Rossitheflyingwhale

When i first met Betsy, she popped up at the exchange office and announced, that she wanted to kill herself that very same day. Betsy’s family immigrated to the United States at some point, i assume, when it started to become very uncomfortable to live in Europe as a jewish person, and now she was living in Paris, all by herself, speaking several different languages and staying in a hotel permanently. She must have been in her late sixties…She had grey hair, tied up to a little ball on the top of her head, and she was really small…

The second time she came by, she told me, she was fed up with everybody, and she wanted to be free, and then she took off most of her clothes, right in front of the exchange office, threw them on the ground and left. I quickly grabbed all her stuff and kept it in a plastic bag in the office. 

The next day she came back and said “could i get my clothes back?” 

She also asked me for my address and phone number. She needed to get some money from her lawyer apparently, but he wasn’t able to send it to a hotel-address, so she needed someone with a real address, in order to get hold of the money. I felt for her, and i thought, “who knows… maybe one day something really bad happens to me and i completely loose my plot and get naked in the middle of the street. And i would be happy then, if someone comes around and hands me a coat or something.” 

So i gave her my contact details. I didn’t really think much about it back then.A few days later, this guy from a UPS-courier-service knocks on my door and hands me an envelope, that i had to sign for.

“Are you a friend of Betsy Berg? Please sign here. Betsy advised to send money to this address”, he said. I was confused.

“Sorry, but i don’t really know Betsy that well-i just met her the other day…”

“She told me to send the money here, so please pass it over to her.”

When the guy was gone, i opened the envelope and found 10.000 US Dollars in there. This was maybe the biggest amount of money i have had in my hands at a time ever.

The problem was, i had no idea where to find Betsy Berg in Paris. I didn’t even know the name or address of the hotel she stayed in. I only knew, sometimes she would pop up at the exchange office, so for the next week, i walked everywhere with those 10.000 Dollars in my bag, in order to hand them over to Betsy eventually.

If this wouldn’t have happened to me in person, i would say, somebody made this all up. Anyway…one day she called me and arranged a money-hand-over in a book-shop, somewhere in town…

So i went to that book-shop and found her in the aisle of german literature. Before i could hand over the money, she offered me a job. She wanted me to be her travel companion. and travel around the world with her, while she would pay for absolutely everything: flights, accommodation, anything i needed or wanted to have. One part of me thought, “wow, what a great opportunity to travel around like a rockstar or a body guard of this little crazy lady!” The other part of me thought “if i spend 24/7 with this crazy person, i am gonna be ready for the psych-ward pretty soon myself”.

I got a bit scared, to be honest…

Also i just arrived in Paris and i wanted to stay, so i told Betsy, that i wouldn’t be able to come with her. She got so upset and angry, that she yelled at me to leave her alone and then she stormed off and left me there in the bookshop.

I still had the 10.000 Dollars in my bag.

The next time she came to my office, i handed over the money and i told her, i’d be happy to “work” for her, while she was in Paris, and i also offered her to introduce her to my friend Florian, maybe to do some exercises with her, to help her with some back pain. I wasn’t into Yoga back then, otherwise i could have given her some classes myself. I was looking forward to share a little amount of Betsy’s craziness with Florian…

So once in a while i “worked” for Betsy and she paid me with her US Dollars.

One day, i had to travel with her through Paris by bus and we went to this library, where she spent a few hours just looking at some books.

Another time, i had to come to her hotel-room and she asked me to call these people to tell them to leave her alone.  Now, looking back, i can’t even believe i actually did that…

“Hello? Is this Nancy? Hi Nancy! My name is Rossi, i am a friend of Betsy and she asked me to let you know to leave her alone please.”

I had to call quite a few people.

While i was doing those weird phone calls, Betsy sat on her bed, cut out random pictures of newspapers and spread them all over her bed. It looked like she wanted to make a collage of some sort. She also started singing and she cooked up some soup, that she wanted to share with me. I looked into the saucepan…an onion, a carrot, some potatoes and other veggies were floating in some boiling water…

“No thanks, Betsy, i am not too hungry today…”

She kept asking me to come with her to travel, but i kept saying, i wanted to stay in Paris. Every time she got really angry at me. One night, i was on a party at my friend Florians’ house…we danced and drank and got high, there were people from all over the world on these house parties in Paris, and my phone rang. I picked up and Betsy shouted at me:

“HEIL HITLER!!!” 

“Betsy? Is that you?”

“HEIL HITLER!!!” she repeated loudly.

And then she hung up. I stared at my phone, didn’t really know what to do with that…

This was Betsy. A few weeks later she called again, from Switzerland. She said she would stay with her lawyer for a while and she actually sounded happy on the phone. I wished her all the best. She thanked for my help and wished me all the best too. I never heard from her ever again. This was maybe the strangest encounter i have ever had in my entire life, so far. I tried to google her a few years later, to see, if there was maybe something about her on the Internet. But i couldn’t find anything. There were a lot of Betsy Bergs out there actually, but none of them looked like “mine”. She might be gone by now and if so, i hope she rests in peace. If she is still alive, i hope she is happy. As much as she can be.

