Remembering Regensburg

I seem to remember a pretty little city in the midst of Bavaria. It's unlike Munich, it's nowhere near like Nuremberg, a place unto itself really. 

At first when you get off the train, you think there's nothing much to this pretty city but many places are never quite amazing near their train stations. I think of Utrecht and Den Haag, I think of Trier and Koblenz curiously, cities where you have to travel further to find their beauty.

Regensburg... a city where the rivers Regen and Danube meet. In the ancient world, Radasbona, its Roman name and only upriver from Vindobona (or modern Vienna). 

Regensburg, a kind of a quiet, idyllic gem like Bamberg, places where the tourists don't quite go. Well, they do but mostly German and Austrian. For many foreigners, Germany is Munich and lederhosen, bier gärtenen and maybe Berlin if there's time. Maybe. Germany is oomp-pah-pah, Oktoberfest and Wagner's portly Brunhilde belting out the finale of The Ring with her horned-helmet and spear, her tonsils on display.

But there are other Germanies.

Regensburg belongs in that vast category of other Germanies. There are places like Baden Baden and Würzburg. There is Koblenz and Bonn where Beethoven was born.

But Beethoven left for Vienna (or ancient Vindabona). 

In fact there are so many Germanies one might lose count. And it's better to lose count in Regensburg, the place I seem to remember but I'm too lazy too forget. 

I don't want to forget. If there are places that exemplify Sunday strolls and meandering walks it is medieval Regensburg where every street (once you get beyond the Hauptbahnhof) has its own bewildering and cheerful charm. Looking at the leaning, half-drunken, pastel-coloured buildings, you can't help but think, yes, it only makes sense, the man who wrote the libretto for The Magic Flute must have been born here.

No, you don't think that but I do. Mozart had two librettists, one Bavarian, the other Venetian who provided the words to his most perfect of operas. Operas light and easy unlike Wagner's. On a Sunday in Regensburg one would rather hear Dove Sona instead of the end of the world brought to you by the world's favourite anti-semite, Hitler's beloved composer, Herr Richard. (Of course, I'm not talking Strauss.)

And that's just it, in Regensburg you forget that Germany once had a Nazi past. In cities like Cologne there is little left of the old town, everything new and urban and lined with railroad tracks. Cologne that was once bombed and leveled like Nuremberg and Hamburg and Munich. 

Regensburg got away unscathed. There is no bad conscience really here to be reminded of. Yes, not unlike nearby by Nuremberg where if you take the tram, you can go to Zeppelin Field and see the cement stands where the great and feeble dictator made forecasts for his thousand-year Reich. It must have been a beautiful place to be if you were a proud German, a National Socialist with dreams of lebensraum and new horizons. In a time of hopelessness there was a man named Hitler, half-criminal, half-artist who many historians have said was the director of Germany's greatest political tragedy. A piece of history, Zeppelin Field with its stands now littered with cigarette butts, a derelict relic with everywhere weeds and in the summer, rock concerts. Today, you have the odd idiot who will visit and stand at the podium where Hitler once stood, looking out and imagining himself a megalomaniac. 

But getting back to Regensburg. I think if there was a romantic comedy that ever needed a city it would be here but then it might ruin it. Barcelona is now over-populated with tourists too eager to relive a scene in the famous Woody Allen film. 

No, scratch that, lets pass a law: no films should never be allowed to be filmed in Regensburg. Let it remain sleepy and lovely, perfect and pristine. One should only recommend Regensburg to those who might appreciate it. For one must realize there are travelers and tourists. Tourists are easy to spot with their mildly torn maps and 'let's do everything' looks on their faces, like Vikings out to pillage but instead of swords and axes they have Nikons and Kodaks. 

Travelers are people who don't want to be seen, they want to remain inconspicuous and blend in. The don't carry the heavy cameras and wear panama hats or stand together in groups, following a leader. Tourists ride segues through towns and look quite stupid, as if there were on the way to becoming the chubby humans of Wall-E.

Travelers laugh at segue tourists, laughing alone or in a pair. You wish everyone who ever went everywhere was a traveler. Travelers don't arrive on a bus or place their hands behind their back and show off their portly belly while listening to the tour guide. No, they try to hide their Fodor's and Frommer, sneaking it out in restrooms or parks with no one around. Travelers are tidy and humble and hopefully keep to themselves.

I prefer to be a traveler. I prefer to wander and as I mention, Regensburg is a perfect place to meander. And moving along...

Of course, you must see the Dom, a wonder of French Gothic architecture. It is by far more beautiful and sacred than Cologne's. What makes it especially special is that it began in the 13th century and was completed in the 19th - though the towers had to be replaced in the 1950s. So when you look at the building you see history but more importantly man's ability to procrastinate. But why not take your time with something like this. If it takes 600 years to get it right, well, why not, damn it. Interesting to note it was Mad King Ludwig's father who finished the cathedral by adding the twin towers - Mad King Ludwig who too loved Wagner (always hard to escape Wagner in Bavaria). 

It's an easy to church look at it. It isn't monumental nor heavy like other Germany cathedrals. No, it appears almost light and feathery as if it might fly away.  The towers rise above the Domplatz and Residenzstraße with timeless ease as if the building was taking a deep breath. A building like a moment in Mozart.

Inside too, you get lost looking at the ceiling and sometimes, you might hear the organist tuning up his instrument (that didn't come out right...) so the music is haunting and wave-like, swimming through the vast space. 

What I liked was the statue of the laughing archangel, Gabriel. A gregarious smile, you figure there should be no serious silhouettes in such a space, in such a quaint, quiet, pretty city. No. This should be a place for belly laughs and beer and the angel has its right, let's look to him to set the tone for the rest of the day. 

