Boats, bread and drink

Life is getting increasingly chaotic while Tim works on multiple projects with exploding computers, I learn German and try to build up my application portfolio with you know, pictures of plants and stuff. At some point we’re also meant to rescue Subak from her current mooring and take her up to Belgium to travel along canals and be presented in an exhibition in early June. And then in July comes a second wedding celebration which we don’t yet have a venue for.  Yikes.

Oh, and did I mention that we’re renovating an actual proper boat of our own?

In late October last year Tim surprised me with a spontaneous early wedding present he’d found on Ebay.

We’ve been daydreaming about a small sailing boat that we could take for more extended trips than Tim’s old GRP (fibreglass) sailing dinghy Bumst (Shag in German).  Something low keel, trailerable and suitable for a gaff rig. Cheap enough for the budgets of two creative types and with just a little bit of work we could do to bring the boat to a useful state.

Or so we thought. The Lisa-Marie who will eventually be renamed the Runcible Spoon is in many ways perfect and was purchased for a song, or at least the price of her trailer.  A German trailer that needs to be tidied up for registration in Austria. A boat in need of a new cabin top, painting all over, pushpits (the metal bit at the front – think of the film Titanic), the installation of a mast Tim had built on a workshop the year earlier…

And we got started with patching and painting the hull, only to find bits of rotten wood where water had collected, and even worse, rotten bits of the deck…

Luckily the weather has now warmed up and we’ve been able to take her outside at Time’s Up where we have more space to work. Needless to say the boat is taking up a lot of free time and is very dirty work.

But otherwise… Things go on.

Bread and Fire

Yesterday was made memorable when I met two women from Antalya, Turkey who were making flatbreads over a coal fired oven in a tent by their family’s vegetable garden.  This garden is one of my favourite in Linz as it’s maintained in a liminal space on the grounds of a concrete silo. I ride past it regularly and love seeing the growth in spring and summer on what would otherwise be unused ground.

It was even better to meet this family using this space in ways more than just tilling the earth. The women I met weren’t happy to have their photo taken and my mobile’s battery ran out so I couldn’t even photograph their stove: a coal oven with a domed lid specific for making flat bread and a very long chimney. We spoke together in foreigners’ German and I left with a gift of Peyniri Borek (cheese wrapped up in the bread) to chew on as I walked my bike home.

Yeast and Ginger

I ended up throwing away the Kombucha experiment as after two weeks, despite smelling good, there were no Scoby life forms visible present. I’ll probably order a proper Kombucha starter in August after the wedding has taken place and I’ll have the attention to maintain the growth of the next Mrs Rochester.

The desire to home brew interesting drinks is still ongoing and this morning besides roasting peppers, I brewed a ginger syrup to which I added lemon juice, coriander seeds, some cloves and a juniper berry. Tim and I are both fans of rum and the ginger syrup will be used to make a ginger ale substitute for both virgin and alcoholic summer cocktails.

Delicious. Now to give it a label and to buy some rhubarb for syrup making before elderflower season hits.

zum sprechen mit Fremden – to speak with strangers

Maybe its something to do with spring, but I can finally speak in German with strangers on the street. 2012-04-09 17.51.04 (Photo credit: Fighting Tiger)

Until I moved to a foreign country, I didn’t really have a clear understanding of even the most basic of challenges that migrants experience and the loneliness and sense of frustration that can bring. Whether student or refugee, traveller or economic migrant it can be incredibly isolating to not understand a language and to not know how to connect yourself to a new culture, how to make others around  acknowledge you as a human being.

For those of you who’ve not lived in a country other than that of your birth, think instead of similar challenges. Remember the trepidation of being the new kid at school, or the struggle to fit into a new workplace. Learning a language, whether it be dialect, work terminology or slang is a major step to becoming accepted. What happens when other challenges such as mental illness, self confidence, institutional access, poverty or cultural circumstances prevent you from learning a language? What happens when these situations increase the feeling of shame that making mistakes and drawing negative attention to yourself can bring?

…

When I first moved to Berlin I fairly regularly made my way to German class for about 3 months. I eventually met my old flatmate Glenn amongst other lovely people in class and learnt enough German to survive. I could go to the shops and  give appropriate amounts of money in exchange for goods. After several weeks I was able to very accurately describe to myself what I was doing in the present.

Ich esse. Ich schlafe. Ich sehe fern.
I eat. I sleep. I watch TV.

I began to discover the more challenging aspects of German, things like cases which confused gendered nouns even more. And I could think in the past tense!

Ich bin aufgestanden.  Ich habe mein Rad gefahren. Ich habe einen Kuchen gebacken.
I woke up. I rode my bike. I’ve baked a cake.

It was a cold winter in 2009/2010 and the darkness plus the challenge of moving to a new country meant that many mornings, my warm bed (a mattress on the floor of various sublet rooms) was very comfortable. Given the choice of freezing my way across Berlin or lying in bed feeling sorry for myself, I chose the warm option.

