1. – With Daddy on a Trip to the Seaside
Good morning, dear people! A scene from Shambhala: Kate my German doll is besides herself. We’re going to the seaside, and daddy, “His Royal Highness,” will accompany us. Just a few minutes ago, today’s nanny—a German woman who hasn’t yet been in the kingdom for long, bursts into my room. She got this strong smell of baby oil from her sweating face and you could easily say: She was excited. Her name was Katja and she couldn’t contain her excitement, when she entered my room in an uncontrolled, excited rush, so she loudly blurted out the news. I’m not quite sure if she’s happy for me or for herself. Kate and I looked at her thoughtfully, Kate with a frown and somewhat artificial look. Usually, Kate is much quicker and more spontaneous than I am at deciding and judging, but now she seems just skeptical. We had exactly the same situation many times before. Maybe it’s a misunderstanding again or about someone else. But it’s not completely out of the question because sometimes we’re simply paraded in front of all sorts of unknown strangers, who like us have to play a certain kind of role in a play, and we are all sometimes questening ourselfs if we like our role or the whole play even? It should be taken into consiceration that after all, we’re not sculptures and no paintings but we are living beings! Well, to find out what kind of adventure is planned for us, you have to pay close attention to the nannies when they bring news. That is the trick! You have to check very carefully on how they move, how they enter the room, the pitch of their voice, and their aura—because often these tell you everything. We really don’t want to complain about our caretakers, and that new ones keep coming in over and over again can only be to our advantage. Anyway, admittedly I enjoy complaining to amala about it. She then hugs me and explains that I’m a princess and that all the young girls in the kingdom just love to look after me at some point, and besides, she’s usually somewhere nearby anyway.
Amala, my mother, never talks or listens to Kate. She runs her hand through her hair sometime, and I know she loves her very much too, but she doesn’t speak to her. Also some of the nannies do ignore Kate, to them she’s just a doll with no feelings and thoughts, while others occasionally address her, help her get dressed, or sometimes even bring gifts like little bags or hankies. Someone even once read to her from her poems. Actually some of her prettiest dresses are gifts from nannies. The nicest is a plaid pair of pants, Scottish, with two pockets in the front and a stitched-on pocket on the back, which, unfortunately, is nonfunctional and can’t be used to store anything.
So, off to the sea, and daddy’s coming along?
That would be wonderful. Obi Van will surely come along too, and I might let Kate ride on his back. Kate is afraid of Obi Van because he’s so tall and strict, and always looks straight ahead. Although a dog, Obi Van, a gray chocolate labrador, behaves very much like a horse—somewhat stiff and he rarely ever sits or lies down. Sometimes you only know that he is sleeping because of these strange snoring sounds he makes. When I lift Kate onto his back, he turns his head and looks at me sternly. I think he sees himself as my father’s honored protector, maybe even his friend, and he probably wonders whether it’s professional to let a little Kate ride on his back. Even when I put my arms around his neck, he remains noticeably stiff. Occasionally, when he thinks no one’s looking, he shoots a furtive glance at me. I notice that very clearly and also that he likes me—but to play with dolls?! I rarely interact with animals through looks; I sense and feel them, and they sense and feel me. It’s got to do with empathy or a sort of daydreaming. Random touches are part of it too. Maybe it also has to do with smells or hearing, but in any case, encounter happens even though in the wide space and light. That’s maybe how daddy would explain it. To the seaside with daddy, Kate, Obi Van, Katja, and of course one or two bodyguard kasungs and the attendant of the day, maybe even a secretary might come along, and hopefully none of daddy’s “guests” or “friends” at all—because if they join, it gets all “political,” which Kate considers very uncool, and honestly – it would spoil the fun for me as well. So, hopefully no “friends”! No diplomacy! Every daughter wants to ask her daddy questions! Personal questions. And I have a lot of those. One of the flashier nannies recently said, “…he knows everything”?! But why then does he need so much time to think about things and to search for answers? There were times when I’d eaten a whole momo before he’d even started answering my question. It’s curious that as an all-knower, it takes him so very much longer than others to answer. Maybe the reason for that is, that you just need time to find something in the enormous heap of phenomena or endlessly wide space of knowledge. Sometimes he looks truly desperate while thinking, and he hems and haws, clears his throat and squirms. Talking to me he even blushes sometimes. But no matter, his answers are always understandable, usually surprisingly simple, so that I secretly think: I already knew this answer. I want to ask him about the salt fairies, and whether he knows them, and what they’re like and why they are there anyway. One imagines tiny, crystalline beings with delicate wings—angular, sharp, pointed, and fragile, and you can look right into them. But those are suppositions Kate came up with. She claims stubbornly to be in contact with some, but I don’t believe her. She says so because of me. So far I met realy nobody who really knows more about it. There’s talk of blood—white blood?! I’m curious what daddy will say. Ciao ciao,
Your Winni the Quijote (Court Correspondent)