And beer is necessary, of course, because you are in Bavaria. It would be unjust and uncivilized and woefully wrong to drink anything but. So there it is...

You leave the cathedral and look for a place that is just right. And that's part of being a traveler, you don't want to sit with other tourists and pose with them, with their wrinkled maps and over-sized cameras that look like they came from a movie set. No, you have to go and look further afield and seek a sanctified nook or uncover a hushed away cafe. You cross the bridge, the Steinerne Brücke and try to remember what your guidebook said. You remember something about it being built in the twelfth century and something else to that effect. And you pause to appreciate everything. You look back, there's the Dom always dominating the cityscape and landscape but despite your aesthetic appetite, the beautiful sunny day your stomach turns and yearns for something more substantial, i.e. food. 

For me, I found a place across the bridge called Alte Linde (Old Lindens) and the schnitzel was quite good along with the potatoes but I almost felt like a tourist, drinking the Paulaner bier, such a typical standby when one is in Bavaria. (And yes, there was the man with the large cannon-like camera snapping away at the scenery as if firing a salvo...)

You can't help but feel in need of something more personal, far away from the fanny-pack crowds that embarrass themselves. 

Still you can't help it. You wanted to take a picture of everything. An eager, eternal itch when you visit Regenburg. I know I couldn't resist walking back to the old city, seeing the beautiful Dom framed by the trees, near the river, the bridge in the foreground. You have to take a picture. It would be like turning away from the Mona Lisa just because it was too-famous. 

Thankfully one's camera eventually runs out of batteries and you're left to wander without framing every second, trying to capture what is always fleeting. 

Travelers look for perfect moments. I myself could have gone to Valhalla up the river to visit the busts of famous Germans in the kitsch-like temple built (once again) by Ludwig I. But that riverside ride in Regensburg would have cost me 23 euros (and would have made me a tourist). I'd rather have another beer. Maybe another two and still have enough for a snack later when I got back to Nuremberg. Or maybe something special before I left Regensburg.

And so I went looking but not looking because the perfect place eventually finds you. Sure enough...just after strolling past the Altes Rathaus, leaving the Kohlenmark, making my way up a small street (or 'gasse' auf Deutsche) I had strong feeling that I should stay. I ignored it at first, passing by the uncrowded café, seeing the empty chairs along the front window. I then turned around and thought, here's where I have to be for the next little while.

An assertive thought, but calmly confident. I like those instances in which you make a decision and right away you feel good about them, there's no turning back. And I was happy because I think if I had gone another further I would have regretted everything. 

So I took a seat, at first at the end of the second row but then thinking, it might rain, so I moved one table over to make sure I was fully under the awning. There was a mother and teenage daughter having a drink in the front row, one table over, the former smoking, the latter with her ice cream treat. The mother finished her smoke and wine and they left. I nursed my beer, a Thurn und Taxis brew made locally. Soon enough a young couple sat near me and chatted and she took her pictures and he put his arm lovingly over her shoulder. When they got up to leave after their quick drink, I pushed my table over just a little so they could get by and she thanked me. 

Then another mother and daughter came by, this one younger. This mother had shorter black hair unlike the other's who had been longer and this daughter was more restless wearing kiddie jean overalls, riding her red, pedal-less tiny bike. The mother ordered some mineral water and the daughter had milk. She then ordered a bowl of tomato soup and the little girl went off to play with the plastic flowers at the ceramic store display just further up the street. Their meal arrived and despite this, the mother still had to keep getting up to get her daughter. 

And of course everyone smiled. The people pulling up in taxis to stay at the hotel, with their rolling suitcases, wheels clicking on the cobbled stone smiled. The ice-cream-cone-eating-people passing by smiled, all the blonde and brunette families out for the day in Regensburg chuckled and glanced down at the curious little girl who also liked swatting the plastic triangle flags of the display.

And yes, it finally began to rain. And I thought, it should rain (Regen) at least once while one is visiting Regensburg. The drops tapped on the stone street, on the front tables with their white table cloths so the mother daughter duo came to sit in the place once occupied by the couple. I moved over one seat so we weren't cramped close and could breathe in our ever-sacred privacy. The mother thanked me, placing the little bike at her side.

The drops pattered on the awning and for a moment I felt like I was getting away with being part of everything, not being a traveler, that I faded a little behind the curtain of the rain, no one to see me. Lingering there at my table, taking my time, my second beer now, the scent of wet dust and stone, I thought of how the rest of my day was going to be out there, at the end of the street, far away and back towards the Hauptbahnhof.

And that's why I stayed for over an hour. It wasn't a matter of procrastinating, waiting out the rain, putting off the return but embracing the unfixed flow of a day. At the end of the street there was tomorrow and by sitting here, I put it off as long as I could, almost hoping to be left behind. (If only I had 600 years.)

The light of the sky went from dark grey to gold as the sun broke through the now-emptied embankments of clouds. And it's like dusk, you want that time of day to linger on; no one really wants the colours to change or the sky to darken, even if the stars are pretty and the moon might be full.

But there is a leave-taking in everything, a goodbye hint here and there. The mother and daughter beside me left after the former paid the bill and the latter scurried off to check on her favourite red and yellow plastic flowers, the wet street dimpled with tiny puddles. The mother, of course had to carry the tiny bike. When you are three years old there are more important matters to attend to and things are ineluctably left behind. 

For me, I talked a little to the server and she found out English was my mother tongue. Too bad, I thought I almost blended in. Almost. 

After that there isn't much left of Regensburg worth remembering. I know I saw the Dom again and stopped at a delicatessen to guy some wine. I had the exact change.

