Back from a short visit to Frankfurt on Main where I spent the long German weekend (as Monday was Germany’s national holiday on the date of 1990’s reunification) on a Family feast – and family meaning here my parents and their relatives, particulary from my mother’s side of the family. As it once again turned out, on this side of the family all the women are unbalanced, a state that can be traced back at least to my grandmother and her sisters. It’s unclear still if this is due an genetic disorder given from mother to daughter over each generation for who knows how many centuries or if it can be blamed on some particular events at and after the end of World War II when the family was widely ripped apart, people were killed and the girl that later turned out to be my grandmother found themselves in now not very hospitable Poland (no wonder about that) before years later she made her way to Germany – with Frankfurt being the first stop where her mother and one of her sisters already had arrived.
But speculations don’t bode well on this grave matter so let’s ignore the questions that have to be left unanswered. Still, a certain mental disorder befell those women and was at least inherited by their female offspring down to the third generation that yet has not found the time or dedication to breed another. So while unknown in the beginning it was unexpected but not surprising to learn about a recent row between my mother and her aunt that hardly let them speak to each other the whole weekend. Pigheaded they are, and not unlike one of the Jewish families portrayed in a Woody Allen movie, say Annie Hall. Nonetheless was this not the only hint pointing to prove my suspicion. Have a look at exhibit B, my grandaunts only daughter. Now, this was a sursprise finding her practising as a newly appointed spiritual healer. From the many women I’ve known there was hardly one that was less spiritual and more in need of a healer herself. What has to pass as spirituality here is a conglomerate of cheap psycho-babble, a mild depression, and a huge chunk of helpless self-pity, all obviously mixed together to create an appearance of depth she totally and absolutely lacks. That sounds cruel but what that woman needs is a therapy and a dedication to face her problems, not a self-printed diploma of a suspicious sounding healers’ group. At least my impression was one of sickness in her presence and the only healthy thing was to look for as much distance as the weekend could offer. So the only woman left from that third generation to have a look at would be my sister but spare me that for she shows all too many signs of carrying that plague inside her herself, acting neurotic and overly self-centred whenever there’s an opportunity (and she’s very ingenious to find or create herself opportunities and surprise me with it, even now, after all these years).
It is an open question how this will turn out in the future. Happily I do announce that the males in the family are largely unaffected by all this. True, they suffer, how could they not, but they’re moderating the women’s plague not multiplying it. It’s something about the genetic layout, the fusion of Y to X, that checks the illness in all those men while they see their sisters fall to their mother’s disease. Bravely, they walk on; I’m proud to be the home of a Y chromosome… And there’s another hope. Looking at my grandaunt’s granddaughter, offspring of one of her sons – she’s a fine little girl, only of age 10 now, but with no sign of the rotten roots inside her. Well adjusted and jolly and even with a hint of beauty that may come to blossom when she’ll reach that age, she could be the proof that nature can overcome what nature has bred, the victory of sexuality’s genetic engineering, and there may be hope for my own offspring when the time comes. Time will show if that girl will hold the line or go down the same route of walking on the edge of insanity our family is cursed with. Till then it’s back to latex.
Other than that there were also some fun activities to lighten this post’s dark theme. On a rainy day in a sports stadium without a working roof, the Reporter could observe Schalke 04 play against Frankfurt and finally winning 1:0. The game was bad if not worse, but given the unforgiving rain, the state of the field, and any other excuse that comes to mind, it was still a victory, so what the heck, it was a victory, three points, taking fourth place in the League back from Berlin. And the beer was okay, and other people paid, so what.
The next night the river Main was crossed at early night on a ferry. A car ferry, sure, and it was not the Delaware anyway. But if the reporter wasn’t re-enacting Washington then, who maybe didn’t have his parents with him, maybe it was at least coming close to Patton. If he crossed the Main in 1945, who knows, the reporter’s too lazy now to check in his books or on the net, the source of any wisdom for anyone lacking information. But if Patton crossed the Main, maybe not far from that spot in Offenbach, standing between two Jeeps or even Shermans like the reporter between a Mercedes and an Alfa Romeo, maybe he enjoyed it like the reporter did, in that dark night of clouds and winds, for a moment forgetting the neurosis that can be produced by too many relatives nearby or by your own insanity that first made you become a General and then refuse that Oscar.
