She smiled at me from her spot just under the left edge of the S-bahn arch as I ducked in the other side to buy a paper at the newsstand there. I could feel her energy 30 feet away. With her eyes and her smile she willed me to come and see her paintings. Newspaper in hand, I approached her small stand. She was selling original and reproductions of small watercolors showing nature scenes and famous sites in Berlin, such as the Brandenburg Gate. She began to talk as if I had told her she had just two minutes to tell me everything. Her face was animated under a pale blue crocheted cap, the grey curls poking forth to frame her face. Her name was Rita, she told me right away. She had been a teacher before she retired, an art teacher. Now seventy years old, she receives a small pension, but because she wants to stay in her own apartment in Lichtenberg – rather than move to a tiny one – she supplements her income by selling prints of her work. “I used to do just nature scenes. But the tourists wanted something to remember the city by. Look at this – THIS view of the Hackescher Markt has never been painted before! See the house that is now behind scaffolding? That’s what it looks like.” I let her introduce the images one after another, telling me something about each. I knew right away I would buy something, it almost didn’t matter what. Just to remember this moment that I had let happen, because I wasn’t in a rush. Sometimes I am far too “zielorientiert,” too goal-oriented. On this day, I had left the Humboldt University cafeteria after lunch, with the idea of walking a different route and taking the time to observe my neighborhood. Rita began to tell me about her images that feature trees, one each for every “tree of the year.” I had never heard of such a thing. And then there was the series on the seasons. I observed that this fall had been an especially colorful one. “Oh yes!” she said. “I take the “Bummelzug” (the train that stops at every little village) just three stops out of town and pick mushrooms in the forest.” I said I had friends who went picking earlier this year. “Oh yes! There were lots of mushrooms! And there still are. And now the chestnuts are good as well.” It was time, I thought, to make a choice. An image in a rural setting caught my eye – just the antidote to the city. “That’s one of my favorites,” said Rita. “I’ve just been to the Oderbruch area,” I told her, “to bake stollen with friends. It looks very much like that. I’ll take that one.” She carefully wrapped it in a single sheet of newsprint for me. But before she did, she pointed out its caption, which read “Zeit der Besinnung,” – time of contemplation – the German “sinn” meaning “senses,” almost as if to mean coming to one’s senses. Perfect.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Zeit der Besinnung
She smiled at me from her spot just under the left edge of the S-bahn arch as I ducked in the other side to buy a paper at the newsstand there. I could feel her energy 30 feet away. With her eyes and her smile she willed me to come and see her paintings. Newspaper in hand, I approached her small stand. She was selling original and reproductions of small watercolors showing nature scenes and famous sites in Berlin, such as the Brandenburg Gate. She began to talk as if I had told her she had just two minutes to tell me everything. Her face was animated under a pale blue crocheted cap, the grey curls poking forth to frame her face. Her name was Rita, she told me right away. She had been a teacher before she retired, an art teacher. Now seventy years old, she receives a small pension, but because she wants to stay in her own apartment in Lichtenberg – rather than move to a tiny one – she supplements her income by selling prints of her work. “I used to do just nature scenes. But the tourists wanted something to remember the city by. Look at this – THIS view of the Hackescher Markt has never been painted before! See the house that is now behind scaffolding? That’s what it looks like.” I let her introduce the images one after another, telling me something about each. I knew right away I would buy something, it almost didn’t matter what. Just to remember this moment that I had let happen, because I wasn’t in a rush. Sometimes I am far too “zielorientiert,” too goal-oriented. On this day, I had left the Humboldt University cafeteria after lunch, with the idea of walking a different route and taking the time to observe my neighborhood. Rita began to tell me about her images that feature trees, one each for every “tree of the year.” I had never heard of such a thing. And then there was the series on the seasons. I observed that this fall had been an especially colorful one. “Oh yes!” she said. “I take the “Bummelzug” (the train that stops at every little village) just three stops out of town and pick mushrooms in the forest.” I said I had friends who went picking earlier this year. “Oh yes! There were lots of mushrooms! And there still are. And now the chestnuts are good as well.” It was time, I thought, to make a choice. An image in a rural setting caught my eye – just the antidote to the city. “That’s one of my favorites,” said Rita. “I’ve just been to the Oderbruch area,” I told her, “to bake stollen with friends. It looks very much like that. I’ll take that one.” She carefully wrapped it in a single sheet of newsprint for me. But before she did, she pointed out its caption, which read “Zeit der Besinnung,” – time of contemplation – the German “sinn” meaning “senses,” almost as if to mean coming to one’s senses. Perfect.
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