What Is Coming Next

Friday, October 31, 2014


As October draws to a close I find myself at the threshold of a very significant month.  I have two major goals in November as well as a number of ongoing goals I first began last year.  My two major goals are these:

• Compete in the Mister Minneapolis Eagle 2015 competition
• Offer a retrospective in acknowledgment of the fact that November, 2014 will mark the 25 year anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin wall.

As a means of honoring the significance of November, 1989 in German history I will make Germany the explicit focus of my blog during the entire month of November, 2014.  Throughout my writings I will also intersperse commentary regarding what is unfolding in my own life in the present day.

In 2012 I was awarded a McCloy Environmental Policy Fellowship by the American Council on Germany.  I created an itinerary of consultation visits and ultimately undertook my trip to Germany in May, 2013.  During the trip itself I made time to visit with my (biological) mother, my mother's siblings and my cousins.  Visiting my mother's family for the first time in eleven years (and seeing what had and had not changed in that time) had the unexpected consequence of awakening a grief I had long carried with me regarding the loss of my mother at such an early age in my own life.  Looking back with the benefit of eighteen months of hindsight I see how my trip was the catalyzing force that propelled me back into an active journey of self-inquiry.

It is my conviction that some of the trauma we may experience in our lives is very much cultural in nature.  When an entire culture goes through a trauma (think here of the Irish potato famine, the genocide of the Native American peoples, the Nazi era Holocaust of the 20th century) the legacy of that trauma can have lasting consequences that may take generations to heal.  When an individual or a whole community goes through a profound separation from the culture they have always known it can be a profoundly upsetting and harmful experience.  By writing about German history in general and about the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 in particular I intend to honor my own life and the lives of my ancestors.

I may not necessarily write every single day in November.  You can nonetheless expect what I hope will prove to be something of a fascinating retrospective on modern German history.

I hope you will join me for what promises to be an eventful month!