In Berlin

It is hot and muggy here in Mitte Berlin. I am staying in a lovely penthouse apartment next to the Spree River and the Berliner Oper or something like that, tagging along with Mathias while he attends a two-week certification course at Humboldt University.

The thing that is leaping out at me is the quality and depth of my dreams so far. Jet lag has been tough and I get really tired and droopy in the middle of the day. Yesterday I napped all day long and had tremendous dreams filled with happiness and love. This morning I dreamed of teenagers being harassed in Verdugo Park by terrible policemen, and then it turned into seeing Charlotte and telling her Mathias didn’t know how to express his love well, and then realizing that Mathias didn’t want to express his love well because he knew that they were not the best match for each other.

I guess I was facing my desire to butt in again.

Katie is at home in Glendale, feeding Bowser and preparing to appear at traffic court the last day of July for a speeding ticket. She waffled about joining us here but ultimately it was not meant to be.

A conflict for me about this trip: I feel that I really should visit a concentration camp since I will be teaching Night this year, but I really do not want to do this. I am so resistant to it. Just being here in Berlin at all is kind of horrible. Mandy, who is here to help Kelsey and Silvio find a venue for their wedding next summer, rode on a hop-on hop-off (ho-ho) bus with me, and we saw the bombed out church, and that was plenty. How do I know that wasn’t one of my dad’s bombs? It well could have been.

The Fourth of July! Our nation's birthday, ostensibly. We do appear to keep moving forward through time and space.

This is a photo from egg dying this past Easter. I did it by myself as I have no kids around to "help." It's nice to have hard-cooked eggs for a while, but then, eh. They get old and rubbery and nobody really wants egg salad anymore except for Dot. I keep trying to fatten her up but it's useless. I give her chicken skin and scraps but she has the metabolism of a shih tzu.

Many tell me I am wrong to feed her these things. I disregard the admonitions. Dot doesn't seem to be harmed.

I haven't been writing here, and I see that my small list of friends who blog also have not entered new info for many months. Maybe this is another tech fad that is on its way out. Probably. Oh well.

It's mid-April, which is a bit frightening. This time of year always shoots like a roller coaster through to early June and graduation, or culmination celebrations, or whatever it is we need to call eighth grade finishing time.

There are so many things to plan for and to stage. This is also the time of year when I look wistfully at many students and get teary-eyed for their imminent departure from my life. Sure, many will continue at our school's high school, and then I'll be able to see them periodically, but some will go off to other schools, and I will miss them all. I think this attachment to students is an essential part of why I love working in a school, but it does have a downside. I am a softie, that's true.

I do love working in a school. It's kind of like being in a big play with lots of actors and lines to deliver and a director in charge of the whole shebang. There is stress and excitement and knowing that you are not alone in whatever the mission is. I do like that aspect a lot.

Wish me luck!

Sitting in Room 211 at the Harbor View Inn in Santa Barbara. Day One of spring break. Billie Holliday singing down low on the iPod so we won't bother the people next door who I think have little kids.

We stayed here many years ago when the kids were younger and threw occasional fits and we rode the fringe-topped bike things along the beach. We are here now to celebrate spring break and the fact that our kids are both out of town, setting the stage for the next phase of our marriage. One is in Boston, and the other just landed in Paris for a 10-week study and "vagabondage" experience.

I guess this is a bit of what the empty nest will be like.

Although I don't think it will often include lovely, deluxe dinners at places like Downey's on State Street. Champagne, shrimp, avocado, braised halibut for me, veal for him. So, so tasty and enjoyable. So much nicer than a burger and fries or whatever cheapy thing we usually do.

Santa Barbara looks as beautiful to me as ever.

Is anyone reading this thing? I've really lost interest in keeping it up. I think it's time has passed, perhaps. Time for a new fad, a new technological trend.

Most years, at this time, I think to myself how smart it would be for me to write some notes to myself about what to avoid and what to plan for the next time Christmas rolls around. Mostly it's because I can't shake some negative thinking right about now, a few days before Dec. 25, and if there's any way to avoid this emotional sinkhole then I'm all for it.

Except there are those who might say that I ought to just feel the feelings and let them slip on down. Don't always be trying to take the sting out of the tough states, which is kind of a lifelong habit of mine that has not really made things better for me.

I did have a fine party the other night. That was a good thing, and I did some aspects of it in ways that felt kind of grown up and thoughtful.

As for Christmas, I am in that spot where I fear I haven't gotten enough good stuff for my children to gorge themselves on when they open presents. It's not like I was born during the Depression. But I have this notion that the tree should be surrounded by gaily wrapped gifts of all sizes and shapes, bathed in the colorful, soft glow of the old C-9 lights (those LED ones at OSH are way too wimpy although they may be the Christmas light show of our energy-depleted future).

I do get tired of my same old woes year in and year out. But I also don't think I want new woes. These are plenty tough enough.

This Thanksgiving I am grateful for a couple of new TV shows that I am enjoying: "Community" and "Parks and Rec," both on NBC. Good for good old NBC. It warms my heart to see that a major network can still do interesting work. Just like it's good to see Sunset magazine and The New Yorker still come to the front door periodically. I worry sometimes about these old modes that seem to be threatened with extinction. It makes me feel like I do when I drive by where the old Thiele's restaurant used to be on N.W. 23rd in Portland. I don't think it's a CPK anymore, although that was a weird slap in the face when that happened.

It is easy for me to get nostalgic about the good old days and the places that are no more and the toys that are long buried in landfills deep, deep down under forty years of flotsam. It is especially easy at this time of year, of course. Of course.

I want to curl up with a likely book and a soft blanket or comforter and fall asleep. But it's kind of late in the day, and it will be hard to fall asleep later tonight, and I just have to get up again to go do my job, which is a hard job.

Yes, it is. I have to come up with ways to help children who are struggling, and sometimes I feel pretty ineffective about it all. There are no magic wands to wave, no guarantees of personal happiness for every single child. There are hurt feelings every day, misunderstandings, transitions in friendships, experimenting with bullying, pushing people around for the fun of it. All the irritating and occasionally painful things people think up to do to one another, and it all happens in these middle school years. I mean I know it happens in preschool, but the edge can be honed in seventh and eighth grade in particular.

All I want to do is go back inside, go back in years, find a time when there was ease and comfort and safety and fullness and kindness and security. Wow, I wonder when the heck that was my experience...? There has been so much anxiety of so many different types through the years...

And to be honest it isn't really all that horrible right this second. I do miss my son, but we get to see him in just a few days... That will be nice. That will be something to be truly grateful for.