All posts by Rebecca Michelle

Educator, traveler, reader, blogger. Loves learning, black coffee, and friendly people.
Germany

Work-Life Balance

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One of the reasons I left Asia for Europe was for a better work-life balance, but I admit to uncertainty over what that actually meant. I knew I was looking for something, but I couldn’t articulate precisely what it was. Nevertheless, stating this as a reason for moving in job interviews always led to vigorous nods. Clearly, the work-life balance in Europe was better – but what would that actually look like?

I have often found it hard to judge the amount of “work” I do in the different contexts in which I have taught, not only in terms of the country or age group of students, but also in terms of my career experience. I remember individual lessons taking hours to plan when I was a new teacher, a time commitment that decreased sharply with each lesson under my belt, but twelve years in, I still consistently find that marking a single essay takes about fifteen minutes. As it has been throughout my career, sometimes it is necessary to work late or at home, and sometimes this is a choice. I am juggling arguably more hats now than ever before, but also finding myself less bogged down by minutiae. And after a dozen years in this profession, I continue getting to school early enough to have 40 minutes of prep time before the students arrive – time to drink my coffee, read over my notes, clear my head, and time just in case.

So while I cannot say that my work habits have changed in this search for a better work-life balance, I have sensed a difference in how time is treated. Working in Singapore, the (un)spoken expectation was that people were busy all the time, including on the weekends. In Germany, despite how busy one might be during the week, weekends are a different time and they are meant to be enjoyed. This is not only clear from conversations with colleagues, but also through interactions with students. Rather than asking me if I’ll be available via email over school holidays, my current students ask if they can email me as questions arise and hurry to clarify that they are not expecting answers. I was profoundly touched the first time a student said, “It’s your holiday, too.”

Recently I’ve been talking with a friend about how people in German and American cultures spend leisure time. My American friends often refer to “being productive” or “adulting” (a term I loathe) and my German friends tend to speak in snapshots of specific moments rather than painting a general picture. Unlike when I lived in New York and felt under constant (and unaffordable) pressure to always do something, preferably something new, living in Germany has taught me that all days have something to enjoy, whether they are work days or weekend days. After all, the park is always pretty, even when cycling to work in the rain.

Something I’ve really noticed, however, might have more to do with living in a small town than living in Europe, though I’ve not lived in small towns elsewhere and this is my first time living in Europe. My work-life balance is doubtless better because it only takes me seven minutes to get to work by bike. A trip to the grocery store after school puts me in reach of all other stores I might want to visit, and I’m only five minutes from home. The minimization of commuting time is doubtless significant and provides much more flexibility during the day than I have previously experienced. I do miss certain aspects of life in a big city, but not enough to want to move back to one.

Before moving to Germany, I had a highly romanticized vision of living in Europe in mind: Sitting in the town square and drinking coffee, strolling along cobblestone streets, travelling by train and staring out the window at a green, rolling landscape. After over a year and a half here, I’ve learned that the picture wasn’t too far from accurate: We have cobblestone streets and four town squares, and I have spent time in all of them, sometimes with a coffee; travelling by train is indeed an opportunity to experience a lovely landscape, but also an exercise in patience with delays and missed connections; our park has featured much more in my life that I would have thought before moving here, and just as much as I knew it would upon seeing it for the first time.

While there are certain measurable differences in my daily life now compared to living in Asia, I think there is mostly a different feeling. The expectation of society is not that one works all the time, and the amount of work one does is not a measure of worth, whether self-imposed or through public pressure. This change in attitude has given me space to breathe, to rest, to relax. This is deemed normal, expected, and an important aspect of one’s life rather than a luxury or “waste of time”. There’s balance rather than constant motion, moderation rather than extremity. And perhaps this is what my interviewers with their vigorous nods knew about living in Europe – that I would not find just a work-life balance, but rather a different way of looking at life itself.

Schwarzwald (Black Forest) – February 2023
Travel Guide

Travel Guide: Bad Herrenalb

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When I told the people closest to me that I was going to the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) in search of fairies, no one batted an eyelash, neither at the plan to spend a few days alone hiking, nor upon hearing that I was looking for the creatures of stories.

Perhaps it’s telling that I received an illustrated book of the complete Grimm’s fairytales in the original German as a gift for Weihnachten*, a gift that was both surprising and touching. Perhaps it’s not just me who’s willing to entertain the possibility of fairies. And really, why not?

