May 28, 2013

Schnitzel and cucumber salad

Saturday bro W celebrated his birthday. We all met at your house, with kids and girlfriends or wifes and my brothers prepared tiny Wiener schnitzels like you used to for when the whole crowd was here. That day I saw you everywhere, sitting on the couch, watching TVwhen you were still ok. Lying on the couch the last time I saw you in full consciousness, before you drifted away. I saw you in the kitchen cooking. In your walk in closet changing. Everywhere. In front of your house waving. Currently I feel like living with your shadow that follows me everywhere I go. Reminding me constantly how much I miss you.

But today the sun is shining and I am very proud to tell you that I am still very serious about my project of three: Doodling, Writing, Shooting (or editing)!

I love you.

May 27, 2013

Annie Leibowitz & Home Assignments

About three years ago you gave me the book "Annie Leibovitz at work" for Christmas". I have a very strange / stupid way with coffee table books – a stupid term anyway – or exhibition catalogues which is I am fascinated by them but I never really, really look at them. Same with Leibowitz's book. I was so excited and surprised when you gave it to me... you rarely gave "surprise presents"...  But I suddenly started flipping through it again.

She describes her years in school in San Francisco, how she walked around with her camera every morning. If you don't have your camera with you you can't take the picture. You have to train yourself and your eye in order to find the image... 

Somehow I lost the ability to just go out, walk around and take pictures of something, anything, really. I used to do it all the time, I was very serious about it. My excuse to stop was / is that Munich doesn't offer too many exciting views. The truth is, however, after several years in New York I had become lazier camera wise, too. I switched to video, had a new incentive and focus until it faded little by little. Once out of college and in the working world everything changes again. Assignments become projects, projects becomes jobs, jobs become chores. I realize that I don't take myself as serious anymore. Spending time on something has to be goal-oriented, meaning money. Not very helpful for the creative, artistic process. 

Starting today I will take my camera and go out looking for the image. My second New Years resolution since yesterday. It is in fact my middle of the month resolution. Write every day, just a little, sketch something and concentrate on photography for 25 min every day whether it is editing or shooting. We'll talk again in June. I'll keep you posted.


May 25, 2013

On getting better



How very strange to write to you. On a blog, I have my doubts... Somehow though, the blog thing makes sense to me. It sets a frame, a place to meet you and spend time with you. I prepare and plan and then: we meet through my writing activity or thinking about images. I can take the edge of my bursting heart, there is an outlet for all those things I used to tell you, I want to tell you but can't. At the same time, yes, I do hope that maybe someone reads what I need to tell. As you can't hear me, maybe there is someone else who can and understand all these feelings. Someone with a similar experience. Cancer is so common today. Death belongs to our lives. But in our day to day routines there is hardly any space for all of this. Especially if a toddler is involved.

I can't remember anyone asking me how I am really doing now that you have been gone for several months. And often times I am so close to tears I wouldn't even be able to answer without breaking down. Maybe that's why people don't ask. Breaking down is a newer fear that came with time. Shortly after you died the pain was just part of the grieving process. But now I fear falling back into this hole of intense grieve.

Still how very strange to write to you. Is it not? Bah, oh, I miss you terribly. I can not stop repeating myself. Why write to you and how to make the best of it? Somehow in my head I have a timeline. I want to make it through the first year without you. Somehow I believe that after twelve months, or rather experiencing the first anniversary of your death will be the last great hurdle for me to take in this grieving process thing. By now we managed everything else, first day, first week, memorial and funeral, Christmas, new years, first winter, your birthday, first spring. Now first summer without you with our last summer of you in our minds and how the disease dwindled you away within weeks. Your anniversary.

Probably it won't change a thing. But - and that's what has been riddling me for the past days - what can I do to make the most of it? A horrible as it sounds but it is a tough and challenging and crushing year it does make sense to live through it conciously and thoroughly, even if it hurts as nothing has before. I want to remember everything and about you. I won't ever for sure but I want to remember those intense last weeks. Or maybe sometimes not intensive enough weeks because there are some things I regret. Several actually.

So after drifting for the past months being crushed by my grieve like a little object gets aimlessly thrown around by the angry waves of a storm in the sea - the image could be better described... - I decided to focus and remember, to do my grieving homework and to heal. Really how can there be a happy me if I am whining and crying? Which is ok, of course, but I believe there has to be some evolution. I have to find a new place, space, something for you in my live.

