Photography: Christian Cervantes
What is growth for you?
My mother says about me, that once things get too settled in, I change something. What describes it best is the saying: feel the fear and do it anyway. Growth and change are exhausting of course but usually it is for the better, right?! Uncomfortable, stressful, fearful, a bit desperate, harder than expected, but better in the end.
The older I get the more I trust my intuition and my so-called “gut”. The learning is: just because it fits others does not mean it fits me. I admire my friends who make a bold move in the middle of the road of their lives. I have friends who bought and renovated a chateau in Normandy with a small budget. It is a crazy adventure, but is so beautiful once it works out. Fairytale material. And they have my absolute admiration.
What keeps you grounded?
Easy answer: my daughter. And running. When my daughter is around, ideally playing the piano, it puts me at ease like nothing else. Therefore, you’ll be surprised that I had just sent her off to boarding school to South Africa (she’s 14) for six months. So, I do challenge her and myself. And we both grow with these experiences.
The running helps me to take my mind off the spinning. Running and gardening, I wish to have more of a garden again in the future.
How do you connect with nature?
Not often enough. I realize that once I am out in the woods, sometimes it’s weeks and weeks that I don’t leave the city and the little green we find in our area has little to do with nature. So, this is something that needs to improve over the coming years, for sure!
What is a book that has inspired you?
An all-time favorite – inspiration from the dark side – is Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barres Panikherz. Another wonderful book about time and the connection of everyone to everything is Ur und andere Zeiten by Noble Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. And currently I’m reading Florian Illies’ newest book Liebe in Zeiten des Hasses; he writes about the European intellectuals in the decade between the wars. It gives us perspective that times were dark, but lots of love, joy, drama, betrayal has always been part of the menu.
What is your favorite plant?
I connect with my plants like with roommates or pets even. It is a bit of a burden. They find me and then I feel obliged to take care of them. One of my favorites, more for nostalgic reasons, are the aloes. The “mother plant” comes from my father, I took it in when he passed away some 16 years ago. Ever since many generations of aloes come from that plant. I give them to friends but, as you can see, I still have quite a lot of them.