I had relatively few stereotypes of Germany before moving here, but one was certainly the Black Forest, a place devoid of light and full of mystery, a place that held secrets that could not be known from outside. As I would come to learn over three and a half days hiking from my base in Bad Herrenalb, the Schwarzwald is not only full of light, but indeed also full of mystery. And while I found the answers to some questions throughout my walks in the woods, the woods kept quiet in a way that has already called me to listen again.

Hör mal – Listen

Walking through the trees, I couldn’t stop smiling. There was a peace that came over me, a sense of getting lost in the sounds of leaves and water, so much water, that flowed through the forest.

Already struck by the fading light and the mist rising over the hills surrounding the valley, I watched the patterns the sun made on the forest floor and in the surrounding trees. And in the mornings, I watched the sun creep up and wake the very same forest. It is no surprise that these woods are at the centre of so many stories and dreams.

Every day, all day, I could not stop thinking how glad I was to be there, to bear witness to the majesty that is nature. I remember how I felt the first time someone told me they like to imagine how the forest looked 500 years ago. And imagine I did.

Walking along the west side of the valley, I spent the day almost entirely in the snow. There had been hints of snow throughout, but here I experienced the forest in a whole new way.

I have a great love for signs when following trails. You can learn so much about places and about how people choose to define a place. The guidebook I received from the owner of my pension explained how to follow the trails in the Schwarzwald, but said nothing about how the markers on trees are occasionally hard to find, and can be somewhat ambiguous. The amount of signage is, after all, no indication of the visitor’s ability to follow the signs. I backtracked once a day, even changing course entirely one afternoon, and a particular decision to stray from the obvious path turned out to be my favourite part of a walk.

I enjoyed the Schwarzwald because it was designed to be explored. There is clearly a long tradition of resting in the woods, of taking a moment to just be. I photographed relatively few benches, rested on even fewer, but was glad that they were there. They made the forest a place to spend time in rather than a place to revere from afar.

I didn’t encounter many people along the way, but I can only say nice things about those I did meet. Everyone said hello and we shared smiles about the beauty around us. One elderly man called directions to me from across a field, a woman in a bakery struck up a conversation comparing Germany and Canada, the guests at my pension wished one another a good day upon leaving the breakfast room. And most memorable of all, a man I met while waiting for the S-Bahn in front of Karlsruhe train station sent me a postcard at the pension to thank me for the chat and wish me a good trip. I sent him a postcard in return when I got home to Weimar, thanking him for his note and his tips for where to walk. Unbeknownst to me, I had entered a community, and that could be seen in the forest, too. There are huts dotted across the Schwarzwald, closed for the winter but maintained. I passed many, photographed few, and was glad for the feeling of woods explored and alive.

I often go hiking with the goal of reaching the highest point or finding the best view. While there were these moments, I didn’t walk in the Schwarzwald with any sort of goal. I just wanted to be there, and there I was.

I am always fascinated with wood. With its colour, with its forms, and with how it is all around us all the time. And in the forest, I was ever more aware of not only how much we depend on this resource, but how precious it truly is.

Having chosen to spend a few days alone in the forest to clear my head, to breathe new air, to watch the world with new eyes, it made sense to look carefully. It made sense to look thoughtfully, not just at the big picture, but rather at all the individual parts.

Germans say, “Wie man in den Wald hineinruft, so schallt es heraus.” This literally translates to, “The way you shout into the forest, so it echoes back out.” In English we might say instead, “What goes around, comes around.” A similar concept is, of course, karma. I like the emphasis on the forest, on being part of a greater ecosystem and environment. I like the idea of echoes, of sounds coming back to us, perhaps in ways we had never intended. We walk into the world, we treat others well, and this impact on the world around us arcs back in some way.

I went for a walk in the woods to find fairies, and here I must be fully honest: I was too captivated by how the forest welcomed me, how its lights and colours and sounds drew me in, to go looking for something that was hidden. The forest deserves its secrets; I am privileged enough for being let into its greatness and returning home feeling more connected to the world around me. I don’t need evidence of fairies to know that there’s magic out there.

*Weihnachten is the German name for Christmas. As I’ve learned over the past two years and celebrations, this time of the year has a rather different connotation than the North American event, which is why I prefer the word for this context.

