2024, july 8, berlin

when i was a kid i’d sometimes stub my toe on a threshold and some grown-up would say: ‘you’re tired. time for bed.’ that was the terror of adults—being told what i feel. and even if it was true, even if i really was tired, why did it have to mean bed?

sometimes staying awake, especially when you’re tired, is the most delicious thing.

the other day i asked mama when in her life she felt the greatest freedom. ‘right now,’ she said. i asked why. ‘because i can stay up as long as i want, i can go to bed when i want, and i can get up when i want.’

the freedom of becoming a grown-up is breaking loose from grown-up doctrines.

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2024, july 5, berlin

stepping out of the grindset means spending the whole day polishing something. it’s gently caressing a single monstera leaf with a damp cloth until it gleams. it’s going out to buff a few inches of canal railing, a stranger’s bicycle handle, a found coin, a beer coaster tucked between cobblestones. it’s polishing one’s own fingernail and pressing it against the philtrum to feel its smoothness. by polishing anything that comes your way, you can pause time and stretch out the summer.

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2024, june 30, berlin

stepping out of the grindset means finding life in the unfinished. it’s settling into an armchair amidst unpacked boxes and overturned furniture. it’s soaking up a sunbeam like a cat sprawled on this island called an armchair. stepping out means declaring “time for ice cream!” with a sense of ending the workday before it even starts. it’s lying down with a capri-sun in the hammock, ringing in the after-work hours, tasks still half-done.

stepping out is trusting that your own drive will carve its path, and all you need to do is follow, like forrest gump. it’s letting your drive take over, allowing productivity to break through when it wants to.

stepping out feels like seizing a weekend in the middle of the week, sneaking into a dark cinema at ten on a sunny tuesday morning to munch on popcorn. it’s taking a vacation in the middle of work and progress. it’s interruptive pleasure instead of well-achieved leisure. it’s the liveliness of the incomplete.

stepping out means letting your shoulders drop, raising a toast to the present, humming pippi longstocking tunes as the unfinished is allowed to bubble within you.

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2024, june 25, kreuzberg

a snow-white slipper sits on the gravel path, with light and shadows from the summer trees playing on its soft white surface. a rubber dinghy floats in the middle of the canal, anchored to a buoy, with a couple of girls seated inside. they wear sun hats and their feet dangle lazily over the edge. one of them opens a pale red sunshade, its color so faded it seems bleached by many summers. on the kottbusser brücke, amidst a lot of trash, a white butterfly flits back and forth, treating the trash as a legitimate landscape. water reflections flicker on the dark green body of the van loon boat.

a few juvenile swans, not yet fully white, stand on the dry summer grass, grooming themselves, pecking at their feathers. a gray tracksuit hangs on the canal’s fence, fluttering slightly in the wind, looking as if it’s been laid out to dry.

two women in gray robes and black headscarves are hanging out on a picnic rug in the shade, with them a laptop, chocolate müllermilch, and strawberries. one of them holds a strawberry and gestures animatedly, as if discussing something emotionally charged like love or other disasters, occasionally taking a bite of the strawberry.

someone sits by the canal in a dazzlingly silver coat that glitters intensely under the sunlight. as i walk past, the blazing sunlight strikes different parts of the coat at each step, causing it to sparkle in varying directions.

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2024, may 18, cammeraygal

i'm confused. i keep hearing the suggestion to simply let go of shame. to drop the shame when performing, promoting, or sharing emotional turmoil. this advice comes from people who usually advocate for embracing all feelings. so why are they against shame in particular? they probably mean well, suggesting you shouldn't let shame hold you back from showing up where it matters to you. and i agree, it would be nice to simply switch the shame off, but sometimes the shame keeps firing up no matter what. instead of trying to eliminate it, i find it easier to say yes to the bothness of it: i let the shame do its thing while i’m showing myself. in german: ich zeige mich und schäme mich dabei.

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2024, may 2, cammeraygal

reading feels like i'm nibbling on a cloud made of macarons, snacking without ever feeling full, without any snack-sickness, just the gentle pastel turquoise in my mind. my kindle background is pastel turquoise, my eyes settle right into the lines and find their rest. words wash through my mind, softening life, making sorrow poetic. sometimes i don’t even listen to what i’m reading; it's as if just letting words flow through my head unfolds my spirit, opens up my forehead, and i'm pleasantly flushed through. sometimes i taste only the sound of the words without grasping their meaning, sometimes i absorb just the vibe of reading, without noticing the content. i truly feel like each line holds me, as if the lines of words are levels and i can rest on each level. and sometimes a phrase just kicks in, thrilling me with inspiration, awakening every cell in my body, making my fingertips tingle with excitement. then i mark that line and share it with my beautiful minds friends, hardly believing how lucky i am to have found this thought here in my book.

