IT'S UP TO YOU - NEW YORK

The island of Manhattan is a strange place. Totally crowded with millions of people it conveys the feeling of being welcome and home even if you haven’t been there for years. It may be the phenomenon of skyscrapers limiting the space – though you are in between the diversity of the human race a glance up to the sky suffices to feel total loneliness and nevertheless a kind of safety. Yes, it is definitely the skyscrapers, but what do we actually define as our homes and how can we express what it means to ourselves? Is a home where your family is, are your friends you might can find everywhere in the world the better family and are homes as a consequence therefore replaceable? Somebody one day said home is where your heart is – seems easy, effectively quite hard. Maybe this quote should be taken more literal than emotional. As our hearts are inside ourselves – not in all but at least in most cases – we carry our homes along every day it doesn’t matter in which place on our planet we are located for a while by furnishing it with memories we caught up since our ability to remember killed our childhood innocence. So why can a city like New York impact our feeling of home? It’s like coming back to your small hometown, having the impression nothing will ever change while the time stands still. Of course you can discover new adventures at any time but basically the structures last. People – fashion – the subway. You are used to it, that’s why it’s common and might be replaceable much more easily than you could ever have imagined. At the end we are able to replace everything from a broken plate to a friend if we actually just want to, so why are we often afraid of doing the same way with our homes? Human’s nature of convenience? I believe things would go like they did with Rupert Everett and his VIP dressing room he was so proud about getting after his first big success at one of London’s West End theaters. We are flying high. Five minutes. After that it makes us sick.

Every time I breathe the wasted air of New York City it is the bespoke feeling that comes over. What is a home? Can we accept a certain place as the one giving us the safety we need no matter what happens or is it our actual living style we need to get into somewhat deeper in order to establish nearness around us? I am afraid we often avoid the idea of loving the things we actually got in order not to run the risk that someday that something might be gone. In some points Frank Sinatra might end up to be right by singing It’s up to you! Doubtful if he meant the city or his very self. No matter where we will make it or want our vagabond shoes to stray – sometimes home is just a feeling.

Cheers

Lorax

MAKE A WISH

For a true friend

When the magic wears off, reality will still be here and you have to deal with it. Epic moments in life seem to be rare, but why are they? The most situations we have to deal with should get the label epic as we still talk about our daily entity. When we give up the magic in ourselves nothing we ever worked for seems to have any right of existence anymore, but what is it about letting magic enter our lives? I am talking about those moments we suddenly brake out of a daily cluster and let the cold wind lead us to some speechless adventures we might never have experienced out of our natural phlegm.

I am observing a couple at my favorite bar for some weeks now. I am not sure if they are still dating or simply passing their evenings together in a more fashionable location than their proper residence might be, but what I know is, that their reunions seem to take place on a very intimate and quite magic level as they seem to descend in their very own world, with all this pulsing life of a Friday night around them vanishing to the dark. It is the way they look and talk to each other, what makes this weird kind of scene magical. I ask myself if reality will overtake them the moment they cross the doors back again to this cold spring. Anyhow I have the impression from time to time, that the magic I am talking about is still a kind of hideaway we curtain ourselves behind by establishing some fictional world for some hours. Is magic a sort of lie pretending to be the truth?

Magic encounters us more often we actually would believe, but what we never really want to face is what would happen when the magic is gone.

Later that week someone decided to stop the never-ending rain, giving the sun the chance for a comeback. While enjoying the very first summer evening on the steps of the opera house the magic of a whole city overwhelmed me in a rather unusual way. On the one side the moment of a town falling asleep in the dawn, on the other side the thought, that nothing lasts forever. Summer returns every year no matter how bad and sad we might have lived through the days before its final breakthrough. It is sort a outlandish that there is and will always be this deep wish inside of ourselves, getting things the way we certified them, even if they aren’t meant to be alike. Is this even a wish we should and could make? Are wishes meant to last or do they reflect a small sequence of our thoughts and emotional condition? Where stays the magic of a profound wish if it isn’t planned to stay with us? Maybe we all must learn and accept to be broken up with something just to get a better state of mind for our surrounding world and us. How can we even care for our wishes if we cant care? Is it allowed to make wishes in a dishonest way? Somehow we should again face reality and remind that a breakup also in a wishes context, isn’t always that bad. It may hurt but maybe it is the only way. In the end Oscar Wilde was right by telling us that divorces are made in heaven, so maybe we should start to step beside our daydreams and let reality be real.

