I'm a writer

I don't want to say that I'm an author. Or that I actually write stuff anyone wants to read. Or that I actually write real stuff at all and not only unfinished blog posts in bad English and sad kitschy entries in my actually very pretty diary. 

But still I claim that I'm a writer. Simply because I like to write. And I do it a lot. Some people do sports, to get out their energy, to vanish their thoughts away (or sometimes reflect them once again). Others do gardening. Or cooking. Or collecting things. Or just watching TV. And I? I write. That's what I've always done. For me, there's nothing better than pouring all my "forever-alone-crushing-on-that-guy-break-up-lonliness-happiness-what-did-I-eat-today" words into a tiny little notebook. 

"What's the point in writing it all down?" is a question non-writing friends just LOVE to ask me. On the one hand you can easily answer it with that old quote that's about using the experience of your past to conqueor the future. On the other hand I like to see my writing as a part of memorizing my life. 

I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you. - The Fault in Our Stars

It's not exactly what the quote is about, but I love it. And it's similar. Writing is (even if it might be a shout into the void) for me a means to hold on to my memories, my biography, my experiences. I can reread all of my heart breaks, my friendships, my failures and my good moments (They're rare in my texts, I have to admit that, mainly because my urge to write is bigger when I'm sad, obviously). And more important, learn from them. I can recognize patterns and I can follow my handwriting, how it changes over the years and why.

Before I became a writer, I was a reader. I'm still a reader, as you may figured out by the exorbitant number of cute quotes from teen books I use in my posts, or the various hints I hide in my texts regarding my love of books (which are not very hidden, come on). 
Reading was always a possibilty for me to exchange my reality for another. To dive into another world, a different dimension, a different person. 

Reading is letting yourself go far away while you sit steadfastly in a chair. Throughout reading, I gained my words. And I realized the power of putting words together in a row, to make them gain sense and meaning. Through reading I learned how to communicate better, to speak differently and to express myself. Through reading I learned to write. I mean not in the original sense of "learning to write" in primary school. But rather in the sense of writing essays, stories, fiction, diary entries. To put real feelings on the paper. Yes, in fact, it started in primary school, when I had read all the books from the children's section in our local library. Literally every single book. So I started to read stuff for older children and teens. I read books within the characters where 17 when I was 9 or 10. 

When it comes to books, I matured really fast. Since I'm 15 I started adult's books because back in the days I believed I had read all good teen stuff on the recent market and I was not willing to try out classics yet. Now I'm 19 and I read teen books for 16 year olds. What the hell is wrong with me? I loved my German class in primary school Except from grammar and orthography, the exams were all about writing fiction. My favourite exercise were the assignments where you had given several words and you had to imagine a story in which all the words play a main role. I digged it! And obviously had the best grades. I was a literal bubbling pool of  creativity ! And I didn't stop reading. It got worse. Now I reconsider my former reading behaviour and I view it differently. Sometimes I didn't read books, I consumed them. And it's a shame.

My record were 17 books in one summer, which means in Germany, 6 weeks of summer vacation. I was totally addicted. Addicted to books. I've never stopped reading. But I consume less and with moderation now. Because in the beginning I could memorize every plot, every storyline and every character from any book I've ever read. I literally told my best friend a whole book (Molly Moon) everyday on our way to school and home. But I realized that I can't do this anymore. I've read to much. And maybe my memory and my brain kinda suck. I made too few pauses. Consumed and consumed without a stop. Maybe sometimes books are like chocolate. You have to enjoy them, slowly. Or you will have a bad feeling after.

I'm in a constant clinch with friend about how  we should read books and which books. In his opinion books need to give you something precious, a life lesson, a moral, an important thought or something like that, to be good books. I agree. But I disagree at the point when he says: Only these books are worth being read. That's not true. What about all the books that take you to a different place? A journey to a tropical island, or in the head of a sick perfume maker a 100 years ago, on the back of a dragon fighting for peace in a fictional fantasy land? 

I wanted to talk about writing, instead I talk about reading. There's a thunderstorm outside at the moment. It's fucking hailing here. The hailstones sound like an enormous drum on the roof, but unmelodical without a real rhythm. 

One day baby we'll be old. Oh Baby we'll be old - Think of all the stories that we could have told - Asaf Avidan

But reading and writing go together because all we read was written once. A perfect imperfect combination of words and letters to get straight into your mind and make you think. Is this what I do now? Is this why I write? Not to hold on to moments from my past, not to find matter in my life. Just to tickle some neuron in your head... Just to make you think. Of what? I don't know - I'm not you. I'm just the writer, you're the reader. I think it's legit to say: I write, I'm a writer. Don't you?

