People from the Past

Running into old friends is always interesting, I think. If you're in a positive place personaly, it's even fun to meet people and catch up. But what if not. It might end up being awkward and uncomfortable. Unless you're both pretty cool with whatever it is that people measure 'doing-good' by. 

Lately I've been amazed by the active energy that I find myself surrounded by. It's great. It's not easy to jump on that moving train, but even watching it is pure motivation. And I feel like I'm blessed with so much good stuff going on around me. I sure didn't realize unltil just lately. And it's a real eye-opener for me.

Back in the days, and by that I mean like ten years ago really, there was a more or less solid crew of skateboarders  in this town. More or less solid, because there wasn't a real bond between the members but skateboarding. On a good day, close to a dozen kids would gather and celebrate the streets. On an ordinary skate day we would be only a hand full, maybe half a dozen. Still, there was some steady movement.

With time, we found ourselves interested in other stuff, too. For some kids it was politics, others chose a more artistic path, and some just quit skateboarding alltogether for some other reason. At some point most of us graduated the German equivalent of high school and slowly everyone disappeared. The kids inside of us made room to young enthusiastic semi-grown-ups and full members of society.

In my case it was photography that had caught my attention. I bought a used Minolta from somebody I know and started exploring the world through the viewfinder. Then after graduation I decided to go to Korea for the bigger portion of a year. Still, skateboarding had never left me, and I found great friends and some of them who shared the photographic interest with me.

Meanwhile the original group of skaters here had lost itself completely. No contact whatsoever, and frankly not even an eager will to reconnect. The years passed, I came back to Germany, studied, went back and forth to Korea, graduated and went to Seoul to study some more. Now I'm back and ten years have passed.

Then today, a couple of friends were helping out another friend with some stuff that involved a lot of paper and cartons, which had to be gotten rid of. So that friend called some guy to handle all the cartons. My friend had met him yesterday and told me that it's a guy we know from way back. And as it turnes out he's one of the dudes from the old group of skateboarders.

Can you believe that? We got to talk a little and found out that after school he did this and that and then went to Italy. There he spent a couple of years and became a sculptor. He's been back in Germany for a few years and lives now in a quiet little place outside the city. He has a dog, two chickens and a wooden door that says 'Jesus Christ loves all the Children in the World'.

Amazing, isn't it? Ten years ago we used to skate the same streets and now he's leading a life so different to mine, that it made me rethink a lot of stuff.