Paper Clips
I am finally done. I did the summary page and sent all the information FedEx overnight to my accountant. The receipts are all filed, I put the stapler and the paper clips away, all I have to do now is to label the folder. I am so relieved. But even though I have this strong aversion against office work doing it feels at the same time very familiar.
I grew up in an office. My parents had a travel business and created their own tours. From when I was born to at least the age of seven or eight I rarely saw them do things besides work. They worked from home, we always had a big office in our house. During that time I had two options, hang out in the office or spend time with my grandparents who only lived a few blocks away. Most of my time I spent with my grandparents but if I spent time with my parents I spent it with them while they were working.
I cannot even blame them for what they were doing. My father lived through the last ten years of the Second World War, my mother was born right after the war was over. My father saw the destruction of Frankfurt and his parents did not have much money. My mother’s parents lived in the eastern part of Germany what would become the German Democratic Republic. One night my grandmother paid off a Russian officer by giving him a golden watch to help her to get some of her possessions across the border to West Germany. It worked out. But if she would have been caught crossing the border by other Russian soldiers they would have shot her right away. My grandfather was imprisoned after the war for a couple of years and had to start from nothing at age 35. My grandparents lived in the countryside. They had so little money that they had their kitchen in one house and the bedroom in another one. They would spend the day in the kitchen and when it was time to sleep went to the place where the bedroom was.
Of course that gave my parents deep impressions. They wanted to have a better life for themselves. They worked day and night to accomplish that. They were programmed that way. And they did well. A few years later we moved to the German Alps into a three-story house on a hill overlooking a valley with the mountains as a backdrop.
But what did I do hanging out with my parents in the office while they were working? I played with what you can find or could find at that point in time in an office. Staplers, paper punchers, label makers, folders, all kinds of pens, glue, tape, envelopes and rubber band. We had this amazing machine called a teleprinter. It would punch holes in this long yellow paper tape. Then you could reinsert the tape, it would read the information and was able to send it via phone line to another teleprinter anywhere in the world. Kind of a low-tech old school fax machine. We had miles of that tape, and it was so much fun to play with it.
But more then with anything else I was fascinated with paper clips. There was just so much I could do with them. Back then we still had the old fashioned ones not these modern fancy non-skid ones. I could bend them or connect them and create these long chains. We also had the ones with different colors. I would sit there for hours playing with them while my parents would answer the phones or were busy with office work.
Even though I made the best out of the situation there are things that are more fun for a 2-7 year old then to play with office supplies. It was the only way to see my parents even though they had no time to play with me. It was a lonely time. This is why when I am surrounded with staplers, paper punchers, envelopes and paper clips I feel like a little kid again and at the same time just want to run. :-)
"Paper Clips" Williamsburg/Brooklyn 03-25-08 at 10:21 PM.
Please check out my website at carstenfleck.com