And it's not actually winter yet. Sigh...
I went to Hamburg for the weekend, to visit Gisela, my host-mother from 24 years ago. We have remained in close contact ever since, and I see her as often as I can. I became an exchange student originally to get out of a very harmful home situation that I wasn't sure I'd survive if I didn't cut out. Let's leave it at that. Therapy and a willingness on the part of my parents to make amends has smoothed out most of the past, although spectres still linger, naturally. Gisela literally saved my life, expressed her confidence in my decision-making abilities, left me to my own devices while still providing practical advice and serving as the most stereotypical model of northern German uprightness and respectability. Gisela gave me hope in a world where I saw nothing but misery and death as the only way out. Needless to say, I would walk water for her.
When my host-father Wolfgang left Gisela in the early 90's, I was devastated, not because they'd had such an ideal marriage--most of their communication took place through post-it notes, because they were rarely at home at the same time. Once, because a note was misplaced, Wolfgang did not realize one of his relatives had died until a couple months later, when we all happened to be sitting together. I was crushed because I could not understand how anyone walking this Earth could do Gisela wrong, how any man, despite the fact that he had fallen in love with another woman, could simply walk away from one of the most generous, understanding, organized, capable and loving women I have ever known, a woman whose voice has never raised in anger, who has never judged anyone for their faults, though she recognizes them clearly, who was reasonable enough to tell me, when I told her that I was simply going to stay in Germany after my exchange year was up, and my parents could piss off and die, that I should go back and get my house in order before I made such a rash decision, a process that took about 18 years, but was worth doing. I was pissed at him for years for leaving her in the lurch, for letting her live without a companion for a decade, for simply moving into a chic apartment and a chic lifestyle and a chic future and leaving his dumpy wife and the mother of his three children in the dust--financially taken care of, of course, because the president of one of the oldest insurance companies in the world would not simply chuck his wife without financial security. That would be de'classe'. I couldn't stand the sight of him, and hated every minute of the second day of Christmas, the day they always spent over at his place. Fortunately, I never had to meet Wolfgang's girlfriend, an event that would most likely have turned into a catastrophe because of my lack of impulse control and steadfast loyalty. I know this would have happened, especially in the first couple of years after my ex left me for another woman, which he lied about for weeks before finally telling the truth. At that point, I felt Gisela's divorce more acutely than ever before, now personally knowing the sting of having built a life with someone and watching them cast it away, as though it were the day-old newspaper someone had wrapped their fish in.
Gisela, a person who believes that family is family no matter what, and that we must all learn to get along on some level and realize that we will always be family, always insisted that I come along to the second day of Christmas brunch. She never said anything, but I got the impression that it would make her happy, that it was important to her that the family remain a bonded unit and simply weather this bad phase (for Gisela, everything is a phase. She might have been the person who invented the expression, "This too shall pass.") And over the years, I have grown accustomed to Wolfgang's presence, to what I still consider a rip in the family fabric.
And in the last few years, I have even grown to like him. He is still the same highly-educated culture whore that he always was, still sings in a choir, now attends university again now that he's retired, and consistently reads one of the most intense newspapers in the country. His walls are lined with books, his desk neatly organized with a bust of Brahms, or Bach, or Handel, one of those dead white guys who made nice music, on it. I still feel an incredible disparity in their financial situations, but as Gisela doesn't complain and Wolfgang looks after the finances, I don't kick up too much of a fuss. I even happily go to his place now, like yesterday, when we sat for a couple of hours talking about the German language, the latest developments in culture and politics, and how his former insurance company is being bought by a larger conglomerate and all the calls to the politicians he knows will make no difference.
I remember the first time I realized that everyone had "gotten over" the divorce, and that it was time for me to get on the bandwagon. On one of my trips, Gisela had said that Wolfgang wanted to go out with us, show me the new Harbor City, a posh new residence close to the posh new Philharmonic on the harbor. I groaned inwardly, kicking the mental dirt in my sandbox, stamping my psychic foot, and then caving in. I can not say no to this woman. We went, Wolfgang was his usual self, telling me the cultural details and history of the area. He showed me a large-scale model of the Philharmonic that the city had created and placed close to the construction site so people could see what it would look like upon completion. Germans love that shit. I have to admit, I was really impressed by the model, the tiny finger-puppet orchestra and audience, the curved walls of the new building. And I noticed at one point that Wolfgang delighted in my delight.
Afterwards, we went to the Unilever building, had coffee, warmed up after being in the bracing wind for an hour and a half. As we'd walked far from our original U-Bahn station, they weren't quite sure as to how to get back to the center of town. They sat across from each other, bent over a public transport map, and quite agreeably and humorously worked out which route was best. I took a picture, I was so impressed and so touched to see them working together in a way I'd never seen before. For the sake of privacy, I won't show their faces, but the image is worth showing.
It would be a long time, though, before I could do the same in my own back yard. My ex left me--or more specifically stated, I asked my ex if he wanted to leave me, to which he answered yes. I even did that work for him--on the 5th of December, 2004. After 12 years, he simply got up and left, left so quickly and in such a typical fashion, leaving his breakfast plate on the dining table, the glass of water on the night stand, the book open to the page where he'd left off, his clothes on the floor. Gisela was the first person I called, wailing into the phone at 2 a.m., moaning from a pain I didn't think was possible in this lifetime.
It was like he'd died, and his ghost came back once a week to pick up items and ask me if we could still be friends. Why, I asked him back then, would that be a reasonable request when you already had the best of what I had to offer, but that hadn't been good enough? I was so devastated by his departure that I had a period for 21 days straight, and about the same time every year, for about 4 years after, the same thing would happen again. It was hard to forget the 5th of December when my body kept reminding me of something that my brain wanted so desperately to forget. I hated him, so much, so much, that the very mention of him in our mutual circle of friends would drive me outside to smoke three or four cigarettes, would occupy my brain and my time for days afterwards.
But each year got a little better. Each year, I would remember later and later that the day was upon me. I made sure to always be doing something interesting in order to distract myself. Go to a party, take up welding, go bungee jumping, start making my own cheese. Whatever, didn't matter, just do it, and pray to God that this time I would forget and the day would pass. But I always remembered, always at some point during the day.
Saturday, as I sat with Gisela, drinking tea and reading articles from the newspaper about the German language that she had saved and put into a folder for me, she asked me when I would be going to Lake Constance to visit a friend for Christmas--not jealous, just curious. She knows I should spend time with others. I told her I would be leaving on the 23rd, and then remarked how quickly the month was already flying by. It was already the 8th.
The 8th.
Gisela saw the look on my face and asked me what was the matter. Nothing, I said. I simply completely forgot about the 5th.
"Wonderful!" she said, and that was that.
I have officially moved on, it seems. Maybe one day someone will take a picture of me and my ex, bent over a map, working together to get to the right place in the best way. And at the same time, if it doesn't, I'm okay with that, too. But once again, Gisela was present for my growth, a part of it and at the same time just sitting on the sidelines, waiting for the phase to pass.
And our time is up.
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