Then, surprise of all surprises I was lucky enough to begin a proper job in Berlin and met a lovely man in Austria. Life got busy enough that committing to 4 mornings a week of German class was difficult.

So, officially learning German was put on the back burner until the beginning of this year. Now, over the intervening 2 years my vocabulary, particularly my passive vocabulary has increased. I spent more time in Austria with Tim and eventually moved here, expanding my knowledge in order to accommodate both dialect and strange accents. I could talk a little bit more in German with friends and listen to many of their conversations with general understanding. I stockpiled German language kids books (for later) and started writing shopping lists in German. Ask me however, to write a short email or describe a situation in German and I’d have politely avoided the request.

Aufweidersehen! Gibst mir ein bisserl.
See you later! Give me a little.

But in the last months things have changed. I’ve been back in German class 4 mornings a week for the last 2 months, and have only missed one lesson. While I’m regularly late to class, I’m still clamouring to learn more sentence structures and to speak in the conditional and future tenses with more confidence.

Most important is that in the last week a major breakthrough has happened. I’ve been having longer conversations out of English, but it’s only now that I’ve started writing emails, only of a couple of lines, but all in German to both friends and relative strangers. And, maybe this has to do with the advent of spring, but I’m finally feeling confident enough to start up conversations with strangers on the street and in shops.

This change is significant and it’s affecting more than just my German skills. I’m learning to be less scared of making mistakes and failure.

Speaking to strangers and complimenting their umbrella or asking the name of their dog may seem like a small step, but it opens up so much more possibility and joy.  Of course, I could continue to write emails in English, or presume that
the young woman in a green jacket will understand what I’m saying. How
long would it be though before I could speak to my elderly neighbour, or learn that the fat chihuahua is just visiting with the lady who’s taking it for a walk?

When I’m in Australia and other English-speaking countries, and finally now, here in Austria, I am reminded of how much delight it brings me and hopefully other people, to connect with them and acknowledge their presence.  It is I believe, one of those actions that makes a place neighbourly and a community and which makes one feel more comfortable and at home.

Little Dreams

And what of the world traveller, the woman who’s now lived in 5 different countries?

I am so very glad to regularly lay myself down in this, our most beautiful bed. It’s comfortably soft and firm at the same time and layered with a bedspread I bought from a tiny old lady in Sapa, Vietnam several years ago.

The map reminds me of the places I’ll be and the places I’ll go – but most days I’m very happy to be at home. I really like the small city feel of Linz and I’m beginning to reach out tendrils of personal growth into the opportunity of this place.

I’m slowly documenting my making and doing a little more, primarily to make myself feel more productive but also to prepare a portfolio. It’s strange, but in these days of craft and cooking blogs it can often feel like you’ve done nothing until it’s been documented publicly.

For example:

Cloning a Kombucha Scoby

I’m not much of a soft drink consumer, though I do love carbonated spring water and “gespritzte” juices. I have enjoyed Kombucha, but spending 3€ per bottle on fermented tea seems like a waste when I can follow a tutorial and make it myself.

I’m hoping that the Scoby mother will grow – so far there’s a pleasant cider vinegarish smell which is meant to be a good sign.  Apparently it’s also good to anthropomorphise your scoby “mother” and give it a name. Since I used Yorkshire Tea and raw Demerara sugar in the mix it seems that Mrs Rochester will be appropriate.

There’s something about cloning a mass of microbes (yeast and bacteria) which is strangely compelling.  I’m hoping that we’ll have a batch of Kombucha ready for the public mushroom growing workshop of Time’s Up‘s Non-Green Gardening residency.

Picking Wild Foods

Living in Berlin put a bit of a dampener on picking wild foods, something which I’d done in Finland, Adelaide and during my short time in Sheffield. Despite collecting some blackberries in Gorlitzer Park, the ubiquity of dogs and their waste meant I was reluctant to pick nettles.

So the presence of wild and urban food sources around Linz is quite lovely. There are more backyards for fruit trees to escape from and there’s a healthy continuing tradition of collecting wild foods. Many of my urban finds are being tracked in Boskoi and I’ve got a lovely book that I’m slowly learning to understand.

Bärlauch / wild garlic (Allium ursinum) is in season now and Vicy, Theresa, Lisa and I went picking a couple of weeks ago after a quick tutorial on how to recognised the leaves.  If nothing else the smell of garlic helps you identify the bärlauch from its poisonous and perfumed doppelgänger Maiglöckchen / lily of the valley.

I’ve frozen some chopped leaves and have several jars of pesto (with almonds and sunflower seeds) that are awaiting consumption.  Unfortunately the stored pesto coincides with me trying to manage my carbohydrate intake, so I’ve not been eating nearly as much pasta as I’d like. Nor are bärlauchsemmelknödel (wild garlic bread dumplings) especially low on the GI scale… Oh but they’re delicious!

Travelling on Handbuilt Boats

Recognising bärlauch came in handy just before Easter when we started the second journey* of the Control of the Commons (CoC) project and began travelling down the Danube on a Frankenboat. In short we only managed to camp for one night before our trip was halted due to being an unidentifiable watercraft.

