Gretta Gone Global

Yes, a very selfcentered post, but aren’t they all?

Someone once asked me if I have identity problems.  They asked because the basic questions of identity, „What is your name“ and „Where are you from,“ are very hard for me to answer.  I thought about that for a while.  Now I realize that I know my identity quite well.  The problem is that I can not limit it with a name or a place of origin.

That said, I have made some recent discoveries about myself:

I am a compulsive baker.  While some people eat or smoke or drink to deal with life, I bake.  I said goodbye to my parents for the next nine months and my first impulse is to bake a cake.  (I restrained myself and wrote this post instead.)

I am Bayerisch.  At least that is what I think.  Rumor has it that my German ancestors came from the German-Austrian border.  That is where Bayern is.  Second of all I grew up dancing Polka.  That is from Bayern.  Thirdly, I sometimes actually like acordeon music, and I really like blue and white checkered cloth.

Today is the first day of Fall Break.  Walking home from school I became vary aware that it was definitely fall.  The colored leaves were a dead giveaway, and reminded me that I had not lived through real Fall in years.  At the same time the chilling wind made it painfully clear that I was not prepared for this.

Another thing I was not prepared for recently: I was instructed to go through the CDs in my room, left there when my host sister moved out, and get rid of what I didn’t want.  A pleasent chore, I thought, since I love music.  Well, the first CD I pulled out was Britney Spears.  Hoping for better luck I pulled out another: Michael Jackson.  “O.K.” I told myself, “overcome your prejudices.”  So I stuck them in the CD player to give the artists a fair chance.  Needless to say, they are now at the bottom of the ‘giving away’ bag.  The good news is that the music only went uphill from there.  (I might have died if it had gotten any worse, though I don’t know how it could have.)  I was pleased to find some rather good European bands, and even some American classics.  And that is what  inspired this post.

I have survived a lot so far.  The most obvious being nineteen and a half years of life, nine months of that inside my mother, and the ordeal through which I became an’outside baby.’  Most recently I have survived 3 months away from home, 2 months of language school, 3 weeks of holiday, 2 weeks of actual school, 1 all-out German soccer game in PE class (in which I was the only female), and 1 bike ride home from school in low 40-degree rainy weather.  I am proud of that.  However, my proudest moment yet was when I brought my baby home today.  My very bulky, hollow, wooden baby, known to most people as a cello.  Hopefully everyone will survive my learning how to play it.

So, I think I will survive what ever comes my way. 

As long as I know how to love… I will survive!