autumn delight in my parent's garden.
november 2019 will forever be a moment of time of note for me, for i had to deal with the very real possibility of having breast cancer. my gynecologist located some suspicious lumps and he sent me to a specialist for further determination. i was very scared, but i also kind of felt like i was hanging in an inbetween space, not really understanding the whole matter, not feeling like it was real, like it was a thing that actually happened to me. i very much tried to calm myself down, look at it from a distance, until i got more detailed answers, kind of isolating my fear to a rear view in the back of my mind. on the day i had that appointment, though, i dreaded it all, i dreaded the thought of having to deal with this, of having proof that my being was actually rotten, that my personality poisoned my body.
you have no idea how relieved i was when they finally told me that the lumps were benign fibroadenomas. they are actually more common than you would think. very rarely they end up being of more alarming nature, mostly when they start growing bigger, it is a sure sign that something is amiss. that's why women should always try to feel these lumps out and determine if they hurt or feel bigger and go to the doctor's as soon as possible if they feel a change. for me, one of these lumps had already been a companion since my late teens, and it never grew bigger or hurt, so i always tossed the thought of it being of malignant nature aside. i had it checked out back then and my doctor already told me that it was a fibroadenoma, but i guess over the course of basically 10 years we all forgot about it and after another check up earlier in the same week back then were reminded of it again. my doctor said he'd feel much more reassured if we'd give it a more thorough inspection, which threw me off quite a lot, and thus the fear of having breast cancer started to rise in my brain. i remember getting out of the practice in a mood that felt like i was walking the floor down to death row ( i even visited weimar cemetery that day as a result, to kind of befriend the thought of death again 😅 ). i called my parents and they calmed me down, telling me to remember that it was an examination of something that already had been part of me for a long time, and that this examination was just to make sure that it wasn't growing and that the new-found lumps were of the same nature. that actually put my brain at ease for a few days until the final examination and i am still thankful for the down-to-earth encouragement of both my parents.
these pictures were shot in the inbetween time period of waiting for the appointment and results, and they still feel strange to me, like i was experiencing that time under a bell jar of bittersweet melancholia. i am so glad, that these are simply ghosts now, ghosts of the past, ghosts of late november 2019.
a path that my family and i walk quite often, when i am on visit. it is a long-stretched road that links my hometown to a tiny village called rohrborn. it leads past wide agricultural fields, over an autobahn, past and airfield and onto a hill that overlooks the thuringian basin. this road often feels to me like a representation of my childhood, i remember many walks and bike rides on it, i even learned driving a car here! on this walk i made together with my dad, the light was purely magic and it felt like nature wanted to tell me to have courage and brave the fear. my dad and i walked quietly side by side for many stretches on that road, and at some point my dad linked arms with me - a quiet, but very warm way of showing me that he was there for me, no matter what. my family is not a family of many words or big gestures, the support we give each other sits in the details, in the tiny things. and those are very meaningful to me, always have been. i've swallowed that love for the small things up, and am carrying it within my existence since i can think.
we spotted a family of deer on the fields ( and later on even encountered a hare - of which i didn't get a photo, because it was quick to run away ). another sign, it felt, of mother nature giving me gifts.
some delicious-looking showy crabapples. we left them for the birds.
the fields between the two villages often are devoid of people - great for anyone searching for a quiet place. this place is very close to a former fruit orchard, situated in a tiny valley called tiefthal. some day i'm gonna return and explore that place more thoroughly!
i think the hill we stood on was the wachhügel, which is 207 m above sea. from here you already have a nice view on the surrounding basin.
charlock mustard was growing on this field in great masses and it looked very gorgeous! it always amazes me that so late in the year some plants are still going strong! this plant is a winter annual and it is widely used as a condiment in actual mustards, or to spice up food. i think it is also an oil plant, but i am not so super sure about that.
it was so nice to see so much green and yellow in november!
the warmest sunlight illuminating almost bare trees and bushes.
the field on which the hare was fleeing from our shadows.
saying goodbye to the sun, that vanished behind an artificial hill on katzenhügel hill ( which was actually one of my village's first sites for settlement in the timeline between 2.300 and 1.500 b.c. ! ).
the bundesautobahn A71 crosses the thuringian basin right next to my village, it is a constant companion whenever you are out and about in this region.
doesn't this cloud look like a flat turtle to you, flying over the candycotton-coloured sky?
parts of my hometown, schloßvippach, and the utterly gorgeous sky that we experienced that day!
