As spring comes in full force to Vienna we continue to keep our Ukrainian neighbors in our hearts as the war rages on. Schoolchildren in the 18th district were inspired to express their desire for peace and their solidarity with Ukraine in this way.
With many thanks to my friend Petra for the photo.
A number of years ago, I started a gratitude practice I call my gratitude session. I sit at my breakfast table and, before I take a bite or sip, I get into a slightly meditative state and ask myself: What am I especially grateful for right now?
Often the answer is simple and quick — the sunshine, the flowers in the park, my central heating, or the food on my table. Sometimes it takes longer and says more, like in 2015 when I had been helping distribute food to largely Syrian refugees at Westbahnhof. Then it was that I have some control over my life.
The last few days the answer has been the same: that I am still here in this city I love, that I can still practice my profession and earn a living, and, today, that I can still meet friends for a drink in the evening.
A few days ago, I heard that the friend’s sister mentioned in my post from February 24 (link below) and her charges, co-workers, two cats and a dog had made it safely to Poland and will be relocated to Germany.
I haven’t seen my Ukrainian neighbor in the last week.
I have once again been amazed at how wonderful the “children” in my life are. When I, at my wits’ end, asked the older of my Viennese nieces what she wanted for her (29th — you see why “children” is in quotation marks) birthday, she asked me to donate to Neighbor in Need, a very reputable Austrian charitable organization that did wonders in the Balkan war.
And so we stumble into the third week of war in the Ukraine.
Ukraine
Every morning I send an e-mail to my mother in the U.S.A. to check in. Sometimes I literally just write “Checking in.” Below is today’s mail.
Boy, it’s been a long week. Still, in terms of acquiring business it hasn’t been bad. Whether things will actually take place given that Austria is already seeing the impact of the war is another question. (The BMW plant — in Steyr, I think — has cut production because they can’t get parts from Ukraine and one Russian bank with offices in Vienna has already gone bankrupt.) C. has also advised stocking up on sunflower products, like oil, because they come almost entirely from Ukraine.Â
I saw my Ukrainian neighbor on Alser Straße yesterday. She was on her way to the university. How much she will be able to concentrate is anyone’s guess. She did say her parents had left Kyiv and moved west. With the news this morning that may turn out not to have helped.
For me, the war is pretty much all present. I’m getting on with what needs to be done, but it is always there. You know what this feels like, I know.
Sending very much love
A week ago, my walking partner and I (and Maylo, of course) walked the 22nd stretch of the Rundumadum trail. It’s amazing to me how the landscape changes. After all, we are circumnavigating only one city.
This time we walked through rather bleak vineyards (well, it is still February) and then open fields on the flat, with a view of Vienna on one side and of Lower Austria (not shown) on the other, before climbing up a stretch of Bisamberg and heading back to Hagenbrunn.
I’ve walked this route before but in the other direction when doing the Stadtwanderweg (city hiking trail) number 5 with a friend. In addition, I have pleasant memories of snacks on Bisamberg before Bergheuriger Langer closed its doors forever, a stop once at the Magdalenenhof, and enchanting coppices (or copses).
It was a pleasant, uneventful hike — even the buses ran when they were supposed to. 😉 We only did one stretch, which turned out to be just right. Anyway, I’ll be going back to re-visit the Heurigen (wine taverns) out that way when the weather gets warmer.
Trail number 22
Distance: 6,2 km
Time: 1.5 to 2 hours
Link: https://www.wien.gv.at/umwelt/wald/freizeit/wandern/rundumadum/etappe22.html
This morning I awoke to beautiful sunshine in Vienna and about 3°C — a perfect late winter day. As always, I went out with Maylo without checking my phone. We enjoyed our walk.
