Spirit of the River

Most of us do have role models in our life. For some of us, they are members of our family. For some of us our biggest role model is one of our friends. For some of us, the biggest role models are famous people from various careers. Then there are people who claim to not have any role model - but that is a different story. To me, my role models were mainly people from the world of music and acting. I simply had nobody in my family who was suitable as a person to look up to. There were alcoholics and people who stood by, doing nothing. As a young kid, my escape was the world of music, books, and TV. In there, I found people who had courage, who were well-spoken, encouraging, creative, and in a way always there for me. The first two important role models who entered my life were Captain Jean-Luc Picard , portrayed by the fantastic Patrick Stewart, and Michael Jackson . Jean-Luc Picard was someone I wished to be my father - and you have to admit the man makes a rather good role-mo...

When I still lived in New Zealand, and also during my first year in the UK, I often dreamed dreams that included Lucy Lawless. Not Xena, but the actress herself. Last night, I had a dream that surprised me because I thought my years of dreams about Lucy Lawless were over because the last dream I had about her felt like the end of a series. The dreams were telling me a lot about my life, especially now that I am looking back at them. It once more makes me wonder whether our dreams are more than just random images and stories that come to us at night.  In the beginning: Lucy Lawless as an unapproachable, distant star My dreams in the beginning were usually set during conventions or shows, e.g. concerts during which Lucy was the singer. I was always only part of the audience, and as much as I wanted to talk to Lucy, and ask her questions about life, I never had the chance to get anywhere close to her. I was simply a powerless spectator who wanted something she cou...

I will only write a short one today, as I am still feeling quite sick, and need to use my energy for working on my jobs. Part of my work is translating books, sometimes "real" books, sometimes e-books. All of them (and most of the books I read) have dedications. I am also writing a book, but when it comes to dedications, it's always a page that bothers me a little, and to be honest, a page that makes me sad. I read how other people can dedicate their books to partners, friends, their family and so on, and then wonder who I would dedicate my book to. Michael Jackson, because he was more of a friend to me than anybody else? Patrick Stewart, because I learned more from him than from my own father who just hated me and always had to remind me that I was just an accident? Lucy Lawless, because she helped me a lot even though I never got to talk to her? Kate Mulgrew, because I wanted to have a mother like her? Kenny Wizz, because he gave me hope? Tolkien, because he insp...

To Lucy Lawless:  Thank you for all the work you have done and everything you will still do in the future - on the screen and off the screen. Thank you for inspiring people all over the world and thank you for being a positive influence in my life. The background for this post: I was just reading a list about 100 things to do when you are sad and one of the points was to reach out to the people who inspire you but do not know that you exist. For me, blogging seems the only way to reach out in some way - in a way that the people who inspire me might not know about either even if I tried to get the link to my blog to them. If you aren't really lucky, it is hard to tell people how they inspire you in a way that they actually get to see. If I was a rich person, I could try to do some research about where my special people are at a certain time, hire a plane or a big advertisement space in a city and put a message on an "ad" or let a plane pull a message behind it. Bu...