😍
on a walk i made with my mom we had perfect november fog accompanying us, veiling the landscapes around dielsdorf, a district of schloßvippach, in a quiet and quiescent substance.
before we made our way to dielsdorf - an image of my parent's garden in the fog. during summer times this garden is a unique jungle, in autumn & winter it often only charms you when weather conditions are perfectly on point. i love those foggy days, but it's also super beautiful when snow covers the grounds or frost bites into everything!
on our way out the village you will encounter the schlossteich ( castle pond ). on the island in the middle of the pond once stood a castle for a long time ( since 1050 ) after which schloßvippach is named - schloss vippach- it was torn down in 1948 during the soviet occupation to have material to build farmsteads. there are rumors that the soviet occupants have asked the village elders several times whether to really go through with the demolition, since the castle was such an integer part of the village's fabric for such a long time and actually historically important, but apparently the new farmers voted for it. i don't know if that is actually true, since there is evidence that the villagers were forced to partake in it, lest there would be penalties.
these days they have restored some of the former cellar vaults, the stone bridge leading onto the island and some remaining castle walls. i remember during my childhood, we would often play on the island and hide in the partially blocked vaults or underneath the bridge that was hidden under lots of rubble, we would also build tree huts and have sliding parties on the frozen pond. when i look at this place now, it has transformed into something unrecognizable, they cleared the whole place of trees and garbage and it is not accessible currently, as they are still in the process of restoring what is still left.
during a foggy, gloomy day, the pond is breath-takingly beautiful!
the castle island.
the castle was rectangular in its outlines and had a keep that was used for residential purposes, probably even a castle chapel and various fountains at some point. it got remodelled over the centuries for quite a bit, they digged up some remains of the oldest construction recently, dating way back to the 11th century.
the castle bridge.
it is planned to create an archeological park out of the whole areal, since the excavations have brought up so many surprises over the years! for a long time the village had planned to create a local recreation area, but for now this is laid on ice, due to the new developments. it's quite exciting to witness all these news from afar, and i always make sure to revisit this childhood place whenever i am back home, learning about all the new stuff coming up!
close nearby is the old sacristy of a former church - st. petri ( built in 1100 ). the church itself was much bigger until the thirty years' war brought parts of it down to use the rocks for strengthening the drawbridge to the castle.
the remaining sacristy is now used as a chapel and houses a very old church bell, dating back to 1350. it is one of my favourite places in the village, i love to enter it and enjoy the solitude and quietness in there! in front of the chapel there is an old sarcophagus, and i wish i knew anything about it, but it's always been super mysterious to me and i could never find any information on it.
on the path towards dielsdorf, which was entirely enclosed in fog. dielsdorf is basically an extension of schloßvippach ( though of course they don't like to hear that ;P ). it's a very small village with only about 300 inhabitants living there. even though it is only about 3 kilometers away from my hometown, in the past, i had actually little to no interest in this village and would only visit it occasionally ( either because i visited schoolmates or because of festivities ). i never consciously decided to have a closer look at the village until this foggy day, i think! we still only visited the periphery of dielsdorf, didn't make it into the village core. but it was enough to remind me that even in the most un-assuming places, you can still find gems and have an appreciation for their existence.
it was crazy how little you could see of the landscapes surrounding schloßvippach and dielsdorf on that day!
the road that links the two villages.
this wonderful tree near the little stream holundergraben ( elderberry trench ) absolutely mesmerized me!
have i ever mentioned to you how frickin' much i love foggy days? my heart bursts just looking at fog pictures!
a tree line in the sheepherder alleyway ( schäfergässchen ). and, you guessed it, the name of this alley is definitely an indicator of why it was named like this!
because you can still find sheep living on it!
stumbled upon this abandoned house, and i completely fell in love with it! in small villages you rarely get to find information on old houses, so this will basically remain dateless!
above the entrance the initials A S were engraved.
another abandoned house i found in the same street! little villages are victim to many people moving away - oftentimes young people - so you are bound to find lots of crumbling houses when you go through the villages. many of them are probably hundreds of years old and it hurts me a lot to see them go to waste. i always am very fond of people embracing these and starting to renovate and restore them, but i also understand that not many have the resources to take on such a project.
one more old house, overgrowing with vines.
back in my village, close to where my parents live, is another little pond, the mittelgraben ( middle trench ), which is basically a drainage channel leading away from the castle's pond towards the semmelbach, another little rivulet going through schloßvippach. this pond was always quite overgrown during my childhood as well and in recent years they have started to restore it! another beautifuly body of water, that serves as an important realm for frogs, insects and birds. during summer months you will often hear frog concerts coming from here, which is pure magic! the fog of course was equally magic, and it gave me great comfort in this mental upheave that i went through.
i actually had more little adventures during the week i stayed there, but i mostly took only my mobile phone with me to many of them. i am considering to write another last november post containing the images i shot with the phone, so i think we're not entirely done with this month, yet.
until then,
stay curious!
Comments