We arrived with lots of excitement, lots of hugs and welcome squeezes and kisses. We eat “Brotzeit”, which means “bread time”, that is usually dinner (it was almost lunchtime), but it can be eaten any time if the day, in-between meals or with randomly surprising visitors. Brotzeit consist of everything you have in the fridge that doesn’t require cooking and can be eaten with pretzels, buns or bread: ham, prosciutto salami, pickled cucumbers, cheese, tomatoes, butter, etc. Beer or sparking water out of 1.5 liter bottles are the most common drinks, mustard goes with everything. Lots of talking, the occasional squeeze or touch from my almost blind mom, who sits next to me and still cannot believe that I’m here. She wants to reassure that this is not a dream. Very sweet…

We had left Friday 7am and here we are: it is Saturday, noon, and we feel the exhaustion. We need a nap: 3.5 hours later, refreshed, dinner is ready!

I grew up in this house and while there is an occasional change in furniture, the house never changes. We sleep in my bed in the attic, I put my clothes in the cabinet that I restored as a teenager, removed the many layers of thick oil paint with a heat gun and a spatula, waxed the wood and discovered a fainted pencil writing inside: „1869“, which just seemed old, but Germans don’t have this obsession about anything older than 50 years. The attic is always too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter, but that’s part of how I grew up. Ted has a hard time, I don’t complain, I have the advantage of reminisce.

The sounds of this house is also burned in my memory: is it the 1st and the 13th step up to the attic that make a cracking sound, or the bathroom door lock that is very hard to turn and sounds like a prison lock: that is it, you’ll never get outahere. The fan in the kitchen can be heard throughout the house, but you never know if the dishwasher is running, even if you stand right next to it. When I’m not here, I always forget, but as soon as I arrive, I reminisce. Sometimes I even hear my dad walking up the stairs with his uneven limp. Every second step was loud, heavy and lasted longer than the other, because of an almost fatal car accident he had as a very young man and almost lost both legs. But he did survive, kept his legs (one shorter and stiffer than the other) and had an uneven walk until he died 14 years ago. I still here him walking up and down the stairs. Everything is the same, the house never changes.