To Lvov: The Scandalous Roots of One's Slavic Past

St.Cyrill, St.Catharines

To Lvov. Which station
for Lvov, if not in a dream, at dawn, when dew
gleams on a suitcase, when express
trains and bullet trains are being born. To leave
in haste for Lvov, night or day, in September
or in March. But only if Lvov exists,

- Adam Zagajewski

Before leaving for Europe, it was always my best intention to visit the ancestral countries of both my parents. 

As it turned out, there would be familial links to my father's side, relatives I could stay with in Holland, birthplaces I could see and visit and stories I could hear about. Naturally, there would be photo albums and memories. 

This would pose no problem. 

Unfortunately this wouldn't be the case when it came to my mother's roots; I had nothing to go on. 

To compensate, I decided to do my own research and familiarize myself with the basics of my mother's culture. I bought a book about Ukraine and the Lonely Planet's guide to Eastern Europe. I read the novels of Mikhael Bulgakov. I even went online and investigated potential cities to visit such as Lviv (Lvov), Odessa and Kiev. I checked out accommodations and room prices through AirBnB; overall, they seemed fairly reasonable. I looked at trains and buses. I didn't foresee any major troubles in getting there and exploring.

Time is crucial in everything and I suppose the one thing that deterred my search for maternal roots when I arrived in Europe was the presence of the FIFA Cup. This would be an issue. In Munich, during Oktoberfest for instance, prices for rooms skyrocket to take advantage of the eager beer-swilling tourists. I expected the same from Ukraine and of Poland, the two countries that would be co-hosting the games.

Despite my research and intentions, despite my closeness on my trip, being at one point a mere hour away from the Polish border in Berlin, I never managed to forge a route into that mysterious, Slavic side of my identity. In truth, I will say I was a little disappointed in this regard, not so much in myself but circumstances. I had studied Russian for a year and before finalizing plans, daydreamed about walking through streets where the Cyrillic writing would be everywhere. I had been looking forward to making my way east, seeing the churches and sitting down in a restaurant, eating borsch and cabbage rolls in the land where it had first been concocted.   

Dostoevskyhaus, Baden Baden, Germany

Thankfully, there were familiar vestiges and reminders of Slavic culture in Germany. In Baden Baden, many of the tourist shops inform visitors that the staff within speak German, English and Russian. The woman who welcomed me at the Friedrichsbad spoke Russian. Not only this, the guiding signs in the facility are written in the three languages with French being the fourth. 

Outside the spa, just around the corner is the Dostoevskyhaus, named for Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881) The great Russian novelist had visited the city with his wife Anna in August, 1867 during a tour of Europe. He gambled at the famous casino and based a novel on his erratic and hopeless experiences there (today the lower floor of the 'haus' is a real estate office). 

A peer of the troubled writer, Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) loved the city and urged fellow writers to join him there. There is a bust of him on the Lichtentaler Allee. 

Baden Baden famous Russian Church

Baden Baden also boasts its famous Russian Church as does Leipzig in Eastern Germany. 

And yet somehow, it was good but not good enough. Back in Canada now, I continually return to my pictures of The Netherlands and smile and think back nostalgically to my hours there. I have pictures of where my father lived in Amsterdam. I visited Haarlem where my Oma was born, having biked its streets and drank its beer. Strangely, despite all these beautiful experiences, it feels in-balanced as if I had been unfair to a part of myself and favoured one side over the other. 

Though maybe I have to come to terms with what I know and will never know because that's the way it has always been. When I think of the research I've done, my interest in Russian literature and language, it has always been my effort to reach out into the hazed past as opposed to have been brought up in it. A lot of course, has to do with my mother.

My mother's side of the family has so little to do with their heritage. Unlike my father, she, in her adult life had little contact with her parents, my grandfather dying when I was little, my grandmother living on the other side of the country. I can count on my two hands the times I sat with them and had a conversation. A solemn contrast to what I experienced with my father's family. We lived just around the corner from my Opa and Oma. I never heard Russian or Ukrainian spoken but I listened to Dutch conversations several times a week. I ate gouda cheese and other Dutch delicacies daily, thanks in part to the import store on Ontario St., Ramakers. 

It was only at Christmas that I had perogies and cabbage rolls at my aunts. 

My mother only recently told me that she had let herself become 'Broerse-fied', allowing her husband's Dutch culture to take pride of place before hers. For her, the past was laden with bad memories and misplaced dreams, family feuds and conflicts, ubiquitous skeletons creeping out of the closet. This is the reason why we never had a samnovar or Ukrainian decorations in our home and instead had teak furniture - wall unit, tables and so forth then popular in Scandinavia and those households with Northern European backgrounds. I remember the Delft tiles and the yellow, wooden clogs near the window. I remember the Breughel and Van Gogh prints in the hallway and living room.

Perhaps this is the reason she remembers so very little of her parents' world, where they come from. I learned in my late twenties from my eldest aunt the true origins of my grandmother and grandfather.

From what I have gathered, my grandmother's mother, Sophie (София) came from Western Ukraine, the city of Ternopil (Тернопiль), two hour east of Lviv (Львiв). Her mother died when Sophie was five. Her father passed on some seven  years later. She moved to Saskatchewan in 1919 with her step-parents, marrying my great-grandfather, Max (Максим) soon after.

My grandmother, Josie, was born in 1923 followed by her two sisters, Anna (1926) and Marrianne (1927). When she was four years old, her father killed himself. 

There is some speculation regarding Max's suicide but many believe he killed himself because he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Others say it was the diagnosis compounded by depression. He learned that his wife was cheating on him. Sophie believed she didn't have much time to find a new husband and should start sooner. Without the support of his wife, Max slit his throat, feeling utterly alone in the world and certainly died feeling both betrayed and ashamed.

