal ensemble.  It would be nice to partake in some of the lovely things of Germany in Oregon, I thought.  “There’s the Festival of Lights,” my sister said.  “For two weeks or so before Christmas, an abbey in Portland puts up loads of Christmas lights and choirs come from far away to sing in the chapel.  We could do that.” 

Christmas lights at the abbey.
Christmas lights at the abbey.

We did that.  We went out in Portland drizzle to see the lights and hear some music.  That was perhaps my first truly touristic American experience this trip.  The abbey gardens were giddy with lights of every color and shape, everywhere you looked – overwhelming after years of pristine white lights in Germany.  Almost all the Germans I know consider colored lights to be garish. 

And stations, like stations of the cross, with recordings recounting the Christmas story.  The choir we heard wasn’t very good, in my estimation, but at least they were singing Christmas music.  And I was doing something Christmasy with my sister, who a month before this could not have left the house. 

I baked their favorite Christmas cookies for them.  We went to church together, and we watched TV together.  We discussed politics.  Here my sister and I were of kindred minds.  Her entire family and I felt alienation from the current political situation in Washington. I discovered something in this alienation that I hadn’t expected. Naila and Sam, also evangelical Christians, feel alienated from the political attitudes of almost all the people in their church. They say this sense of alienation is not unique to them. Evangelicals all over America feel politically estranged from other evangelicals, something that never existed before the last election. The estrangement is so severe that people even feel unable to talk about their opinions with one another.

So Naila keeps company with Rachel Maddock. “Let’s watch Rachel Maddock,” she said. “She explains it all better than anyone else.” We watched Rachel Maddock and fretted together. Here, even on the political level, we were able to share our feelings. 

I did get sick while in Oregon. I came down with sinusitis and by New Year’s Day really needed to be treated badly. “I’ll take you to urgent care,” Naila said. I had to ask what urgent care was. Another new development since I have lived in the States. A pretty cool thing, actually. You can go there at any time, even on New Year’s Day and be treated, generally by a nurse practitioner. There is no such thing as a nurse practitioner in Germany, nor are there urgent care clinics. Naila’s urgent care clinic accepted my German insurance card, so all was well on that front. And with medication, my sinuses were also soon healed.


I had booked an airline ticket I could change.  Perhaps, if all worked well, I could also visit Miriam in Seattle at the end of my trip. 

Things did work out, and I rode the Amtrak train to Seattle in the New Year.  Miriam greeted me at the train station, just as I had greeted her at the Cologne train station just two months before. 

Miriam lives on a island off of Seattle, which to me has always sounded very romantic. I was so curious to see how she lives! Of course,you have to ride a ferry boat every time you go to the mainland, but the ride is only fifteen minutes. Miriam tells me that the wait can be up to an hour and a half, however!  This island is lush with majestic pine forests and huge ferns. 

There are so many forests, human settlement feels like something of a rarity.  On this island, Miriam and her husband live close to nature.  I thrilled to see an everyday occurrence for them – deer grazing in their garden.  Beautiful blue birds and squirrels came to feast on peanuts Miriam’s husband feeds them every day. 

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Dear grazing in the garden.

This is America too, the America I love, just like the Oregon coast.  Here I saw the Puget Sound, dotted with so many islands, so peaceful it reminded me of a lake in northern Minnesota.  When I am out in nature in America, I feel in touch with myself, with my family, the animals and all the other people living in America.  Peter had never been here before, so for the last part of my journey I felt less pain, enjoying this beautiful landscape with my friends.

Peaceful Puget Sound

Watching the Puget Sound in Washington with Miriam, I remembered also having stood a few days before on the Oregon Coast. There, in contrast to the still waters of the Sound, I had experienced the foaming, turbulent waves coming from the same ocean. Even more than the calm water, tamed by the many islands in the sound, it was the surf that touched me the most. The surf, pounding and crashing onto the rocks, transforming into dazzling waterfalls, calmed my soul.

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The wonderfully wild Oregon Coast.

I had gone for long walks along the beach each morning, allowing the constant movement of the waves to move my turbulent heart. I would stop and feast my eyes for minutes at a time, gazing at the powerful waves.  I missed Peter, but also felt the peace of sensing that he was perhaps somehow standing there with me.  Perhaps he was also able to see the perfect rainbow given to me one morning, a promise of happier days to come.

A perfect rainbow near the beach.

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