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2024, april 24, cammeraygal

i find the personal growth metaphor a bit outrageous, tbh, especially as a tiny-sized human in a world full of height privilege and an obsession with upscaling in general. we always talk about wanting to grow, which suggests that bigger and more is the desirable thing. it’s about time we celebrate some smallness. who says we shouldn’t want to be smaller? let’s flip the script. instead of saying i want to grow, let’s say i want to shrink, or instead of saying, i’m here for personal growth, say i’m here for personal shrinking. haha maybe that’s why therapists are called shrinks.

ps: my friends and i now find ourselves in the habit of neither saying growing nor shrinking, but densifying. as in, i’ve learned so much from my deep shit point last year. i’ve densified big time. i like densifying because it makes me picture cotton candy and the moment when i take it into my palm to squeeze it into my fist and make it small like a snowball.

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2024, february 29, cammeraygal

the letter ‘L’ is my favorite, giving me a cozy corner and a solid backing, a sense of being held while also letting me breathe wide and open, like letting go into the world. it’s bright and airy, and pale yellow, like the color of the yellow fruchtzwerg yogurt. i love every word that starts with ‘L’ and enjoy the sound of ‘L’, how the tongue gets to play a good part in it and ‚L‘ is life-affirming.

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2023, december 22, kreuzberg

sparkles and flashes everywhere when the sky is blue, as the water reflects light so loudly and the brightness of the white swans is dazzling, and the trees’ nakedness feels resolved and radical. there is no hesitation in their bareness.

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2023, december 5, cammeraygal

i walk through the morning heat, heading to the doctor‘s. later, I sprawl in my ocean-hued bed, slipping on a sleeping mask, a touch of wellness. in the afternoon, i stroll among towering palms at the petite harbor. among them, there is this short palm, not slim and elegant like the others, but wrapped in a leafy fur, like it’s wearing a winter coat. compact and squat it stands, clumsy but confident. the sun lotions my skin. come evening, i drop into my chair in the coaching atelier, my tunis towel blazing pink beside me. as after-work hour strikes at midnight, i tiptoe to the stairwell, leaving german nikolaus candy at neighbor‘s thresholds. then, i read in the dark, thrillingly spooked, munching on pasta, sipping red wine, the day’s coaching marathon satisfyingly resonating in my bones.

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2023, november 30, cammeraygal

a shadow from a coconut tree flickers on the door, surrounded by gentle white-yellow light, then quickly disappears. i wonder why these subtly spectacular light shows are so fleeting. then i realize it’s the cars outside casting these flashingly bright reflections. my place, surrounded by palms, jacarandas, and paperbarks, captures these moments for a micro-second.

the fleetingness reminds me of the little bright red flame angelfish in hawaii. our divemaster mentioned, the moment our eye catches this fish, it will disappear again. he suggested that we simply enjoy the rare sight for a second, rather than pointing it out to our co-divers because we might miss the moment ourselves.

the extreme fleetingness of the flame angelfish and the flickering palm tree shadow force me into soaking in the micro-second instead of trying to capture, share, or prolong it.

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2023, november 19, honolulu

hawaiian sounds so delicious because it tastes like bubbles. as a kid, i wanted to eat only the holes in the cheese or only the holes in the air chocolate. that's what the sound of ōlelo hawaiʻi tastes like. airy, bubbly, like i'm finally eating only the delicious bubbles.

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2023, october 18

talking with t. and k., we often get into how society usually doesn’t see children as beings, but rather as becomings. when something awful happens to a child, the concern leans less towards their current being and more towards the grown-up they will become. will they be permanently damaged? or will this experience forge them into a stronger, more resilient person? these are the kinds of questions that frame children as becomings, not beings. this was a major mindblow for me a few years back in our discussions about concepts of childhood and such. there is this incredible shift that happens when we start seeing children as beings from the very start. or as both beings and becomings, just like we can view ourselves as both. more on this some other time.

right now, i want to capture another thought. i’ve just finished liane moriarty’s ‘nine perfect strangers’ and something struck me about the middle-aged characters. they’re so wrapped up in what they used to be. this past self is a constant theme, both in their minds and in how others see them. after becoming and being, they’ve now entered the stage of what I’d call once-been. (actually, i would like to call it has-been, but that is already a standing term for people who were once successful and glamorous and are now dusty and bloated) anyway, it seems to me that upper-middle-aged people both in moriarty’s novel and in real life are depicted as if their original persona is obscured by age. as if their core appearance is buried under layers of age-chubbiness and sagging skin. they define themselves by what they once used to be, not by their current being. when they assess each other’s attractiveness, they’re not looking at the present face, but trying to see behind it: was this an attractive person back in the day?

in societies that value age, it seems different. at mamas birthday party, her seventieth year was celebrated in a big way. her korean friends hung up banners: ‘life begins at seventy!’ from this perspective, it appears that older people are seen as embodying the richness of their lived life. it’s the abundant life that’s living inside the seventy-year-old and not a buried statue from their heyday.

