Enlarge image
Finally a firm handshake again
Photo: Guido Mieth / Getty Images
Spiritual Easter Bingen
I would like to sing my favorite Easter song loudly and crookedly again in my full childhood church: "Jesus has now suffered / fought with hell / see, he stands there as a victor," is the name of the passage in the many-stanzan work that I always refer to Most of them were happy, and I can still feel an inkling of the all-embracing relief that overwhelmed me as a child - because the dear Savior was now behind him, but above all because the Easter Sunday service slowly indicated the end of my five-day church-going marathon which was an indelible duty in our family.
Enlarge image
Lighting the Easter candles at a Catholic service in Lichtenfels (archive image)
Photo: Marcus Führer / picture-alliance / dpa
Today, long since disguised, I would very much like to relive this spiritual Easter binge on the spot, half out of an interest in cultural studies, half in order to compare my bizarre memories from childhood with the real ritual: the pastor washes the laundry during Maundy Thursday service today still have the feet of the twelve oldest men in the village while they sit in a semicircle around the altar - and does that really take, as I remember, an estimated two hours?
Will about 70 intercessions really be read out on Good Friday while I kneel and grapple with the swelling fainting?
And maybe at least a little bit of the feeling of relief at the time would come around on Easter Sunday, that would be very nice.
-
Anja Rützel
The trip to Rodin
Enlarge image
"The Kiss" is still there in the Rodin Museum, the viewer is absent
Photo: via www.imago-images.de / imago images / Danita Delimont
On a bright day in the fall of 1995, I was out and about at the Tate Gallery in London.
That's when I saw it for the first time, the sculpture "The Kiss" by Auguste Rodin.
Fascinated, I stood for a long time at the intertwined marble figures.
The sight touched and electrified me, until then I had not known that stone can appear so alive.
After that, looking at a work of art never moved me so much.
At that time I only saw one of the numerous replicas, as I later discovered;
at least one that was made during Rodin's lifetime.
In 1880 "Le Baiser" was first created by Rodin as a 85 centimeter high bronze.
I only discovered the original in 2016 at the Musée Rodin in Paris.
Not alone this time.
My husband and I had traveled to the Seine to celebrate our 20th anniversary.
We are staying in Hamburg for our 25th wedding anniversary in August.
It can't be long then: Paris, Rodin, the Seine - we'll be back, for sure.
- Katharina Stegelmann
Happiness under water
Diving is like a drug: a mind-altering escapism that leaves you feeling dim.
And it's easy to get hooked.
Anyone who has been to the other world will want to return soon.
However, diving is also dangerous to health, especially since corona hygiene has to be taken into account.
Sport has to do with compressed air and equipment that you borrow, put in your mouth and sometimes share with strangers.
But how much I would like to let myself fall into the peaceful biotope again.
Bye gravity!
Nothing pulls me down in the water anymore.
I float in silence and, like a child, am happy to see how different the laws of light and sound work.
Enlarge image
From the author's archive
Photo: private
As usual with yoga, I concentrate on my breathing, every single pull is a life-giving gift.
Gradually a little nitrogen collects in my blood from the water pressure.
Complex trains of thought are soon a nuisance.
And that's completely okay, because the inhabitants of the underwater world are patient.
Whether herring in the Baltic Sea, turtle in the Caribbean or coral in the Red Sea: they are all beautiful and innocent.
You seem to accept me unconditionally.
I am one of the species that destroys their habitat.
When the pressure gauge on the compressed air cylinder shows 50 bar, visiting hours are over.
I would show up, very lightly dazed and happy.
And remind me how important it is to preserve this world.
I think everyone should go diving at least once.
Because as the marine researcher and Oscar winner Jacques Cousteau put it: "People protect what they love." -
Carola Padtberg
Rock and roll awakening experiences
Oh, how I long to finally see this new Australian punk rock band The Chats live.
Hard bass line, a single torment riff on the guitar and 1-a-beer can poetry.
As if the Saints met the Sleaford Mods.
Every year there is such a new band that you look forward to seeing them for the first time with everyone you love in the small, narrow, aerosol-fogged club, where they usually get so raw, so angry and so virtuoso presented as hoped.
Enlarge image
The Chats live (archive image from Dublin, 2019)
Photo: Davide Corona / Getty Images
How much I miss these fairs of primitive song art, these rock'n'roll awakening experiences after long periods of winter.
And will probably continue to miss: After several corona-related relocations, the chats should now be on German stages in March 2022.
Whoever believes it.
My Easter walk this year?
Ride a long way out by bike alone, until no one can be seen, and then shout "Bus Money" into the empty landscape.
-
Christian Buss
A (not too moist) handshake
The other day I shook hands with my boyfriend.
I do not know why;
we live together.
It was probably a skip act, like you've been looking for something to keep you busy since March 2020.
It feels good.
Sure, my friend is a person I like, and the replacement elbow check ritual is more reminiscent of a sporting foul, and in retrospect you glorify everything that was possible before Corona.
Also skin contact with sweating strangers, uncomfortably limp shakers, the own fundamentally clammy hand climate, misleading farewells to good friends, where one is still in the handshake phase, the other is already striving to embrace.
Enlarge image
Shaking hands (from the symbol image archive)
Photo: Guido Mieth / Getty Images
Nevertheless: I would like to greet people with a handshake again.
Maybe because such thoughtless virus transmission would be the ultimate corona line.
But probably also because the gesture has so much social life in it.
When you shake hands, you become aware of another person in order to discover them further afterwards.
At least if she doesn't sweat.
-
Eva Thöne
Drive, drive, keep driving
Otherwise always gladly accepted as an organ donor, the balance is currently rather to the disadvantage of the insane.
When in doubt, intensive care beds are due to the Covid-19 cases, not the usual candidates.
Enlarge image
Motorcycling: Little contact on the way - but what about the breaks?
Photo: PPAMPicture / Getty Images
Although no one pays attention to their distance as fully masked as the generically masculine moped driver, free touring is out of the question - driving off and simply not stopping, across borders and alpine passes, through rainstorms and sunshine, until you get to Valencia with a cold drink or Mandello del Lario sits with numb hands, aching bum, mosquitos between your teeth, buzzing in your ears, the adventure film of the past few days in your head and soul filled to the point of overflowing with the pure happiness of being alive.
That's how it was, that's how it is.
And so it will be again soon.
- Arno Frank
To be home again - alone
The editors would like a little text about a suppressed enjoyment of leisure time, a postponed excursion request.
I don't even know if I have the energy to do it after a year of sitting in the couch.
So for the wishes of the editors to a certain extent, not for going out.
I ask my friend what her greatest longing for travel would be.
"That you're going away again," she says.
And be it for a business trip.
Enlarge image
The furniture should remain quiet - but if the other people were gone for a while ...
Photo: Christina Falkenberg / Westend61 / imago images
That's a nice punchline, of course, but it's more than that. It's true.
After a year in which I've spent more time at home than ever before, I don't long to be away either.
I long for the others away, as much as I love them.
To be at home alone again: That is our greatest longing in the stay-at-home age.
- Tobias Becker
A year ago, the cultural department went on a virtual Easter walk through art history -
you can still follow it here
.