Hamburg 16.6.1998: The Blues, Silent God

Blue tonight—feeling self-reproachful, unambitious, afraid I’ll fail absolutely spectacularly in the seminar.

In the morning, we drove the rental car to the airport, taking an African woman we met at the Akademie to the airport at the same time. She’s a Presbyterian from Cameroon who seems to travel a great deal as a kind of spokeswoman for black women in the churches.

Afterwards, an hour’s bus ride back to Nienstedten, and then shopping. We then walked to the Nienstedten church and worked (sitting on a bench) on lectures for the seminar, and afterwards had coffee and cake in Nienstedten Marktplatz, where a fair is going on and ends today.

Then supper cooked in our apartment—bread, cheese, mushroom soup, steamed zucchini, and a salad of feldsalat and tomatoes.

I feel very down after eating, as if this trip is all flat, aimless, going nowhere. There’s just no spark, as there’s none in my life in general now. I recall feeling in Russia that there’s no place where one will ever find things very different. A queer’s a queer’s a queer the world around.

And God?

Yes, the north German architecture’s very pleasing—neat red brick and white door frames and thatched roofs. But all’s so . . . orderly and same-like, with everywhere oppressive green overgrowth. No sound, no sparkle, no difference to disturb the order.