Mira Kolenc
As a teenager I gladly told my parents that I would like to work in a bank. Other parents might have reacted with great joy, mine found it rather absurd. Not only because my grandfather once owned a banking house and embodied all that, whereas the Wirtschaftswunder children later rebelled as young adults. That their own children could sympathize with the conservative grandparents and their views of life was not what the baby boomers had fought for. Of course, one could also say that we, the members of generation Y, could only rebel with our grandparents. But only a little bit. Because actually we found our parents in our puberty pretty cool and a real breakout was not necessary.
From our parents, we have the Barbara Rütting recipes in the luggage and shopping in organic supermarkets finally made a presentable lifestyle that you must necessarily share on Instagram. But the home-baked bread and home-cooked marmalade of the best friend is then served on the noble Meissner porcelain service of the grandparents. Whether one likes to speak of a new Biedermeier?
Today the shaking of the head about the young people who marry early or even marry is only very tired. The zeitgeist, in which one is born and which captures everyone, without knowing how exactly that actually works, has put our gaze back on us almost in the cradle. In my opinion, we have brought the Barbara Rütting recipes from our parents and shopping in organic supermarkets to a presentable lifestyle that you absolutely have to share on Instagram. But the home-baked bread and home-cooked marmalade of the best friend is then served on the noble Meissner porcelain service of the grandparents. The napkins have to fit the dishes, the silver cutlery is polished every other Saturday and missing parts are hoped to be found on Etsy. Whether one likes to speak of a new Biedermeier?
After visiting an exhibition about the 1920s in the German capital, one can definitely come to the conclusion that today - the new 20s are not just around the corner in terms of numbers - one can speak of a "dance on the volcano" . At least there is the volcano, but the need for ecstatic nights of dancing, contrary to all Berlin clichés, is not quite as urgent as it once seems to have been. At least that is what we learn from the legacies of contemporary witnesses. It is less the insatiable hunger for life that lurks in wait on every street corner, but rather the fear of losing control over one's own life and the perceived futility of every striving. And so many a person today only feels vitality in death. Creates meaning by taking others with him.
But where did we stop once again? Exactly, Meissner porcelain. So who could have guessed, at least my child's brain could not yet, that the neat chaos of an artist's household was the best preparation for life? With all its confusion and inconsistency. Security is an illusion. Just as the Piedmont cherry is a refined Ferrero marketing invention. If you believe in it, it may be fulfilling, but you could also become angry. How does Hildegard Knef sing so beautifully? "Illusions are what keeps us alive."
Let's put it this way: My grandfather's bank was swallowed in the end. And the illusion of a secure life was at the expense of one's own freedom. Which somehow leads back to the topic of marriage.
Any notion of "security" is just as relative a matter as the offense of any body part.
That reminds me, my grandmother's flirting tips were not particularly helpful in finding a man: "Girls of marriageable age must be able to dance," she reminds me and my cousin again and again.
But today you do not dance so much as get the kick in radical groups, religious or not. At least, a naked woman's leg is no longer a scandal - and any idea of "security" is just as relative a matter as the offensiveness of any body part. So on to the next volcano, as long as the way still finds. In this sense: all waltz!
Photo / Video: Oskar Schmidt.