But even if reality will only start to care when we are gone, why should we adjust our dreams and wishes? Divorces may be a celestial phenomenon but if our dreams wont scare us out of a reason of sense, they aren’t big enough.

The sky might be the limit – not for our dreams.

Cheers

Lorax

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

SUN, SEA & SUNGLASSES

There seem to be a few fixed dates during the year in which the whole world wants to board the next flight to the very same destination. The highly fashionable island Sylt in the middle of the German northern sea is the hotspot of more or less every socialite during the Pentecost holidays, turning to a certain kind of Disney World for adults for a weekend only. The funny thing about this scattershot get together is that nearly everything takes places on an area of roundabout 5 km², compared to the most central areas of it doesn’t matter which city the groundwork for coincidences. Coincidences – are they real or again a consequence of decisions we take? It is weekends like the bespoke, which let me muse about how it is even possible to hit exactly the folks we would or even not would like to see more than once within 48 hours. Is it really that difficult to avoid the one who broke your heart or your archenemy among beach parties, dinner invitations and clubbing? Obviously it is, so maybe this might be the reason why everybody on the island wears sunglasses in the dark.

I guess coincidences are those strange things between science and fate we have to accept for ourselves as those, we can’t control anymore, like the rough sea, we actually cant swim in. I mean what would sometimes have happened, if we chose in an instant to go the complete opposite direction. Would we have met someone special earlier and what are coincidences meant to be for our road of life? Are they actually comparable to destiny or might this be a something too spiritual view for deciding a path to be gone or not? Maybe it is even the point in which we have to stop worrying about the what-ifs and the should-haves in order to stay clear in mind. Nevertheless it confuses me, how it might be possible to meet someone perfectly unknown in front of a night club, the next day at the same restaurant for breakfast, afterwards at the same house party and to top it all on the same plane back home. I mean, OK. Space is limited – but suchlike? Where do coincidence and destiny meet and are those simple constructs siblings in mind or distant relatives?

While I was resting a bit at the beach from a running and rather excessive party the whole collective looked forward to on Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t resist of thinking about coincidences over and again. Basically they seem to be nothing but a consequence of choices and choices are and will stay the frame of showing, which person we really are far more than our abilities ever will. Do we have a choice? I often had those moments in life asking myself what would have happened if I chose in a situation differently before? Surely I wouldn’t be settled in life where I find myself now but maybe I would have done the one or the other more exotic and freaky thing. Moving to Berlin for my studies was one of them for example. Obviously it is better doing something than doing nothing. Being stuck is even worse than getting the wrong direction, even if I maintain the point of view that a wrong could not be possible in life-choices. Everything might be for some reason and even if we cannot realize it for the very moment, I can’t leave the feeling that sometimes I could have done better for my very own. I am and will still reach for something greater, better, more fashionable, and waiting maybe for a further moving by accident enabling it.

Maybe it is again an issue of sunglasses – by taking them off we might find the coincidences we were meant for somehow easier by clearing our visibility, but why should we take them off, when we could find our sunshine somewhere else?

Cheers

Lorax

THESE WORDS

Yves Saint Laurent once upon a time told the following phrase to a fashion journalist, who asked him what the perfect dress should look like: The most beautiful clothes that can dress a woman are the arms of the man she loves. But for those who haven't had the fortune of finding this happiness, I am there. Should this be love? In a down to earth way – maybe. Yves seemed kind of overmodest but expressed contemporarily his deepest thoughts in this great quote. By hiding his own light, no his life he expressed in designing phenomenal pieces of garment, under a bushel only saying that love described in a metaphor of two strong arms is more worth than his central point of his very own life, he puts the love issue upon nearly everything. I ask myself if he ever was that lucky to experience this feeling and will I ever do? How many unreturned love stories do we have to pass through before finding the other half or will we end like the great master of French fashion alone and secluded? Would we be worth less without someone next to us? In fact it seems not a matter of worth but one of the own appreciation. How do we feel by staying alone and are we happier with it? Do we finally need someone who waits for us at night?