Lastly, I need to say that I have this "urge to write" that I already mentioned. It's not only like a hobby, not only a form of relief from my thoughts, it's like a strange need for me. I feel it like a soft pain in my stomach. Not all the time, sometimes I miss it for weeks or months. But then it's back, strikes me and forces me to take up my pen again. "Write! Write!" shouts this voice inside me. Randomly, I start to write. I put words together. There's no sense, no meaning, no plan, no book. Just me and a story. Writing is telling stories. Maybe that's why I write. I like to tell stories. Some people would even say I'm good at it. 

Writing is a part of me, like reading is a part of me. It wouldn't be me if there wouldn't be a book on the bedstand. It wouldn't be me if there were no secret documents of absolutely random unpublished unread stories on my laptop. I never told my ex about my writing. I was afraid he'd laugh. I was ashamed. Maybe this is one reason why we broke up. If I'm ashamed for my writing I'm ashamed for myself, am I not? I don't want to be anymore. I'm a writer. I have no shame.

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?)

Perspective Change

Today, it came to my mind how differently people can see and perceive a place, especially a city. Everyone has his or her own experience of a city, even when it is exactly the same day or moment. In Paris, you get to see many tourists. And sometimes, especially in the beginning, you are one of them.

You don't only recognize them by their silly outfits (rain coats on a sunny day tied around the waist- just in case...- seriously?!) and a city map in their hands. They also happen to have an expensive camera hanging around their neck and a baseball cap on that says "I <3 Roma" (guess what they visited before Paris). But you can spot them, even when they have decent clothing, because of their look. How they watch and examine the city. They see all of the boulevards, the Haussmann buildings, the great city sights for the first time. You can tell it from their moves. How they stand there with their mouths open watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle for the first time...

"OMG, IT SPARKLES!!!!" - Every tourist ever

And that's why. They don't know it sparkles every full hour after sunset, or maybe they know and they just don't care. Because they think it's just for them. Like I like to tell myself it sparkles just for me, whenever I see it. As we grow taller and become adults, we learn to empathize with others, learn to imagine that there are things happening meanwhile and that there is a world turning outside of our field of vision. That the world doesn't turn around us. 

But indeed, it does. Everything we see, we see through our own eyes. We can't change that, we're bound to our First Person view. Everything we feel, we feel it through our body, our fingers, our feet. Everything we experience, we experience in our mind, our brain. It is us that makes our world. And all the things that happen are only important to us if they happen to us directly.

It's something different seeing all these locks in a HQ* picture 
than being able to touch them and read them one by one...

That's why nobody likes tourists. Except you're the one who is a tourist. You don't feel like a complete loser not finding the way and staring at Sacré Coeur as if it was the greatest miracle in the world (it's pretty impressive, though). When you come back to the places or visit them frequently, sometimes as a part of your daily monotone life, you take them as granted. You don't appreciate them anymore. That's what I learned while guiding my friends and family all around the city. To let myself be fascinated once again, stunned by the beauty or the architecture and the mood of some places (if not yet destroyed by aggressively dumb behaving tourists or black souvenir sellers).

Perspective change: Level Louvre

In the beginning of my year, I met a French guy (as part of a French-German language exchange-bar-talk-thing at POLYGLOT Club) who told me that he likes to show me the places he knows, to pass me around in the Quartier Latin (5e arrondissment) and to tell me stories about what happened here and there in the past and why this place is called that name. Because showing someone a place and experiencing them perceiving the place for the first time is like seeing it for the first time through their eyes. Reliving the "first time" feeling. And sometimes recognizing hidden treasures and finding new corners, new peanuts and pennies of your quarter that you have never seen before.

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.                                                     Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.  -  Marcus Aurelius 

This is also one of the reasons why I recently started watching and loving THE ART ASSIGNMENT by Sarah and John Green. It's a new web series in which the two of them meet contemporary artists and they come up with tasks, assignments, on a special topic. The viewer gets inspired by the piece of art and by the idea/topic and is invited to do his own art assignment and share it on social media with the suitable hashtag #theartassignment. 

They inspire me so much! Especially when it comes to perceiving and reflecting my urban environment. One of them, for example (number 5) was about finding the quietest place near your house by just walking around and "following the silence". It's a totally different thing to follow your ears instead of your eyes on a city tour. The assignments help you to gain new perspectives and a really interesting perception of what is going on around you. Because it's your senses and your brain that create your image of a place or a city in your mind. Why don't influence this image to be more funded, deep and reflected? Not just superficial. 

There's so much beauty in Paris. There's so much beauty in this world. 
We just need to change our perspective to see it, that's all.

