the world has turned and left me here

the au

Yesterday was a holiday (celebrating the reunification of East and West Germany) and I desperately needed some time alone, away from computers. I had to resist the temptation to drag all sorts of things along with me like my PDA, books, pen and paper, frisbee, etc. It was good that I didn't, as I ended up walking around on a wide grassy area beside the Isar (the Germans call this an "Au") and started to recover myself a bit. There was a mallard that kept swimming past me, going upstream, then turning and letting the current carry him downstream in order to repeat it again. He went back to his friends across the way when they got attacked by a huge squawking flock of gulls that were fighting over some floating edible junk. The ducks seemed to me to be a pretty peaceful, self-contained community compared to the gulls, who even fought amongst themselves for the floating edible junk.

I found a place farther downstream where the water turned to rapids. I sat and listened to the roar, watched the smooth water undulate over a shelf and then turn back on itself, suddenly foaming white. Felt energized. Left happy.

Today I found the English bookstore I was looking for and got three books: "The Magus" by John Fowles, "The Doors of Perception," by Aldous Huxley, and "Atlas Shrugged," by Ayn Rand. The proprietor of the place was a little bespectacled bald guy whose blunt canines hung out over his lower lip, I guessed because he didn't have any teeth between them. He seemed a bit hurt that I didn't take his advice on books, but he shouldn't have been, because you just can't trust another person's taste in literature (or art or music or anything else) unless you know them really well. There are only two people in this world whose advice in matters of taste I actually trust.

Well tonight I leave for Vienna, Austria for the weekend. Through a coincidence too strange to overlook a relative of mine, Shaun Geisert, is in Vienna, and invited me to visit him *without even knowing my standing plans to do so.* At the moment I haven't heard back from him so I'm a little worried about whether we'll be able to meet up, but if not, I'll take the blame for being such a terrible ahead-of-time planner (or to be nice, "spontaneous").

And when I get back on Sunday night I'm heading straight over to St. Michael's church in the center of Munich, because Rach's Vespers are being sung there. If I manage to get a ticket at the door life will be beautiful.