And now, when i meet or see people who seem really weird or lost or crazy or desperate, i think of Betsy sometimes, and i know…these people are not so crazy or weird…most likely they experienced something really traumatic in their lives, and who knows, what we would do, if something happens to us, that changes everything, and if we don’t have loving people around us to catch us if we fall…

So i got a job in a money exchange office on the Rue de Rivoli, one of the busier streets in Paris.

I also found an apartment. Florian, a german who lived in Paris, was about to go to Rome for three months and needed to find someone to stay in his apartment in Paris for this time. So the next three months, i lived in this adorable apartment at Pigalle, the “Reeperbahn” of Paris. I lived right next to the Sexodrome, the largest Sex-Supermarket in the City, and also not far away from the Moulin Rouge. 

At that stage i was pretty broke.

Because i just started working, i still hadn’t received my first paycheque. I felt too embarrassed to ask my parents for money again. My dad had this prophecy for me, that i would end up under a bridge one day, in Paris, like a Clochard, so i didn’t want to admit, that he was not too far off the track. To get to work, i either walked or i had to jump the gate in the Metro and take the rides for free.

I literally had zero money.

There was this one day when my horrible boss Mister Carl asked me to pick something up, all the way over the other end of town, and i panicked a little, because i knew, i wouldn’t be able to afford the Metro- or Train-Ticket to get there. I had to jump the gates again and on the way back, there was police everywhere in the Metro, so i decided to walk in order to avoid being arrested and locked-up in Paris. It took me forever and i was completely exhausted by the time i came back to the exchange office. I hadn’t eaten all day, because i also couldn’t afford food and it felt like i would faint soon.

Luckily one of my colleagues had been to the supermarket just before, and he had left his full bags of groceries in the back. So when he went to the toilet, i stole one piece of bread out of his bag, right out of the middle, so he wouldn’t notice. It tasted delicious.

On the way back home, i found a 50-cent-piece on the road. That made me feel so happy! It felt like, i had just won the lottery, but i couldn’t even get anything for 50 cents. “If i would find another 50 cents, i would maybe be able to buy a croissant.”

That night, i walked home, still very hungry and completely exhausted. I found some spaghetti in Florian’s apartment, and i cooked a whole saucepan of spaghetti and ate them with butter and salt. And then i made myself a bath.

And a thought popped up “it cannot get much worse. But i am in Paris! I have a job and a place to stay!” 

And this thought made me happy!

The next day, i got my first paycheque, and i went to the supermarket and bought all the things that looked delicious!

When Florian came back from Rome a few months later, we became really good friends.

My first week in Paris, i was robbed. Some kids in the Metro snatched my wallet out of my backpack. The usual suspects in my wallet were all gone: my ID, my drivers licence, my bank cards, some cash. I was devastated and a fearful thought crept up in my head: “is this it? Should i just pack my bags again and go home?”

And you know how people sometimes say “it was not meant to be…” With that attitude, i would have maybe gone straight back to Germany.

I don’t really believe in that “it-was-not-meant-to-be-thing”. Obstacles are challenges and opportunities for us to decide – is this what i really want…

And if yes, we have to do something about it. And if you don’t do something about it, it means, this is maybe not what you want right now-or maybe you are not quite ready for it yet. And that’s fine too.  Sometimes it takes time to be ready for a challenge, and sometimes we don’t really want something or somebody that much.

But there is no “it wasn’t meant to be”. It is about taking responsibility for your life and being active and fight for the things that are important to you – or, passing that responsibility into the hands of this invisible person called fate or whatever you wanna call it. And sometimes, fighting for what you want, can also mean, asking for help.

Luckily, there was another thought in my head: “no way! I will not let some rascals ruin my dream of living in Paris!” So i stayed. But i had to make a phone call to my dad to ask him for some money, to be able to stay in the Hostel for a few days, until i would find a job.

My parents were not overly impressed with my Extravaganzas back then, but if i was stuck in the mud, i could be sure, they would always be there for me.

The Hostel-Life was great. There was a whole bunch of people from all over the world, and at some stage we stopped calling us by our names, we would just refer to each other by our countries or cities of origin. So there was Ireland, England and Italy and so on, and i was Germany. We played a lot of table soccer.

Austria worked behind the desk at the Hostel and we became good friends. After i was robbed, he arranged for me to stay a few nights for free, until my parents’ money would arrive. I visited some touristy spots around Paris: Versaille, the Louvre, The Eiffeltower, Sacre-Coeur…

And i started looking for jobs in the papers. I also got back into drawing stuff…

When i came to Paris, i didn’t really have any reason to be there, except that i wanted to be there. I could hardly speak any french, i did not know anyone in Paris, i had no place to live and i had no work lined up. The only thing i knew, was, i wanted to live in Paris. 

Growing up in a small town in Germany, it seemed appealing to live in a busy, metropolitan area. I worked in a fairly big Advertising Agency in Germany, just before i made my decision to move. Never studied Graphic Design, even though i always wanted to, but through an Internship, i got into this agency and when my time was up, they kept me there for a few years. 

