Finding the magic

 For my birthday on Thursday, my friends took me to Nuremberg. It is a place of fond memories for me. I spent a magical summer there in my early 20s, on an AIESEC traineeship (https://aiesec.org).

I flatted with another woman who was warm and welcoming and had a boyfriend with a Porsche. I hung out with the 30 or so other trainees in town and felt like the life of the party. And I had a 6 week internship at Schöller — a company producing ice cream in the summer and Otto Schmidt Lebkuchen for Christmas.

I was having SUCH a fun time. And it was such a boring job.

It was a “rotation through all departments” job, supposed to give me an overview of the business. I saw what happened in a large office in the 1980s. I met the people who give ice creams their strange names. And I asked for, and got, some time working in the factory to see what that was like.

I can do repetitive stuff quickly and easily, so most of my factory colleagues thought I’d done that kind of work for a long time already. They were really surprised to hear the story of why I was there and asked me not to forgot them when I went “back over there” to the main office.

It was the first time I became aware of labour division, and the divide between "blue collar" and "white collar."

I remember finding the factory schedule really tiring, but loving the coffee break when the machinery stopped and we got ice cream right at the source. They were making Mövenpick Zitrone at the time and nothing has ever tasted quite like that again!

That boring job was a great learning that nothing — for me — is quite so challenging as having no purpose in the work I do. My spirit needs it. My heart needs it. I need it.

To give myself a focus I imagined, wrote, and hand lettered (of course well before the time of computers and the internet!) a newspaper for the trainees, capturing all the stories of that summer. I guess storytelling was already waking up within me even then.

By the end of the summer I was facing a dilemma. I didn’t have enough money to fly home and I was beginning to feel desperate. I needed help.

A friend took me to Schöner Brunnen, the fountain in the middle of the main square and told me to make a wish and turn the golden ring. I remember thinking: "Well why not?"

It worked! I was given the money (and Sandy, I’m forever grateful!)

It was lovely to be standing in the same spot on my birthday decades later, making a wish. This time with the knowing the magic will happen.

PS Looking for some magic around what matters to you? Come and play a Flow Game with me on June 23 or 29. See more here: https://www.getsoaring.com/pl/2148143649

#storyactivist #storytelling #birthdaywish #magichappens