Talks, the Twenties, and a Tiny Mid-Life Crisis

On Monday I had a rather interesting day where normally the main event would be that I was in a 100-person hipster restaurant get-together with dozens of colleagues, 20 or so more colleagues from another German office, and the billionaire owner of our parent company.

What was far more pressing for me, however, was the meeting I ended up having afterward with the top management team. After at least two weeks of brooding and brainstorming, in which my conscience shook me like an enraged giant, it was a little exhausting to finally present what I wanted to say.

I was thinking, what are the most important problems facing my fellow team leads and me? what things are not the easy thing but the right thing to talk about? how do I speak moderately without minimizing important problems? how do I overcome my superiors' natural resistance to wish and explain away matters that they might not feel they have time to fix? I finally realized that I also had to build in time for rebuttals.

In the end the essential points were raised, and I gave examples of the problems I saw as well as proposals of how to fix them. But I was not very happy afterward; it's only the next morning where I began to admit that I should be proud of myself because I did a very difficult thing.

Still it feels wrong when I step forward about anything, because the fear of confrontation and of people being displeased with me makes me shy even at the best of times.

I also felt like I shot my career in the foot even more, and even if there are more important things in life it's always a little painful to pull the trigger.

The good news is that now I can focus again on finishing my tasks and improving the speed with which we add new clients to our system, with a conscience at ease.

*

For the 1920s programme on the weekends, I got around to playing (on the piano) two Gnossiennes and a Gymnopédie by Erik Satie, since he died in the mid-20s. For breakfasts, I've bought cornflakes to mimic the British trend of American cereals. And I made a baked apple betty in a historically accurate Pyrex dish for dessert, in an autumnal Saturday meal that also included a very un-British pumpkin soup.

(One historical thing I need to do more of, for practical reasons, but haven't done as much, is mend clothes. Two large bags full of ones that need to be mended await, and I'm realizing that a) I have a hoarding problem, and b) I could really use non-holey socks.)

Besides I watched at least fifteen minutes of It with Clara Bow on YouTube. I am still rolling my eyes over the phrase 'the It girl' when it appears in magazine articles today, so it's had a lasting cultural effect. That said, Bow's character's over-the-top languid gazes and the hardcore stalking of her love interest were too amusingly silly in the first place and uncomfortable in the second for me to watch it longer. She is an idiosyncratic actress and I was pretty quickly converted into a moderate fan.

In general I'd be happy to leave the mid-to-late 20s if it weren't for the Thirties, Forties, and Great Depression. Mostly because of the decadence.

Tolerance and freedom are good, yes, but exploitation not. (The prostitution that was rife in Berlin after the First World War, for example, or the biography of Clara Bow and other victims of the Hollywood machinery, are very disturbing.)

Maybe it would make sense, however, to read about all of the international peace conferences that took place in the early 20s, instead, to get a more positive impression of the era.

I bought pump shoes in honour of the decade and, after wearing them for a few hours on multiple days, have begun to trust that I might not fall over whenever I wear them. That said, attempts to apply 20s-style make-up have become consistently worse instead of better. Although, strangely enough given the fact that I've sedulously avoided cosmetics for most of my life, dramatic mascara and lipstick don't look bad on me — at least in a half-lit mirror. Fortunately a lot of YouTube videos have enough vintage clothing, shoes, cosmetics and hairstyles, so that anyone can enjoy 1910s and 1920s fashion vicariously, too.

The visit to a 1920s art exhibition or to a cinema as part of the historical experiment needs to wait another week or two. But I'm looking forward to fish & chips and Jaffa cakes.

***

Lastly, on Monday evening I went to a ballet class for the first time since March 2020 or before.

Two or three of the students and I recognized each other, I think.

The teacher recognized me at once. (The happy glow in her eyes was the same one that I saw in the eyes of colleagues when we greeted each other again in person for the first time in one and a half years, at the work event on Monday morning. It's one of the best side effects of social distancing.) And I almost cried a little when we did familiar combinations at the barré, to the same music as two years before.

***

Altogether, though, it does seem like I am going into a mini mid-life crisis, as my voice coach rather perceptively noted before I figured it out myself.

Not just the specter of the Grim Reaper is at fault; a big swathe of hair has also greyed at each of my own temples, and I realize I'm growing older and will have slightly fewer opportunities to have fun once the blood pressure issues, arthritis or who knows what begin to set in.

