After 31 straight days of intense activity, I’ve ground to a halt today and need to do nothing. Obviously, writing is not nothing, but doing the minimum is de rigueur. Mentally, this is harder than it sounds because here I am in Germany; I could have gone to Mainz today to gaze through the church windows created by Marc Chagall and visit the Gutenberg Museum in the same city. Instead, I sit here in the living room of a house in Heddernheim while the sun is shining outside. I feel guilty for this laziness as there’s an implication that I’m bored or simply not motivated enough to take advantage of the geographical location I find myself in. Writing this pains me as I’m afraid that the truth is that I’m wasting a valuable day.

On the other hand, I could say that I carved space out of the clutter of activity to allow other things to fill the gap. In that now vacant area, I can allow a different seed of inspiration to blow in. Whatever lands might one day sprout to become a mighty apple tree or merely a weed. The point is that I need these moments to be nowhere and be no one wanting anything so I can find the surprise of what is being cultivated in the place where something else might have otherwise been. This one day where I shut down everything except the essentials for sustaining life is not a lost day; it is a gift I’m giving to saturated senses.

I do not want to (Ich will nicht) see what I’ve not seen today; I will leave that for another day that will or will not arrive.

Stephanie and Klaus Engelhardt are my inlaws who had asked back in May if I could come over to Germany. After Jutta’s apartment was turned over to the owner, I took up residence at their place, as Caroline and I have done on other visits. Breakfast, lunch, and finally dinner were all had with these two today.

After tonight, things get busy again.