Actually I do adore evenings all alone with myself. Today is one of them. Thinking about the love issue more profoundly, while examining all the Nighthawks of this mild night in May sitting next to my window, I had to note, that we lie to ourselves that often concerning our emotional state of mind. That cool and calm folks we would like to get across isn’t exactly what we were made for. We were made for kissing, loving, struggling, crying and maybe it should happen as often as possible simply reminding us that we are besides all of our daily boast still there being able to hear the words we sometimes wait too desperately for. I am sure that regardless how often somebody told us her last goodbye, knowing she can’t come back, these words still stand up. Regardless how often we got disappointed, standing back frustrated and depressed it was and will be that important to have known somebody, who stood by you loving unconditionally, no matter if the story ended up in disbelief.

Love – curtain of the past, revealing an extraordinary future.

Cheers

Lorax

YOU'VE CHANGED

A friend of mine today told me that a last piece in her still hopes to get a greater good. A place inside herself, where to find the inner needs or requirements apart from all superficial positions we have to face ourselves to in a world of the 21^st century. What is it we all are searching for? No – I am not talking as one of those neurotic characters Woody Allen tries to concern about, by trying to get his very own problems in an order to live with. I mean what is the real one thing we are looking for. A huge part of my entourage would immediately be able to answer to this question in their very simple manner, by repeating answers a society like we find ourselves in, likes to pretend:

Money – Success – maybe Family. The more forced an answer is the more clearly pseudo intellectual or pathetic the statements will be. Health or Luck will clarify the issue soon for some of us, but for my own all those requirements never really explore the complicate inside-out manner of every single person. I unluckily don’t know if my neurosis gets over me and only tries to detain me from things I should better wise do or if I absolutely need to bring my thoughts in a concrete order by maybe finding some answers. After all, things change, but is there a time for it?

By holding the status quo we seem to try to escape in a state of mind we don’t ever want to change. It seems a mistake to be stuck in the middle of any conveniences, but aren’t mistakes the simple reason how we compete in life? Somehow, what we need is more time. Time for – whatever. Journeys, love, fashion: Just a further way in finding what we are and what we want. Sounds pathetic. In fact it is. Actually I follow the belief in a never-ending development of personality. I mean everybody telling me he or she finally found THE way of life in it does not matter which case has to lie to herself. There is no THE, it is just an A. For some it might be following a career path, given from the very beginning, for others it might be simply strange adventures at midnight. Maybe our view of the system stays too dualistic. A separation like in today’s society is no more the one of bad and good. Borders are blurred in a Batman style. Nobody seems to know who is right at the end of the day – like Bruce Wayne who is fighting basically for revenge occasionally defeating the bad boys. We should accept that there would never be a right or a wrong for ourselves, too. It’s a matter of choosing a lane or even not and letting some changes enter our lives. Everything changes: seasons do, as a city or the people we surround ourselves with. Our lives seem that restless and though we would never get along without some issues involving some natural dissimilarity. But why does everything always have to change? For myself, I do believe that life is not a single picture you look at, maybe finding constantly new details. No. Life is more than rather a movie. And it’s in a movies nature to change pictures. So why are we this often afraid to rearrange our concepts and start into something completely unknown – a kind of moving on? And are we ever really able to change a situation without changing ourselves, letting a well-known darkness we probably have achieved in any of our relations behind? In fact it seems quite impossible, but thankfully the term itself declares it as the complete opposite: I M possible. Thank you Audrey Hepburn!

