Parting is such sweet sorrow

Of all the things I learned on my European pilgrimage, the lesson that makes the most amount of sense to me is that concerning the redeeming power of love. I didn’t know it at the time but I realize the importance of it now, finding love in Europe among the Germans. Before I set out on my adventure I read the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke that talks of love and longing beautifully and metaphorically illustrated as a rose representing the awakening of the senses – it’s color, it’s scent and it’s fragility.


After posting my last blog, regarding the East- West conflict among brothers, I got an overwhelming response from my friends in Berlin, asking if I plan on returning which put me in a trance recalling the last few days prior to my departure.


When it was time to leave and let the tide of a million lives ebb and flow, Scotsman and fellow actor Paul who refused to call me by my birth name and instead called me Martina, gave me a sci-fi book inscribed it in were loving words to remember.


American opera singer, David originally from Pasadena, gave a sad moan when I told him the news but gave me a blank book to record my thoughts, which I quickly filled with pages of memories.


Elderly neighbor and native Berliner, Frau Bose gave me a cup bearing the city’s mascot- a Bear, as a keepsake of the city I once called home.


Linguist Karen from Washington D. C., cooked me dinner and tried to touch my face when I stopped her, she fell into my arms weeping.


Former German actress turned psychologist Renata came over, took photos, bite her bottom lip and said over and over, “I will miss you”.


Casting director, Benson, from West Hollywood, loyally stoic, helped me pack.


Bostonian Scott, a psychologist, stopped by and proudly announced that he was the architect of my open feelings, and although there was still a road ahead, he then held me close for five minutes while we both sobbed softly. I ran to the window to see him drive until he was a speck in the horizon.


Frenchmen and linguist Paul, gave me a tape of French melodies and made me promise to take better care of my health.


At the airport terminal, East Indian and visual artist Zari smiled when she handed me my gift- a lovely purple and white scarf that she silk screened, her face fell when I said my last goodbye.


Werner hide his distress and I could not talk, there were no words in me, “ I don’t know how to... or how can I …” is all I could utter and, I left a large wet patch of tears on his chest.


Over the last two years, I imagined bounding through the airport doors ecstatic and excited to escape the country, but my legs were heavy and reluctant. The stewardess shook my hand as I’m was about to board the plane, “Good-bye, will you be coming back to Germany?” I wobbled my head in a way to say: yes, no, maybe.


I took my seat, older, wiser, and more cosmopolitan than when I arrived. I felt my soul swell at the sight of leaving the land and the words of Rilke came to mind: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will find them gradually, without noticing it, along some distant day into the answer”.

O' Divine One- Where art Thou?

There were a handful of reasons why I left Berlin in 1993 and returned to the States, each framed by earlier events that are explained in my memoir, Echo Between Us, but today I recall the whirlwind of my German memories in which I was immersed.

The best part of being in Europe was everyone I met. Bright young women and men, all artists, who measured their lives with the passion they expressed, buzzing and beating their wings around town- to me Berlin was a hive.

I've never met people in the usual traditional ways that people meet- I've made a habit of talking to strangers, and one of those strangers who became my friend, Benjamin Rawitz, I pay tribute to- an extraordinary man, who was born to play the piano, who was a regular at local concert stages but his influence went beyond that, a musician's musician with graceful nimble fingers and a kind gentle soul.

The first time I met Benjamin Rawitz, I was standing in a long line at KaDeWe, the largest department store in Europe. Expensive, luxurious, a shopping paradise and a legend, I also was a proud credit card holder. I inhaled the scent of leather, as I waited to buy myself a pair of mahogany kidskin gloves, a man watched me with quick curious eyes. “entschuldigen, ist dieses die Linie”? I asked in my wild broken German with a Spanish accent. Benny rattled on and I held up my hand. “Wait, do you speak English”, I asked, to which he smiled mastering charm. Detecting a french accent, I learned he was an Israeli living in Brussels.

How I remember that day, the encapsulation of everything I love most about this world: we walked out together passing the perfume counter discussing music, books, and the arts. It was drizzling slightly and down the street we went, I was laughing. It was fall, a season of my content.

Benny and I became quick friends and we had a friendship that was pure and simple; we recognized our tribal markings and discussed spirituality and the after life while sitting in sidewalk cafes together. We added all the things we aspired to do. When he left the city we developed a stronger tie slowly over time on a lost art- letter writing.

As time marched on we learned of each others artistic triumphs and disasters but none was so unfortunate that it stopped either of us from dreaming and living our each respective passions.

As any writer is aware, writing requires one to spend great lengths of time in monastic solitude. I enjoy this period when my mind spins more plots than my fingers could ever type, a ritual of silence. During one of these periods Benny's last card came to me that read- “A little bit of luck never hurt anybody.... I'm waiting to hear that something positive happens to you”!

Then I got the news, it was late August of 2006, Benny was dead. The tender man who would not swat a fly, murdered, his battered body in the basement of his apartment building; his nose had been broken and the frontal bone of his face smashed.

For three days in my own private war, I would talk to God, wail and twitch, begging for peace for Benny's soul. As a current passed through my body, feeling the voltage of violence that I abhor, every one of my muscles tensed. I battled with my mind even more, not wanting to see the ugliness of a brutal, barbaric murder, and yet seeing it every time I closed my eyes. Both my body and my mind writhed in unison, reaching a final end. I prayed that in his life he would remember a soft human touch; a simple handshake, and the flesh of another person without the psychological physical torture in the confines of his final hours from two perverse misfits who didn't have an ounce of respect for life.

Benny's killers were brought to trial and incarcerated. Today one of them, a minor escaped after having killed his baby daughter and her grandmother. This tragedy indicates that the laws in Belgium are too permissive and law enforcement officials have to do everything in their power to find him immediately; since his disturbed dark side is a threat to everyone he comes across.

Thumbing through Benny's photos of India, I miss you Benny. These words come to mind, from the revered Hindu text and philosophical classic, the Bhagavad Gita, “He who sees everyone in himself, and himself in everyone, thus seeing the same God living in all, he, the sage, no more kills the Self by self.”




Listen to Benjamin Rawitz-Castel playing Schumann
http://www.fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/detailfs?userid={0B199B1B-2F0E-4CAA-A55A-0F96A12EBFCF}&ndx=1&slideshow=0&A