Living with Plan B

Keep moving

Publiziert am 2012/01/25 von Aileen

Keep moving

There are times – it seems actually most of the time at the moment – when I feel like a little toy figure in need of someone to come along and wind it up to set it in motion again. As my spring winds down, I find myself moving more and more slowly in smaller and smaller circles. There are still so many things I need to do, but each step seems just a bit further than I can manage, and multiple steps seem to make up an insurmountable distance. To answer this email, I need to make that phone call, but first I have to find certain information, and it all seems just a bit more than I can cope with. Sometimes it is easier to just answer the phone and agree to go for a drink with whichever kind person is calling me; sometimes it is too much of an effort to even answer the phone. So I wind down a little bit more.

Kind people keep assuring me that I need to be careful, take it easy, give myself time. From experience I know they are right, and I also know I have to be careful not to take on too much and risk going over the edge again, as I did after Amy’s death, because now Peter isn’t here to help me pick up the pieces and put myself back together. Sometimes I worry, though, that there is a grey area between taking it easy and coming to a complete standstill, incapable of taking any action at all. I’m afraid of missing the boundary within that grey area and coming out on the wrong side.

Yet there are still people who come to give me a hug as soon as they see me, every time I go into town, people who share their memories of Peter with me, others who remind me that I have never been helpless and weak and will not become so now. When the computer seems like a black hole that will suck me in as soon as I turn it on, I keep looking for different approaches, a safe way to sneak up on it. Soon I will have a new bed, a smaller one, just the right size for me and two cats, so it won’t feel empty, and it will come with a lovely soft matress for my aching old bones. Then hopefully I will eventually be able to sleep again and wake up feeling rested.

I just need to keep reminding myself that I am not a toy figure needing to be wound up again. I am a person surrounded and kept safe by so many wonderful people. I need to hold on to the conviction that someday I will be able to take responsibility for other people again – someday, but not yet. For now I can only feel grateful for so much patience and understanding and just keep trying to keep moving.

Veröffentlicht unter General | Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Going on

Publiziert am 2012/01/09 von Aileen

Eight weeks and still counting. Every Sunday I am still acutely aware of the clock, remembering what happened at this time and at this time… In the meantime, a few applications and forms have been processed, a few more signatures delivered, some bills paid, transferred or deferred. And I began what is allegedly a new year by paying all the bills for the recovery, storage, transport and cremation of Peter’s body and all the funeral arrangements. I’m not sure I really wanted to know in such detail what I was paying for, but it’s done now.

There are more bills to pay now, not only my own bookkeeping to close for the past year, but also Peter’s as well. More phone calls to make, more emails to write, more things to sort through and organize and put somewhere else. At the same time, I am deeply grateful to Cornelia for her beautiful description of our experience in Windischgarsten, this necessary reminder of the overwhelming sense of love and loss, which is the reason for doing all of these things.

Holidays are over now even in Austria, everyone else has gone back to normal everyday life. Somewhere in the middle of the past few weeks, however, there seems to be a blank space for me. As I learned after my sister’s death, grief has an adverse affect on the immune system. It is therefore hardly surprising that after a few lovely days of Christmas with the house full of people again, immediately afterward I succumbed to a virulent flu bug that has been circulating in Linz. Feeling very ill with a fever and aches and pains seems to facilitate denial, repression, something like that. I didn’t even feel guilty about escaping for a few days into fantasy novels and silly films, forgetting about everything else, but by the time the fever resided, it was very late to be thinking about plans for New Year’s Eve.

I didn’t really want to be anywhere on New Year’s Eve, I didn’t even want it to be at all. Inside Peter’s wedding ring, which is still lying on my dresser, since the police returned it to me in Hinterstoder, it says that he married me on 31 December 1986. We should have been celebrating our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary on New Year’s Eve, so anything else couldn’t possibly feel right. In the end, the boys persuaded me to drive back to Vienna with them that afternoon, and the drive itself, with my two highly entertaining sons, was actually surprisingly enjoyable. In the evening I went to a small party with Christopher, which felt like the right place to be. Of course, there is no way at all to escape the Blue Danube Waltz at midnight in Austria, so when the time came, I gave up, put my head on Christopher’s shoulder and just cried.

Since I felt worse again the next day, I simply got on a train and went home again to cough, sniffle and ache my way through the first week of January, the first week of a new year. Although I sadly had to cancel my plans to meet with one of my oldest friends that week, I did manage to finish the one translation that I felt I absolutely needed to do myself – I needed to do it to remind myself that I still have a life, I still have something valuable and meaningful and useful to contribute to this world. Then I sent off the translation in good time to just sit there feeling glum, remembering that 7 January would have been my father’s 82nd birthday, had he not died at the early age of 68. And after all these years, I still miss him terribly, especially now.

In a way, it was probably the most convenient time to be ill, since I didn’t miss anything, since no one else was working or expecting anyone else to be working. Unpleasant and annoying as it is to spend two weeks battling with a flu bug, I tend to suspect there is a reason for that too: when I think of the past eight weeks, when I remember experiences from the past eight week, I have the feeling I can remember no physical sensations at all, as though I was there, but not actually physically present. Being ill has returned me into my body, and although I’m not particularly thrilled with the situation, I can still see certain advantages in living embodied experience.

For one thing, I now live with two cats. Before Christopher and Paddy returned to Vienna in November, before Pat returned to Albuquerque, they surprised me one afternoon by taking me to the local animal shelter and coming home with a kitten, Ginevra. Two days before Christmas, Paddy surprised me again by bringing home a second kitten, Hester, as an early Christmas present for Ginevra and me. Living with two small feline companions does require more than theoretical reflection, so they help me to remember where I am. They are also helpfully bilingual, which enables me to continue living in two languages, even though I still miss being able to tell Peter what I’m thinking about. Of course, Ginevra and Hester are no substitute for Peter, but they are good companions, and for that I am very grateful.

My “widow’s tasks” are still far from finished and my energy level is still quite low, but a reminder of an overwhelming sense of love and loss is sufficient motivation to keep going – and to be fully present again to do so.

