Yesterday it snowed, which is not unheard of here in central Wisconsin in October, but it is certainly not usual. Today the snow is gone and the sun is glowing through the colored leaves as they fall from the maple trees standing next to the house where I grew up. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? We can say with some certainty that temperatures will slowly drop and the lakes will freeze over, but no one knows when. We know that spring will return and the new yellow green leaves will appear, but we can’t write that date in our calendars. Change is predictable, but only to a degree. We can rely on large patterns, but the details remain a surprise. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to wear shorts.

I’m learning a lot from my nephew these days. Together with my husband, we all built a spider ladder, which provides some natural materials for spiders to hang out and build webs. My nephew wondered how the spiders would know it was okay to move in and we decided to make a sign for them. Since they don’t recognize our letters, he decided that picture language would be best – a picture of a web and a spider (later he added a crossed out bird to let birds know they aren’t welcome here).

We decided to paint this welcome message on one of our decorative pumpkins. And here’s where I learned that I’m not as process oriented as I thought. My nephew painted a web, a spider, several plants and the bird, then decided it wasn’t right, wiped it all off the pumpkin and started over. Then he tried a blotting techinique, which didn’t work too well and he started over. He sang “let the bird come out” and “here comes the spider” as he painted them again, later forgetting that he was painting a spider and bird, so of course he had to wipe it off and start over. As much as I loved to watch him work, I heard myself saying, “but if you do that, you won’t be able to tell it’s a web” or “why don’t you leave it like that – then we’ll be finished”. What about the process, I thought. Why am I so worried about my nephew’s art work? It’s his! He’s enjoying making it and remaking it – he’s singing about it! And all I can think about is the finished web on the finished pumpkin sitting in the yard, finished. What’s more fun?

I want to stop thinking and start singing.

My nephew came with my sister to pick us up at the Appleton airport. He is five. Two other younger boys had just gotten off a plane as well and were running around the foyer where we were all waiting to be picked up. The boys ran outside and their father asked them several times, with increasing volume, to come back inside. They ignored him at first, but then eventually relented. Within earshot of the boys’ father, my nephew observed that they were “not good listeners”. Unsure of how to respond responsibly, given that the father was standing right there, I thought a minute. As I was thinking, my nephew said, “but you know, they are good runners”. So I didn’t have to respond. Sometimes it’s just nice to suspend judgment and see things from all sides.

I once lived with a woman who belonged to Toastmasters, she said, to make it easier for her to speak to strangers. I never attended a Toastmasters gathering, but since I have lived in Germany, I have learned to make small moments meaningful by saying a few appropriate words before I take the first sip of a drink with friends. You never take a drink immediately when you are handed or poured a drink in Germany. You wait until everybody has a drink (this applies at social gatherings and not just for alcoholic beverages) and until the host raises his or her glass and says something appropriate to the situation. I compare these words to haiku sometimes, because of their immediacy. The words call attention to this moment, to these people, to this event, even if it’s something as simple as a celebration of a nice salad and a loaf of bread. On the plane, my husband and I toasted our good fortune to be on a plane, on the way to our dreams.

Day 1 of finding my/our passions: my husband and I boarded a train in our small village in northern Germany and after two relatively easy changes, we disembarked at the airport in Hamburg in just over an hour. The trip would have taken at least two hours by car and even longer, if there had been heavy traffic, and there’s always heavy traffic. That’s one thing I’ll miss in Wisconsin – there’s not even a Greyhound stop in my hometown (where we’ll be staying with my Mom for most of our 87 days).

Es geht los! On 6 Oct. my husband and I are flying to the States for 87 days of trying out our new life. We’ve talked about it a long time and now the opportunity has presented itself. In addition, we’ve been trying to visualize how our new life would look if we based it on what we love, who we love, what we love to do and what we want to learn.  While searching for advice from other seekers, wanderers and dreamers I found Dyana Valentine’s blog, where she, among other cool endeavors, is making public her 40 day quest to work on her body ( http://dyanavalentine.com/2009/40-days-of-my-body-day-13-risk/ ). In responding to her posts, I discovered that I’ll be working on a quest too: 87 days of finding my passion - what can I do, what do I want to do, how can I do it in the context of my relationships with others, what do I love.

87 days of passion, starting on 6 Oct. Whoopee!

Hallo Leut! Das Thema Auswandern ist momentan in Deutschland in aller Munde. Es kommt im Fernsehen, im Radio, es ist auf der Straße zu hören. Es gibt sogar eine GreenCard-Lotterie für die, die in die USA möchten.

Und wenn man diesen Traum hat, sollte man doch ihn verfolgen. Habe ich auch gemacht, allerdings bin ich US Amerikanerin, und habe das alles umgekehrt gemacht. (Auch deswegen wird es manchmal ein komisches Deutsch auf dieser Seite geben.)

Vor fast vier Jahren bin ich nach Deutschland gekommen, um ein Praktikum als technische Redakteurin und Übersetzerin zu absolvieren. Der Liebe wegen bin ich dann geblieben (die übliche Geschichte? Ich möchte auch von anderen hören – ist diese Geschichte wirklich üblich?)

Jedenfalls möchten mein Mann und ich von Deutschland auswandern, und kaum ein Tag vergeht, an dem wir keine Pläne machen. Deswegen habe ich diesen Blog gestartet. Wir werden unsere Pläne, Ideen, Fragen, usw. hier diskutieren. Ich wünsche Euch viel Spaß und hoffe auf einen guten Austausch!

 Bis bald,

Eure Paula