Following the funeral, Sophie married a man named Daniel (Данaйл), also of Ukrainian origin. Sophie had two more daughters, Olga and May. But apparently Dan couldn't keep it in his pants and made 'attempts' on my grandmother (whether my grandmother was raped or not has not come to light). Sophie, knowing that Dan couldn't corral his darker habits sold the family cow and gave my grandmother the money to start a new life in Toronto, Ontario. 

There she met my grandfather. Pyotr (Пиотр) came from Russian stock. His family, it is said left Russia because of the Revolution and headed south to Buchovina (Буковина), a region now split between present day Ukraine and Romania. (In those days, the borders were tenuous. It is said that a man could have been born in the Austro-Hungarian empire, have been of Ukrainian background, been Polish and then an Ukrainian citizen and not have left his hometown during the eighty years of his life.)

My grandfather's family was broken up because my great-grandfather headed to Canada to start anew. He told his family (two sons, a daughter and wife) he would find relatives, find work, buy a home and send for them. Unfortunately, upon settling, he fell in love with another woman in Fort Francis, Ontario. After making his way with his family across the Atlantic, down the St.Lawrence, my grandfather came to seek out his father on a cold winter's night. His father welcomed him at the door with chilling words: "I never want to see you again in my life" and slammed the door on his eldest son. 

Pyotr's mother found work as a maid in Toronto. My grandfather worked a slave labor-like job in Port William. Eventually his mother saved enough money and was able to bring her three kids together.

Strange to think that my own paternal great-grandmother warned my future grandmother, Josie not to marry her son. There are even family tales that she cursed her eldest to a life of hardship and pain. 

Who believes in curses anyway? Josie married Pyotr. They had five kids, my mother the youngest.

Recently, my mother's only brother died. He was in late sixties. We weren't surprised. His wife of over thirty years passed away last year due to cancer. With couples who've lived together and loved each other so long, it is only inevitable that one goes right after the other.

St.George's, St.Catharines

The last time I saw my uncle I was twelve. I know nothing of him, just like the family. Instead, what I have to go on are the traces, the disappearing footprints in the snow that lead here and there, all them found through my own inclinations, following them, unsure if I want to keep going. I suppose this is the reason I add a veneer of myth to my life as if it might add some colour and depth to the little I have gleaned. Maybe I'm in love with the illusion of the culture, the far away traditions. Winter nights when I still lived in St.Catharines, I would take a walk through the Facer neighborhood, passing St.George and St.Cyril, looking up at the solemn, noble facades, up at the snow-whisked domes, looking through the glass front doors and dreaming about the cultures that built them, about the languages that trembled behind their walls.

When my grandfather died, the service was at St.George. The eulogy was in Ukrainian. My mother sat in the church, staring up at the icons not knowing what it all meant but also not wanting to. He was a cruel man, a closet alcoholic, the kind whose moods changed and out of nowhere he would pull out the strap because it made him happy to beat one of his kids. He was the kind of scheming man who burned the family home to collect insurance money. The insurance reps suspected this and only gave my grandfather a quarter of what the house was worth.

For my mother, he burned her favourite home, the place she most loved. 

But what can a man become, really? My grandfather walked away in the frosted night from his father, heeding his words and in turn became the father he despised. It could have been the curse. Later, my uncle stood by his father's tombstone, having waited hours for the grave diggers to rectify their mistake. They had dug up the wrong plot. The director of the cemetery was quite embarrassed, apologizing to my mother and aunt. For my uncle, it simply meant standing out in the March cold, smoking cigarette after cigarette, making sure the man who had tormented his life, the man who withheld any iota of kindness was six feet deep and in the right place.

And here I was, out on snowy evenings in St.Catharines, romanticizing a world so many try to escape from.

My friend is married to a Ukrainian woman. Her father, like my grandfather was a cruel man, he too an alcoholic. He had a past. He managed to elude Stalin, escaping a P.O.W. camp with his wife in Central Europe, making their way to France then Canada. In St.Catharines he helped build St.George's. He also went on to father three kids, my friend's wife the youngest.

To this day none of them talk to each other.

It is almost the same with my mother, the lines of communication are tenuous.

As for Nana, Josie, the one who had been the four-year old girl, the one who was taunted and teased by her classmates because her dad committed suicide, well, we fear she is near her end. Though, she's always been close to it. When I was living in British Columbia, she tried to kill herself with pills. I remember the hospital room in Surrey and how she spent the whole time wandering the halls, unable to talk to either me or my mother. She lived longer than her father but was never quite there. I'm sure at her funeral, there will be no need for a high collar to hide her wound.

When she goes, she'll leave nothing, her eldest daughter having drained her bank accounts to pay for her whims. The family has known about this, they talk about it but they do nothing. What can you do? I'm sure my aunt is still angry at her mother for not heeding Pyotr's mother's advice.

And when Josie goes, well, I'm sure another aunt will be in there to pick at the scraps when she is gone, looking for anything of value. That's what she did when my grandfather died. An aunt who once appeared on Oprah, who preached no sex before marriage. How ironic when her own teenage daughter was buying condoms at a pharmacy the week before.

Perhaps my oldest aunt is doing all of us a favour. Who wants anything left? When my grandfather died, his will was dispersed. All that remained was an 'education fund' but we only found out about this years later when I was going to school. Of course, with my mother's family, that $25,000 disappeared in one fail swoop, one aunt feeling she knew who 'deserved' the money and who didn't. (None of it went to those who were going to school, however...)

So yes...this is family. This is the legacy...