Besides, like many other people, being at home so much and not needing to adapt to what I think is expected of me outwardly, has made me discover 'new' aspects of myself — aspects that feel so familiar and homey and 'me' when I indulge them, that it seems like I'd always known that they were there. But it also means I'm departing from the behavioral patterns of, say, a year ago.

And being in mental pain lately has made me more eager to find distractions to forget about it, rather like thumping a fist against a chair to distract one's self from the greater pain of a bee sting — although that might be a poor analogy, as I'm not sure anyone actually does that.

Rather than buying a red Porsche, I'm kind of riding out a new 'darn the consequences' attitude, and on the whole enjoying it.

Vignettes From a September Garden Tour

This afternoon my mother and I went on a cycling expedition to allotment gardens in the southwest of Berlin. Pink bee balm, pale purple asters, and Canada goldenrod were growing in the grass, chestnuts and chestnut hulls littered the setts on one of the roads, and yellow is beginning to show in a few of the leafy trees. In one yard of a house, a threatening set of corn stalks was literally taller than many a one-story building.

In the gardens, traditional quinces were large, green-yellow and ripening on bushes, grapes bunching on the vine, little Japanese quinces in a richer, deeper colour thronging along a fence. Dahlias bristled from one garden, red honeysuckle dipped from another, and the apple trees were full of fruit. Sweet peas had flowered and stopped flowering again, long black seed-husks burst open and shedding their cargo as the plant stalks bleach and begin to decompose. Deep red rose hips were grouped on gracefully curving twigs, white snowberries clinging to the tips of bushes. On the ground, large leaves of zucchini or pumpkin still had trumpet-like yellow flowers, but the gourds themselves seemed to be mostly harvested.

It was cloudy and cool, clearly the beginning of autumn.

Last Weekend's Athletic Feats of Prowess, and a Birthday

It's been a rather rocky time at work as usual, but I also don't really enjoy filling the blog with memories of when I was stressed and unhappy, so I'll try to write about other things.

Last weekend was action-packed. On Saturday my two youngest brothers and I drove out to Brandenburg and visit our uncle P., going for a walk amongst the green grass, red rose hips, beeches and willows that were still green, masses of mushrooms, and tall growths of regular nettles and smaller growths of dove nettles with their soft white flowers. The rim of the path is often like the sward (I don't know exactly what that means, admittedly) in the foreground of — for example — Renaissance paintings, and I like the little speckles, the straight stems, and the broad leaves of the greater plantains that grow along the sides. We also had a talk about family history, which was not always cheerful, then pigeon soup over rice, and for dessert, yoghurt with mango and banana. In the end we also played Haydn trios, then we drove off again toward the city.

On Sunday my mother and I cycled out to Charlottenburg and — together with uncle M. and other colleagues — we walked as far as we could around the Lietzensee, in the middle of apartment buildings, with stately old staircases and fountains and a bridge, park planning straight from the early 1900s or earlier, murky green water, bright sunshine, and a lot of people strolling about. It was very nice.

Then we walked to a café, where we drank cappuccinos, ate cake, and then in my case made a big mistake as I ordered a scone with crème fraîche and jam. A growing colony of wasps was increasingly delighted over this treat, as all of us at the table and a widening circle of fellow diners became increasingly alarmed or at least transfixed. But it tasted good.

Afterward I cycled back out to the city centre to play beach volleyball with colleagues and their friends.

I was quite impressed by my own physical fitness that day, which was a refreshing change. Although my performance in volleyball is never something to boast about. But since then I have discovered, as expected, that cycling quickly to eastern Berlin for two days in a row turns me into a slowpoke with aching legs.

*

Anyway, my birthday also happened last week (I am now thirty-six). Because I felt so sad and tired in general, it was a real comfort to feel the affection from colleagues, former colleagues who happened to write just at the right time, and family.

Croakings of a Bluebird of Unhappiness

The week started innocently enough early on Monday morning, as I cycled off to Charlottenburg and without losing the way once, obtained my second Covid-19 vaccination at a large centre installed in a conference building compound beside the Hammarskjöldplatz. Full of the metaphorical bones and artifacts of West Berlin through the 50s and 60s to the present day, it was one of the most enjoyable bicycle rides I've had in a while. Admittedly the last intersection was a massive pain in the neck that involved what felt like 5 minutes of waiting before an intricate sequence of traffic lights finally turned in my favour. It was good that I was running early.

