„They hate you because they can‘t control you“, my witch giggles another witching wisdom into our Iced Latte, as we sit in the cold wind that is so typical for Hamburg, the city in the north of Germany which I grew up in. Every witch once had a home, remember?
„Had“, my witch reminds me.
We definitely have to move on.
I am the wild one in the family.
I am the only one who ever attend university to do anything else than law or business. I am the only one who learned to play instruments and who is interested in science. I also have the smallest income of all, although I don‘t consider myself poor. When I was 17 years old and I mentioned on a family meeting that I wanted to study archaeology, my uncle interrupted me with a raised voice as he stated that that‘s the best way to end up unemployed.
When I did an internship at a theater, they also told me that it was „nothing real“, and that in an intensity that deeply hurt me, and made me feel insecure about myself and the world.
Moving on from cold wind, the Elbe and the habour. From the sweet cinnamon roll done in a special way and called „Franzbrötchen“ (Franz bread bun). Moving on from the tales about the baltic sea and my seafaring, even pirating, ancestors from eastern Europe my grandfather used to tell me about … It is not an easy step.
I have a cousin who is 17 now. She will work in the same company as my uncle, study business as he did, and even live next door to him. She won‘t be out late during her university years, she won‘t be allowed to spend time abroad, or develop any skills that are not useful in business. She told me recently that she does not know what else she‘d be good at. She can paint with oil colours and is good at learning languages, but you cannot make money of that her father said.
I have recently been at a part of Hamburg called Altona again. It‘s a part I truly like, because it makes me nostalgic. There was a small theater I often played at when I was 19 years old, and when I walked those tiny streets with old houses and uniqu shops and cafes, I dreamed of being a street musician back then.
So I told my mother about that, and she wrinkled her nose.
„Oh god, why …“ But it was not a question.
And I also suddenly remembered how I had always felt lost and unfitting, and therefore had never dared to sing in the streets of Altona.
I also have another cousin, who wanted to become a teacher once. She had seen how happy teaching people had made me, and was inspired by it. But than, my other uncle took that cousin to some business partners of his and they informed her that teachers do not get payed good enough and showed her cars she could not buy and beaches she could not fly to (which is weird to say here in Germany, because teachers are payed well and stable).
In the end, they changed her mind, and my grandmother was very sad about the way it had happened.
I really miss my grandmother. She was the only one who was ever interested in my art. She would sit down with me and look at my poems and drawings, or listen to my music.
I asked my mother why she never supported my art.
„Because you‘re always so extreme and exhausting in everything you do“, she would say. And: „I am not stopping you. Do whatever you want.“
„Yes, but will you be there and cheer me on and believe in me?“
„That‘s not my job. And I have to be honest.“
So honesty means not believing in me, apparently.
It‘s my responsibility to do the things I want to do, but still I very often feel how I lack of a certain warmth and support that I know exists in this world.
Just not in the place where I came from.
When I was in primary school, I once or twice had a really bad grade in math. I simply was not interested in simple calculations. My father took it very heavy that his daughter had been under the average grade for the test, and he would not let me forget that for a long while. In general, he doubted all my abilities, even when I was in university, and never believed that I could graduate, although I am a teacher for basic science now.
When I asked my mother why she let him treat me like this, or why we cannot talk about the way my cousins are being controlled and manipulated she only shook her head. „This is normal“, she would say. „People are like this. People want normal jobs and cars. You are just weird.“
She would not come and see me play, even if I sang my own witching melodies in the streets of Altona. Since I have moved away a long time ago, it is more likely for me to sing in the streets of Düsseldorf, and I am honestly thinking about doing it, since I want to move my heart and soul out of the witching home Hamburg has always been for me.
Mistress witch writes 