Letter to Myself

The vanilla flavoured green tea that helped me through the rough winter, the routine of being obliged to go down 22 stair steps to go to the toilet. The door codes that you have to memorize or you're lost, the view from my window, the minuscule fridge, the cute and annoying children from my kindergarten... 

They all will be faded memories soon. Memories of "the good days". Memories of my time in Paris. Memories of youth.

Es sind die guten Zeiten, die uns am Ende noch erhalten bleiben und zusammenschweißen für ein Leben lang. - Bakkushan

Now this is the memory, I give it to you, as a present, future-self. Future-Lotta. 

Fly with me once again to the beginning of this year, to the anxiety and the lonliness. Fly me to "all den Abenden, die wir verschwendet haben" (all the nights we wasted), or show me the faces of all those people again who I have kissed. Replay the dates, the rendez-vous, the embarrasing and the romantic moments. Show me again all the movies, like I saw them for the first time. The movies that touched my heart so much that it was hard to get back to reality after. "About time", "Her", "Prisoners", "Labour Day", "States of Grace" (Short term 12) and many more ...

The tension, give it to me one last time, when "PLUS DE PASSION, PLUS D'EMOTIONS" was flitting over the screen. Let me walk that walk from the cinema back to my house, my home, once again, in the rain. Lost in my own world of thoughts, my lonely mind, in such an urge to let it all out, to talk, to write, to communicate my feelings. And yet not able to verbalize all that is happening inside of me. 

Bring me back to the weekends with my girls, the card games and the talking afternoons at Lea's. The times when we were drunk and the times when we were sober. Rewatch with me all seasons of Doctor's Diary and Gossip Girl again. Fall again, head over heels for that American art student. Tinder... does it ring a bell? And all the exciting opportunities you had? You could be the girl you wanted to be. You could decide who you wanted. You could reinvent who you were before. 

Bring me back to the night that I cried in the dark, in January. To all the sorrow I poured into that little notebook with the hearts on it. Remind me painfully of my desperate thoughts and my distress. That I knew, that I divined, something would happen, something that would seperate someone from me who had been indispensable to me. Show me again how hopeless and afraid I was for that friendship, even if I knew we could make it. Somehow. 

Let me please reread and re-listen (in this context) all our hour-long chat and hangout-conversations about all and nothing. His philosophical blog entries that kept me awake for too long. And let me hold him again, one last time, like I did this one night in December when it was so hard to say Goodbye.

Can I hold you, one last time, to fight the fear that is growing in my mind?      - The Kooks

Let me get to know Simon again, have an amazing time with fake laser guns and my girls and let me laugh again until I have to cry or spit my whole drink over the table. I just want to have a hundred more sleep overs with Nuan and make spaghetti with Thea and talk too long and be waaay too late for everything after that. I want to ride home on the 75 bus from Lea's house to mine and watch German "Tatort" and scrounge from her meals again. 

And please let me forget all these wonderful books that I read. So that I can read them again for the first time. Show me my basil plant that I killed and the new plant which has taken its place and blossoms very nicely because the lack of water doesn't seem to bother it. 

Show me my little room under the roof with the fluffy black carpet I dragged through half of the city (IKEA adventures). Show me the bed and the shower and the black and white pictures I put on the wall. Show me this tiny room again that was my safety, my island. And the rainbows in front of my window, over the rooftops of Paris.

And the Eiffel Tower, how it looked on my first evening with the girls. Or how it looked when I sat there eating Maccarons in the sun with my best friend in March. Fly me one last time through the streets, the Canal, the Seine, the Ponts, let me remark all the little details and the street art for which I always loved to stop my walk and stare. Let me ride on a vélib bike for hours and hours again, feeling the heap wind on my face like a summer breeze or an ice cold hand (depending on the weather). 

The warm touch of the sun on my skin and just inhaling Paris.

And if it's really like that, like it is said in "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" (Mitch Albom)... that there will be one place in this world where you will have to pass an eternity of time until someone dies and comes to you so that you can teach him a lesson (because you're one of the 5 people he meets in heaven)... then let it be Paris for me. Let me be there forever. In a time helix, like on the island in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" (Ransom Riggs), where this one summer never comes to an end. 

Where I never have to grow up, like Pippi Langstrumpf or Peter Pan. Where I can be me. Where I can be "mutterseelenallein" (all by myself) and still as happy as I never had been before in my entire life.

The Eiffel Tower. How it looked on this first evening. Pure perfection. Lived clichés.

Bucket List

Everything has an end. And somehow, we believe that we have to accomplish certain things during a life period. That's why there are so many lists and books and magazines telling you what you have to do before you... marry, are 30, die. Which places you have to see and which things you should definitely do during your time in college, high school or on that trip to London. 

Something I've already done: Drinking ice tea under the Eiffel Tower !
But besides, I'm not sure if anyone considers this to be a thing ..

There is one voice inside of my head (kind of schizophrenic isn't it?) who is trying to defend me (us?) from this "Schubladendenken" (thinking in stereotypes) trying to press your experience of a place, a journey or your life in general in a pre-assembled shape. Like: If you didn't do this or that you're college time is worth a shit. 

When I grow up, I wanna be famous, I wanna be a star, I wanna be in movies. When I grow up, I wanna see the world, drive nice cars, I wanna have groupies 

- Pussy Cat Dolls (Never thought I'd ever quote them ...)