Veröffentlicht unter General | 1 Kommentar

Christmas with the living and the dead

Publiziert am 2011/12/24 von Aileen

Ever since the boys were little, but just old enough to enjoy getting ready for Christmas, my grandmother, Bean, has always had a strong presence at Christmas. Sometimes it almost feels as though we keep her in boxes in the cellar and only bring her out once a year, but then she has a cheerful, rather idiosyncratic presence: Christmas banners with sequins and glitter that are hung in specific places, the Christmas tree skirt with sequins and gold fringe that is as old as I am, the stocking she made for my first Christmas with the elaborately decorated angel (the stockings became progressively less elaborately decorated with each subsequent grandchild, I’m afraid, but they have more conventional shapes, which makes them easier to fill, and having made five of them this week myself, I can understand how that happens), the plastic star covered in gold glitter with one slightly wilted arm, which is ceremoniously placed on the top of the tree each year. When the boys helped me cut out Christmas cookies years ago, cutting out the shapes with as little wasted dough as possible became a kind of game, when I praised them by saying that Bean would be proud of them and then they would tell me, “Look! Wouldn’t Bean be proud?”, whenever they managed to fit as many shapes as they could into a small piece of dough. Since Bean died in 1995, the boys never really knew her at all, but it was always somehow comforting to me that she had that kind of presence for them.

The Christmas after Amy died was the hardest. We had always shared Christmas preparations with emails and phone calls, comments left here and there, and travel plans in the years we spent Christmas together. I simply couldn’t do it without her. That year her big, silly “smiley face” ornament joined Bean’s star at the top of the tree, and Amy joined Bean as a Christmas presence.

And now?

Last weekend Seth and I went to get the Christmas tree together, which has become another kind of tradition. After we brought it home, rearranged the furniture and set up the tree securely and firmly in its stand, we both felt a bit uneasy, as though we must have missed something, because setting up a Christmas tree shouldn’t be that simple and uncomplicated. I suspect that what we were missing was an element of resistance: Peter always objected to Christmas preparations. Getting ready for Christmas inevitably entails moving things, rearranging furniture, interrupting the normal flow of everyday life. As a result, for me getting ready for Christmas always involved getting Peter out of the way and/or putting up with his vociferous complaints. Sara and I often jokingly threatened that one year the two of us would go to Albuquerque together to enjoy Christmas and just leave our grumpy husbands to ignore the holidays as they always claimed to want to do.

In the years when we went to the US or the UK for Christmas, preparations also required packing and getting to the airport or the ferry on time. For Peter and me, with our perpetually conflicting notions of how to pack and how long it takes to get anywhere, that was never an enjoyable, harmoniously shared experience. By the time we actually got to the airport, as a rule we were both still livid and barely speaking to each other, although there is nothing like a long, tedious journey to promote reconciliation and solidarity. I purposely assigned Paddy to Peter as a traveling partner then, because I knew I could rely on Paddy not to put up with any nonsense from his father, and not even Peter would risk upsetting Paddy in the most imperious phases of his life.

Peter was also a highly incompetent elf. While I loved setting the scene for a visit from Santa Claus, leaving tiny traces where Santa had come through the “magic door” to the chimney, labeling presents with special “Santa writing”, filling stockings to make them appear more exciting than the contents actually justified, Peter never grasped the concept of stockings. He never seemed to understand that “small” was supposed to apply to the price as well as the actual size stocking stuffers. Consequently, my stocking was always filled rather unconventionally and haphazardly (he always complained about the bend in mine), but invariably with a wonderful surprise. As ever, I will fill all the other stockings this year as chief elf, but I have asked to boys to make sure that mine is at least not completely empty.

What Peter did best, however, better than anyone else I know, was giving presents. Generous almost to a fault, he loved giving presents – not just at Christmas, but also in conjunction with traveling or spontaneously, just because something occurred to him or he heard something on the radio and went straight out to get the CD or book for me. Everything I wore for his memorial service was something he had given to me, and I made a ceremony out of getting dressed that day, remembering each occasion for every item of clothing I put on. Peter’s Christmas presents to me were always wonderful, surprising, delightful, uniquely special.

Choosing the right present for such an incomparably talented gift-giver was always a challenge too, especially since I was more concerned about costs, but that made getting it right feel even more wonderful. Sorting through Peter’s things now, I keep coming across presents I gave him too, remembering why it mattered.

As much as I have enjoyed preparing Christmas this year, thinking about all the people who have given us such kind and generous support, wanting to do something for others in return, I’m dreading the moment when it is time to open presents, because I know that it when Peter’s absence will be most keenly felt.

In years to come, perhaps Peter will have some kind of presence at Christmas too, although it is hard to imagine that right now. At the moment there is only absence.

Veröffentlicht unter home, Peter | 2 Kommentare

A Widow’s Tasks

Publiziert am 2011/12/15 von Aileen

Photo: Jeff Johnson

Peter and I lived together for twenty-five years, more than half of his short life. Within that space of time, together we built networks, fascinating networks of computers, strong networks of friends, two internationally successful businesses and an important and intense side business, a home where two children grew up and many other children and young people found warmth, a bed, frozen pizza, acceptance, support and solidarity. Now I am left to take apart much that we built together by myself.

