Appreciating the Bigger Things

It doesn't take long for a´commuter to develop a mental cruise control. They could walk to the train station, catch their train, and get off at the right stop in Aachen blindfolded or, more likely, asleep. Occasionally the commuter gets to shake things up, like working in the Cologne office.

Cologne! That place with the tasty beer and the pretty cathedral and where people speak their own version of German. It's my second office. Once or twice a week, I can shake up my commute and get off in the Big City. I can ride a tram along the river into the city's industrial southeast, where I sit in a quiet office and tap away at marketing words.

The commuter's curse is developing a tunnel vision, if they're not sleepwalking to work. They get so used to their ride to and from work, and are so wrapped up in getting to where they're going that they develop blinders that block out the things that make a commute bearable.

I'm a big believer in appreciating the little things – like trains with a bar that serves frosty pints of beer (even if they don't call them pints here) – and the big things we take for granted so easily that they become little things in our minds. Like the Dom:

There's not a day where I step out of the Köln's main station and I look up and think "Holy shit! I'm walking past this architectual wonder again." Of course, as I slow down a gawk, an irritable commuter bumps into me and mumbles, "Sheiße!"

The End of my Elternzeit

My parental leave is ending and my morning rituals won't be the same.

It was at 6am when I paused and took stock of the situation – newborn son strapped to my chest to prevent him from crying while I baked a batch of healthy oatmeal cookies for my wife as she got a precious couple of hours of uninterrupted sleep – and thought: this is paternal leave, this is perfect.

I couldn't tell you what day it was, because I'd lost track of them. The newborn mother's life revolves around feedings, while a newborn father's life revolves anything he steps up to: diaper changes, healthy dinner prep, walks in the park, tea-for-wifey-making, and other tasks that gobble up the day and makes you focus on what must. Get. Done. Now.

And it's during that hustle and bustle that I've found time to stop and take it all in. That's when everything else – work, chores, lack of sleep, the rest of the world – recedes from view and I focus in on this little man and his mother and enjoy the moment.

It's like a tunnel vision of love.

And I wouldn't have been able to appreciate those moments, let alone live in those moments, if I wasn't on parental leave. And that's not just my own selfish reasoning. Helping around the house, taking care of my wife, bonding with my son, and adjusting to the enormity of fatherhood are all important benefits of a man’s parental leave.

How does parental leave in Germany work?

New parents in Germany get little over a year of paid leave that they can share between the two of them. But it gets confusing from there, since the time is as flexible as putty. I had a colleague who became a father and took most of the parental leave, while the mother returned to work shortly after their son’s birth.

Best Books from the Commute in 2018

I commute from Dusseldorf to Aachen about three times a week, which is a lot of time spent on a train. Many people are amazed by the length of my commute, but I look at it as a wonderful opportunity to gaze out the window, fall asleep and hope I don't get robbed, and mostly read. Since starting my Aachen gig in March, I've read a few good books that I wanted to share here. 

Berlin Noir Trilogy by Philip Kerr

Our anti-hero is Bernie Gunther is a Philip Marlowe-type detective whose moral code gets him into trouble on the streets of Berlin in Nazi Germany. Hooked yet?

These first three books of a fantastic series take Gunther from 1930s Berlin to the annexation of the Sudetenland to the reckoning in 1946. Along with the way, we meet a few historical figures. Gunther makes choices, some of them are tough in this time and place. As we read the final book of the trilogy, after Berlin is smashed and Germany is occupied, we meet supporting characters from the earlier books who are either facing, or fleeing from, the consequences of their own choices. Highly recommended.

Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis

The hilarious story of a disenchanted political strategist who agrees to help run a campaign for a candidate with no political ambition in an unwinnable riding before he quits from politics. The candidate has no hope of winning and no desire to win, so he says what he believes is right, even if it's unpopular.

The novel is now ten years old, which were different times in Canada, but it still feels relevant today. It's bitingly funny, yet optimistic, and satirical without being cynical. Beneath all the jokes, the book expresses a hope in the possibility that politicians can follow their principles not polling data, speak unpopular truths, and treat public service like it is actually public service.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

Working at Philty McNasty's in Toronto, I met two cooks who read this book and quoted from it frequently. They wanted to be Bourdain and would've preferred making fancy charcuterie platters to simple chicken wings we were slinging. They also had no interest in kitchen cleanliness – which led to the bar getting shut down for a week over health violations.