But the other voice says: Hey, maybe it isn't that bad of an idea... Especially when it's you who makes the rules. Or in this case, the list. A list of things you really really really want to do. Or at some point in your past decided to do at some point in the future. You and I, we both know the sad truth about most of the things we say "We'll do that later..." or "when we grow up..." or "when we have retired..." - They are mostly never going to happen. 

And afterwards, we regret never having done them. 
I'm not quiet at the point, in my almost 19-year-old life that I can make a list about what to accomplish and do and success in the whole of my life yet.

But I'm more than ready to make a Bucket List for the remaining 2 and a half months of what is supposed to be the best year of my entire life. (And by now, it isn't disappointing, is it?) So this is my...

Paris Bucket list

• Climb on a rooftop
• Take fancy pictures in a cute dress at the most romantic places around town
• Visit the Bois de Bologne and the Bois the Vincennes 
• Go on at least one more amazing concert
• Visit the scary side of Paris in "les Catacombes"
• Watch a theater play
• Buy a French Book
• Having taken every metro line at least once
• Go clubbing in the "Cabaret Sauvage", and the "Rex Club"
• See the inside of the Rodin Museum
• Kiss someone under the Eiffel Tower 
• Make a boat tour on the Seine
• Make a little piece of streetart myself
• Buy the one item that will always remind me of my time here
• Randomly approach someone on the street or in a park
• See a very good French Movie (Hey, I actually did it!)

A French version of American Pie, mixed with prostitution and a different point of view.

That Guy Again

Okay. I don’t know what to think anymore. I didn’t know it earlier either. But that’s not the point. The point is that I can’t get him out of my mind. And I don’t know why. Because nothing happened. By nothing I mean NOTHING. There has never been, in the whole history of the human race, a less romantic, less flirty relationship between two people on a second date. Meanwhile the “setting”, as we German A-Level students know it from our English classes in short stories, was the most romantic thing ever.

I am not kidding anybody here. If someone gave me the screenplay of this date and what happened around us (leaving out the dialogues please, for God’s sake), I’d hire him immediately for my next romantic drama or comedy on the movies. The beginning was Spiderman. “The Amazing Spiderman”, to be precise. Okay (side note: No holding hands, no cuddling, no kiss). But the walk …

Another day, different light, a slightly different place - but at least the same river, ok?

We made our way from Bastille, over Quai de la Rapée and the Pont d’Austerlitz. There is a long green strip along the Seine. And it’s stunning. The tourist’s boats passing by, the setting sun, reflected in the tiny waves of the water, a moment in which you really believe that “la vie est une longue fleuve tranquille”. The light was a mix of orange, yellow, red and a bit of rose. Not too much obviously, to make it just perfect but not exaggerated.

There were joggers, couples who were strolling along the river in direction of the beautiful Notre Dame in the background, enthroned on the little island that cuts off the river in two parts. On its peak you could see lovers on benches and weeping willows. And there were guitar players and a guy with drums, jamming together in an exotic but chilled out rhythm. And we passed by easily and talked. The obligatory accordion player sat on a bridge charged by a million declarations of love in form of locks.

Just sayin'...

It was the right mood for saying something important. Doing something monumental. It was the perfect mood for a first kiss.

Isn't it always the things we didn't do and just imagined to be that are the most important to us? Our expectations, our hopes and our dreams. Of course, it couldn’t be all perfect. It would have been boring, wouldn’t it? There was no kiss. Because boredom is his enemy, I guess.

For me, just being with him makes me feel interesting, important, different. It is kind of like being above everything or maybe just seeing everything from a different perspective. I think about how he looks, how he talks and how he makes me feel: A mix of attraction, anxiety and agitation (alliteration alert). He walked me home and said for next time he’d give me my psychological profile. (Because I asked him what he thought of me last time, remember?)  Which is... I don't know... kind of weird. Kind of business-not-very-romantic-like. And at the same time very interesting for me because I'm always, as you know, very uneasy and worried about my own perception out in the world. And I'm so fucking curious for what he is going to say about me!

Aaaaand… he said "next time". That means that there will be a next time. That makes me shiver again. Before our second date I just had to call my friend to calm me down a bit because I was too f*cking excited (I should slow down my cursing a little, though)! I literally couldn't even!! (Like twitter girls nowadays do). 

I want to hold your hand. - The Beatles

What delights me, too, about being with him or thinking about the whole "Nothing really happens but we talk a lot-Icelandic-programmer-cute-deep-inscrutable-CONFUSING"-guy, is how we end up meeting people like him. How I ended up in Paris, dating a guy from a whole different country, from a whole different world, talking to him in a language I learned for years in school but which isn't my own, my mother tongue, and in which I write quirky stuff on the internet to entertain 10 people and myself. (Best definition of this Blog in a while).

How he ended up being trilingual (literally),having an authority problem, living in Paris, while he's from Reykjavík (btw I love how he pronounces it so smooth) with French/Icelandic divorced parents, dating me, a strange girl from Germany, a country he has never visited before, who loves Spiderman and Artemis Fowl as much as him. A girl who is not really into Game of Thrones (yet?), but very much into internet memes and nerdy websites. And very much into that same, strange guy who doesn't even want to hold her hand, but rather analyze her habits and her mind. Kay. Seems legit.

Obviously, I’ve not quite cleared my confusion up yet. So there hopefully will be another tome adding to the series: “Lotta’s confusing dates: edition 3.0”. I will keep you up about what is happening in my life and meanwhile enjoy yours. And don’t waste too much time on the internet, kids. (The ironic life advice by Lotta, isn’t it terrific?)