But speculations don’t bode well on this grave matter so let’s ignore the questions that have to be left unanswered. Still, a certain mental disorder befell those women and was at least inherited by their female offspring down to the third generation that yet has not found the time or dedication to breed another. So while unknown in the beginning it was unexpected but not surprising to learn about a recent row between my mother and her aunt that hardly let them speak to each other the whole weekend. Pigheaded they are, and not unlike one of the Jewish families portrayed in a Woody Allen movie, say Annie Hall. Nonetheless was this not the only hint pointing to prove my suspicion. Have a look at exhibit B, my grandaunts only daughter. Now, this was a sursprise finding her practising as a newly appointed spiritual healer. From the many women I’ve known there was hardly one that was less spiritual and more in need of a healer herself. What has to pass as spirituality here is a conglomerate of cheap psycho-babble, a mild depression, and a huge chunk of helpless self-pity, all obviously mixed together to create an appearance of depth she totally and absolutely lacks. That sounds cruel but what that woman needs is a therapy and a dedication to face her problems, not a self-printed diploma of a suspicious sounding healers’ group. At least my impression was one of sickness in her presence and the only healthy thing was to look for as much distance as the weekend could offer. So the only woman left from that third generation to have a look at would be my sister but spare me that for she shows all too many signs of carrying that plague inside her herself, acting neurotic and overly self-centred whenever there’s an opportunity (and she’s very ingenious to find or create herself opportunities and surprise me with it, even now, after all these years).
It is an open question how this will turn out in the future. Happily I do announce that the males in the family are largely unaffected by all this. True, they suffer, how could they not, but they’re moderating the women’s plague not multiplying it. It’s something about the genetic layout, the fusion of Y to X, that checks the illness in all those men while they see their sisters fall to their mother’s disease. Bravely, they walk on; I’m proud to be the home of a Y chromosome… And there’s another hope. Looking at my grandaunt’s granddaughter, offspring of one of her sons – she’s a fine little girl, only of age 10 now, but with no sign of the rotten roots inside her. Well adjusted and jolly and even with a hint of beauty that may come to blossom when she’ll reach that age, she could be the proof that nature can overcome what nature has bred, the victory of sexuality’s genetic engineering, and there may be hope for my own offspring when the time comes. Time will show if that girl will hold the line or go down the same route of walking on the edge of insanity our family is cursed with. Till then it’s back to latex.
Other than that there were also some fun activities to lighten this post’s dark theme. On a rainy day in a sports stadium without a working roof, the Reporter could observe Schalke 04 play against Frankfurt and finally winning 1:0. The game was bad if not worse, but given the unforgiving rain, the state of the field, and any other excuse that comes to mind, it was still a victory, so what the heck, it was a victory, three points, taking fourth place in the League back from Berlin. And the beer was okay, and other people paid, so what.
The next night the river Main was crossed at early night on a ferry. A car ferry, sure, and it was not the Delaware anyway. But if the reporter wasn’t re-enacting Washington then, who maybe didn’t have his parents with him, maybe it was at least coming close to Patton. If he crossed the Main in 1945, who knows, the reporter’s too lazy now to check in his books or on the net, the source of any wisdom for anyone lacking information. But if Patton crossed the Main, maybe not far from that spot in Offenbach, standing between two Jeeps or even Shermans like the reporter between a Mercedes and an Alfa Romeo, maybe he enjoyed it like the reporter did, in that dark night of clouds and winds, for a moment forgetting the neurosis that can be produced by too many relatives nearby or by your own insanity that first made you become a General and then refuse that Oscar.
