Losing Things

I have now lost my glasses in 8 inches of snow at the dog park. I took them off in the twilight of New Year's Day so I could watch the intriguing ascension of a small paper hot-air balloon, fueled by some sort of live flame - I wasn't close enough to the young women who were inflating it to be able to see if it was a candle or some other special device, but whatever it was it sat high up enough into the balloon to make it glow a deep orange like an enormous pod from a Japanese lantern plant. It glowed, and drifted farther and higher for at least five minutes; I watched until it either went out or got too far away to see. I couldn't believe how far it went; I had assumed it would last 30 seconds before being extinguished and spluttering to a wobbly descent. Nor could I believe that its chief engineers didn't watch the entire performance, but they wandered away after a while, joyfully content with their moment of fun. The whole thing was magical.

(Speaking of balloons, ten years ago in Paris a boyfriend and I had been most amused by the incongruous sight of a green balloon bobbing along the street in a construction zone. Yesterday, New Year's morning, another green balloon found its way into my walled garden, where it remains parked in a twiggy shrub.)

After the hot-air balloon disappeared I was distracted by yet a third sign of celebratory New Year's whimsy (somewhat unexpected in still-dour east Berlin) - a large chocolate Santa, still fully clothed and unmolested in his foil wrapping, stuck into a mound of snow on one of the park benches. There was something so endearing and so generous in this gesture - hard to imagine myself willingly giving up anything sweet for some stranger or leaving such a token for possible removal to a garbage can by a paranoid parent. It was awfully cute. (It was still there today, only sitting on a different bench, devoid of its snow base.)

And then I lost my glasses, probably as a wildly enthusiastic young black lab leapt at the pocket in which both glasses and dog treats resided. I didn't discover the loss until I got home, by which time it was quite dark and a return trek was pointless and out of the question. St. Anthony was supposed to find and hold them for me until I got back there today, but he apparently has other plans. I think it's just possible that the great patron of lost things has in mind a new vision for me this year and that my old way of seeing, as manifested in my old bifocals, will remain lost. (Looking for them without being able to see much because, of course, I have lost my glasses, reminded me of the Ray Bradbury story of the misanthrope who sits out a nuclear war in the bowels of the city library, is ecstatic to find the rest of the human race wiped out so he can read in peace, and then obliterates his one pair of glasses in a fatal misstep.)  It is also possible that they will turn up when all this snow melts, along with the earring I lost a couple months ago.

A few weeks ago I lost a glove at the farmers' market, on a VERY cold day. I retraced my steps around the circuit a couple of times with no luck - and a very cold hand - but on the third round, with Hannah in tow, I found the errant handshuh carefully placed at eye level on a fir tree at a Christmas tree stall. Thank you, St. Anthony.

At the St. Lucia concert at the Berliner Dom I lost both gloves, again on a VERY cold evening. I discovered my loss on the way out, swam back upstream to my pew without finding them, dropping my hat in the process. The gloves turned up in the vestibule, neatly placed on top of a display case, probably dropped when I arrived for the concert and was hunting for my ticket. St. Anthony has my undying devotion.

I have also dropped a hat at the dog park, retrieved by Mocha, a young chocolate lab, and a glove, joyfully borrowed for a quick romp by Fattska, the puggle puppy. I left a hat behind at a museum cloak room and had to go back for it. I lost my wallet at the grocery store. I locked my keys inside my apartment. I lost Maggie's leash one day, also in the snow at the dog park. I have lost track of my German online-banking pin three times. I lost a Visa card before I even got here, although I think it's safely locked up in my shed at home. I am finding it harder and harder to keep track of what little German I've learned. I have lost any motivation to do ANYTHING. Some days I feel I am losing my entire mind except the part that mandates food intake. St. Anthony does not seem to be helping much in that department.

On the flip side, I have now found a total of €21.79 and a quite useless 2-Deutschemark coin, although I suppose it is entirely possible that at least one of the €5 notes I have found was one I had dropped myself. I choose to believe otherwise. I must have SOME dignity left, especially after stooping to pick up so many 1¢ coppers off the sidewalks.

Pinball

After as dreary and dismal a day as yesterday (Christmas) was, today was sunny again and finally the ice is all melted from the sidewalks and streets. I miss the snow, but not its gradual trajectory into frozen death-traps and the inevitable piles of grit. It's particularly treacherous on all the slick granite cobblestones a lot of the paving here comprises. I will hope for more snow this winter; Maggie adores it and I find it so much cheerier than sludge. Besides, it fits my fantasy of winter in Germany.

Watching Maggie in the dog park this evening was like watching a rerun of my own afternoon at the Deutsches Historisches Museum. I finally appreciate what she is up to when she smells bush after bush, digs a little in a mud puddle, wanders over to the fence for a good sniff, moves some sticks around, snuffles under a pile of leaves, and moves on to yet another bush. The bushes all look the same to me, but Maggie knows better.

Today was my first visit to this historical museum. I need some new territory to prowl around and mark as my own, and there is a LOT of acreage at this one. I stayed within the confines of the medieval period, which was all my eyeballs could take in in a two-hour period, and is my favorite, anyway. I snooped happily among the pieces of pottery and woodcut books, avoided the armor for the most part although I was drawn to the paint-encrusted leather battle shields, and bounced like a pinball marble from Cranach portrait to Dürer portrait, back to Cranach, on to a huge carved wedding chest and an Imperial edict of some sort with a fringe of huge wax seals along the bottom. Another Cranach. A gold folding pocket sundial. A Bosch. A Breughel or two. (Some more Baby Jesuses but I didn't have my camera with me.) The place is a wonderland, and beautifully laid out. I will probably have to get a yearlong membership there as well. It would pay for itself in a few short months. Oh, but wait. I don't have a year left here any more. Just 7 months as I will be home by the end of July for my younger daughter's wedding in mid-August. Unless I come back after that for a second year...