Maybe I'm glad there was nothing in the Ukraine for me to look for. I guess when I think of it, I'm glad I never made my way east, nothing further than Berlin, that I saw enough cultural icons in Baden Baden and Leipzig to satisfy my longings for a Slavic past. Beyond that, what could there be? Empty hopes, I'm sure. 

Nothing in Lvov, nothing in Ternopol or Odessa.

It's better when it's just a dream, empty churches I once passed in the winter, seeing my own breath disappear in front of me.

Following Friedrich

"He attempts... to introduce allegory and symbolism into shadows and light, into nature, living or dead, into snow and water, and also into living figures." - Ludwig Tieck, (1773-1853), poet, critic, translator

Wanderer über den Nebelmeer, 1818

In my early twenties I had the good, if not genuine fortune of attending Professor Derek Knight's third year art history lectures at Brock University, 'Art in Revolution' and 'Modernism'. The two courses, which weren't offered every year, focused on the political, philosophical and socio-economic forces behind the great masterpieces of 19th century art, beginning in the late 1790s with the French Revolution and the neoclassicism of Jacque-Louis David and ending, in the second class with the First World War and Picasso's cubism.

To get into the two courses, one had to have a reasonable background in art history and have a credit in the first year introductory class. 

I had studied art in high school and spent the summer voraciously reading all the Taschen artist series books in the Brock library. This, with my passion for the subject helped me by-pass the prerequisite so long as I still signed up for the first year class while attending Prof.Knight's lectures. 

In the first semester, I was a quiet, reserved student. I sat at the back of the class, taking notes, secretly falling in love with the works of David and Delacroix in France, Goya in Spain and Constable in England.

And when we arrived at German Romanticism, Prof. Knight's always enlightening and eloquent lecture did not disappoint, as he delivered a stunning, indispensable talk on Caspar David Friedrich and his contemporary, Philipp Otto Rung. 

The former was especially important to me. I had seen Friedrich's paintings on the covers of classical music albums. (Wanderer Over a Sea of Mist was a personal favorite, appearing on a box set I had bought when I was nineteen). I had lived with them before attending this class. I conjured up his images whenever I listened to the piano sonatas and symphonies of Franz Schubert, a Viennese contemporary of the artist. 

So when deciding on a subject for my term paper, I devoted my research solely to the works of Friedrich, writing about the figures in his painting, their backs to us, what they meant, what they signified to the artist and how they went from solitary and lonely in his earlier works to accompanied in his later pieces. 

I received an 'A' (85%) for my paper with the inevitable comment that I should speak up more class. My professor was impressed with my use of language as I employed the word 'bodeful', a term coined by Thomas Carlyle in the 19th century, in describing Friedrich's works. I knew of Carlyle at the time but had no inkling nor idea it was his word. I suppose I was searching for something and 'forbidding' and 'foreboding' simply missed the mark for me.

Over the years, I thought I had lost my essay but before leaving for Europe, I suddenly rediscovered it amongst old papers and letters. I scanned my argument once again, I read certain paragraphs, glossing over the descriptions and interpretations but for the most part, I was simply happy to have found it again.

Though I had misplaced the essay, I always kept Friedrich in my thoughts. He was one of the reasons I was now going to Germany. Prof. Knight routinely commented on how his slide-projector in a darkened, basement room of the Schmon Tower did no justice to the great masterworks of the past. One had to see them live, in person to truly appreciate their nuances and genius. 

Kreuz an der Ostsee, 1815

After visiting Holland this year, seeing the great Rembrandts and Van Goghs, I arrived in Germany in late May. My Friedrich search got off to a solid but rather slow start. In Köln I had the opportunity to come face-to-face with my first Friedrich at the Wallraf-Richarz Museum. A lonely sea-side landscape, people-less but dominated by a solemn, wooden cross standing tall against the sunset, rooted in a stern, outcrop of rocks. The ghostly ships in the distances, I noted were almost too ephemeral to seem real and the sun could almost be mistaken for a moon rising over the Baltic waters. In no way was I disappointed and felt the experience to have a spiritual connotation. 

The other two were equally sublime but this one in particular had a certain pull on me.

After spending an otherwise lonely and restless week in Köln, I booked a place in Nürnburg. On my day of departure, looking for my platform at the Haupbahnhof, scanning the blue rectangular screens hanging from the ceiling, I saw one whose final destination was Greifswald.

I grinned. Friedrich's birthplace. He was born there in 1774.

I said to myself, somehow, sometime I would get there and visit the local museum. 

But things and life got in the way. While in Freiburg I tried to make plans for Greifswald but I couldn't find any cheap nor reasonable accommodations and decided to book at a later date.

While in Freiburg, however, I took the train to nearby Karlsruhe in hopes of seeing a Friedrich in the Staatliche Kunsthalle. Though I was impressed with the collection, from seeing Anselm Feurbach's famous Das Gastmahl des Plato (Plato's Symposium) to Rembrandt's Self-Portrait, not to mention the other masterpieces from the Dutch Golden Age and the works of French art from the late 19th century there was, unfortunately, no Friedrich that I could find. I asked about the piece, Felsenriff am Meeresstrand (Rock Reef near Seaside). One museum employee directed me to the top floor. Another shook her head, said no, no, it was amongst the German Romantic pieces on the main floor. Having searched the museum top to bottom, I finally asked a woman at a computer. After a few seconds of typing, she said the Friedrich was on loan for an art exhibit in Madrid, Spain. Shaking my head, chuckling, I thanked her, buying the catalogue as a quasi-souvenir of my lunch bag let down. 

I wouldn't see another Friedrich until I arrived late afternoon in sultry Munich some two weeks later. I got off the train at 4:00, deposited my suitcase and side satchel in a locker and made my way to the Neue Pinakothek, buying my ticket at 4:40, leaving me less than an hour and a half to explore the art gallery. I tried to be patient, visiting the museum floor by floor. But with time running out, I began to seek out the German master's works. 