Bureaucracy is alive and well and taking over my life

On the surface, there is much that should be simple. Peter and I were a conventional hetero couple, each only married once “until death do us part” with two children. This is actually the norm, the standard against which all other kinds of relationships and ways of living together are measured, the basis for all the relevant laws, regulations and procedures. Somehow, however, it appears now that Peter and I managed to remain true to our shared skepticism about the kind of conventional relationship we lived. Consequently, the process of closing down Peter’s affairs is stymied again and again by the kinds of regulations that are meant to apply to less conventional relationships. I have no access to Peter’s bank accounts, because we always kept our finances separate, so I have to wait for official confirmation that I am indeed the person meant to have access to his bank accounts, his pension, his assets. Since Peter left no will, because that was not something he was ever willing to think about, and since our sons are now legal adults, by default the boys and I are equal inheritors of Peter’s estate. When I realized this meant that every document had to be signed by all three of us, we requested additional documents for the boys to legally grant me the right to sign everything that needs signing by myself. With me in Linz and Paddy and Christopher in Vienna, none of this was simple or quickly accomplished. In the meantime, I have to wait in many cases for notification of bills that have not been paid from Peter’s account, because it is still blocked, and juggle accounts that I do have access to in order to cover them or figure out what needs to be canceled, transferred or deferred. No matter how many times I have to explain to various offices, businesses and services that Peter is dead, it never seems to get any easier, and too many people at the front desk or on the other end of the phone connection have no experience in dealing with a situation like this. Those who do are usually already on the phone elsewhere or in a meeting somewhere and cannot be relied upon to return my calls. Banks, insurance companies, social security offices, phone companies, legal firms: I seem to spend most of my time literally running around in circles from one to the other and back again. These are not the kinds of things I am good at doing, whereas Peter had a real talent for them. Again and again, as I suddenly recall why I have to do this myself, why I can’t just turn it over to Peter and do something else, I find myself standing at a bus stop with tears streaming down my face or unable to explain my questions to the employee at the desk, because sobs are choking my voice.

Good-bye George

Peter and I have had a server at home almost since we first connected to the Internet, ever since I was first able to explain to Peter what I had learned about email, why it was such an important invention and why we absolutely needed it. In the beginning, it was something we explored together, but as our children grew and started school and I started my own business, I started falling more and more behind and could no longer keep up with everything Peter was learning. Sometimes I resented it and felt compelled to remind him that he could not have developed his skills as he did, had I not been maintaining domestic operations in the background at the same time. Sometimes I was just happy to have access to his special knowledge when I had questions or problems and happy to have a server at home to try things out. The problem now is that I do not have the knowledge and skills to maintain our server by myself. It has to be taken down. “George”, our server, is no longer viable without Peter.

How much emotional attachment can one feel for a conglomeration of hardware and software that is a server? Meeting with a group of IT specialists last week to discuss dismantling George, I felt as though my heart would break. Even though it wasn’t evident to anyone who only knew Peter as a skilled and dedicated network administrator, George was something special that Peter and I had shared for many, many years. Letting go is hard. Having to turn George over to a group of men is even harder. I kept wishing that at least some of the Genderchangers could be there to help me – I wanted Donna, Amaia, Amy, Paula, Gloria, Ivana to tell me what to do. But I couldn’t even access Peter’s email without help, because at some point he must have changed his password and forgot to tell me. At least I still have the root password, though. It means more responsibility than comfort, but at least it’s something.

Closing the Workshop

Photo: Reinhard Winkler

My beautiful office is not merely an appendage to Peter’s much more fascinating workshop: I was there first. When we first met, I was living in the room that later became Peter’s office, a space that had been a neglected storage room until I cleared it out and made it a place to live, where Peter later moved in with me. In the beginning, I supported both of us, first with my job as a waitress, then with a job at the university, while Peter was first battling for legal permission to work as an instrument maker in Austria, then setting up his own business. That turned around when Peter’s business started to take off, while I was on maternity leave, receiving only minimal (later sub-minimal) government maternity leave support. As happy as I was for Peter’s success, it was not a situation that I ever felt comfortable or secure with. When Peter turned thirty, he jokingly said, “Now I’m thirty, married with two kids, a home owner and a business owner: this is not the life I envisioned for myself when I was eighteen.” Shortly after that, he suffered a slipped disc. As I watched him being carried out on a stretcher, in so much pain that he was barely conscious, I stood there with a tiny baby running an alarmingly high fever in my arms, trying to contain a toddler climbing the walls, and I was terrified. There was no way of knowing how long Peter might be in hospital, whether he might ever be able to work again, so I had no idea how we might survive. As the ambulance took him away to the hospital, I solemnly swore to myself that I would escape that situation of dependency and never let it happen again. For my own security and the sake of my children, I absolutely needed to be certain that I would always be able to support myself and my children alone, should the need arise. I’m not sure that Peter really understood my deep-rooted fear of dependency. I think sometimes he misinterpreted it as a lack of confidence in him and redoubled his efforts to prove that he could provide for his family. Perhaps we were both right in the end.

The Ehrenletzberger House, the 500-year-old building in the main square of Linz, has been part of my life since I first came to Linz in 1985. It was part of Peter’s life from the time he first met me a year later. In that space, we shared dreams and fears, conflicts and excitement, we worked, looked for one another, had long discussions, conversations with friends, found names for our children. Peter’s workshop has become something of a legend throughout the international early music world and locally as well, a subject of beautiful photographs and a place of music and encounters. In the midst of the dust and wood shavings, tiny planes, molds and varnish, beautiful instruments were made that are being played now all over the world.

The music remains, but the workshop has to be dismantled now. This was my life too, and taking it apart to make room for what may happen in this space in the future is so very, very painful. What will be left then for me?

Juggling

So I go on searching through piles of scraps of paper for passwords, trawling computer files for information about configurations and accounts, tripping over memories and distractions along the way, moving things, sorting clues, climbing over sporting equipment, remembering what I was looking for and starting over, forgetting what I was looking for and getting stuck. Between us, Peter and I built up two internationally successful businesses and an important and intense side business. Two of the three businesses have to be closed now, the third – my own work – has to be put on hold until I have taken care of all the business of closing the other two, because that alone would be more than a full time job even without the emotional turmoil it entails. I feel as though I am juggling too many balls at the same time, but I can’t put any of them down yet. And then I remember again why I am juggling, and they all come crashing down at once and I have to start over. And over and over and over …

Peter and I lived together for twenty-five years. At the moment it feels as though it will take that long again to take all the things apart that I cannot continue alone. I can only cling to the conviction that something of the life we shared will still be left for me when it’s done.

