Visa Approved! And another painting, another learning experience

Things are starting to move quickly. I think I need to slow the merry-go-round a bit.

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."
— Augustine of Hippo

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life"
— Jack Kerouac (On The Road)

“There was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question.

And the reply was, Eat the strawberries.

The story had never made sense to him as a boy. It did now."
— Neil Gaiman(American Gods)

As you may recall, I mailed my application for my Australian visa on June 12, 2024. According to the Australian immigration webpage, normal processing time is four months or less, with 20 percent taking up to to five months.

Mine took three weeks. Well, actually more like two, if I take out mailing time. I got the email with the approval yesterday, July 4. I was super pleased and excited when the notification email arrived. As the day wore on and I realized just how much we’d have to do, I sort of freaked out a bit. Well, a lot.

And I’m also a little sad - well, more than a little sad - about all the friends and family here. As Maya Angelou says "The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."

I can still come home whenever I’d like - we negotiated that fairly early in the process - but the flights will be long ones back to my safe place. Such is life.

With the visa granted so quickly, our timetable has shifted accordingly. We might still be here until the original date contemplated - February - but if we get a buyer for our house earlier, we can leave at will. Or not. My husband might leave, rent a place and look for a house to buy while I stay in the mountains with my parents and our pets. Flexibility is a good thing! Options, people!

Get ready for the woo-woo part. This morning I had a bit of a Carl Jung Red Book experience. I tossed and turned most of the night, thinking about my new visa and the time table, finally going back to sleep around 5 a.m. I had a strange dream right before I woke up. I was in our house in the front hall and I heard Christmas carolers outside.

Of course, I had to look up the symbolism. “Dreaming of other people singing Christmas carols symbolizes good news from abroad. It is possible that you will get a job in another country or that one of your family members will let you know that they are getting married or expecting a baby.

Anyhow, your next move will be to prepare your documents for the trip.”

Talk about a Freaky Friday.

We met with our realtor today and got her ‘to do’ list of jobs to get the house ready. Daunting. My husband can do most of them - he’s a Kiwi, they are good with figuring things out - and we have the tools: Paint, pressure washer, and so forth. I, unfortunately, am in charge of decluttering the rooms for the photos.

The realtor was very tactful. I give her bonus points for noticing the European theme of our home, and extra bonus points for gently telling me that, even though she could see I loved everything and it was of high quality, the house would look better in photos with a little of the clutter gone. Yes. Agreed. So I will neutralize the clutter until we look like one of those AirBNB places where each item is perfect, zen and minimalist. I get it.

But I don’t get where I’m going to STORE it. We will ship most of it and decide what to throw out once we get there. I think the plan is to go ahead and pack the breakable decorative items - like the vases on the mantel and my German face jugs - into boxes with packing material so they are ready to go in the container. The realtor said we can just put the boxes up against one wall and the photographer will shoot around them in that room.

Hmmm. I am not sure she realizes just how many boxes there will be. But I’ll do my best.

ANYWAY, let’s get to a little art. Here’s another one I overpainted and destroyed during the process - but of course, I still have it hanging on a wall thinking that some day I will figure out how to fix it. Poor little thing.

I tried to paint a photograph taken from the window of our ferienwohnung in Randersacker, outside of Wurzberg. A really cute little place with slanted ceilings on the German 2nd floor (American third floor) with a great kitchen, nice, dark bedroom where we could sleep off the jet lag and a very functional shower - except for that slanted roof part. You have to limbo a bit to get your head under when you wash your hair.

Here’s the view. The apartment belongs to one of the local vintners and his excellent restaurant with delicious wines is on the bottom floor of the red building. Herr Schmitt’s family has been there for centuries. His wife is American, and they married in the beautiful Rococo church we could see from our window.

It’s a great ferienwohnung, feel free to grab it! They have four, here’s the link. I am probably not going to get back to beautiful Randersacker on my next trip, which I’ve pared back from three weeks to two. Here’s the living room and window where I stood to take the picture. Pretty perfect, isn’t it? I mean, if you like German style apartments. And I do.

Here’s the beginning of my tale of woe:

I actually started okay, I think. The window lines were in proportion in my line drawing and aimed correctly towards the horizon - and by that I mean they lined up with each other. Then it all went wonky. I tried to paint the outline of the windows. and suddenly they looked different. Too large, too bulky, too out of focus.

So I tried to fix it. I painted over the windows again. Still not right, as you can see from the one on the left below. (Wait a minute - I am too hard on myself. Actually, the windows were okay, pleasantly expressionist, but NOOOO, Fraulein Zen was not happy that the lower left window was not aligned with the top one. Like I could make it better or something. Geez Louise.)

I stupidly tried to make corrections and made it worse. I painted over all of it and got ready to try again. Sigh. Then I changed the steeple to a more Orthodox church one. And added an aqua blue to the window to make it look more like a mountain reflection.

If I’d stopped with the one on the left, it would have been FINE!! No, even better, GOOD!! I love the sun on the pink building, and on the rooftops. The steeple was much better. I could have fixed those damn windows if I’d given myself a hot minute. Still no idea what I did, but in the one to the right, that middle pink building does not feel as happy and warm. Went sort of dingy, like the sun went behind a cloud.

Oh, I SEE what I did. I made the roof on the pink building and the two behind it in front of the steeple darker in the one on the right, so now they don’t read as bright sunlight whiting the rooftops. I darkened the roofline left eave too much, rookie mistake..

Then I made the reflection of the yellow building in those two windows too bright. And decided to repaint that wall AGAIN and repaint the steeple AGAIN! Here’s the next version:

As you can see, just to REALLY stir things up, I added an extra set of windows because it felt like there was too much empty red space at the bottom.

I say the next version, but it ended up being the final version. But hey, who knows, maybe I’ll try to fix it one more time.

AAIEEEEE!! It’s a nightmare. On the up side, I note that I managed to change the pink building back to a sunnier color. On the down side, I was so sick of the dark pink one that I splish-splashed some purply little wimpy brush strokes to try to cover it up without REPAINTING it AGAIN!

So what have I learned? The first steeple in the very first painting is the best one, the first color of the pink building is the best one, the first yellow color reflection in the windows is PROBABLY the best one - but the orange is growing on me. Hmm. Poor little thing. It started out so well, and then Fraulein Frankenstein could not resist tinkering with the good parts as well as the bad.

Note to self - if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. DON’T FIX IT!

Yes, I nitpick my paintings. Just like I nitPAINT my paintings. It’s a gift. Ugh.

But really - you need to check out Randersacker. It’s a well kept secret.