Die frau in himmel, (The woman in heaven)….is the only nursery rhyme-like story I recall. It was told in German, the only language I knew until the age of six. After that time other languages crept into my life overnight, confusing words and meanings into a paper mash, chaotic mixtures of German, English and French words. Die Frau im himmel lives in the clouds. If you’ve ever slept on eiderdown pillows under a goose feather blanket you will know that feathers might easily rain like rain-drops on occasions when pillow fights were the order of the morning. When the lady in the sky, comes to mind I think of the buxom Dutch housemaid, who shakes blankets and pillows in the mornings after the children are up. In the process there is thunder in the air and rain is sure to come. I remember this Dutch lady because one day she came to sleep with me in my sleeping bag. It was much later in my life, when I was 25 years old. I remembered this short tale on my first visit to Cherry Valley near Charlottetown, on Prince Edward Island. I talked from the afternoon until dawn with a friend from high school. It was during a two week vacation, before I had to ship out to the West coast for summer naval training. It was the dawn of discovery and questioning. When dawn arrived she took my hand and led me upstairs, to sleep in a small bed with very thick goose feather blankets and pillows. I fell asleep dreaming of die frau im himmel, mind you she was not of the lady in the sky with diamonds, (LSD). She and I have been friends for 51 years. We continue our conversations; in the early days by letters and in recent years by e-mail. Occasional visits have taken me around the world. As for rhymes and such, there is one which comes to mind quite easily. The reason is a young man or an old man might still use it today. Within the rhyme is humor and at the end a surprise, a kind of manoeuvre to show to an innocent child, or perhaps a way to get a little closer to a loss of inhibition. I will attempt to recreate the sequence of German words, but understand the result may be pure nonsense in terms of the actual spoken language and the spelling of words. Komt ein cater, mach tea-ter, Komt ein bear, mach noch mere, Komt eine mouse, mach al-es veider aus. Roughly in English this might be: Comes a cat, who makes a fuss, Comes a bear, who makes more, Comes a mouse, Who puts it all to an end. You see the person who recites this to a child, starts very slowly with two fingers of each hand that pretend to walk up the legs of the child. By the second line those fingers are walking along quite a bit faster. The third line, spoken rapidly, ends as the hands of the speaker reach the armpits of the little girl, boy or girlfriend, and tickle the victim until laughter is heard. A silly little game perhaps which may embody some of the surprise necessary in a nursery rhyme; however I am not certain of this. My experience or memory in this area is truly limited. To reconcile a kind of emptiness within, here is a possible solution: Famous Twinkle Twinkle Little Star lullaby for babies in the form of Mozart variations. (go to You Tube) Hans ~~ ~~
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 16:07:11 +0000
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