I am not sure if you have had this moments in your life when you are sucked into one of your hobbies from which you think it is your area, only yours - where you are the specialist, the all-known person until you meet someone who is far more of an expert than you are. Well when it comes to this point – I would not have a hobby because I am not an expert in anything. It is not even that I pretend to be an expert – I don’t like people who show off with their personal expertise on topics nobody really needs to know like for example who invented the ball-bearing of Jane Fonda’s roller skates while I have to say I don’t even know if Jane Fonda has ever been an owner of roller skates. Probably not, rather an owner of these pinky – kinky American Aerobic suits which were kind of fashionable in the 80’s. Not where I grew up. We wore cotton pants when playing handball against the enemy village and you were always afraid that - during a handball match where we were not allowed to drink any water because our overweight trainer had thought that only pussies would drink any liquid while playing the hardest game of your life – one of the opposing team members would pull down these cotton short pants out of anger because you had shot more goals than they did.
When I saw Jane Fonda the first time in one of these magazines you shared with your friends because mum would not allow to buy one (too costly) I was sure – the reason of wearing one of those kinky-pinky suits was because she had also been afraid (like me, so I had something in common with Jane) that someone would pull her costume down in public. I could not see any other reason than this. Why else would someone wear what make you look like an idiot? Top of the body almost nothing while feet where covered with leg warmers. I felt always sorry for her and all the women who copied her. Today I know, I had not understood the concept of physical attraction by that time. But I do know now. We all have our hidden secrets.
My hobby is sewing. Recently my husband, a mid-life-crised torned engineer, bought me one of these fancy Overlock sewing machines. When you sit in front of this machine it feels like being in one of these movies where the airplane is about to crash, the captain shot and a passenger is taking over the steer in the cockpit not knowing which button to press first to make the plane land safely
That is how I felt when I opened the box of his wonderful present. Engineers are different than other human beings, they want to improve the world, make it a better place for all of us. They invent a brush holder for a bathroom with an individual hole for each brush (I use the word hole, the correct word is according to my husband brush stem holder) and take it personally when your adolescent children ignore that invention and throw the brushes in the drawer below. So I had no excuse when my husband whispered that he had booked a training session for us. Yes, you read it right.
Coming back from rehab I was not able to remember the next day more than the two words US and TRAINING. That meant – he and I . I don’t know how many men in this world join an overlock sewing machine training class with their wife – I believe not many. Well my husband had thought it is a very normal thing to do.
To be honest – when I stepped into the store it felt like a daddy-and-me session in one of these places where fathers go on a Saturday afternoon with their toddlers to potter for mummy something creative like a dinosaur-shaped vase, colored in light green. Not that I would not have liked that but the presents I received for mother’s day where going more in a technical direction (we will touch that topic maybe later..).
Anyway the timing was a bit unfortunate because I had been really really tired and unfortunately (again!) – carried the wrong glasses with me in my self-sewed bag. (You have to send the right signals right from the beginning) . So my husband had to take over the steer in that training, exchanged technical knowledge with the young, pretty trainer while I was nodding my head hoping that the session would be over soon. To stick with the picture I had been able to close the training session but could not remember one single thing the next date even my husband had made notes but you know how that was in school or in university. Notes from other people are not useful if you don’t understand the content at all, they are like additional miracles where you think that is exactly what is written in the book (or in this case in the manual) so why has she/ he written the whole stuff again by hand - on a notepad. I must admit – I am a well-known-first-grade-ignorer of handbooks. Have you ever read a handbook of a toaster or a hair dryer? I bet you have not - at least when you are NOT an engineer. The world is divided into handbook readers and handbook ignorers, I belong to the last group but while a toaster is not so difficult to make it to function as a toaster an overlook-sewing machine can be a real challenge. I think you get the idea - . I had no choice but to read the handbook. I think it was the first handbook I have ever read in my short life and that from page 1 to page 54.
For people who belong to the first group (in case you have forgotten: that are the ones who actually read the manuals/ handbooks) it does not leave them with any particular feeling. But for people like me who ( I help you here again in case you have forgotten to which group you belong by now) never read handbooks – reading 54 pages and following on top also the instructions – it feels like being an expert, being in heaven – a sewing machine heaven of course. You got the point? I hope so. And this is not a lie. It worked, believe it or not – I am now able to use the machine and that made me very happy and it put me on a higher stage somehow, didn’t it? The feeling of belonging to the group of one of these experts was crawling from my feet to my heart. And now, after three pages I come to the point:
When using my Ovi (the community does not use the term Overlock sewing machine, the community says “Ovi”…. it obviously always needs abbreviations to belong to a certain community) I start to drift away …. I start to see myself standing on a stage with red curtains in the background, in front of a big but very quiet and highly concentrated audience and beside me a young, beautiful lady in a long shiny dress and professional make up, this young lady helds a microphone in her hands, starts to interview me and - there is that big, striking, colorful poster behind us which screams in the camera “Dunja , Designer of the year 2022”. In this special moment there is not much of a difference between the real Dunja who just started to understand her new Ovi and Dunja, the designer. I am only a breath away from reaching that stage and that makes me smile in front of my machine until my niece calls up asking me: When will you finally send what you promised a year ago?
And that is what I like about hobbies. They put you back on earth quite fast. But you have these tiny little moments just for you, for yourself where you think or feel: well - it COULD happen, couldn’t it. And don’t tell me you don’t have that. I have asked my sister: and she has these thoughts, too. That is evidence enough.
My sister presented me her first short-story which was about our cat Jimmy. In these days we called ourselves still being an owner of an animal (we both grew up on a farm, by that time divorce was a no-go and you still called yourself an owner of a pet without hurting any feelings) means that was by the time Jane Fonda’s kinky-pinky suit became fashionable. You see, life is a place where all winding paths meet. Jane Fonda almost met Jimmy in my home town - so to say.
Well, the cat was always stealing cold cuts from our kitchen table until my mother made this horrible, loud, fizzling sound with which she scared away our Jimmy. To make a long story short – my sister’s short story was about Jimmy’s cold cut trauma and we discussed over a glass of red wine that I will of course take over the accounting and managing part with her publishing house but that my only request would be that she needs to mention my name – and if only for one time - when she will give that interview to the NY Times while being appointed as THE new German author ( we could see the headline, literally feel the number of comments from readers …!) Even she belongs by now to the group of the political correctly named silver agers. She does not like that expressions as she dyes her hair.
She has – when she sits on that stage to mention the following – and she promised me to do so when we had that bottle of red wine - “my manager is my best friend and btw it is my youngest sister” – Only after that I let her go to find her place in the same row like Herta Müller, Hermann Hesse, Goethe or whoever has been on that NYT bestseller list (we will also touch that topic later, I am not an expert yet on literature)
So my sister has it, my friend Suzann has it, I have it. That is enough evidence for me .I don’t need to be a scientist to tell that each and any of us carries at least one of these dreams. Only difference is, some dream of brush stems, others of being a nobel prize winner. You take what you get J
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