Veröffentlicht unter Aileen, Peter, work | Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Saying good-bye to Peter

Publiziert am 2011/11/26 von Aileen

Peter Hütmannsberger 28 March 1962 - 13 November 2011

In the mornings when I open my eyes and see that the other side of the bed is empty, out of habit I check whether he has brought me coffee yet. When there is no coffee, I get up to look for him. Is he there in front of the computer again, engrossed in untangling someone’s problem with their email? Is he running back and forth packing a rucksack with all his climbing gear and enough provisions to feed the whole group for a week? Sorting laundry or hanging up the washing?

No, he’s not there.

In the evenings, just after dark, I start listening for the gate to the garage to open, knowing out of habit exactly how long it will take until I hear his footsteps coming up the stairs. But the gate doesn’t open, and if there are footsteps on the stairs, they are not his. I know the sound of his footsteps.

But he is not coming home.

Tomorrow I will have been a widow for two weeks now. Two weeks? It feels like an eternity. Time stopped that Sunday evening, the whole world came to a sudden halt. “Peter stayed in the mountains,” some people have said. It sounds poetic and gentle, but I am still angry with the mountain that let him fall.

That Saturday evening, while I was enjoying Christopher’s exuberant concert with friends, Peter stepped outside the mountain cabin with a friend to enjoy his one cigarette under a beautiful night sky full of stars. The next day, Christopher and I went to visit Peter’s mother in the hospital. When we came home, while we were waiting for Christopher’s roommate to come and pick him up to drive back to Vienna with a desk from the cellar, Christopher and I went out on the balcony for a cigarette together, and I said to him, “It’s getting dark, your father will be home soon.” When the doorbell rang, we assumed it was Leo coming to pick up Christopher. When I heard unfamiliar voices and then saw a policeman walking up the stairs with two people in bright emergency services jackets behind him, I was certain there was some mistake. I told the policeman he had the wrong door, but he insisted on coming in. It irritated me that he knew my name. That he knew I was married to Peter. When he explained to me that there had been an accident, that the accident was fatal, I tried to convince him that I had had enough of death, it couldn’t still be my turn, but the policeman wouldn’t take back the words, would not accept that he must have made a mistake.

Didn’t you hear me? When you left with your ridiculous rucksack that morning, the last thing I said to you was, “Take care, my love”, and you promised me you would.

What happened then? When, how did the house start filling up with people? How, when did all these kind and caring friends come to hold us, cry with us, take care of us and carry us through?

Christopher fell into a deep, dark well of despair, but somehow Leo was there, the same Leo who had been having so much fun with him on stage the night before, now gently wrapping Christopher in a blanket, holding him, sitting quietly there, just holding him. Somehow Paddy came home from Vienna and started taking responsibility, standing in front of me with his hands on my shoulders, insisting that he could take on such difficult tasks. Looking at his thin, pale, earnest face, I thought I couldn’t bear to see my little guy have to become a responsible adult that quickly, that suddenly. Christopher and Paddy are only twenty-one and nineteen, much too young to lose their father who wasn’t even fifty yet.

Somehow Jörg and Cornelia were there, and the next morning they drove with Paddy and me to Hinterstoder to talk to the police there and collect Peter’s belongings, pick up our car and continue on to the morgue in Windischgarsten. On the way, we stopped and the policeman showed us the mountain where Peter fell. It is such a beautiful, beautiful place, and I still keep reminding myself that Peter was so very happy up to the very last moment of his life. But I am still angry with the mountain for letting him fall.

Driving through the beautiful, beautiful scenery of the Alps, at some point I realized I had a song stuck in my head that I had to get rid of, so I asked Jörg to put on some music. The CD in his car stereo was Christopher’s new album, which I was happy to hear, relieved to hear Christopher’s voice, as he had been unable to speak when we left. Listening to the song “Clutter” was so comforting, so reassuring: “There’s a hopelessness growing, but there’s hope stuck in there too.” As I kept losing my balance, feeling dizzy, disoriented, I played that song in my head over anhd over, and it helped me to get my bearings again.

The mortician was concerned about letting us see Peter: he was an “accident victim”, it might be disturbing, frightening to see how injured he was. Three years ago, my sister took her own life: nothing can be worse than that, and Peter was so wonderfully happy up to the last moment of his life. When I saw him in the morgue, I was only peripherally aware of the injuries, how damaged his poor body was. I only saw that beloved face with the same expression that he always had when he fell asleep on the couch.

Don’t be silly, my love, you can’t sleep there. Wake up now.

Somehow there were more people and more people and more people. Peter and I have always had an open house, and everyone who shared that space returned. There were people shopping, cooking, tidying, doing laundry, holding us, crying with us, carrying us through.

Somehow there were arrangements to be made, decisions to be taken, but there was always someone there, guiding me along, helping me to take one step, then the next, then the next and the next.

Messages, cards, phone calls, prayers in different languages from all religions, warm thoughts, kind words – an outpouring of human kindness flowed over us in an endless stream.

Then somehow it was the next Tuesday, and all the notes and instructions left for me in strategic places guided me to the funeral home for the memorial service. And people came – and more people and more people. Although it is all a blur now, I know that I was so grateful for each and every face that appeared before me. Later it was agreed that there must have been about 350 people at the memorial service, but I only know that it seemed an endless stream of warm hugs and kind words. And Hari was there, bringing me water and handkerchiefs, taking over when I just wanted to stop talking, just sit there looking at the pictures, listening to the kind and generous words about Peter, listening to Dani singing so wonderfully.

But then the large doors started to move, closing in front of the coffin made of the same wood as Peter’s instruments, and there was a sudden moment of panic, when I wanted to stand up and shout, “No! Take it all back, we’re not doing this, we’re not going to say good-bye now!” But the doors still closed and the memorial service was over.

Then somehow Hari wrapped his coat around me and whisked me away to a safe hiding place, where I could just be alone for a few minutes. As I stood there at the edge of the cemetery looking out over a field, a huge flock of birds rose up out of that field and flew noisily away together. In the emptiness that rose up in their wake, I heard my own voice speaking from far away.

Good-bye, my love.