Cheers

Lorax

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

THE STORYTELLER

He lives the story – not his life. This might be the résumé of two hilarious and rather inspiring hours in the sun together with one of my most heartily friends, somewhere in the museums quarter on a creepy Sunday afternoon. Why I came to even this issue about telling stories, depends on a guy the both of us were talking about. A guy who might have perfected the way of living the life as a beloved or maybe even dreamed story he built around his very self. I admit that I don’t know him that well on a personal level, but in every of our always occasional getting together he symbolizes, and not only to me the belonging to another time of the 20^th century. It’s primarily about his style but all above about his eloquence bringing you to the idea this man has boarded a time machine some when in the golden twenties and has left all those great intellectuals and artists, from Ernest Hemingway to Salvador Dalí simply to get faced to an epoch his soul seems lost in. Last time I saw him, he was passing by on his bicycle, vintage of course, with a pair of gorgeous cognac-colored-calf-leather brogues, shoelaces in red and his steady companion, a tweed jacket – the accomplished Francis Scott Fitzgerald look. I often wonder if he ever gets connected to our world and our style. He sometimes seems thus affected in projecting his own understanding of an ideology to the rest of his entourage he might forget the story he lives. But are we ever able to change the story we were giving to get along with? Can we even tell a story of life while we are actually still living it? Maybe we try to display a perfect image of ourselves by telling stories we might never have heard of, by blurring the own imperfections away. But can any story be told were perfection is found? I think it was Harvey Weinstein, one of Hollywood’s most famous storytellers who brought it to the point by saying, that we are mostly fascinated of what we do, but over all we love how people look at it, that’s why we might love doing it perfectly. He also said that people love a true story, so what should we give the preference at least – the truth or a variation of it?

Later that day I began thinking in a story telling context, what we might want to achieve by telling some. I mean besides the fact of putting some records straight it remains an entertaining issue, it doesn’t matter in which range of story we are delayed: Opera – Film – Art. All of them want to tell a story in order to might letting forget the own conditions we are located in for a certain while. Perhaps we should understand our own told story more as an artistic act, in order to let us forget what we actually are having sort of a showdown with. Never complain, never explain – that’s what I was told last week and I admit that it fits even in our story’s coherence. So why should we bother about living the story while forgetting to live, when living is nothing but a story to tell.

Cheers

Lorax 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

OVERKILL MANIA

Sometimes the strange need of leaving overcomes me and I have to pack up my stuff, turning my back on the city from one instant to another. So it did happen after the rather disillusioning opening event of the new Louis Vuitton Maison that week. I don’t know if my expectations where to high or if it may get constantly difficult to impress me, but I was kind of disappointed by the demonstrated show. I don’t even know if it was the event by itself or the highly valuable guests celebrating some new bags – what I know is that I struggled with myself and my own reflection on others. Is it possible that we lead our lives like some weird dress code on a fancy invitation? Sometimes Black Tie, sometimes Cocktail and sometimes simply Come As You Are! Why are we ever and over again thus affected to be the ones, anybody wants us to be? Do expectations and reality ever even get close and do we really want to be part of a world, in which C-list celebrities are paid court to, solely Marc Jacobs himself should obtain?

It was the point to step outside and clear my head – direction south – next stop Italy!

While I was driving through the marvelous hills of Tuscany on my direct way to Florence I tried rather hard to examine why I had to escape from the city’s clutches helter-skelter. Is it possible to get a literal overkill from everything and is the only solution passing some days in soleness to get things back on track? I mean if it is really that hard to lead our lives the way, we as actual independent-thinking folks decided to, why do we get thereof overmuch every once in a while? Taking my first Espresso on Piazza della Signoria I watched the gorgeous Italian guys pursuing their daily business with an untouchable and thus so much unaffected sophistication, on an oddish level similar to the attitude of a cigarette – nostalgic romance of smoking and I don’t care mindset at once. I am not sure, but again am able to guess that even this sentiment might be an answer to overkills, handling them all’italiana and letting them pass through like the yearly tourist flood at the Uffizi Gallery.

Overkill – an expression we use this often in our daily life, but what it is ultimately about? Is it nothing but overdoing things we are accustomed to and which may concern all of our routine? Maybe it is more of an overload of information, than a literal killer, as I am not convinced that our own lives may assassinate ourselves – a kill is not an overkill. It seems to be more about changing the very own structures, like our friends, enemies or even political goodwill to get through with this sort of lesson.

Back in Munich – back in style. While unpacking my Florentine shopping achievements the subject of overkills didn’t get off my head. Maybe even overkills are likewise a cigarette’s smoke – disappearing into thin air and still bringing a something to a higher level. Without overkills we might never examine what really struggles us and we would literally miss the opportunity for some new inspiration in life. Like many things in our personal entity we need to get tired of some issues – even if it is a simple invitation for a party you were absurdly behind – in order to inspire ourselves for upcoming proceedings. Inspiration via overkill – at least it is a starting point, bringing us somewhere new.

Cheers

Lorax

Follow my blog with Bloglovin