2010-01 - lola - Das Magazin für Düsseldorf

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NEW YORK
Es gibt Städte, die zu sehen sich lohnt.
New York ist ein Muss.
New York ist ein Ort, den man nicht erklären kann.
Selbst mitten in Manhattans Straßenschluchten, in denen
man kilometerweit sehen kann, ist nur ein kleiner
Eindruck von der Stadt zu bekommen. Ich habe schon
viel über New York gesehen, gehört und gelesen, aber es
ist, als lese man ein Gedicht über die Liebe. Wer sie nie
erlebt hat, kann das Gelesene nicht verstehen.
In dem Moment, als der Hotelpage mir ein Zimmer mit
Aussicht auf die Ziegelwand des Nachbarhauses anbietet,
das 50 cm entfernt steht, oder ich einen knallroten
Feuerwehrwagen sehe, der sich lärmend, aber dafür um
so langsamer durch den überfüllten Verkehr bewegt, begreife
ich, dass ich in New York bin.
Inmitten dieser steinernen Schluchten fühle ich mich
wie in einem der unzähligen Filme, die hier gedreht
wurden. Menschenmassen kommen mir entgegen und
teilen sich vor mir wie Fischschwärme. Ich beschließe,
diese Stadt zu begreifen, zumindest eine Übersicht zu
bekommen.
Einer der vielen Fahrstühle des Empire State Buildings
bringt mich dem Himmel näher. So stehe ich da und
sehe, glaube aber immer noch nicht. Ich habe das Gefühl,
als stünde ich vor der realistischsten und größten
Fototapete der Welt. Groß, größer, noch größer, die Stadt
nimmt kein Ende, und das Betonmeer wird nur durch
den Ozean aufgehalten.
Wieder in Düsseldorf angekommen, denke ich mir, dass
ich noch mal hin muss.
Es ist egal, was man in New York sieht.
Entweder ist es groß oder man sieht es sehr oft.
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22
A bout
a week ago, I
caught a cold. It
started with a sore
throat. A few days later came the sniffles and a stuffy nose.
Finally, just when I thought things were getting better, I lost
my senses of taste and smell.
The horror! I am a person who loves to eat, and to cook. I’m
not sure when I realized that my cold had robbed me of my
sense of taste. Maybe it was when I couldn’t pick up the delicate
flavor of some slow-roasted veal I had made for supper.
That’s when I knew I must expect the worst.
I was not disappointed. The next morning, I couldn’t taste
my coffee, and the muesli I ate for breakfast might just as
well have been cardboard.
By this time, I was thoroughly frustrated. Since I wouldn’t
mind losing a few kilos, I thought to myself, fine – as long as
eating is devoid of pleasure, I just won’t eat.
Needless to say, that resolution didn’t last long. First, of course,
within the space of just a few hours, I got hungry. Then, amazingly,
I also got a craving. For lasagna. Spicy, hot, cheesy,
meaty lasagna.
So I did the only thing I could do: I went straight to the grocery
store and bought everything I needed to make a big,
fat pan of lasagna. But again, I was disappointed. Even the
onions weren’t enough to jolt my senses of smell and taste
back to life. I could have cried. To be honest, I did. (Maybe it
was the onions.)
Still, I bravely forged ahead and made my lasagna, simultaneously
making quasi-scientific observations of my handicapped
state. I observed with interest, for example, that
23
In English
Good taste
by Lizzy
lizzy@lola-magazin.de
I couldn’t tell when
the meat for the lasagna
was done
browning in the pan.
Until then, I would have thought that it was a matter of what
the meat looked like. Was it brown enough or not? Question
settled. But without my senses of smell and taste to guide
me, I had no idea if the meat had reached the point of perfect
brownness or not. I was lost.
Lost. That best describes how I felt without a sense of taste. I
had lost my orientation. I called my boyfriend into the kitchen
to season and salt the meat for the lasagna. I felt helpless.
And when it finally came out of the oven, I listlessly
poked at it with my fork and refused to eat much. My lust for
life was gone. Lost lust.
The importance of our other senses is often forgotten due
to the dominance of sight. A coworker of mine recently attended
a training in which all of the participants did several
exercises as if they were blind – in the dark or blindfolded.
It was fascinating, he said, to experience how much sharper
one’s other senses become when one can no longer depend
on one’s eyes.
You’ve probably also heard about dinners served by the blind
for paying guests in several major cities in Germany. I think
it’s a neat concept. “Das Auge isst mit” – that is certainly the
case. But how much more intensively might we be able to experience
smells, tastes, and other things with the senses that
are sometimes neglected, if we weren’t always so focused –
no pun intended – on what we see?
In winter things are harder to see, because the days are shorter
and darker. May they help us discover everything else life
has to offer.