Germany

Heimat und Zuhause

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The more German I learn, the more I find myself using German to explain new words because the English translation isn’t quite what the word is going for. The feeling or mood of a word can be just slightly different, and this difference can matter. Where this gets interesting are the situations in which German has multiple words to describe an idea that exists quite differently in English, leading me to understand the concept differently in different contexts.

A recent example is that of the word “home”, a favourite theme of mine on this blog. The English “home” variably means house, geographic location, and where one feels a sense of belonging. In German, das Zuhause refers to the place where one lives and feels, as we would say in English, “at home”. I’ve been asked, using this word, where I feel at home, and I often struggle to answer. Based on my understanding of home, in which I am comfortable with “my people” in many environments, I am at home in a lot of places. This explanation causes some bemusement among my German friends, however, because my definition of “home” does not quite match theirs. (Though I’m not certain my definition of “home” matches many definitions at all.)

The other type of German “home” is das Heimat, often considered an untranslatable word. It refers to where one grew up and the connection to place, roots, or culture that exists there. This is an emotional concept, as I understand it, and I’m not sure a similar idea exists in English. Perhaps the closest is “home town”, by which people refer to the physical location where they grew up, regardless of how they feel about it. (I believe this is an American term; my Canadian parents never used it.) A while ago I saw a quote painted on a building (we have a lot of that here in Weimar) that summed up das Heimat really well:

Heimat is da, wo man sich nicht erklären muss. – JG Herde
Heimat is where you don’t need to explain yourself.

Given this definition, the place that immediately comes to mind is indeed the place where I grew up, but more importantly the people with whom I grew up. With these friends, much can go unsaid between us because the context is implicitly understood. This is the beauty of old friends and old relationships. On the other hand, when I am with people I have met in places new to all of us, there is a shared understanding in the way we talk about that place. We are not “from there” but we lived there together, providing a common context.

This can be true of any place where we live. We learn how to get along with the place, how to function within it, and how it works. My first overseas job was in Malaysia and I used up so much energy fighting the system that my attempts at integration were truly limited. Where I felt most comfortable was in the badminton hall once a week with expat and local colleagues. This is where we had common context (outside of work) and understood each other, and this is how I came to understand what it could mean to be part of Malaysia, though I never went beyond that point. I’ve approached all subsequent experiences with a much more open mind as a result and as such, I have become much more accepting of, “This is just how it is here” and directed my energy towards living with what is rather than trying to create what I left behind somewhere else.

To describe how I feel here, I like the German word wohl, which basically means physically or mentally well. I’ve been asked, in relation to this question of home, where I feel wohl. And again, it depends. This is always around people and less tied to a physical place, perhaps because I’ve felt some sense of belonging in some way everywhere I’ve lived, though not always as part of the place itself. But in terms of my day-to-day, my interactions, the way my life is structured . . . I’m certainly not fighting the system the way I did in Malaysia, but I wouldn’t say I’m always fully confident about next steps here in Germany, either. There are some aspects of living here that I’m still learning and working through, though they are a source of curiosity rather than irritation (most of the time).

Wo sich dein Herz wohlfühlt, ist dein Zuhause.
Home is where the heart is.

I think the issue is that my heart is in a lot of places and I cannot always clearly articulate this. In English I can refer to “getting home” and “going home” in the same sentence (as in, “I just got home from work and wanted to ask you about going home this summer”) and refer to totally different places, which come with totally different feelings. The difference is implied and understood. German, however, has das Zuhause for the former and das Heimat for the latter, which overtly states my emotional connections. In my relationships here in Germany, I can appreciate that the English phrasing is hard to hear for people who very much want me to be at home where I am. And I, in turn, appreciate being able to choose from more specific words in these circumstances.

Years ago, I read Lisa Feldman Barrett’s insightful book, How Emotions Are Made and it helped me understand how language shapes worldview. Sometimes, we just aren’t talking about the same thing and it can take time and effort to recognize that. As I’ve been learning to go between languages, I’ve understood this more clearly. It has made me more sensitive to how my word choice might affect others, as well as the need to be direct and explicit rather than to assume shared implied understanding. It has also made me more aware of the nuance I might be missing when I understand certain words that don’t translate as directly as I had thought. There is, after all, much more to language than what comes out of a dictionary.

Heimat is da, wo man sich nicht erklären muss.
Wo sich dein Herz wohlfühlt, ist dein Zuhause.

Home is where you don’t need to explain yourself.
Home is where the heart is.

Both statements are true, as is much unsaid that lies in between.

Weimar, Germany – December 2021