Recently, I was passing through my hometown Wolfsburg. My father still lives there and asked me to visit him. How does it feel when you haven't been there for what feels like 10 years? Wolfsburg – the up-and-coming city, as it was called back then when I did an internship at the Wolfsburger Nachrichten and wrote about Kyffhäuser meetings in Vorsfelde or about dowsers in Velstove. My grandma also lived there, with whom I created the most beautiful outfits for my Monchichi collection. I designed and she sewed. Later, knitted sweaters were added. According to my ideas, after work I urged her on, round after round, to knit my wool monsters. My grandma's house was like a huge dollhouse – everywhere there were knick-knacks and souvenirs from her travels. My favorite: messing up her type case and when she made me my beloved apricot dumplings – with buttered breadcrumbs! Back then, Wolfsburg was the greatest for me. Of course, I was small too.
Me and the 4 chimneys
The 4 chimneys of the VW factory reminded me of the World Trade Center, and whenever we drove past Wolfsburg Castle, my father had to make up stories about an imaginary princess. I loved these tours through the city with him – even though I often had to wait for him for hours because he was chatting with customers. He was always late – astonishing how much patience I had (I was a fidgety kid) to endure that. But I got around a lot in this city, which was built like a petri dish from the ground up. I grew up with Roberto, Ennio, Angelina, and Ayhan – guest worker children from Turkey and southern Italy. We were a multi-cultural gang and hid in leaf huts, smoking grass cigarettes. My first experience of exclusion was when my parents divorced – back then, people probably thought it was contagious, and I still remember standing in front of my best friend Sabine's house, not allowed in anymore, and not understanding the world. All this came back to me as I now jogged up Klieversberg and admired the modern townhouses for single families. Our place still existed – now probably occupied by other kids, and the parents of my first elementary school crush still lived at the edge of the forest. His name was André, and I spent weeks coming up with a meaningful saying for his poetry album. But my best friend was Thomi, the neighbor boy. Secretly, we always climbed over the wall that separated our balconies. We then played with cars or ate pancakes layer by layer (like Petzi Bear). Speaking of shifts: real traffic in WOB only happens during shift changes. Then you hear a constant hum in the city for a good hour and feel like you're in a real metropolis. The last time I saw Thomi, he was tinkering with some cars in the garage next door – when I recently visited my father, it was exactly the same scene. He said, "Hello Suie (only he was allowed to call me that), what are you up to?" A rhetorical question, I thought, because in a small town, everyone always knows everything about everyone, and my father probably reported... Seeing him there as if time had stood still gave me a pang in my heart, and I imagined what might have become of me if I had stayed in Wolfsburg. Maybe I would have ended up in the marketing department of the VW factory or – more likely – as a test driver for prototypes at Ehra-Lessien (the Volkswagen AG test track). Thomi never wanted to leave – not even for vacation or anywhere else. But I always wanted to get out and see the world, and often my grandma and I packed our bags and set off: Marbella, Mallorca, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Livigno, or Sylt. With my grandma, I could ride a motorcycle in the chicken coop – she was ready for any adventure.
When my mother moved to Hamburg with me – for love's sake – I came less often and eventually not at all.
Not much has changed there in my hometown, except that everything seems much smaller to me. Really big in Wolfsburg are only the factory and the VFL stadium, and there was really only ever something happening on the platform at the start of the factory holidays, when the Italian guest workers turned the Wolfsburg platform into Palermo with their bags and birdcages, or when IG Metall called for rallies. The Turks always drove by car. I listened with wide eyes to Ayhan's stories when he told how his father simply put a brick on the gas pedal so he could close his eyes for five minutes on the long drive to the Bosporus. Yes, I remembered all that again recently when I sat next to my father in the car and we drove through the city. At some point, the ride ended at the forest cemetery. My grandparents' grave stood almost alone on the huge plot (all the others had already been leveled), and my father explained to me matter-of-factly how long the grave lease still runs, that he wishes for a sea burial so I don't have to take care of anything. Suddenly I realized that this trip into the past had something to do with the future. My still empty stomach suddenly felt queasy, and I resisted the feeling of finiteness. Later he explained to me where everything is when he is no longer here, and the already quite gray Wolfsburg became even more desolate. I was almost relieved when I could leave again the next day. Wolfsburg in times of Corona – anything but a charming winter fairy tale.
09:53:51
Me and the 4 chimneys
Not much has changed there in my hometown, except that everything seems much smaller to me. Really big in Wolfsburg are only the factory and the VFL stadium, and there was really only ever something happening on the platform at the start of the factory holidays, when the Italian guest workers turned the Wolfsburg platform into Palermo with their bags and birdcages, or when IG Metall called for rallies. The Turks always drove by car. I listened with wide eyes to Ayhan's stories when he told how his father simply put a brick on the gas pedal so he could close his eyes for five minutes on the long drive to the Bosporus. Yes, I remembered all that again recently when I sat next to my father in the car and we drove through the city. At some point, the ride ended at the forest cemetery. My grandparents' grave stood almost alone on the huge plot (all the others had already been leveled), and my father explained to me matter-of-factly how long the grave lease still runs, that he wishes for a sea burial so I don't have to take care of anything. Suddenly I realized that this trip into the past had something to do with the future. My still empty stomach suddenly felt queasy, and I resisted the feeling of finiteness. Later he explained to me where everything is when he is no longer here, and the already quite gray Wolfsburg became even more desolate. I was almost relieved when I could leave again the next day. Wolfsburg in times of Corona – anything but a charming winter fairy tale.