swallow

Dear friends of piano music,

"A swallow doesn't make a summer". Actually, I wanted to write something completely different - how thoughts are as free as a swallow that soars into the air and looks at the world from a distance. How beautiful, I thought, the world looks from above, like in those movies "Germany from Above", in which you can see the large lines, the colored fields, the lush green of the forests, the blue of the seas. From a swallow's perspective, you are spared all the ugly little details, the dying forests, the poisoning of nature, even a motorway junction looks beautiful from a distance due to its precise geometric structures - you don't feel how the earth suffers from this sealing, the stench Cars, the aggressiveness of internal combustion engines and unfortunately also some of the contemporaries who drive these cars. The world is beautiful from the swallow's perspective, although this is already a romantic transfiguration on my part, because it is the helicopter or drone perspective that allows us to perceive this slightly distant beauty. I cannot say what one of these graceful little birds perceives of our world from its lofty heights - I hope it is happy when it walks so weightlessly and dancing on his way up there.

But then it came, as it always does - life is what happens while we make plans. I came across a really bad educational gap - I, the Latin teacher, had completely forgotten that this saying, which is as familiar as a farmer's rule or a popular text, actually goes back to a fable by Aesop. It's not a nice story, and it seems a bit like an oracle to me, but that is due to the nature of the fable, which is a small, clever story of general meaning, a parable from which, like in directorial theater, new levels of meaning can be read out. It is a mirror that you can look into and learn something about yourself in the process. A man sells his coat because he saw a single swallow and was overly optimistic that that swallow meant summer has begun. But the swallow was quite simply too early, the man had to freeze from then on. His longing for light and warmth had made him reckless, and he had to atone for it by freezing even more than before. Yes, you caught me - I have to write about the pandemic again, I know it's obsessive. Nevertheless, it is simply the formative element of this time that we all have in common that makes life difficult for us and now also spoils spring. For weeks you could see how the British mutant was producing exponential growth in Germany despite lockdown, it was only not to be seen in the absolute numbers, since the restrictions were sufficient for the less aggressive “wild type” to withdraw. But even I, who really am not a math genius, could see it from the numbers, and with astonishment and concern I watched how everyone spoke of openings and loosenings and obviously believed it, while science warned cautiously. The longing for a normal life was so great that the decline in the number of infections was held for the summer and was not recognized as a stray swallow. Oh, I can understand it so well, I too want to go out into the sun and full life with my children, but it's just not the right time.

So let's do it like the swallow - let's withdraw into a bird's eye view. At Christmas, our Minister of Education recommended that families play “Mensch ärgere dich nicht” in order to cope with their Corona frustration. That was generally not well received ... My advice at first sounds similarly unworldly and cerebral, and it certainly doesn't suit everyone: Read Seneca. Believe me, it helps. There is nothing better in a crisis in which the world and “full life” fail us. Seneca helps - not just Latin teachers ... and of course, as always, our most loyal friend, the music.

best regards

Kerstin