So cute I almost died.     Jardin des Plantes, March 2014

*Why is the quality so high? - because my best friend and I made them with his superior SLR camera when he visited :) Thanks & L O V E

Most Confusing Date Ever

I met this guy on tinder. Stop judging me before you even start: I block every pervert and every "just sex no relationship" kind of guy immediately. It was actually the third tinder date I've been on and it tops off everything when it comes to the mindf*ck factor.

In the photos he looked like a nice guy. Charming, a cute smile, maybe a little shy. I judged him before I even met him. I put him in a box called "cute shy nerdy boys" because I knew he studies computer science/programming/applied mathematics and stuff. I started painting the picture of him in my mind. Of how I expected him to be. 

He looked exactly like his pictures on tinder and I must admit he has a very nice smile :) but gurrl except for that he was completely different to what I imagined him to be. And even though we had the best preconditions for a highly romantic first date (Parc du Buttes Chaumont, pic-nic in the afternoon...) it was everything but romantic. But I can't decide yet if I find that cool or deterrent.

Sunny side up (Buttes Chaumont, Paris)

At first, we were nerding about films and books quite a time and I was impressed by his traceable well-grounded opinions on everything he read or saw. He disappointed me by admitting that he had only read the first two tomes of Harry Potter (Bitch,please!) and positively surprised me by loving Artemis Fowl as much as I do. 

In fact, he seemed like a little Artemis Fowl to me. Someone who is brilliant. Simultaneously someone who is very self-assured and wants to demonstrate his brillance to everyone by revealing the difference of their level of intelligence in comparison to his. You could judge him right away, saying "Oh, so he's an arrogant asshole who humilates people and finds himself being the funniest person in the world and is just evil". But it isn't that easy.

He told me that he loves to cross lines, that he wants to oppose authorities and that he likes to observe people psychologically. How they act, their body language, how they talk, what they like and what they hate and what they imply in their actions. He finds it interesting how people react and manipulating them thereby. 

He brought me to think about all this personality/identity stuff again I was struggling with while reading John Green. About how someone is not only this one format you made of him while placing him in a box and using the natural prejudice sytstem in your mind making your world less stressful. About how every person has so many faces and so many influences, experiences, interests and thoughts making them themselves and so f*cking complicated that it's a challenge to figure them out. About how everyone acts differently around different groups of people and about how we judge someone rashly by a first impression that says little about the actual character of the person.

Recent book consumption.
"YOU WILL GO TO THE PAPER TOWNS
AND YOU WILL NEVER COME BACK"

I started the wheel of wondering again about how I perceive people around me and how they perceive me. Who am I in their eyes? How do I look? In which box have they put me? Do I emanate what I want to stand for? Do I represent who I am in my actions? 

And he made me unsure. Because during the date I started wondering about how he can read me. What I show him. Who does he believe me to be? Miraculously, I did not (at least I wasn't aware of it) show my anxiety and my musing in my gesture and talk.

So in the end, I took the courage and asked him this key question: "So...How do you think I am?" And he didn't want to answer. He said it'd be a long answer. 

I felt at the same time relieved and challenged because I wanted to know it, clearly, but at once I was happy that he didn't think I'm simple to read and that he'd not confront me immediately with my complete failure when it comes to my charisma.

No, for real, let's be serious,  I have no idea how I am perceived by others. If they think I'm anxious or self-confident, if they think I'm probably a nice person or a human version of grumpy cat. If I am a arrogant bitch or a shy wallflower... (ok, for sure that's nothing they could say about me). 

And by thinking about it and by writing this entry maybe he got me to what he tried all the time... Maybe he was manipulating me all the time. So I would start to reflect about it all: about personalities, people and psychology (alliteration alarm).

And he somehow managed to keep it connected to him so that as a result he would stay on my mind, so that he could impress me. If this was what he planned (and I really estimate him to be the kind of person who does shit like that) - he succeeded in so many ways. 

Basically me.

But what confuses me even more, apart from him being a nice familiy guy who has a lot of friends and does crazy pranks with them (like putting over 800 post it's all over a car), a nerdy programmer, an enthusiastic leader of arguments and discussions and a bit of a rebellious arrogant superbrain at the same time, is that he didn't try to kiss/touch/fuck (just kidding) me at all. I mean: What's wrong with you? - I'm kidding again, but seriously: Why?You get my point. That was just the summit of confusion! 

In the end, was it not even a date? Do I have to rewrite the title and call it the "Most Confusing Conversation" or the "Most Confusing Guy Ever"? I don't know what to think anymore. I'm just literally mindfucked. 

Sooo, I'm busy getting this confusion in my head fixed, reading some good books, having a beer here and there with friends, hanging out in parks (because the weather is actually pretty nice :) ) and don't forgetting to be awesome.