Veröffentlicht unter General | 4 Kommentare

Lilacs out of the Dead Ground

Publiziert am 2011/10/16 von Aileen

In his wonderful book about translation, Quasi dasselbe mit anderen Worten, Umberto Eco discusses the problem of translating allusions with an example from one of his own books, where he quotes “In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo” from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. The quotation is obviously not a problem in the English translation, and Eliot’s work seems to be familiar enough in other languages (presumably at least among Eco’s readers) that the quotation is recognizable. I think it was the Russian translator, however, who was completely mystified by the allusion and could make no sense of it in the context. I have felt reminded of this story (and also of the fact that I can’t remember whom I lent that book to, by the way), every time someone else reacts to the title of Christopher’s new album, “Lilacs out of the Dead Ground”.

Some people immediately recognize it as a quotation from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”, but are clearly not quite sure why Christopher would use it. Other people, who are just happy to hear that Christopher has made a new album, are apparently a bit puzzled by it and ask what it means. Admittedly, it is probably not really a very obvious title for leftist political hip hop music, and I somehow doubt that Mr. Eliot himself would approve, but I think it works. Listening to the words, it seems that Christopher has been paying attention, that he can name situations of injustice and corruption, but also think about what people need in this world. Especially now, with protests spreading all over the world, with more and more people taking a stand for the importance of what people need to be able to live together, against greed and exploitation and corruption, Christopher adds his voice to the many who are speaking up, speaking out, and I find that encouraging. It also matters very much to me that he has been thinking very seriously about the roots of hip hop music in resistance against oppression, recognizing his own very privileged position and that he is not himself oppressed in any way, understanding that he cannot speak for others, but only with those who are oppressed. Sometimes that can mean collaborating with people who have different perspectives, and sometimes it means just shutting up and getting out of the way.

Christopher’s friend, our friend, Leo, made the first cover for the CD, and I still find it so beautiful. I admit that I noticed I couldn’t actually read it, but since I am accustomed to not being able to read graffiti, that didn’t really bother me. I assumed that people who would want to listen to it would be able to read it, but apparently there was considerable controversy about that. In response to this controversy and the crisis it entailed, since it was already so late, Paddy ended up making a new cover within twenty-four hours. As impressed as I was again by Paddy’s abilities, I felt even more reassured to hear that the boys can and do still look after one another. As much as I love Paddy’s cover, though, I hope that Christopher will still find an opportunity to use Leo’s too, because it really is beautiful.

For me, though, the title “Lilacs out of the Dead Ground” has an additional, very personal meaning. During the time when Christopher was so often in and out of the hospital, he had long hair. After each stay in the hospital with a high fever and delirious with pain, his hair was a horribly tangled, matted mess. When the pain began to subside, we would spend whole afternoons in the living room together, and as I tried to gently, carefully untangle and smooth his hair, we listened to hiphop music together and in between, we read poetry. I learned a great deal from Christopher then about hip hop music, learned to appreciate the poetry of the texts and how the music is made and the skill involved in putting the texts and music together, how hard it can be to get it just right, how wonderful it is when it all comes together. And being able to share with him the poetry that has always been so important to me – in both English and German – still feels like a precious gift. Countering pain with poetry – in every sense.

Veröffentlicht unter Christopher, friends | Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Changing Spaces – Reprise

Publiziert am 2011/10/09 von Aileen

By chance, on the day that Paddy was to drive our car to Vienna to move his things into his new flat in Vienna, we were woken very early by the postman, who delivered a very large box addressed to Christopher. The large box turned out to contain several smaller boxes, each surrounded by packing material, at the core of which was a tea pot with matching sugar bowl and milk pitcher that had belonged to Grandma. When Grandma died and we were all asked what we would like to have that had belonged to her, Christopher requested the tea pot that Grandpa had bought for Grandma in Ireland, but we had meanwhile all forgotten about it.

Paddy was happy to claim the boxes for packing, but at that point it also became clear that Paddy, our tea connoisseur, had no tea pot of his own. While Paddy was packing, I went to the office to work, but I was restless and distracted all day, so at some point in the afternoon, I gave up. I went across the street to Paddy’s favorite tea shop in Linz, where the lovely young owner helped me to pick out a tea pot for him, which she packed up together with his favorite tea and her good wishes, and I got home with it just in time to help carry boxes and bags downstairs to be squeezed into the car. In the end, there was no way to get everything into the car, so when Paddy set off for Vienna, Christopher and I carried the remaining boxes and bags upstairs again.

The room that had been the boys’ room for so many years remained in this state of arrested chaos until Peter borrowed a VW bus from a friend the following week, and Paddy was able to move the rest of his belongings to Vienna.

Leaving me with an empty room and a mind full of memories.

Although I was starting to imagine what this room would eventually look like and what I would like to do with it, it was hard to know where to begin. Although Paddy had painted two walls a lovely shade of green after Christopher moved out, after he took his desks, shelves and posters to Vienna, the dire state of the other two walls became glaringly obvious. They really needed painting, but the prospect of undertaking that task by myself did not appeal to me in any way. Then two young friends came to my rescue and happily agreed to paint the wall for me. It seemed a bit absurd to ask two talented graffiti artists to paint a wall white and just leave it, but as artists they know their material and did an excellent job. I enjoyed listening to them imagining what they could do with a white wall, but in the end they helped me assemble book shelves and put them in front of the wall, instead of fantastical painting on it. When Peter came home and found his favorite crime mystery novels neatly arranged together on the new shelves, he was so pleased that, to my surprise, I have not heard a single complaint about things being moved.

Between the paint, the shelves and a few other odds and ends, I quickly ran out of money for any further new furnishings, so the old black couch with a white cover on it will have to do for now, as will Paddy’s old primary school desk that I dragged up from the cellar some time ago. So the room is not exactly as I imagined it, but it is good enough for a start: as a guest room, as a writing room for me.

In a way, it is ironic that the room as returned to me now – or I to the room. When we first moved into this flat, when Christopher was just over a year old, seven months before Paddy was born, this room was designated as my room: for sewing, writing, keeping things safe from small people. Christopher’s – and then also Paddy’s – room was the one in the back with the window to the balcony. After the first winter, however, it became obvious that our building was badly constructed and poorly insulated, as the dampness in the children’s room was so bad that the floor started warping and mold was appearing on the wall. I hadn’t really fully taken possession of my so-called workroom yet, so switching the rooms didn’t seem to matter much. Soon after that, as Peter and I both became more and more interested in the Internet and Linux and trying out running a small network, “my” workroom became the computer room, which it still remains.

