A Sense of life

We take our time in finding our way back to one another. How many more years will it take, I wonder? When I cross the old border, I sometimes feel at home, and at other times as though I have stepped into a different country. Countless times we have spoken, within the family and among friends, about the reasons for this recurring sensation, yet we have never moved beyond tentative attempts at explanation. Told stories, not abstract or depersonalized, but lived and spoken, can help. Not only the one who has lived the life in question, but also the "other," the one who listens or reads. It is no simple task, yet to listen, and to allow the words to work upon oneself, is one possible path. Particularly for the older generation, ideologically entrenched, who endured the madness of division. And, in a quieter way, for the younger generation too, who must bear so many inherited 'truths'. And yet, despite everything, life remains wonderfully compelling; without its fractures, its lessons would be quite different — and I would not have wished to forgo them. Thus the audiobook A Sense of Life is precisely the kind of narrative that offers the deeper understanding we Germans so greatly need.