Once again, upon finding the right room, I was in awe. There were seven pieces to behold this time. I went from one to the next, slowly trying to absorb as many details, to see the nuances Prof. Knight had advised his students to look for should they encounter their favourite works in person. I also had my camera though the images I digitally captured couldn't compare with the originals.

Reisenberglandschaft mit aufsteigender Nebel

What always astounds me about Friedrich is the very depth and solidity of his work. In his youth, he studied in Copenhagen under the then famous artist, Nicolai Abildgaard. Friedrich worked directly from nature, learning to draw models in chalk. There are many watercolours and sketches from this period.

When his career began in earnest in the early 1800s, he rarely if ever produced any sketches. His friend, fellow landscape painter Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869) noted Friedrich was not typical of many artists. According to his peer, Friedrich did not 'commence work on a painting until its image presented itself in his mind's eye in a vivid manner, then he drew directly onto the stretched canvas, at first quickly with chalk or a pencil, then he reworked everything properly in detail with a pen and wash before finally going back to the first layer.'

Carus's Wanderer - compare with Friedrich's above.

Carus goes on to say that this is the reason Friedrich's landscape are so well organized and executed. Not only this, from my perspective, they appear more tangible and yet haunting compared to his peers' work. Carus, like Blechen, Dahl, Koch and Richter are all accomplished painters in their own right, many of them inspired by the same philosophers and poets as Friedrich, though rarely do they possess the truly sublime or symbolic touch so well-embodied in the latter's paintings. Carus, for instance, speaks the same language of Friedrich - note his 'wanderer' - though he doesn't have the same eloquence or depth, let alone vision. 

Friedrich, simply put, has something more. In the Neue Pinakothek, one could feel the alpine wind in his Reisenberglandschaft (mountain landscape), hear its howl. The lone, bare tree, too, seemed anthropomorphic, almost human. Standing in front of such a painting, I sensed the harrowing and sublime loneliness but there was less fear, more wonder, as if being a viewer I was more or less a visitor drawn into a strange but familiar land.

Friedrich himself once wrote that the artist must not only paint what is before him but inside him. Moreover, the true, genuine source of art is the human heart. 'A painting which does not surge up out of that is mere jugglery.' He wrote. 'Every authentic work is conceived in a sacred hour and born in a blessed one: created by an inner compulsion of which the artist is often unaware.'

'The divine is everywhere' Friedrich would comment. Even in the artist himself which might explain his  propensity for things distant and mysterious.  

'The sacred and the profane', is what Prof. Knight routinely said and reminded us during his lecture of long ago.

It is also true what my professor said, one must see the works in person. 

When I visited the Hamburg Kunsthalle in early July and stood before the famed (for me numinous) Wanderer Über den Nebelmeer (Wanderer over a Sea of Mist) I could distinguish a haze of pink in the clouds, something I failed to detect when I first described the painting in my art history essay. In my paper I wrote about the figure's stance, his clothing; in addition, I described the row of sandstone rocks, the large granite crag and the hazed mountain. I wrote that the painting had an aura of chill to it, that is, it felt cold, and the figure stood against the landscape, in opposition to it, alone. 

But the pink, I had to admit, undetected in classroom slides or art history texts, added an element of warmth and hope. 

I sat before the painting for almost twenty minutes. I felt a shift within me. For many years I had interpreted the picture as man's agon with nature. I had only seen the figure solely as a resolute but lonely, contemplative man. The painting always struck me as romantic and melancholic. The wild solitude surrounding the figure both wintry and harsh.

And yet this hint of pink. There was something to it. The painting, I realized felt more welcoming and in turn, I saw the great distances not as obstructing or daunting but even welcoming. Seeing the painting from the figure's perspective, I felt invited into that greater world. The unknown wasn't necessarily 'bodeful' as there was a trace of kindness and peace in the clouds, that a sun was glowing behind the ephemeral veil of the mist. I sensed hope and I could understand truly what Friedrich indicated when he said he painted from his heart.

Shortly thereafter, I fell sick in Hamburg after a weary, forced trip to Lübeck (where as it happened, I came accidentally upon four Friedrich's in the Museum für Kunst and Kulturegeschicte). Instead of taking the train further east to Greifswald, which would have been a two-hour trip, I had already contacted a family friend in Berlin and was heading there to visit and recuperate.  

I had terrible congestion and the chills. I wore a coat though it was thirty degrees. Upon arrival, my nose became severely plugged and that night, alone, my host off, drinking beer with his friends in the park, I could only sleep while sitting up.

I had to leave. Beyond my present physical condition, I found the said friend's place far too chaotic to handle. Books and clothes everywhere, his recording and d.j. equipment took up much of the space. Thankfully, I found accommodations far from Kreuzberg, renting a vacation apartment east of the city, in a quiet suburb.

There, I recuperated in peace, albeit slowly, my congestion easing, my body purging itself of the illness. I took baths, I coughed most nights but was still able to get my rest, lounging out on the couch during the day, watching the first three seasons of Two and a Half Men and enjoying every guiltless moment (yes, I know it isn't a great show but I have a soft spot in my heart for it...).

For the length of my stay, I was only able to get out for groceries; I had no real hope of visiting Berlin's famous Museum Insel (Museum Island) where the Alte Natialgalerie housed some of the most famous German Romantic pieces.

My last day in Berlin I decided to make a go of it, to make it count. My throat was still rough but my energy had returned. After three transfers (one bus, two trains), I walked from Alexanderplatz, passing under the famed Fernseherturm, that postmodern icon of Modern Berlin to the Insel. I bought my ticket at the art gallery and headed directly to the top floor to find the 'Friedrich Room.'