Since the computers at our house require an entire room for themselves, Christopher and Paddy always shared this front room, even though it is not even big enough for two beds, which is why they always had bunk beds and everyone spent more time in the large, bright living room. In short, trying to occupy space for myself in this household has been an ongoing challenge for the past twenty years. As Virginia Woolf stated, a woman needs money and room of her own to write. I’m not sure about the money, but now I’ve got a room of my own for writing.

In the meantime, Grandma’s tea pot, a delightfully kitschy set of white china sprinkled with green shamrocks with a gold-painted tiny pagoda-shaped knob on top, which traveled from Ireland to Albuquerque to Texas and back to Albuquerque and from there to Linz, has arrived safely in Vienna, where it now lives happily in the kitchen of Christopher’s shared flat in the sixth district, surrounded by political slogans, coffee cups in need of washing, and overflowing ashtrays. Paddy now lives happily in a large bright room in a newly renovated flat in an old building in a colorful neighborhood, which he shares with a childhood friend, although they are still in search of a third flat-mate. When I went to visit them, I enjoyed having my grown-up sons show me around the city and explain to me how it works. They have both decided to study in Vienna now, so Paddy has registered as a student of musicology and computer science, while Christopher has registered to study English (“British and American Studies”), although they both intend to pursue their other interests in film and music at the same time.

After spending quite a bit of time going through old photos, I finally managed to narrow my selection of favorites down to a number small enough to put into frames and hang on the wall. With my memories of the boys’ childhood and teen years now externalized and fixed on the wall, I have cleared mental space as well as physical space to focus on … what? At this point, I have the feeling I have either forgotten how to write, or else I simply have nothing to say for myself. But at least now I have time and space to figure it out.

Veröffentlicht unter Aileen, Christopher, home, Paddy | Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

To be continued …

Publiziert am 2011/09/04 von Aileen

When I accidentally knocked this blog offline trying to update it and then wasn’t able to fix it for over a month, I was beginning to think it might be a sign that it’s time to give it up. The original purpose, of course, which was to provide updates about Christopher’s illness, has thankfully been obsolete since May 2006. The subsequent transformation into a kind of form of entertainment for me in allowing me an opportunity to simply amuse myself in writing trivial posts about everyday life has worked well for years. But now my everyday life does not really involve my two sons, and if I’m not blogging as Christopher and Patrick’s mother, I’m not sure I have that much to say for myself.

Now that the blog is up and running again, though, I find it looks very inviting. So much so, that I’m sitting here looking at it and thinking about what to write instead of going to the symposium I had planned to attend today.

The Ars Electronica Festival is on again in Linz now. For so many years, it was such a vitally important part of my life. During the years when I worked on the book for the competition Prix Ars Electronica, I enjoyed sitting in on the jury meetings, listening to experts – many of them interesting and friendly people that I felt privileged to become acquainted with – as they discussed what they felt was important, a kind of overall view of digital and media art. Translating and editing the artists’ statements about their work was a different view then, often very personal and passionate. When work on the book was finished and it was time to start setting up the exhibition, it was fascinating to hear from the technical set-up team (including Peter) about their understanding of the works, how they were made, how convincing or obscure they seemed just by themselves. Moving right along from there, I worked with the gallery education staff on their texts in English, what they wanted to say about each of the works, which ones meant the most to them, which artists they found most interesting to work with. Then, when everything was set up and the festival started, I enjoyed going through the exhibition with festival guests, hearing their impressions and their informed views on the individual works, the overall exhibition and digital and media art in general.

Going through this same process year after year was a brilliant education in art, something that I am still grateful for. After I stopped working on the Prix book, the festival was still important to me, because I still felt – in some small way – a part of that “scene”. And of course the festival still brings interesting people to Linz.

But I wasn’t here for the festival the past three years. It was not a part of my life, it simply didn’t exist for me. In September 2008, I was supposed to fly to London for a presentation and return to Linz with other people from London for the festival. When I had to suddenly change my plans and fly to Michigan instead, nothing else mattered. London, Linz, Ars Electronica – everything else simply ceased to exist. In September 2009 my friend Ruth came to Linz by train from London, and we planned to spend a few days at the festival together and continue on by train to Istanbul for the Eclectic Tech Carnival there. When plans for a memorial for Amy had to be canceled because Mother’s health took a turn for the worse, and she was not expected to live more than a few hours, a few days at the most, the Ars Electronica Festival dropped off the bottom of my list of priorities. It felt strange to get on that train to Istanbul with no way of knowing whether my mother would still be alive or not by the next time I would be reachable again. Then last year, the Ars Electronica Festival never even made it onto my list of priorities at all, because I went to Michigan again to help scatter Amy’s ashes at last on the second anniversary of her death. That was important, calming and healing – nothing else mattered.

Now it is 2011, Ars Electronica is on again in Linz, and I am here with not a family emergency in sight (knock on wood). It’s here, yet it still feels so far away, disconnected. When I opened my work calendar last Monday and saw that the week would end on 2 September, I felt disheartened, blocked. All week that date just seemed to be waiting to pounce on me, and I could see no escape. When Friday finally came, I gave up fighting the memories and just let them play like a film in my mind over and over and over again. I consoled myself with the thought that although the dates 7 January and 11 May are still – and will always be – significant, I no longer feel blocked or needing to cry every year on those dates. I also remember feeling confused earlier this year, when people started posting tributes to Douglas Adams on the tenth anniversary of his death. I remembered that Douglas Adams died on the same date as my father, but I would have sworn it was only one year later, not three. Maybe a period of three years also has some significance in the process of mourning. Somehow I found that an encouraging thought, even as I put on the same clothes I wore for Amy’s memorial in Michigan, along with the shoes I had to buy there because I couldn’t find mine in the hectic of packing, with the addition of a necklace and earrings that had belonged to her.

