Germany

I've been researching schools in Germany a lot. I feel a calling to southwestern Germany. Maybe because I lived in Bitsburg when I was younger? Travelling to Trier to see a festival where "anything goes". Large breasted women pouring people on the street large mugs of beer. My face was painted black and white and I held a toy that made noise. I watched with wide eyes as floats passed by. Some were made very poorly but everyone was having fun. It was a day where wives could kiss other men and husbands could kiss other women. Girls would run around with scissors and cut the ties of old gentlemen.

We lived off base (Biesbaden) in an old house with three stories. We lived on the second story right behind a supermarket. Herr Addams was the landlord and he had a trunk full of Easter candy. And whenever I would venture up the spiral staircase he would let me have one piece which I would hastily eat right away. There was a park across the way that I would go on walks to with my dad and my brother. My dad was the best playmate. He would swing me so high I thought I'd wrap around the pole a couple of times. My mother would pick cherries and hang them from my ear. My brother would wander off to the small lake and try to dive in. He was only two.

My happiest memories are from Germany. Hot cocoa on a winter day downtown. Sitting on grey steps while my mother held me tight. Long strolls through a cornfield. Wild dogs in the tall tree woods that my dad fended off with a stick.

I want to go back. I bet everything will seem so much smaller.