I would have to describe this room as the climax of my search. From the first sprinkles of Friedrich in Cologne, to missing out on one of his minor masterpieces in Karlsruhe, to Munich's generous offerings and Hamburg's excellent collection (one room over from Runge's works), Berlin had by far the best on display.

Der Mönch am Meer, 1810

Toteninsel

Besides the Wanderer, I would describe Der Mönch am Meer (Monk by the Sea) as the most emblematic of Friedrich's works. The monk stands on the shoreline, and like in many of his paintings, the figure is dwarfed by his surroundings. One might say he appears helpless against the tumultuous backdrop of the sky and sea. Either a storm is approaching or a storm  has passed, the clouds are nonetheless dark in their appearance though there is a glimmering of light blue. And though he is small, the monk doesn't lack for significance.

Purchased by Crown Prince Fredrick of Prussia in 1810, one can trace this important piece to Arnold Böcklin's Toteninsel (Island of the Dead) to Rothko's expressionist masterpiece, Rust and Blue. In the former, we see the lone figure against the vast backdrop of nature, the monk transforming into the white cloaked figure in the boat; in the latter, if we squint our eyes, the three troubled bands of sky, sea and sand become the murky strips of brown, light blue and navy. 

Without the monk - again like many of the figures in Friedrich's works - to anchor us in the piece we would have no point of reference. While he meditates on existence, life and death and the mysteries of the world, we are drawn in to contemplate with him. I wrote in my essay of long ago that we as viewers place ourselves in Friedrich's paintings. 'The sensation of emotion we feel is not for the pensive individual but for ourselves' is how my twenty-year old self put it.

Looking at the monk in Berlin, I saw my surrogate self, the other that was me. And in this me, the twenty-year old who first fell in love with Friedrich's paintings, the one who wrote the paper, influenced by the artist but also equally devoted to the works of Dostoevsky and the films of Ingmar Bergman. A serious soul with a touch of arrogance, scholarly and lonely, sitting at the back of his lecture halls; always the same longing in his heart to belong to something greater but too afraid to reach out, to go after his dreams. 

Between writing the essay of long ago and the European trip, he moved eight times in ten years. He had also been severely ill and hospitalized three times, the last to receive a blood transfusion in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Before that, at the height of the illness, two doctors informed him he had less than two weeks to live.

He was also the twenty-year old who first wanted to go to Germany, to study Friedrich and art history. In 2002 he applied for a year aboard and a scholarship with DAAD. The scholarship didn't fall through but it didn't matter as the illness had taken over by this point.

I suppose one must be grateful for the little tragedies and disappointments. In Berlin, I saw beyond what the twenty-year old might have seen, that is the great painting became for me a sombre, sober homage to all the unanswered questions. The scene is quiet, but not calm and yet it is grand, the figure alone and occupied and me, the viewer, occupied with all my own questions, both personal and philosophical, continually struck by the simplicity of the layout.

For me there are some things I cannot let go like, why did I have to become ill and why did it take so long to heal? Other questions feel rhetorical, impossible to answer like Why haven't I fallen in love? And of course, beyond the void of the future, what is waiting for me now?

Who is really satisfied with their life? I wondered, my hand cradling my chin. Yes, sometimes I wish my life was different. I have a few regrets but they don't weigh heavily on me (well, not always). Not really. I try to regard the regrets as just solemn moments of curiosity, the time when I considered the what ifs and the whys?, my own answers leading my imagination to conjure up another path that I didn't take. If the circumstances had been different, what would I have done, what would I be thinking now?

Friedrich lived through his own upheavals and hours of distress (what artist hasn't?). His mother died when he was seven. He lost two sisters, one to typhus. Perhaps the greatest tragedy came when he was thirteen years old when his brother Johann died trying to rescue him, falling through the ice of a frozen lake.

From family to the great events on the world stage, he came to his career during the years of Napoleon's occupation of the German territories. He was once severely ill, so sick he couldn't work, worried about another brother then staying in France. And though he had his faith to fall back on, one wonders by looking at such a picture if he felt certain of salvation.

For one, the monk isn't praying.  For me, he is, in a sense, living the questions, to quote Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. The answers are never there because we must creatively search for them inside ourselves. And creativity, one must remember, according to Friedrich is divine and from the heart.

But one must be open to such an approach, I feel. And there is always hope, some kind of way to make life better.

Frau am Fenster, 1822

In the same room as the monumental Monk by the Sea, there is a painting aptly entitled Frau am Fenster (Woman at the Window). It was completed in 1822, twelve years after the former, four years after Friedrich's marriage to Christiane Caroline Bommer. 

'Much has changed since "I" became "we" he wrote following his wedding. On the surface, his household became cleaner and welcoming, 'unrecognizable' according to him. 

He married relatively later in life (being forty-four) giving his heart to a woman nineteen years his junior. But it would eventually change the way he painted.

Mann und Frau den Mond betrachtend, 1830-35

Following 1818, the lone souls, the wanderers and philosophers, are no longer alone. Directly across from Frau am Fenster, there is a man accompanied by a woman in a twilight picture. It is a new departure, wholly new, a reworking of his figures. The single is coupled. There is no isolation. It isn't one man's agon against the universe. No. It is far more peaceful, far more tender, a togetherness. The same contemplation, the same aura of wonder and observation but fittingly shared. Here, the couple is joined by their affection for each other but also by their their curiosity: together they stare at the moon together, they are living the questions, albeit lovingly. 

Nearby, in the same Friedrich Room, a dark forest. At the bottom of the painting, in a kind of shallow grotto, one sees two souls warming by the fire. And the figure of the one is unmistakeably a woman. Man doesn't have to be alone in the wilderness, the artist is implying. He can find a partner, someone to share the hours, to share survival, the ordeal of existence. 