Although I wasn’t feeling very motivated to go to Ars Electronica, I managed to make an effort and found it was worth the effort. It felt comfortable, familiar, a place where I belong. All the knowledge and experiences I have gained over the years are still there, and I’m sure I will find a way to make use of them. Having relived the nightmares of my childhood in the course of my mother dying, it felt like a welcome confirmation that that childhood is long gone now, because I can walk into a room at an international conference, recognize people, be recognized, simply walk over and join a conversation, or just stand on the side and watch for a bit. This is me now, this is my life, and it is good.

So although I haven’t seen much of Ars Electronica this year, I’m back now, and I’m ready to go on from here.

One next step is that Paddy has announced he is moving entirely to Vienna on Wednesday, day after tomorrow. I don’t think I’m going to think about that until I actually find myself confronted with an empty room, however. One step at a time.

Veröffentlicht unter Aileen, General, home, work | Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Family Crossing Europe

Publiziert am 2011/04/19 von Aileen

The Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz ended yesterday, and looking at my work calendar (and my bank account), there are other things I should be doing right now, but somehow I don’t feel quite ready to rejoin the rest of the world yet.

Since the first festival was held in 2004, I have worked on the catalogue and translated newsletters and press releases, and Peter has done the network administration to make sure all the computers keep working together, even under the pressure of massive access when the festival starts. This year we further expanded family participation, as Christopher was invited to act as MC for the Awards Presentation again, and Paddy’s film was selected to be shown in the Local Artists section. Not to leave anyone out, Seth then stepped in to operate a subtitle projection machine for two screenings of a film in German. All present and accounted for.

Five people trying to do very different jobs all in the same – exhilarating, overwhelming – context is not a simple matter. Trying to find the right balance between taking my sons seriously, appreciating what they do and do well, and going into embarrassing mother mode is not a simple matter either. Let’s all take a wild ride on an emotional roller coaster together.

Peter and I share a long, long history with this festival. When we first got married and bought a car (our old “yellow shoebox”), we were happily able to escape the dismal cinema program in Linz and drive to Freistadt, a town closer to the Czech border, where more interesting films were shown in the original language (including English) with subtitles. Given the state of the roads then in the direction of the Czech border, which was still closed at that time, along with my need to be sitting comfortably in my seat before the lights go out in the cinema and the mutually incompatible and conflictingly different understandings of time that Peter and I have always had, it was very fortunate for our relationship that Wolfgang Steininger, who was responsible for the films in Freistadt, started bringing alternative cinema to Linz. This alleviated the necessity of tense, mad dashes to Freistadt. When Wolfgang first told me about the idea of starting a film festival in Linz, I wasn’t entirely convinced that it sounded like a good idea. Most of all, it sounded like a lot of extra work for me, which I wasn’t sure I wanted to do, but which I obviously would do, if Wolfgang asked me to.

As it turned out, the festival was indeed a good idea, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the translation work involved in it for me ever since, even though I still have the feeling I don’t really understand enough about film, and translating simple, but vital practical information for international visitors still poses a huge challenge. Nevertheless, the festival director Christine Dollhofer is high on my personal list of most admired women, and working with the wonderful team she has gathered to run this festival is a privilege that I enjoy every year. I think Peter feels much the same way about the people we work with, although he has a different perspective, of course, since he is looking more at the technical infrastructure side of it than the content. And since this is a festival where even such marginal figures as ourselves enjoy appreciation and recognition, we have always had the pleasure of being provided with festival passes, even if we don’t always get to make much use of them.

When the first festival took place in 2004, Paddy was twelve years old and Christopher thirteen, not quite fourteen. This is generally not an age, when children are inclined to be interested in what their parents are doing, but it means that the boys have largely grown up with and now into the festival. That too is a great privilege. However, it is one thing to be able to offer one’s children access to interesting people and very different ideas. It is something else entirely to deal with them becoming involved themselves – as themselves, not as their parents’ children.

This first came up several years ago, when a film by a young (very young) director from the UK was shown at Kapu, and Peter, Christopher and I went there together to see it. I think that may have been the year that Christopher helped with subtitles for a special series of hip hop videos shown in the festival, but in any case he had ended up in conversation with the young director, and the two of them got along quite well. At Kapu the director introduced me to his parents, explaining that they had also come along to see his film there. Suddenly I found myself in the uncomfortable situation of not knowing how to explain that I was not there at Kapu as Christopher’s mother, it was one of the places I preferred to go without him – one of the places where I could just be Aileen and not “somebody’s mother”. When Christopher first started going out, it took some time to adjust, to renegotiate spaces, figure out which spaces we could share or not. That night at Kapu was one of those moments of renegotiation, although at that point we were still “me and my son”, rather than “Christopher and his mother”, but it was a position I felt I needed to defend against misunderstandings.

Last year, when Christopher was invited to act as MC for the Awards Presentation as a young “Local Artist” just beginning to make a name for himself with his first CD as a hip hop musician and as a spoken word performer, the balance shifted a bit again, but it was still manageable. Just. This year we reached a new level, because not only was Christopher acting as MC again for the Awards Presentation, but with a film in the program Paddy was also competing for one of those awards.

It was an odd feeling to translate the press release for the program press conference this year and find Paddy’s name mentioned in it. It was strange to encounter Patrick Derieg not as Peter and Aileen’s son, but as a young filmmaker from Linz, a Local Artist, the director of a zombie film that has been surprisingly well received. Or maybe it is not that surprising, but since there is no way I can look objectively at what Paddy does, I have the feeling I usually end up oscillating between almost deprecatory reticence and embarrassing enthusiasm.

