Today is Saint Nikolaus day, and in a few hours, right after dawn, little children in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and many other countries, will sit in the living room and kitchen, huddled up together waiting for the Saint to arrive. Even now fifty years later and five thousand miles away, I still celebrate the day and I remember my childhood.
Tag: <span>childhood</span>
Every child born should be wanted, loved, and cherished by it’s parents. That’s what I wish for. Sadly, it’s not always the case. I was an unwanted child myself. My mother made sure I knew how much she didn’t want me, she repeated it over and over. Once, when I was five or six years old, she told me she threw herself in front of my father’s car when she was very pregnant with me. I suppose it was in the driveway when he was driving slow, while she didn’t have a problem hurting me, she surely wouldn’t have risked harming herself.
I have never written about my father or the sperm donor who gave me life. That’s how I liked to call him long before I was able to make peace with my parent’s shortcomings, and the part of my childhood that makes people uncomfortable.
He was born in March 1929 and had a normal childhood. He got drafted right out of school to serve Hitler in his army when he was just 13 years old. He was sent straight to the front in Russia, like so many of them. After a few days of training, they gave him a ‘Panzerfaust’ a German anti-tank weapon, used to blow up Russian tanks and for two years he tried to destroy as many as possible.
I was born the day
I thought:
What is?
What was?
And
What if?
It felt like a flood gate had been opened. Tears were running down my cheeks. Long forgotten emotions and memories rolled over me like waves. April 1st, for many just April Fools Day, for me a reminder of the woman who gave birth to me. She would have been 91 yesterday.
Closing my eyes, I can see myself as a little girl running through the fields, swirling in circles, laughing out loud. I danced to music nobody else could hear.
“Sitze still, Kind (Sit still, child)” my Grandmother often said and I did as told.
I loved to dance, I loved music. Why walk if you can hop and jump, swirl and skip?
Watching The British Baking Show on Netflix brings back so many memories of cakes, pies, and Torten my Grandma used to make. Turns out they actually have names, and it’s not just the pear-thing-with the-funny-shape I remember eating as a child. Pastries from the UK, Belgium, Poland and the rest of the world -even Austria where I happen to be from- are introduced in the baking competition, and I am having a good time watching it.
When people ask me, “Where are you from?” their reaction to my answer is always the same. “Aaaaaaaaaahhh,” and then they list the names of famous people from Austria. 90% of the time it’s, Hitler and Schwarzenegger.
We watched too much TV during self-isolation, there was nothing else we could do. The Coronavirus comes with a heavy dose of fatigue, and we did not even try to fight it. We started watching “Saving Grace” with Holly Hunter, who we both happen to like, but soon my husband got tired of the never-ending sex scenes.
“You had to kill this child, I know”
I start writing a comment, and what was supposed to be just a simple reply, started to get a life of its own and it got longer and longer -to the point that I was writing a blog post. The old saying
GETTING OLD IS MANDATORY, GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL
brought back memories and so it began. My fingers connected with my brain, and the thoughts started flowing right into the keyboard. The COMMENT got longer and more personal.
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Antonia Michaelis Austria childhood comments fairy tales memories poem poetry The Storyteller Vienna