In my university essay, I had noted the changes in the artist's life. For me it had always made sense. Friedrich had to work solitary in order to gain enough recognition and money. If the artist wants to achieve success, the less distractions the better. But how lonely.

Last year I attended a wedding. My friend's daughter was getting married outside my hometown. I wasn't in a relationship so I had no date so I came as a single. After the ceremony and open bar, everyone was seated. The father of the bride placed me beside an old poet friend of his, Elizabeth. I had met her once and had quite a heated discussion about writing. It was quite the argument (how often does one yell at elderly woman?) and to this day, I'm not entirely sure how it started, just to say Elizabeth irritated me. 

During dinner, we were friendly. She knew I was writing a book. Actually two, one of them a kind of memoir, the second a verse novel. When I talked about my progress on the latter, she remarked that I had so much time, that I should be grateful I had no girlfriend or wife or family to distract me. I knew this but resented the fact. 

I had lost my twenties to illness, to my own close calls with death. In the years where I should have been drinking and partying, I had been recovering. There were no trysts or sexual adventures, no long lost loves or exotic romances that bring on the yearning and idealism of memory.  No. Instead I was sick. 

But even during the years of my illness, I still wrote and read. I persevered. I remember living in Vancouver, poor, still bleeding internally but reading the Sturm und Drang plays of Schiller, the otherworldly poetry of Hölderlin and the critical works of Nietzsche. It was this time I discovered Anna Akhmatova and read Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Yes, even in the most dire of hours, I was still educating myself, reaching for the future that always seemed a little uncertain and feeble. I figured I had to live and somehow, somewhere, I would find healing.

Returning to my trip, I left Berlin early the next morning. I wouldn't see another Friedrich until I reached Madrid (a beautiful piece though I couldn't find the one on loan from Karlsruhe). When I returned to Germany in late summer I revisited the Museum der Bildenden Künste in Leipzig, twice with my mother. I had seen the collection in late June but wanted to share my observations with her. 

Die Lebenstuffen, 1835

There are only three Friedrich's in the collection but one happens to be a favourite of mine. Another later Friedrich, often referred to as Die Lebensstufen (Stages of Life). In it, we see five figures. Behind them, five ships upon the sea. Each figure is likened to a ship. There is a boy and a girl playing with a Swedish flag, a man and woman and an old man approaching with his cane. Some have interpreted the main ship, the one closest to the shoreline to be the old man's, that is, he is nearing his end as the ship is nearing its destination. Others view the ship in the far right, the furthest from the viewer to be a symbol of the older man.

Looking at the old man I could see the great Wanderer of the Kunsthalle in Hamburg. It made me smile. For even the wild and melancholic souls must have their families, get old and prepare for the beyond they spent their youth romancing about. It made sense, as the work was part of a natural progression, a fitting masterwork which would be one of Friedrich's last.

In my paper I wrote about  Der Abendstern (The Evening Star), a similar piece completed about the same time showing a family walking up a hillside near Greifswald. Like Die Lebensstufen, Der Abendstern is filled with an orange evening light. Here too is a sense of journey's end, though instead of ships, the sun is setting and one sees homecoming over the hill.

For Friedrich, the city often stood for the city of God just as the open sea stood for the vast unknown after life.The little boy at the top of the hill, greeting the twilight like a future monk by the sea.

Leaving the museum, walking the streets with my mother and step-father, I realized I had fallen in love with Leipzig, this beautiful, quaint city in Eastern Germany, less touristy than Berlin. I had stared at the Friedrichs knowing it would be awhile before I could return to them or any of his pieces in the other cities I had visited. In a week, I would have to go 'home', to another continent far from the art I loved.

And I thought of the twenty-year old, how I had done this trip for him, for us. The quiet soul at the back of the class. Yes, he was arrogant and stubborn, proud and lost but he was humbled for a reason.

I felt for myself. The youth of my twenties has passed, though I know it never existed. If I had been able to make this trip earlier, I might have been be able to return with the hopes of returning the following year with plans on finding a job. As it stands, I have debts but also hope. 

Looking back I was never able to finish school because of the illness but I did manage to see Germany. I still have my two books. The memoir is ready for publication and I am actively searching for an agent. I hope to publish the book, make enough money and return to Leipzig.

Reading and re-reading my book, I see Friedrich's influence in my writing, how his sunset and solemn landscapes shaped how I remembered my childhood scenes which I painted reverently with words, my canvas being the digital pages on my laptop. Though there was always something in me that was looking for Friedrich's paintings. Even as a child I had seen in nature and life at an early age something already haunting and mysterious but in finding his work at nineteen, it was like coming home to what I already knew and sensed. That someone else saw the same things and made sure no one was alone in the experience of life by relating to the same unanswered questions. 

I am proud of my book. Like Friedrich, I have come to my art from the same source, and without the illness, I would never have discovered it, namely my heart.

The twenty-year old still had a lot to learn but he was aware of what was needed. At the end of the art history essay, he wrote about Russian poet and statesman Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky (1783-1852) who urged and assisted the Russian Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Czar Nicholas I in selecting several of Friedrich's paintings for his home. 'Zhukovsky's opinions are fitting of Friedrich, the twenty-year old noted, and in conclusion we will finish with a quote by the poet:

"His paintings please by their truthfulness, because each one of them awakens in the viewer's soul memories of something familiar. If you find in them more than what the eyes see, that is because the painter looked at nature not as an artist, who seeks only a model for his brush, but as a human being with feelings and imagination, who finds in every aspect of nature a symbol for the human soul."