Then at breakfast I checked the headlines. The NYT: Russia attacks Ukraine. ORF: Russland greift Ukraine an. Both sites with videos of the shelling. And I realize that Europe is once again at war. I think of a workshop participant on Tuesday who was joining us from Moscow and felt it necessary to emphasize that many Russians do not want war. I think of a neighbor, a student at the University of Vienna, who comes from Ukraine and whose family who is still there. I think of the wonderful members of a Ukrainian choir who passed through Vienna on their way to a church choir festival in Switzerland in the heady, hopeful days of the early 1990s. I think of a U.S. American friend’s sister who has lived in Kyiv for many years working for an organization that takes care of orphans, who has chosen to stay and continue her work. I think of them all and can hardly type this for the tears running down my face.
When I can, I will wipe my tears and will carry on — as my parents did growing up in Germany and England respectively in the Second World War and my grandparents before them in the First World War, and as so many generations have and so many people around the world throughout time. No doubt I will cry again, and wipe my tears again, and carry on again. And in the meantime I will leave sunflowers for my neighbor to let her know that someone in our house has noticed and cares, and I will donate to Caritas for humanitarian aid to the Ukraine, and I will sit and try to maintain my own peace so that I do not contribute to the violence of this world.
I have loved and tried to be guided by this quotation below from Etty Hillesum for years. Now more than ever.
“Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”
If she could write that from the despair of a concentration camp, surely I can begin, at least begin, to do it surrounded by the beauty of a perfect late winter day in Vienna.
Yesterday I was looking for a route I hadn’t walked before and came up with a path to Nussberg that starts in Grinzing. I found this: https://www.weinwandern.at/grinzing-nussdorf/
Nussberg is a favorite of mine and it’s even nicer if you can circumvent Beethovenweg, which tends to be excruciatingly overcrowded on a sunny weekend afternoon. That’s what this route does. It brings you out at the Döblinger cemetery and takes you up Nussberg from that side. It was wonderful.
The old (1970s) WienEnergie building on Spitalgasse has been torn down to make room for a new “campus” for the medical school of the University of Vienna. This makes perfect sense–the general hospital is nearby, the old general hospital was turned into a proper campus for the University of Vienna a little over 20 years ago, and one semi-public building (the utilities provider was municipally owned at one time and then hived off) will remain in public hands. (The University of Vienna is a public university.) In addition, not even this defender of older buildings is sorry to see the olive green and orange structure go. I’ll be curious to see what comes.
In the meantime, the clearing of the site has laid the neighboring house open to scrutiny and shows some interesting things about Viennese buildings and, in fact, culture. Appearances are quite important in Vienna. (A friend of mine who has lived in Boston, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Washington D.C. as well as in Vienna said that Vienna is the only city she has lived in where you got better service at the deli counter in the supermarket if you had put your make-up on.) For me, this focus on appearances is reflected in the relatively ornate facade of the house (the photo on the left) compared to the plainness of back of the house, with wing (the photo on the right). At the same time, it is often said that the imposing facades of the turn-of-the-century houses in Vienna hide some of the nicest aspects. These are for house residents only. This I see in what appears to be a small garden with a tree. That is probably quite a nice place to sit out–or will be again once the building project is complete!
An example of what is called a cultural artifact in the intercultural world …
I hopped on the bus to go and finally buy some wineglasses. (Of the 18 a friend gave me about 25 years ago — six each of three different sizes — only one remains, and there are some nice ones on sale for €1.49 each.)
There was a man standing with his dog near the door, a pitbull mix by the look of it all correctly leashed and muzzled. Since the man didn’t seem interested in the empty seat near him I took it. Within 30 seconds the dog had decided that I was a friend and came over with dog-like enthusiasm to say hello. We exchanged a few friendly words and then he (she?) turned his (her?) attention to the woman sitting across the aisle from me. Similar raptures and then the man called his dog back to him. The woman across the aisle smiled at me and “So eine nette Begrüßung” (“Such a nice greeting”). I replied “Ge?” (Viennese for “Wasn’t it?”) And then, true to proper behavior on public transportation in Vienna, we each went back to what we had been doing.
Eine nette Begegnung (or chance encounter).
ecbinvienna 