Gilbert & George, COVID-19, God, and Sun are part of my day today, my last full day in Frankfurt during this visit. In reverse, the sun is already shining when I’d expected rain the last few days or so the forecast was warning me of just two days ago. In order to be allowed to return to America on Monday, I have to get a test for the Coronavirus even though I’m vaccinated. Then, I’m meeting Caroline’s godmother, Helga, at the Schirn Museum for the Gilbert & George exhibit. And somewhere in there is God.
Between these moments, I will be meeting with Jutta, finding food, and taking inventory of what I didn’t do while in Frankfurt. No, scratch that; the inventory is as full as it’s going to be. I have to squash the idea that I should find something new to give heft to the day. I’m on my way out, and that is that.
The left nostril was a piece of cake (no, I’m referencing a booger), but the right nostril was one of the most ticklish things I’ve ever felt. No wonder people sneeze with 3 inches of swab deep in their sinus while all I could do was laugh at how absurdly ticklish it was. This test, my first ever, was required by the U.S. even though I’m traveling fully vaccinated. I can only wonder how nervous the CDC is that the vaccine might not be as effective as they hope for.
I was just around the corner from Jutta’s because we had a date to have lunch together one more time during this visit. Every time I see Römer, home of the Frankfurt city government, I can’t help but think of past Christmas markets held here, with Caroline and I dressed warmly and her enjoying a Glühwein (spiced hot wine).
Some things are out of the way, while others are yet to come. In between, I’m taking a pause in one of my regular haunts, when they are near anyway, a church. Frankfurt Cathedral is today’s shelter from the crowds that have returned as restrictions related to COVID-19 are being relaxed. There’s someone at the organ practicing a song that I would like to identify.
The piece I heard is titled Nada te Turbe from the Spaniard Theresa von Avila; it’s beautiful.
Damn it, I’m being brought to tears as the organist and violinist plays Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. You’d think I’d heard this enough times for it to no longer have any effect, but here it is in the cathedral with all the reverb a room like this produces, and as the music fills the space, I’m filled with all of the emotion I felt when I first heard this piece when I was a teenager.
Where is the perpetually angry, angst-ridden John who was certain all was for naught? I’m now so often swayed by beauty in any of its forms and captured in the deep emotions that seem to bind me to a passion of awe. I can more easily lament the spleen that spews from my indignation than I can share those things that well up in a swirl of emotional astonishment, bringing me to tears. The desire to fall into bliss, swooning with the ecstatic chords of what is unfolding in music, nature, sky, and sea, brings me to a primal state that defies logic. The sense of symbiosis is fleeting, though, because I fear letting go completely as I’d certainly weep out loud, bringing unwanted attention by those who might check if I’m okay.
The Dom is filling up as I sit to the side, inappropriately dressed for whatever function that is being prepared. I wish to stay put for whatever service or performance will be taking place, but I have a meeting with Caroline’s godmother just minutes from now. I would like to believe I could sit in church every day for the rest of my life across Europe and listen to the entire body of music ever created for these settings and never grow bored. How is this grizzled old atheist so in touch with the profound? For that matter, just what is profound?
Love is profound, and in our passion to communicate with something greater than ourselves, we explore the heights that language, light, and sound can bring us. If for no other reason, I must bring Caroline back to the land where she was born, where these moments exist at such an exquisite level.
Yes, churches exist in America but it is a bastardized cartoon version, full of fire and brimstone with songs that appeal to the simplest of minds. Of course, that element exists in Europe, but in the great 1,000-year-old cathedrals the formality of reverence weighs in on the body that has collected in these great houses that were built to bring God to the masses. I’ve listened to chanting, song, choir, and the organ fills the cavernous space with the varied traditions practiced across this continent that elicit respect compared to the variants of the Baptists who demonstrate that we are, by and large, clowns.
This right here is the epitome of the American church, thanks Gilbert & George.