This is, where i learned, you don’t need to be great at school, you don’t need to study – if you have passion for something and you really, really want to do it, you can do it. You can do anything you like. And sometimes you just have to be at the right time in the right place.

I loved working in the agency. Every day i learned so much! I met some amazing artists and made good friends. We worked until night-time and over weekends to finish projects. We drank a lot of coffee. I enjoyed working in a team of Designers, Illustrators and Copywriters.

Back then, you were still allowed to smoke in offices, so we pretty much all smoked like chimneys in front of our computers – i remember, one of my friends was a non-smoker.  I have no idea how he actually tolerated this situation and us in general. Let’s only hope, that he is not the one that suffers with lung cancer now.

I loved when our Creative Director sent us off to nearby cafes to “brainstorm”. We would sit around, drink coffee and throw ideas on the table.  There were no limits- you could throw anything in there, and we would eventually come up with a TV-Spot for a dishwashing-liquid or a print idea for a laundry-powder.  The only limits were the clients.  It was like coming from a colourful paradise, where everything was possible, to a cage with high fences and mouth-guards.

Sometimes we had tastings of potato chips…we weren’t told the flavours, but we had to taste and then think about ideas around the flavour. Other times we sat in comfortable chairs, eating snacks from a plate, whilst watching a guy, a food designer, painting a frying-pan dirty. Like an artist, with a brush and all sorts of colours, he painted a pan dirty. We watched him for hours! Then he made the perfect clean “swish” right in the middle, where the sponge with the famous dishwashing- liquid pretended to clean the pan from the dirt. And if it wasn’t perfect enough, he had to do the whole procedure again and again. I watched the guy and i thought “wow, is this effort really justified for a TV-Ad of a few seconds?” All this time and the money and all those people involved!

It must have been, because they all did it. And it seemed to work.

From brainstorming in a cafe with designers and copywriters, creating a story, several meetings with colleagues and clients, creating storyboards with illustrators, more meetings, changes, more storyboards, more changes, meetings again, then the filming, more meetings, more changes, post-production, meetings, and eventually the 12-second TV-ad was ready to go on air.  I might have skipped a few steps, because it is a while ago and maybe they do it differently nowadays…

I clearly remember this one meeting, where our creative crew had to come to meet up with a big client to discuss our ideas for a toilet cleaning product. They escorted us through the office towards a conference room. It was the first time i saw one of those places where they have the cubicles for each person, and it looked pretty depressing to me. I never thought those places were actually real back then-i only knew them from movies.

We sat around this huge table, drinking coffee again, with a massive amount of very serious looking men and women in black and grey suits. And then they started having a discussion about talking toilets. How they should talk and what they should say to present their product. It went back and forth, there was no laughing or jokes, it was all dead serious. This went on for a very long while.

Talking toilets.

I tried my hardest to look serious and engaged as well, but what i really thought was, excuse my french, “what the fuck”…

At some stage, during my time in the agency, i asked myself another question…”is this gonna be it? Is this my life? Working all day in the agency and then talking the rest of the time about projects and clients, like this was the most important thing in the world?” A few weeks later i quit my job. My boss was surprised. How could i let go of such a great opportunity… My parents were a bit shocked. How could i let go of such a secure job…

But i made my decision. I quit, i rented out my apartment in Cologne, i packed my bags and moved to Paris.

These are a few Ads, that i created for a famous german dishwashing-liquid. They never printed them.

I was a vegan back then too and thought “if i work in advertising, i need to do something good with it…” So i made these ones, that were also never printed, obviously….

Exciting! I created my own website, a BLOG, this is what the kids call it nowadays. It is not all set up properly yet, but it is like a piece of paper-it is in front of me, and i can write stuff on it and adjust the layout as we go, bit by bit.

Writing has always been a very big part of my life, i have a gazillion of books at home, that i have written already, and you could look at them as a massive lolli-bag. Some of those lollies are really yummy, some are not so tasty, some are disgusting, some you wanna eat straight away, others you leave in the bag for later or you throw them in the bin or pass them over to someone else. So basically, i have a lot of lolli-bags to share-i don’t want to be greedy and eat them all by myself.

Obviously, i’d be happy if you like some of those lollies i will share. You gobble them up and think “uuuuh, this one tastes delicious!”

And if you come across one that doesn’t really taste that great (i am personally not a big fan of jelly babies), that’s also fantastic, because we can learn best about ourselves from those lollies, that we initially don’t like so much.

Give me feedback and ask questions! I will answer all of them.

So stay tuned!

And just now, this picture popped up in my mind, about the carnival in Germany. They organise these big parades on the road and they actually throw lollies at the people around them to catch and collect. I always loved this ritual as a kid! And this is what i’m gonna do. Throwing lollies out and you can pick the ones that you wanna take home and the rest you leave on the road for others to get picked up (and since we do have to look after our planet, i suggest, even if you don’t like some of those lollies, pick em up and throw them in the nearest bin!).