Crafting Clips, Crafting Cities. 

8/3/2012

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Recently, I began collecting paperclips. Not kidding, I pick them up and keep them. That's something I haven't done before, mainly because I didn't need paperclips (ever, really). But now, something changed. For one, a friend sent me a link to a beautiful necklace made out of paperclips. And I have some time on my hands to actually do it.

Besides, I have moved to Hamburg, Germany, about a month ago. So the necklace will be made entirely out of paperclips I found here. I think that's a nice way to turn my arrival here into a memory.

And I do still find paperclips. This morning I found one in front of the gates to my office, next to a graffito on the floor, reading "happy Birthday to Stu" or something like that. Yesterday there was a paperclip in St. Pauli, on my lunch break with another intern. A little over a week ago, I found a rusty paperclip outside the metro station of my first radio internship this summer. 

To be honest, I've packed this summer with internships. What am I saying. I packed THIS YEAR with internships. So maybe one day, I can look at that necklace (that will hopefully soon be longer than the 5cm it is now) and remember that I once worked fulltime for no money, simply because I love  that job. 

There is another reason I look out for paperclips again. It's this blog. Not for writing it, but for remembering it. It's always been fun to write, especially back in Budapest. And it's been something that many people got to know me with. When I see a paperclip I think back at the last few years, and of my friends and family who bought me fun paperclips or send me pictures from giant paperclips on the other side of the planet.
So now the city I will get to know through it's lost paperclips is Hamburg. Sailors come and go, everything lives in reencounters. 
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The Funeral Paperclip

2/7/2011

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I found a paperclip in the snow a few weeks ago, and have since puzzled how to tell its story. Unlike with all other clips, I know this one’s story, or at least the end of it. I found it in the snow, picked it up and turned to my brother and sister, who were with me. They smiled, and we knew what the story was. It will not get better by letting time pass by, so here it goes.

It all started with the unexpected death of my Opa shortly before Christmas. My sister and I had been driving down to Ingolstadt for the funeral; my brother flew in from the States. We were allowed to stay at my other grandma’s empty apartment, a big moment for siblings who rarely see each other more than once a year. Our parents were with our grieving Oma, and generally, my brother and I stood out very much with red shirts that we had thoughtlessly been wearing for the journey. The three of us took advantage of the apartment to find out about a possible birthday present and memories re-awaking for my grandma, and we ravaged through boxes and boxes of old photographs. On an old desk, in a room that we assume is empty most days of the year, everything remains as it has been for years – except that I took away the lamp a few years ago. As we were getting ready for the funeral with an old fur jacket, a black tie that belonged to my grandfather, who died 21 years ago, and…my brother’s belt that did not fit. In the end, we looked both adequate but splendid. Before leaving, Andy walked to the old desk and grabbed a rusty paper clip. He fastened his belt with it and we were ready to go.

The paperclip witnessed the funeral pass by, and the next thing we know is that it was lying on the snow near the cemetery’s exit. It must have fallen off when we left the grave and went back to the car. Opa’s car, that we had to push out of a heap of snow with six persons. We found it the next day, when Andy, Tanja and I decided to pay another visit to his grave and we found it covered in frozen flowers and snow, close to an open field and under a tree. In a small pile of snow, rusty, twisted, a memory. 

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