Why the serious look, John? Because I’m in the fucking Schirn Museum seeing the mother fucking gay-ass Gilbert & George art exhibit with their oversized prints of cocks, balls, and intimate fucking looks at their assholes, that’s fucking why. By the way fucker, I’m here with my godmother Helga, fuck yeah. Now go get fucked.
From the cathedral to the church of Art to the Catholic-operated senior home with my mother-in-law and godmother because I know how to party. So, what will I do for an encore? Go back to the cathedral.
No, I did not ask God or Jesus to cleanse my eyes after looking deep into buttholes and upon dicks; I came back to this house of worship hoping for inspiration of where I might eat dinner on a Saturday night. Can there really be a meaningful meal that will satisfy this stupid need to get that one thing that will complete my culinary visit to Germany?
Desperation is quick at hand as I race across the city on the train to Heddernheim, giving up on finding a magic key to the satisfaction that I will have been in Frankfurt instead of just visiting it. What photo or what words can I capture that will bring a sense of accomplishment that this time, which felt infinite a month ago, runs out in less than 48 hours? Did this moment arrive because I was anticipating it, or is this a condition of all travelers? The essence of a place is impossible to carry with us as we leave. Try as I might, I cannot bring the Oregon Coast back to Arizona, so why should I be so greedy to drag some intrinsic value out of this sojourn to Germany?
Instead, I’m trying to concede that I cannot pull more into myself, so I’ll join my in-laws for some Ethiopian dinner and try to put the German experience on hold for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow will be a day of immersion as I head south into Worms and Karlsruhe.
Ries Metzgerei, Eschersheimer Landstrasse 417, was where I saw the canned meat. It’s at the stop south of Lindenbaum.
We put up an impenetrable wall and live behind it for 1000 years. We claim we can leave anytime we want to, but we remain in our fortress and explain that we needn’t leave because everything we find that we enjoy is right here. In those thousand years, the Vikings disappeared, trade opened around the old world, plagues came and went, and a Renaissance preceded the Enlightenment that paved the way for the Industrial Revolution, followed by in Information Revolution. You, though, chose to live in the isolation of a world without change, you never even saw the world change because your walls were so effective you decided to blot out the sun by creating a bubble.
While you slept, the universe grew, and others stepped into that void, but you knew there was no use for those things you didn’t really know anyway, so why would you need that challenge to give up your comfortable ways? If everyone in your colony is of the same opinion and you’ve collectively chosen a path that says a life of a thousand years where every day will be much the same as the previous day, well, I suppose that your harmony is worth this lack of effort. What happens, though, if only one person wants to venture beyond the walls? Do you imprison them with a warning of how a single breach of the status quo could disrupt your own personal happiness and likely everyone else’s?
The problem isn’t that the world is changing; it’s that we are choosing to be prisoners to ourselves and trying to trap others in our device that was created from bricks of fear. What is beyond is dangerous, so we must hide. Others want to do us harm; help me as I panic that you want from me what I can’t give you. What you can’t give is options, alternatives, and some healthy change that we must all step through if we are to grow.
I cannot live within your walls, the air is stale, and the shit is piled too high. If you would just climb atop your mountain of feces, you might see the fresh air and clean water waiting for you to breathe it, to taste it, to then celebrate this ability to crawl out of your own pit of delusion and denial.
After a month of German food, it was time to break out of that routine, even I need change. This little outdoor joint offering a vegan plate was perfect for me. Aside from the potatoes I’ve been eating, this might be the night I ate as many vegetables as I’ve eaten all month.
Tonight’s walk took me from Rödelheim over an autobahn and along the Nidda River once more. The 7.5-kilometer walk at sunset was a much-needed balm from the after-effects of my mouth creating tensions. What are these tensions I refer to? Suffice it to say that in too many situations, my flapping gums have the ability to inflame others. Better to go out in a burst of fire than just fade away as though I’d never been there…that’s not my motto, but I suppose it could be.