I love you and I miss you.



May 21, 2013

Sketching, scribbling & forgetting

My latest and last cashmere video for the season. Currently everything I do goes back to basics. Sketching and scribbling. I am still very seriously working on cleaning up my archives and I'll tell ya, it's loads and loads of work and a whole lot of it goes straight to the trash just the way you'd like it... Ooooh, I have a whole bunch of Middle of the Year Resolutions. Stay tuned, you would feel really pissed off hearing of all my efficiency life stuff.

And again, there is no way around it... Currently I miss you every moment, AGAIN. Reality hits me several times a day and I am stunned just as often. You definitely are dead? You face is so fresh on my inner eyes... I really won't see you again? What a boring story.

I love you and I miss you. Please change the way the world goes.


May 18, 2013

Happy Mothers Day...

My dearest, best ever Mom,

happy mothers day! I wish I could tell you in person, I wish I could speak to you. I believe I am suffering from severe 6 mths grieving. I miss you terribly. Sometimes tears explode within seconds and the only thought I have is "Can I please come home, just for half an hour". Your place is there, your things are there. The home is gone. Buhu. I dreamt how you died Monday morning and the crushed mood accompanied me for the rest of the day. Poor Tonie. 

Below is one of my favorite pictures I found somewhere. It's you even younger than I am today, me – around the age of Tonie right now – and my beloved grandmother, Awa. The image was taken at the beach during summer holidays. I always had this image in mind when I was pregnant, this was what I dreamt of. You, me and Tonie together. I was looking forward to recreating this same image. In my grief recovery book it is one of the basic losses: lost expectations. So maybe I can count this as one of the book's assignments. I acknowledged one of my expectations I have to let go of. It's a big one. Letting go a grandma for a child that only a year old. But, looking ahead. At least you met Tonie and I will always remember our walk together when labor started, the morning you visited us in the hospital – Tonie's first day – and how very worried you were for me while I tried to conceive Tonie. 

I love you and I miss you terribly. I wish for so many memories we just couldn't yet create. 


May 10, 2013

Visions & Fata Morganas





My dearest Mum,

Monday I saw you in a cafe. Your hair, your face, your highlights your style. My heart did a leap! I new it, you couldn't be gone forever... Just for a split second I was incredibly relieved and happy. Naturally it wasn't you. Since then I was mad at my brothers, especially the older one... He can push all my buttons within seconds. I don't quite know why but it is exactly the same effect your brother has on me.

Oh the anger... is one if my biggest challenges currently... I don't know what to do, I just get MAD and ANGRY very easily

May 05, 2013

The Witches of Ghana

Dearest Momanimal,

my friend AC has practically been travelling for the entire past year. I have seen her about twice since you died. She has been working on her project "witches in exile", therefore she spent a lot of time in Ghana. Plus she was in Bangladesh and Afghanistan and Pakistan... I can't keep up with my former roommate. Her live is so different compared to mine. I get lost in my daily routine or rather rather creating new ones . She is travelling everywhere. From Ghana to Berlin, Paris, Miami and back. I am mesmerised by these portraits. I am so happy for her and how her career takes off. Unfortunately she doesn't see it or yet can't believe it. But she will I am sure of it.



"Whitches of Ghana" by Ann-Christine Woehrl – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 13.04.2013



May 01, 2013

Motion, Motion, Motion

My dearest Momanimal,

I don't know what happened, I am so very sad again. I miss you terribly. A stepping stone of grieving? It's been six months. I repeat myself time and again. I know, but... Tonie is so cute, she can do so many new things! Runs around with her toy stroller and her little naked bath baby that she hugged tonight while falling asleep. Two days ago we had to go to the emergency room because our oven kind of melted and I was so scared that Tonie inhaled plastic stuff... We spent 3 hours in the hopsital without ever seeing a doctor. The ER just went from empty to crowded with kids. So I went home with her after talking to doctor friends who reassured me that everything would be fine. Mostly it is just my horrible, horrible fear and panic of loosing Tonie, too.

I miss you. I MISS U. You would have checked on us and you would have worried with us, Tonie, me and Tom. Anyway. I am just finishing the last cashmere video of the season. So here comes the one I finished three weeks ago... and London photos will follow, I hope. Looking ahead! TOmorrow will be better.

I love you. Please come back.



The 2-coloured shawl from mimicks on Vimeo.