We made our camp near Wallsee on an old section of the Danube that was bypassed when a hydroelectric weir was installed.   The highlight was being camped next to a forest of bärlauch and young nettles, both of which made it into that evening’s risotto.

As much as I love the CoC project, camping in Austria in early April is not such a good idea for the ill-prepared. We almost reached hypothermia as a result of being too tired to layer up properly in our sleeping bags on a -2°C night, so our camping experience was not amazing.

Yet another reason to be grateful to return to our lovely bed.

*See, I really should be blogging more – not only have I not mentioned our wedding at all I also neglected to talk about travelling down the Murray River for 3 weeks on another weird boat.  Another time… I promise.

Facets

I feel frustrated that when I do write on battlecat these days it’s to share the darker side of life. My last posts were on anxiety and of past weeks, while  luckily I’ve been less anxious I find myself more depressed than anything. I tend to hide at home and feel like there’s not much point to a lot of the things that make up life.

It’s not that I’m like this all the time, and luckily it’s not scary depression. However it is the kind of depression that stops me from easily doing [new] things or finding much joy in anything. When you’re relatively freshly moved to a place and in the search for work, most things are new. Glory, it does seem easier to sleep and hide at home and knit rather than push through this layer of bleurgh to be more me than I’m letting myself be.

Rationally I can tell that there’s a layer of depression weighing down on me and it’s clouding my interpretation of the world and my relationship with the world. The world, I know, is weird, but generally fantastic and there are many good things in my life.

Tim for example is more than good and supports me in so many ways. I’m seeing a therapist who is interesting and helpful. I’m really glad to be finally living in Linz, and I enjoy the size of a smaller city (200,000) after the last years in Berlin. I’m meeting lovely new people here and take my knitting out to the local Stitch and Bitch.  And luckily on those hide at home days, there is knitting while watching Six Feet Under. And at least if I’m knitting I’m still doing something while I hide at home and Six Feet Under is a fitting accompaniment to both knitting and the blues.

In a couple of months Tim and I will be in Australia getting married and enjoying the summer and building boats. There is so much to be happy and joyful about, but it’s so incredibly frustrating that a forcefield of inertia is preventing me from actively engaging with my life to the full extent possible.

Anyway. More than writing about depression I wanted to share a detail photo of my grandmother’s wedding dress.

I think that modifying this dress will be the most intimidating thing about getting married to Tim – he’s great just the way he is and I’m so happy to have him in my life.

The dress is almost 80 years old and feels very vulnerable – I’m a little afraid to take it from being my grandmother’s wedding dress to mine and am thinking about having a second dress available to change into after the more formal bits of the ceremony.  I’m slowly working up the courage to tidy up the hem and shorten the sleeves in preparation for an Australian January wedding. Wish me luck!

Shadow Boxing

Starting to be more public about the anxiety that plagues me and moving out of the known confines of the last year’s work have acted as catalysts on some strange emotional and mental reactions.

I’ve outed this dark monster, this bully. Decided that I can’t enter a new, long-term work situation while everyday life is so overshadowed. And so this thing, this process, seems to have doubled its intensity as it screams at me.

“You think that was worry? That was fear? You think it was hard to write an email, to share an idea, to show what you were capable of? You know nothing small Pippa! I am going to make my grip on your arms tighter, make it even harder for you to breathe and any idea you have about your new path I will criticise and demolish with a force ten, no a million times stronger than I’ve used before”.

Which makes me even more frustrated and furious: with myself and with this thing that I’ve let take over my life. It feels like it is only now am I in a safer space and have the readiness and commitment to move forward and onward with learning how to minimise this thing’s hold on me. Why wasn’t I ready, why couldn’t I take this step forward before?

***

By identifying this thing, by pointing the bone at it and claiming it will no longer rule my life, my awareness of its hold on me has more clarity.

The other day I was on a call with a good friend who is helping mentor me on my next journey. He suggested that I work on a reflective writing exercise. Not only would it be a useful process for my own practice, he was looking forward to reading what I’d written.

I couldn’t pay attention to my friend. Instead, the voice that was demanding my attention was very firmly pointing out that no, my friend was not to be trusted.

“He’s just doing this to punish you. He wants you to fail. He’s going to read what you’ve written and will then laugh at your effort, tell you you’re worthless and then show other people how hopeless you are!”

Never before have I heard this critic so clearly. But rather than let it shut me down I had to gasp a lungful of air in, laugh and tell my friend about the stupid thing that was going on inside. I will not let this thing ruin my life anymore, and luckily the nature of friendship is that when you tell someone about the voices in your head, they just laugh along with you.

***

I am so grateful that I do have friends who will laugh with me and offer sage advice. I am grateful that I still have these spaces where writing can make its way out, where I know that I can do something well and feel capable of sharing it. I am grateful to know that even though my own experience with anxiety is horrible, it is an experience that I am conscious of and able to make changes about.

And so it goes. Another step forward in this process. Less struggle in the future hopefully.

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