I did it, I did it! Of course, its far from being perfect, but I had to get “moon dance” out of my head…

Moon dance in the night
every night the same route -
on a changed night

It’s only the second day of the Poetry challenge, but I can feel my creative juices flowing as they haven’t done for a long time - at least poetry wise. Normally my poems are a bit of a by-product. I might have a word or even a line in my head and simply start writing. That’s how I have done it for the last 20 or more years. The last prompts for poetry I had back in high school – and at that time of course in German. But I seem to need this kind of challenge as I can feel more and more word rising up within me – all in English. That’s the poem I wrote last night – outside the challenge (and how adequate that todays challenge was “outsider”):

I am sorry
for some of the things
I said
for some
I am not

still
I don’t regret anything
that I said
that I did

I was
No, I am
true
to myself
and that’s
what counts
in the end.

Ok, I will take this challenge: One poem per day through the whole of April!
The ONLY problem is I will be away for a medieval/renaissance fair from the 25th of April. This means: hardly any chance to use a mobile phone (mainly for the lack of power to recharge it, but it looks weird, too) and no internet connection or even a computer.

After losing a night’s sleep I found a solution to this: a friend will text me the daily writing prompt so I can at least write the poem – where is my quill? And on the 30th I will drive to an internet café 6 miles away and upload these last missing poems – of course in my medieval clothes (see pic).

I promise to put a picture of this “event” in this blog!

when suddenly
all the love songs
make sense
and the love scenes
in the movies
make me cry
then it doesn’t matter
that there is an ocean
between us

than at least
we are here
at the same time
and have found
us

© Julia Nickel

After a few weeks of not writing at all (shame on me!) I found an inspiring new way of writing. I had read in quite a lot of books that one shouldn’t write in several files but one big one. I had made the same experience when I tried to keep track of all the little snippets gathered on my computer. So I tried to write on the one big file – and what happened? I stopped writing! Because every time I wanted to start I found myself re-reading the previous stuff, editing it or even worse: deleting it. So last night I thought, hey, why not write a snippet in a new file (now named “write it!”) and then cut and paste it into the big file. Voila! It worked wonders. In no time at all I had written several pages.

And to make life even easier I decided to put the “write it”-file online, so I have access to it from where ever I am. I love this modern technology!

You may have heard about the collapsed building in Cologne. The historic archive, a 4-storey building collapsed this afternoon, at least 3 people are still missing. More about the story at the CNN-webpage.

I had been right there at the end of December 07, so this is a bit spooky for me… Here is the Google map:

Größere Kartenansicht

But what I really want to write about is, how much getting information or news has changed for me. Normally I would have just read a local webpage while I was at work and then watch the news on TV. But today I first read about it at twitter, and then switched on iTunes to listen to a local radio station, reading the local webpage plus following SamZidat on twitter who lives nearby and provides pictures taken on his balcony. SamZidat has the most recent news, but obviously he can’t provide interviews or further background knowledge the way TV/radio can do. So instead of relaying only on TV or radio in a very passive way I actively collect and select the information I want from the different sources (not to forget Google maps!).

Is this the new age of communication? And how do we learn and teach this much needed “Medienkompetenz” (media competence)??

Let us pray for the rescue of the people who might still be in the building and hope that as many historical documents as possible can be saved after the rescue mission.

What a weekend! Full of masks, traffic jams only consisting of pedestrians and of course the magic of Venice. Sunday morning we went to the “Flight of the Angel” at St. Marcus Square - with the whole group of 31 costumes! People actually thought we were the official parade and we were filmed be the “Deutsche Welle” (watch it here in English, starting at 0:00:50 time stamp).

After this we escaped from the too-well-known and far-too-packed square to another one nearby where this picture of me and my boyfriend was taken (guess who is who!!). We had enough space to present our costumes, here you find more pictures at Carnevale di Venezia Bonn.

Later in the evening my friend and I decided to go back to St. Marcus Square, this time I was wearing the costume of my aunt. We made a great show with kissing and cuddling, so a Japanese tourist was quite enchanted by us; she just kept staring at us with a little smile on her face while the others of her party didn’t stop taking pictures. It is wonderful to see people captivated by these wonderful costumes and I hope we will be back in Venice next year…

you turn me
into the person
I always
wanted to be
but never
dared to

no matter
how big
or small
the steps are
I take them
with you

and maybe
you become
the person
you always wanted to be
through me
© Julia Nickel

And no, I don’t mean any obscure bed room scenes, tsk, tsk!

In January I was once again away in the countryside for a week full of role playing - this is a bit like we played as children or like theater without audience… As I was a bar maid I thought playing a gypsy would be fun. So I had everything: the red skirt, the red headscarf, the golden earrings and of course some obscure Italian-like accent. And besides it all being fun to play such a character (she said things I would never dare to say!) it also was a good exercise for writing. Why? Because I had to completely become the character! Of course the first hour or so was difficult, I often found myself thinking what I should do or say. But then I really got into it! I turned into that character and was able to see the world I was in with her eyes and answer in her language.

I don’t think I will use this character ever in a book, but the experience is really worth it. If you have chance to attend a Live Role Play, go for it!! Yes, it costs quite an effort to act silly, but it frees your mind and creativity!
Here at wikipedia you can read more about it!

Oh, and of course I played the harp there, not as a gypsy but as my usual harp player. Here are pics: http://www.dragon-harp.de/wp-content/gallery/2008-larp-die-akademie/08_akad_1.jpg and

http://www.dragon-harp.de/wp-content/gallery/2008-larp-die-akademie/08_akad_2.jpg

speechless
in the face of
the future
the new way

dreamed of
but never hoped
not dared

and suddenly
it is here
just from
another direction
than expected

© Julia Nickel