Sunday, 12
it finally rained today after a long dry spell. a dark sky heralded the event.
this kind of weather gives me headache. the heat in the apartment at Palma Rima Road is unbearable. thinking seems almost impossible.
friday night we went to Domino's.
we knew the dj, but there were only some handful of people around what made the evening interesting in another way. communication happened at a distance, non verbally through dance moves. the sea breeze was mind blowing and wonderfully refreshing — a gentle wind that made the night feel light.
since yesterday however, the air has been completely stifling. it was standing without a move. finally the tension was released this afternoon by a short but massive thunderstorm. yet, despite the heavy downpour, the temperature has hardly changed - at least inside the rooms. the rain brought relief to the earth, but not to the heat.


Thursday, 9
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Tuesday, 7
Headstrong
some words leave behind a question even though their meaning has been explained. for me, headstrong is one of them.
at first, i understood it literally. a strong head — not in the physical sense, but in the mind. someone capable of holding a thought or following an idea firmly, someone whose judgment does not collapse under pressure. what else should a strong head suggest?
then i learned how the word is actually used. headstrong does not simply describe strength of mind. it carries a disapproval. it describes someone who is determined, but unwilling to listen, unwilling to reconsider, unwilling to be moved. the dictionary leaves little room for another reading.
what the dictionary cannot tell me is how the word came to mean that.
somewhere along the way, a strong head stopped being imagined as a vessel for thought and became an obstacle to it. strength came to imply resistance rather than clarity. the image remained the same, but its connotation shifted.
this is not unique to headstrong. we often distrust strength when it refuses to yield. yet yielding is not always wisdom, just as standing firm is not always pride. the line between conviction and stubbornness seems less like a difference in action than a difference in interpretation.
every virtue casts a shadow that language eventually learns to name. courage becomes recklessness when it outlives caution. confidence becomes arrogance when it forgets humility. patience becomes sluggishness when it waits too long. the qualities themselves do not disappear; they simply cross an invisible threshold where admiration turns into criticism.


Monday, 6
every family has its own moral vocabulary.
there are words that function as rewards or reprimands, quietly determing which qualities deserve approval and which require correction.
whenever my mother called me hartnäckig, i knew i had crossed a line. i had persisted beyond what was considered acceptable. i defended a position i was expected to abandon, or refused to back down simply because someone older had spoken.
if tenacity is consistently interpreted as defiance, the lesson extends far beyond learning not to argue. gradually, one learns to distrust one's own persistence — to let go of questions too quickly, to discard ideas before they have fully developed, and to mistake agreement for maturity. a quality that might one day become intellectual curiosity or resilience is experienced first as a character flaw.
looking back, i don't think i was forbidden to have opinions. rather, i learned that my opinions were welcome only insofar as they confirmed those of my parents. yielding was preferable to understanding, that harmony mattered more than conviction, and that accepting authority was a virtue in itself.
Der Geburtstag verlief harmonisch (The birthday went harmoniously) was another of my mother's recurring expressions. harmonisch did not simply describe the atmosphere. it described the successful preservation of a particular order. for my mother, harmonisch meant peaceful — but only on her terms. the definition was self evident and never open to discussion. if no one argued, if voices remained calm, if the family stayed together without visible conflict, the gathering had been harmonious.
for me however, the word carried a different meaning. what appeared harmonious from the outside felt unresolved from within.
the musical concept of harmony had been appropriated to describe power relations between human beings. a term that originally denotes the coexistence of distinct voices had to come to signify the absence of dissent. yet, harmony exists in different forms. musicians know that harmony depends precisely on different voices sounding together.
for all the public talk of antiautoritäre Erziehung throughout West Germany in the 1970s, our family had its own philosophy, and it rested on amenability disguised as harmony.
within that moral vocabulary, hartnäckig and harmonisch were oposing values. to be tenacious was to disturb peace. to be harmonious was to know when to abandon one's own stance. these words defined the boundaries of what could be said, who was permitted to disagree, and whose voice ultimately counted.


Sunday, 5
there wasn't as much sunshine as promised, but at least the tank filled up halfway. that was enough to cover our basic needs, such as washing ourselves and having water for the kitchen.


Saturday, 4
we had no running water for the past two days. that doesn't happen very often. we'd forgotten to check the water tank, which is absolutely essential during the rainy season when there isn't always enough sunshine to keep it topped up. since it hadn't rained for quite a while, we had started watering again, which used up more water than we realised. eventually, it had run completely dry.
fortunately, our neighbours are connected to the public electricity grid and can run their pump even at night. they kindly let us collect water from them —  not for the plants, but at least for ourselves. when i went over with empty water bottles, the women working there were incredibly friendly. they brought me a chair to have a seat. of course i politely declined and helped them fill the bottles instead.
experiences like this make me aware how automatically i turn on the taps, especially just to wash my hands. even now, i keep turning them on out of habit, only to remember that there's no water.
the weather forecast says the sun should shine today, so hopefully the tank will refill. still i'm not entirely sure if there isn't something wrong with the pump or — even worse, with the borehole.


Wednesday, 1
somehow the conversation drifted to self portraits, and suddenly i remembered that this month's work would soon be due. my thoughts wandered through the Griffelkunst collection and to Horst Janssen, an artist who came from around the corner of my childhood.
my parents chose mostly works by local artists. that was their choice. they took what they understood, what reflected the landscape and culture they belonged to. Jansssen was part of that wider northern german art scene, but he always seemed like an outsider — even in their eyes.
brilliant, uncompromising, eccentric. a master draftsman whose intricate etchings and drawings often circled around himself. he created self portraits that are less about the appearance than about the unsettling business of existing. mortality, flowers, bones, animals, friends, wit and melancholy all occupy the same fragile space.
his work could be painfully honest, sometimes darkly humorous, and often carried the unmistakable shadow of the alcohol. which shaped much of his life.
i liked him precisely because of the nervous intensity of his pictures. one of my memories of his work is the illustration for Franz Josef Degenhard's Spiel nicht mit den Schmuddelkindern.
Janssen's self portraits are not acts of vanity but of scrutinity. they don't flatter.. they are attempts to catch something that keeps slipping away. not identity, but presence. the evidence of having been there.

Art Space Work of the Month


Horst Janssen (1929-95) Self Portrait "Für Sächle", etching, 1979, 31 x 50 cm