A Litte More

Recently, I spoke with my mother on the phone; that was before she sprained her ankle and had to spend half the summer at home. As we talked, she said she’d sent me three pictures. “What’s the difference?” she asked.

I switched to speaker and opened the first image. I am looking at a pile of plastic bags, PET bottles, cartons, a sparkling wine bottle, and watermelon peels. Nature littered as if it were Mount Everest, only it is a spot I know too well, closer to home.

Its easy access to water is one of the things I love about Berlin; there are plenty of lakes in the city itself and in the surrounding area.

Our favorite lake is an hour away, making for a lot of summer memories of us riding along country roads, windows down, music turned up.

“Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life. Tryna make ends meet, tryna find somebody then you die”

The song blares from the CD player, my feet resting on the dashboard, hair blowing in the wind as I watch my mother smiling beside me. It may have taken me all this time to understand what that song was trying to say: life keeps moving whether you are ready or not.

Our lake that was once a hidden gem is now no secret at all.

Secrets don’t stay silent; eventually, they spill their way out.

The mountain of trash in the photo sits by the entrance gate to the forest path leading to the lake. Pine trees and needles carpet the ground, taking me back to carefree childhood moments of the little Brandenburg bungalow community we used to belong to in the north of Berlin, sheltered in its own pine forest.

After the fall of the Wall, many GDR youth summer camps were commonly transformed into small, independent bungalow communities for weekend rentals. Slowly ours disappeared as ownership of the land was settled and nature protection began to reshape the landscape.

I make myself a promise to return soon, to see what it has become.

None of these thoughts come to me as I look at the picture for a few seconds before opening the second one, and yet how many stories can a single image awaken?

As I look more closely, the trash that in the previous image had been held somewhat together has now grown into a colorful plastic pond; the carton of Happy Hippo washed from one shore to the other.

A large basket stood next to it, not sure of its place and purpose.

Only now did I notice the sign hanging on the worn-out fence. A green, laminated sign:

“PLEASE!!! Take your trash home with you!!!”

There is a photo of a pile of trash, crossed out in red — the very same pile of trash from the first picture.

Knowing my mother, I knew she had something to do with it. “Have you informed the municipality?” I asked her, thinking they might have put up a sign on her inquiry.

Of course, that was not the case. “I made that sign,” my mother claimed with a little joyous pride in her voice. “And look at the third picture!”

A few days later, in the same spot shown by the third image, the trash was gone, and the handmade sign still hung tight on the green fence.

It could have been different, and maybe in a few days, people would grow accustomed to it, eyes gliding past it as they had past the rubbish. By hanging it up anyway, my mother defied the uncertainty.

And next time someone is about to leave behind their barbecue or picnic waste, maybe they will hesitate, if only for a moment.

I have been thinking about this short story since.

My mother didn’t wait for someone to tell her to make that sign; nobody would have blamed her if she hadn’t. She simply, as Dolly Parton once put it, paid a little more attention.

”To how we’re treating our mountains, how we’re treating our world, how we’re just treating everything."

When so much else feels like it’s unraveling, these are the small stories I find myself holding onto.

Someone going a little further, caring just a little more than they had to.

As tributes to Dolly’s life fill my feed, I begin to learn about another woman who stayed true to herself, unbothered by who thought that was too much or not enough.

There could not be two women more different, and yet they both, in their own way, hadn’t asked anyone for permission but themselves.

As I am writing this story to you, two months late, a little exhausted, a little doubtful, on a Monday instead of a Thursday, I find myself asking whose permission are you and I waiting for.

I hope something in these letters moves inside you, even quietly. Thank you for your attention and your time. It is a gift to be connected through words.

With love, Zaza