Yesterday I stayed in the office late, because I have this deadline for the second installment of this translation I'm doing for a foundation in the States, and, like I always do, I put off the work until the last minute. I've got three days to go, 4oo footnotes and one last proofreading session, which means I have to work here, not at home. At home, there are too many distractions, like the paint on the wall, or the clean dishes that look like they could use a second washing. So I stay here in the office, which at least has a desk. I check FB every couple of hours to make sure I still have a normal connection to the human sphere.
It occurred to me yesterday while translating that it's hard to have a mid-life crisis and be obsessed by death (that would be me), when your entire being has to concentrate on one specific task. When I'm trying to make a deadline and earn some cash, I have no time to wonder about "the meaning of it all" and what I will think about on my death bed, or why I should bother doing this thing called Life in the first place. Instead, I focus on the minutiae, and forget my mortality for a moment.
But there are always reminders, and they happen in the strangest of ways, like discovering that your friend's dog has gone missing and is most likely dead at this point.
But this is more than a dog.
I don't think she'll mind, my friend Nina, if I write about her for a minute. I met Nina 6 years ago, when we co-taught an orientation course for exchange students in Aachen. At first, I was not crazy about her, with her fuzzy slippers and her incredibly German penchant for taking her dog Josephine--Josy for short--with her everywhere she went. But she served as a real-time example of one of the things I mentioned in the culture segment of class: German's love animals, more often than they love children. The Dutch love children, but somehow the Germans never took a page from their book. Animals are preferred, as a German scholar might say, proud of his use of the passive tense.
But I remember that Nina, after a very quiet meeting of the minds, became one of the dearest people to me that I know, a friend through and through. And I very much remember Josy, a fluffy dark brown mix between an Akita and a Malamut, at least to me. She was a docile dog, sweet, old, and, if I am not mistaken, bilingual, since Nina spent a lot of her time talking to Josy in Spanish. I remember the first time Nina gave out to Josy in Spanish. I wondered if Josy was paying attention, until I saw her tail sink between her legs. If nothing else, she understood intonation. Josy was also the source of one of three major battles we waged with the organizer that summer, since we never went to a restaurant that allowed Josy to come inside.
I didn't see what the fuss was about in those days. But it became clear soon enough. Josy is not simply Nina's dog. Josy is Nina, as essential a part to her as her heart or her brain, as necessary as the blood in her veins. It killed Nina to travel without her, but because travel is so important to her, she went. But she spent hours upon hours figuring out how to take her with her overseas, how to move her to South America with her, where she now lives.
Josy, who was very old and surprised me by surviving the trip, transition, change in climate and overall atmosphere, the absence of the people she'd known most of her life--a testament to how much Nina is Josy--was coming to her end, with heart problems and the other ailments that plague us all, dog or human. But Nina was taking care of her as always, and never, ever, wanting to contemplate what she would do without her.
Josy broke away from the people who were watching her while Nina was away, and despite the efforts of tons of people, days of searching, and what I imagine a hysterical Nina, unable to sleep or eat or do anything except look for Josy, the search was called off. She has disappeared somewhere into the city/countryside, and after that many days without medication or proper care, one can imagine that she is indeed dead.
And this is what I found out when I checked FB during one of my breaks yesterday, when Nina emailed me and told me to check my real email for the full story. We are still trying to connect voice-to-voice.
When I finally got done with work, I took the train back to Erfurt. In the streetcar, I was fortunate enough to lift my head from my smart phone for a minute and notice that the Christmas market, which is spread throughout the Altstadt, had begun. And, instead of riding the last two stops to my apartment, which is across from the Erfurt Cathedral, I got out, bought a bag of candied almonds (there goes the diet), and strolled through the neighborhood back to my apartment.
I had an hour to go before I had to get on Skype and try to call Nina, so I took my time, enjoyed the lights, the smell of candy and Glühwein, the still-pristine look of it all, the people before they get drunk and red-nosed, and make me hate Christmas all over again. I ran into the woman who runs the shop below my apartment, her grumpy husband, running a booth in the market. Amazing that the grumpy husband is a wonderful artist, someone who paints landscapes, probably because humanity is too annoying to capture. Maybe he'll warm up to me, maybe not.
Coming around the corner, I saw everything lit up like, well, a Christmas tree, the kitschy neon colors of the Ferris wheel, the hundreds of booths selling arts and crafts, more Glühwein, stuffed animals, the people standing around and talking, laughing, behaving themselves. The weather was perfect, the pictures on the "real" camera fantastic, the night, as my downstairs neighbor had said, "was playing along with us."
And still, there was Nina and Josy.
Staring at the Ferris wheel, munching on my almonds, done with translation for the day and not knowing what to do with myself, I remembered that this is the whole point of it, to enjoy this, just this little moment, as much as I could, because, we all go through loss, we all lose, we all get lost, in one way or another. I am proud of Nina for having moved to South America, for having taken Josy with her. I am happy, as is Nina, that she did not have to "decide" what to do with Josy when it got to a crucial point. I am saddened that Josy had to leave at all, but glad that Nina had her as long as she did.
I remember hating Christmas with a passion known only to axe-murderers after my partner of 12 years left me--at the beginning of December, walking out the day after he said he wanted to leave, disappearing, as though he died--for the first 5 years after. I hate that Nina has to experience loss at this time of year. I hate that I can offer no comfort other than the usual platitudes, that I can not help her move more quickly through her mourning any more than I can help myself. And yet, there will be another Ferris wheel, another Christmas, eventually, another dog to love.
Just never another Josy.
-Tschö, wa!
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