Following Paddy’s experience at the Youki festival last November, where he received the “Innovative Film Award” for his zombie film (innovative zombies?), but felt more than a little overwhelmed by the attention and the difficulty of speaking in public, he was nervous about Crossing Europe. He was thrilled that his film was selected for screening, but he was nervous about having to talk about it. Very nervous. When Paddy gets nervous, it tends to be contagious. Having worked on the catalogue and translated newsletters and press releases, I assured him that he was unlikely to have to do much talking. The Local Artists section includes an impressive number of highly talented people with considerably more experience than Paddy has yet, many of whom have already been nationally and internationally widely recognized for their work. I didn’t really believe that an eight-minute zombie film by a 19-year-old director would attract all that much attention at an international festival showing 159 other films as well. At some point, however, I started realizing, rather uncomfortably, that just because Paddy is still “my little guy”, that doesn’t mean his film is not to be taken seriously – and it was, in fact, actually in competition with the other Local Artists films. Then I started getting nervous.

Then Christopher arrived, flying in from London, where he has been auditioning at acting schools again. In some ways, perhaps that sounds impressive, but I didn’t have the feeling that his self-confidence was particularly high. But whenever Christopher comes back to Linz now, everyone is happy to see him, and of course that makes Christopher happy too. So my butterfly-brained child returned and started worrying me again, as he has done all his life, flitting cheerfully from one colorful idea to the next without any sign of actually having a plan, but generally having a great time at life’s great party.

At some point, Christopher also realized that Paddy’s film was, in fact, in competition for one of the awards that were to be presented Saturday evening with Christopher as MC. He also realized that he had a last line for the text he was to perform, but not a first line, and the middle was still a bit wobbly. So he started getting nervous too. However, we agreed (or at least Christopher and I agree that we agreed) not to supply any “insider information” at all about the awards in advance. None. I’m still not sure that was the right decision, but it seemed to make the most sense at the time. I think. We each had advance information about the winners because of our respective jobs in the festival, but keeping jobs and family separate seemed to be the right thing to do. Let’s be professional about this. In any case, by the time I got the jury statements to translate on Saturday afternoon and realized that I could stop being nervous on Paddy’s behalf, I had also heard from Christopher that the rehearsal went badly, so I went straight into maternal panic mode that Christopher was going to crash and burn and embarrass himself and everyone else and end up devastated by his failure.

Last weekend I made a new shirt for Christopher to wear for the Awards Presentation. I found a beautiful black fabric that I loved working with, found myself recalling so many sewing tricks that I learned from Bean, and felt quite pleased with myself – until I ran out of black thread Sunday afternoon. Sophie kindly brought me some black thread that evening so I could finish everything else, but I was afraid it wouldn’t be enough for the button holes, so the button holes had to be finished later. That worked fairly well this time, except that I realized too late that the button holes are not exactly in a straight line down the front of the shirt. So there was Christopher on stage with slightly crooked buttons, his mother watching in annoyance about the crooked buttons, but otherwise frozen with a fear of looming disaster (briefly distracted by hearing the jury statements read aloud and wanting to rearrange that sentence again), Paddy wound up close to the point of exploding, and Peter cheerfully, albeit erroneously, convinced that Christopher and I would have told Paddy if he hadn’t won, we hadn’t said anything, ergo Paddy must be about to win an award.

Crash, bang, boom: emotions flying every which way, colliding with disparate roles and responsibilities, bouncing off different expectations and intentions, becoming entangled in miscommunications and misunderstandings. Basically a montage of eight years of European filmmaking exploring manifold facets of familial interrelationships and functions. Pick your favorite film scene – comedy, tragedy, documentary, experimental – I’m sure we covered it at some point during the weekend.

In summary: Paddy did not win an award and Christopher did not make a complete mess of the Awards Presentation (despite his crooked buttons). Once the dust settled, of course it was clear what was really important. When Paddy spoke at the Q&A following the second screeing of the program with his film on Sunday evening, I was impressed by how well he presented himself. He learns fast. Sitting with Paddy and Susi in Solaris afterward, I enjoyed seeing a stranger at another table lean over to get Paddy’s attention and say, “Aren’t you the director of that zombie film? I really liked that one!” On the whole, I think there was just too much tension that had built up over the months, weeks, days, hours before Saturday evening, and it was released too quickly. In the meantime, we have all calmed down. Christopher has gone back to Vienna with clean clothes and cheddar cheese, although he has probably forgotten something else, Peter has gone ski mountaineering with a group of enthusiastic ski mountaineering people, Paddy has gone back to work serving society by looking after residents in an old folks’ home, and I am back in my office, almost ready to focus again on other translating work. My work.

I love working with the Crossing Europe team, but I don’t think I particularly love working with my family. I love being with them, listening to them, sharing in a bit of their lives, but a “family business” is not likely to be an option for anyone. The festival has become very important to me, and one of my favorite parts is that it includes Local Artists, many of whom I know and have worked with, some of whom are friends – and two of which this year were my sons.

Veröffentlicht unter Aileen, Christopher, Paddy, Peter, work | Hinterlasse einen Kommentar

Not quite that quiet

Publiziert am 2011/02/21 von Aileen

Since the last entry in this blog is from October and I haven’t been doing a very good job of keeping up with email correspondence, it probably looks as though I haven’t been doing anything at all. That is not quite true, however.

Apart from still trying to sort out my life and what I want to do with it, apart from still trying to keep up with work, I have at least been doing a little blogging elsewhere.
There is the Furtherfield blog, for example, an amazing platform and network growing out of the inspiring efforts of my friends Ruth Catlow and Marc Garret, where I contribute occasional blog posts (although I would still like to contribute more):
http://www.furtherfield.org/blog/aileen

I also try to keep blogging at least occasionally in German for the Cultural Platform of Upper Austria (KUPF):
http://kupf.at/blogs/term/aderieg

And although I clearly need to make lists to keep better track of other people’s posts, I have developed a very keen appreciation of Twitter:
http://twitter.com/aderieg

So in case anyone has been wondering what’s going on, those are some of the other places where I may be found. As far as my sons are concerned, I’m still working on figuring out what I can post about them, and when I should just leave them to speak up for themselves. In other words, I haven’t quite figured out yet, where this blog is going to go from here, but I am working on it. In the meantime, I have just changed the appearance a bit, but that is also likely to keep changing.

Veröffentlicht unter Aileen, General | Hinterlasse einen Kommentar