The procedure was the same as last time, with security personnel outside, a high temperature check with a handheld apparatus, display of the QR code, examination of paperwork, and pointing to the curtained booth where a helper and doctor waited to perform the vaccination.

I took the opportunity to ask about a discussion within my company — whether to mandate a vaccination for all employees or not — that had ended with a top managerial level colleague saying that, since the vaccine could reduce severity of symptoms but not transmission, it made no sense to mandate it. The following is, of course, my synopsis, so should not be taken as final medical advice: The doctor agreed indeed that the main effect of the vaccine is to reduce severity of symptoms; however, she pointed out that the idea is that the less heavy the course of the disease, the lower the viral load, the lower the chance of transmission. And agreed with my conclusion that, after all, with lower viral loads, the chance that the virus would mutate further was also lower.

This time I was also nervous because my little brother had felt some side effects, although cold shivers were (the doctor assured me) not a side effect per se, but just a sign the vaccine was working.

The documents I had to read and sign before, and the doctor, advised me not to do sports for the next five days. Also, not to drink alcohol for the next three to five days.

By this stage of my life I rely on exercise to feel reasonably active and enterprising, but also to stay mentally healthy, as a cloud of something will settle down on me whenever I let it. Generally I don't let two days pass without at least half an hour medium-to-high-intensity exercise, and I gradually regret it if I do. Besides it feels strange but also gratifying (even if I don't want to buy into the humbug about the moral superiority of conventional thinness, and the claim often read on internet forums that thin people are exemplars of conscientious, health minded self-control and thoughtfulness toward the taxpaying supporters of healthcare) to be in better physical shape now than I've been possibly since I was a child.

I tried not to pedal too intensely on the bike ride home, and at the same time I went through a heavy bargaining stage in my mind. (Is it really sports if it's just cycling? just yoga? just beginner's ballet? no intense cardio or strength training?) Then, having arrived at home, I researched it on the internet, and found that exercise is discouraged only because it heightens side effects; it does not reduce the efficacy of the vaccine. That said, I felt weird enough when I tried light exercise that I've given in and just let the exercise slide.

***

The week began to turn sour when I received a surprise invitation, late on Monday evening, to a fifty-minute meeting at 9 o'clock in the morning the next day. I knew the schedule of the organizer was so busy that likely this was the only time slot available to them so was a little alarmed but willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

Feeling heroic for waking up before 9 o'clock but definitely not having had enough sleep or breakfast, it turned out that the fifty minute meeting was a generally polite and optimistically framed exchange of views on how I was not helping another team. That team had been tasked with supporting my team 50% of their time, but I had provided totally inadequate technical information, and I was suggesting only small tasks that would not bring about any large or meaningful improvement, was the allegation.

I had been baffled by all the requests I had been bombarded with by a member of that team. They had other tasks to do for themselves and for other teams, a few people in that team know my team's work a little so that some but not a huge amount of technical handholding made sense, and surely they know that my team also has other requests coming in from other corners of the company in addition to our very long list of existing clients to maintain, and a growing list of impatient clients to bring onboard. Also, the busiest time of year is beginning for us and I hadn't shut up about the need to give us more time for client work all year, so that top management, client-facing colleagues, and pretty much everybody else within a 2-mile radius had been informed.

(It turns out later that the 50% figure was surprising to pretty much everyone. So I wasn't the only one who didn't know that their work was so focused on my team.)

Anyway, while now I've been given carte blanche to neglect clients, I feel unhappy because my professional reputation was impugned — that I might be tarred with a reputation for not helping new colleagues and for undermining projects that are planned to increase the output of my team. I don't know how to make the blot on my escutcheon go away without presenting myself as a wronged victim, which is also not entirely true.

Besides I miss the honesty of working to make clients happy. Also, the procedural omission of not asking the client-facing colleagues if all of this is fine, really worries me because I know how they might feel to have their tasks made impossible for them through no fault of their own.

And that was the first meeting of eight meetings on Tuesday.

I hoped today would be better, but it wasn't. I told myself to stop crying two minutes before a meeting because otherwise the tears would be visible on camera, and I've felt nauseated and wobbly-legged to the extent that I'd say work is making me a little ill.