STOCKING UP..

My farewell eve in Germany, the slick-en, the cool-en und da hip-en.
 Much like home with too many syllables.
Maybe because I have been with English speakers I did not feel the foreignness of this place.
Instead, rest, fellowship, work, ease.

Full day workshop today at the European Space Agency.
They actually have their own theatre group when they're not redirecting sattellites.
Now wait, maybe that is a real difference between us,
don't think JPL has such an organization

The work went well
gauging response, offering help, coalescing the many into one
doing enough and too much
going deep and not deep enough
giving information and not enough to satisfy
but coming full circle.

And needing a respite before the real adventure begins
I hit Priceline to find a 5 Star hotel  and here I am
Kempinski Hotel Gravenbruch. Chocolates on the pillow,
slippers, robes, eine newspaper, madam. Is zer anysing I can get you, Madam?
Cheese plate and mint tea, bitte,
on the darkening winter porch.
Triple cream, brie, feta, red grapes, green
Tea hot and sweet..
and I know a red cab would have been better but
those days are gone..
i had the triple cream for him instead..

Reading Deena Metzger
about faith and spirit and signs and wonders
listening to the soft prattle of the sh's and auben's
the clipped hipness of the German kids speaking English
oh so cool.
and wondering at the magic of sitting so comfortably in this skin
so elegantly cared for
and being called
like Richard Dreyfuss and all those others in my favorite movie
Rencontres de les Troisieme Type.... when I aaw it for the fifth time in France
many years ago
Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind..
and absolutely understanding that vacuum that draws one to the next indicated thing.

and for me, tomorrow
India and Chennai and rain and mud I hear
and who knows what else.