All posts by Rebecca Michelle

Educator, traveler, reader, blogger. Loves learning, black coffee, and friendly people.
On My Mind

Drifting

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I can’t seem to move from the floor, even though there are plenty of other places to sit. As a rule, I enjoy sitting on the floor, but this isn’t a particularly comfortable spot. The day is grey and while I had an idea of what to do with it when I woke up, any desire to follow through seems to have vanished. There’s no real reason for it, but there it is.

When the French press was empty, I made a cup of tea and stood at the balcony door, watching the trees move in the wind, looking out into a distance that I could reach by foot in just a few kilometres. The idea had been to head out there, not because it’s a nice day but because it’s something to do.

But to be honest, I’m tired of finding things to do just for the sake of something to do. I enjoy my time at home, but I also enjoy purposeful activity, and that was noticeably missing. There’s enough to do for the sake of diversion, but doing itself was not the point. And besides, tomorrow is likely to feel like today and the chores could get done then. Maybe there will be a greater sense of urgency.

But urgency is not the same as purpose, and purpose seems to be in short supply at the moment. Our trip to Peru was a life dream to fulfil before we embarked on other life dreams. And I guess I’m feeling a little dream-shy at the moment. What’s to say that the new dreams aren’t snatched away, too?

One could argue, we’ve lived through a pandemic and come out the other side. Isn’t that evidence enough?

One could argue, it’s too soon, take your time, life will settle back to normal. 

Both true. Neither especially comforting.

So I’m sitting on the floor, writing this instead of going out to – what? Be out. Just to be out. Because being out there is certainly more fulfilling than being in here.

On My Mind

Cancelled

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There were enough signs that aligned (or didn’t) that we knew before we admitted we knew: We would not be travelling to Peru as we planned. It was 4am when we first broached the subject and 11am when we made the decision. We’d booked the trip six months earlier and had talked about it for at least six months before that. But the universe just didn’t turn the way we needed it to turn.

We cried, realizing we were giving up on a dream. There will be other dreams, of course, but dreams are the things that grab hold of us and that’s what makes them so hard to let go.

Over the subsequent days, I realized that I was still sad. I woke up in the mornings wishing I were still asleep, not ready to face yet another day here, when everything I had been looking forward to was somewhere else.

We’ve gone out every day and watched spring coming into full force. I’ve cooked some nice things.

My favourite area in Weimar is the forest close to our flat and I brought my journal there one day. It helps me breathe a little more easily.

When life doesn’t go according to plan, it provides us all sorts of opportunities to realign and readjust. This is a chance to look at my own behaviour and actions in the face of a disappointment and behave differently next time. That’s real life, and there will be a great deal more of it that does not go according to plan.

It its own messy way, that’s what makes it beautiful.

Germany

Counting the Living

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Back in 2020, I read a New York Times article about a crowdsourced, online project to digitize records with the Arolsen Archives, the keepers of the world’s largest archive on victims and survivors of National Socialism (Nazism). The goal of the #everynamecounts initiative is to create a digital memorial with records accessible to all.

With thousands of volunteers around the world, I type whatever information there is. Sometimes I’m familiar with the names because of the community I grew up in and where I live now. Sometimes I recognize locations. One project involved documenting records of prisoners held in the concentration camp Buchenwald. I live within cycling distance of Buchenwald and have been up there more than a handful of times.

I most enjoy working on records of displaced people. These are the survivors, the young children with huge names, the defiant elders, the unbreakable adults. The documents indicate where they came from, and where they were sent to, and when. People were living in DP facilities until the early 1950s. Sailed to New York. Flight to London.

I wonder about the workers who took down these records, the handwriting of people all over the world, the very human touch of both condemning and saving a life. There is handwriting that loops and weaves, handwriting that took the time, handwriting that scratched and scrawled. Name. Marital status. Birthplace. Last address. Location. There are typed records, too, an indication that all of this happened in a world different from ours, yet not so long ago.

As I record lives lost and lives saved, I think about the internationalism of these records. Europe in ruins, its condemned minorities and those unlucky enough to have a non-conformist opinion collected and shipped off. To somewhere. Europe’s ravaged population surviving wherever they ended up, many so far from home.

And the internationalism of 175,000 volunteers around the world who painstakingly transcribe documents holding the stories of 17.5 million people. To guard against mistakes, each document is read by several volunteers. Any areas that cannot be read according to the usual guidelines are then checked by a member of the Arolsen Archives team. Seventeen and a half million individuals and their stories are too precious for error.

Two weeks ago, quite by accident, we drove past the town where the International Centre on Nazi Persecution, home of the Arolsen Archives, is located. I transcribed a few more documents the next day.

Every name counts.

View from the Buchenwald Memorial – March 2022