"My candle burns at both ends,
it will not last the night.
But, ah, my friends, and, oh, my foes,
It gives such lovely light.

But on to other things...have you ever wished that time could stop and hold that one perfect moment still for you, ala Goethe's Faust and his bargain with the devil? This page is dedicated to moments like that--the ones you wish could last forever; the moments where you finally say, "Don't let this one space in time end."

Personally, I have had few moments like that in my life thus far, and I honestly look forward to more. I'd love to hear about yours, too.

Pictures are also forthcoming, I'm just lazy about scanning, which is nothing new.

OK...so this is the story. This summer, I was in Germany, spending time at the Goethe-Institut at Prien an Chiemsee. It was a lovely place, fairly interesting, although occasionally lonely. I spoke too much English with the other students, hung around the local library and readonly childrens' books. It was mostly a lot of fun.
One of the things the Institut did was to organize little weekend trips for us, which were mostly a lot of fun. I generally went with my friends and we saw Salzburg, Wien, Muenchen, etc. It was gorgeous. however, one such trip was to Dachau, a concentration camp turned into a war memorial on the outskirts of Muenchen.
I was interested in going, but I had a lot of misgivings. Something nagged at me--this is not the sort of place you should go for a summer vacation, yes? The itinerary was simple--Dachau in the morning, and some kind of castle in the afternoon. I figured I could handle it.
I've since heard that the Dachau is a camp that was "cleaned up", that it isn't true to life. To be perfectly honest, it was true enough for me. Looking into the ovens, I started to feel physically ill--like I could feel the spirits of the dead flowing around me. The place just radiated evil. Stones were in piles everywhere, numbers on plaques, scratches deep into the walls. I wanted to throw up and I couldn't; I wanted to scream at someone, and there was no one to listen.
A friend of mine on the program found me later in the woods behind the main camp, where I had gone to cry. The rest of the group I was with was watching the documentary I couldn't make myself watch. We just sat there, Chris and I. There was nothing to say.
The castle, needless to say, was an anti-climax. It was supposed to some kind of baroque architectural marvel, but I couldn't concentrate. Later on, I slipped away from the tour guide and into the gardens, a mze behind this place. I wandered for a little bit. The feeling of Dachau was still fresh on my tongue, and all I wanted to do was find someplace safe. Someplace where I could quietly reconcile my feelings and not worry about getting walked in on. Somewhere where I could be sick if I felt like it.
I found a grove of trees and benches and sat. When I was a child, I had thought that I would have my home in a grove of trees, in a pool of light...and this grove was where I had been thinking of. On the other side, there was a couple, plainly pretty ticked off to see me, but I didn't care. I just sat, and breathed deeply. And in this one moment, I found a bit of peace in myself, away from everyone else and in a grove of trees. The feeling of Dachau still ached within me, and the after-taste was still there, a little salty, blood-like; but, subsiding. Not being forgotten, but not as painful.
And I really wanted that moment of understanding to last forever. Which of course it didn't. Someone came looking for me and I ran to catch the bus.
But the fact remains that I had that moment in time.