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2023, september 23, cammeraygal

chinese place in chatswood. we're sitting in semi-private dining booths. the tables have these built-in hot pot baisins, ours is bubling with extra spicy broth. i'm dipping in beef, tofu and massive glass noodles. the server hands us hair ties and red aprons – a shield against splatters. every corner has someone celebrating their birthday – with birthday banners and sparkling balloons decorating the table. a robot glides around serving dishes to tables, dropping off dumplings and enoki mushrooms for us. another robot parades around with a shockingly pink birthday cake. two servers carry a massive blinking sign, going from one birthday group to another. the sign is flashing with birthday wishes, hearts, what have you. they swing it around, performing songs for every birthday table. they are wearing these headbands with tiny ears — maybe mouse ears or rabbit ears. makes sense, it's the year of the rabbit after all.

it strikes me that asian spots here, unlike berlin or new york, don‘t seem to be part of a hipster foodie culture but instead inhabit their own self-immersive parallel universe. a world seemingly hidden from many white sydneysiders. for moments, i forget i'm in sydney. and the sichuan pepper leaves a numbing tingle on my tongue and a delightful dizziness in my head.

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2023, september 17, gadigal

the day is a scorcher. though it’s supposed to be only spring, the air is burning. we‘re marching from redfern park to victoria park, the blacktop beneath us radiates an unforgiving heat. the streets are buzzing with banners and ‚yes‘ signs. i spot a woman with a white sun umbrella; she has pinned handwritten signs on the brolly, announcing: ‚i‘ve got sunscreen. i‘ve got masks.‘, an oasis of care. we keep marching, and every few meters, neon-vested volunteers appear, holding up water spray bottles to sprinkle your face if you like. marchers willingly pause, present their heat glowing faces to the volunteers, to be cooled by the gentle drizzle. a momentary relief in the blazing sun. as we enter victoria park, guides direct us to a water bar, a place where water is handed out like tequila shots at a party, providing quick hydration. collective heat management at its best. every gear is in sync. 

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2023, september 11, gadigal

shanty bar night in redfern. props scattering the ceiling, a pink phone, a tiny table football, some kind of retro toy car, an aboriginal flag. the air red with dimmed bar light, the crowd a deep, deep a cappella choir, singing and humming. it smells pre-pandemic, of gleefully innocent aerosols. fresh, cool beer in my mouth, the heat of wild abandon in my shoulders. later, m. sends me a text: you looked happy like a kid.

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2023, august 28, cammeraygal

german day-to-day communication often seems so trapped in a never ending spiral of blame and premature defence. i‘m so used to this guilt-soaked language that it always catches me off guard when i‘m out and about in kinder corners of the world. here in oz, it never ceases to surprise me when the house manager, bus driver or doctor’s receptionist doesn’t bite my head off. what are they waiting for?! i’m standing here, ready to be snapped at, but it‘s just not happening. it‘s like when you have the hiccups and they suddenly stop, but you‘re still bracing for the next one.

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2023, august 7, cammeraygal

sydney: the sky is so dazzlingly blue it seems endless, sea-turquoise and harbour-turquoise mingling, a thousand shades of green in wendy whiteley‘s secret garden, gigantic fairy-tale trees at every street corner, and birds displaying a palette of candyland colours. the soundscape melds ocean murmurs, the hum of the highway, korean chatter, birds sounding like laughing monkeys, shrieking cockatoos, and the constant backdrop of waves splashing and pools splattering. and in summer, purple trees and a whiff of lemon tree scent everywhere. it smells of clean streets and tamed people and asian grocery stores. sea-salty pool water on my lips. and spicy korean chicken. the sun wakes me up every morning, immersing the entire bedroom in an incredible orange light.

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2023, july 27, saigon

still in transit. here at the airport, i‘ve spotted signs saying “well-wishers gallery”. i guess, they mark the spots where people say their heartfelt goodbyes before boarding their flights. in the u.s., i‘ve come across similar signs, mostly in parking areas, dubbed “kiss and ride”. spots designated for quick stops to pick up or wish farewell. i wish we had signs like that in germany. signs that spread more wonderland vibes.

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2023, july, 27, saigon

as soon as i've landed, the air coats me like lotion. at the market, everyone thinks i'm vietnamese. they say i look like one of them. they even talk to me in vietnamese and react surprised when i don't understand. at a market stall brimming with buddha statues and mobiles, the market lady tells me the only german phrase she knows is “langsam, langsam!” it’s funny because u. told me just yesterday that “langsam, langsam” were her first words she learned in indonesian when she lived in bali, so she could tell the moped taxi driver to slow down. from the market, i head to another part of the city, a neighborhood i heard was very palm-green and vacationy with “bali vibes”. i’m peering out of the cab window. by the road, a man is selling goldfish. his motorbike is loaded with transparent bags filled with water, where the goldfish are swimming. i’m not really sure if they are goldfish, but from a distance, they look like the typical fish you would see in a goldfish bowl. under a bridge, someone has set up a space with a mattress and colorful blankets. above their sleeping space they had pinned a yellow poster on a pillar, saying “you can’t copyright vibe”.

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