Adventure through Life
Stories of a woman who sailed through life with unclipped wings.
Shortly after my 80th birthday, I woke up one morning with the memory of a strange dream – and with a smile on my lips. In this dream, I saw my own birth. A birth is the beginning of a new life, I thought. And then: How would it be to understand this dream as the beginning of a new experience! The experience of writing my autobiography. An excellent thought, which I enthusiastically put into practice.
Now I would like to invite you, dear reader, to experience my adventure for yourself – either in a high-quality softcover or digitally as an e-book. You can order both from this site, from bookstores, or from online vendors.
I wish you an exciting read….
ULRIKE REBEL
/ Author
Take a look –
free of charge, of course.
While my mother was busy in the bedroom with my birth, the family sat next door in the living room around the large oval, festively set table. It was Easter Sunday 1938, and in the middle of the table stood a colorful bouquet of flowers, decorated with blown-out, brightly painted Easter eggs; the willow branches were already showing the first tender leaves, and the forsythia blossoms shining in bright yellow. In front of my great-grandparents, great-aunt Martha, mother‘s cousin Trude and her husband, my father and my four-year-old brother, stood with porcelain-Sunday cups in which freshly brewed coffee was steaming. Its aroma spread throughout the room and reached the bedroom next door, where my mother, despite her painful contractions, was longing for a piece of cheesecake. Poor thing! Meanwhile, the family was busy discussing names for the child. My mother, however, had long since made up her mind. She felt that a girl named Ulrike was growing inside her. She paid no attention to a boy‘s name. The family did not agree with Ulrike, this name was antediluvian. Brigitte was suggested, against which my mother protested loudly from the bedroom, between two contractions. She insisted on Ulrike. How could they come to an agreement? To end the dispute, my great-grandmother determined to take up the matter as head of the family and decided: If the child was born on Easter Sunday and was a girl, she should be called Brigitte, born after midnight, she could be called Ulrike. Everyone agreed and enjoyed their coffee with a piece of cake…
I was first at the meeting place, later Rocco arrived. We hugged and I whispered in his ear, “Hold me as if we were lovers. We‘ll just start walking and we won‘t turn around. When we get to the bus, you unlock it and we get in, just like normal. If the bus is being watched, we‘re screwed anyway.” No sooner said than done. As confidently as possible, we walked up to the VW bus, unsure if we were being watched by a STASI-ist. Only the confidence that we could make it was our companion with every step. The way to the bus was short, it took us barely five minutes. For us it felt like an eternity, especially because we were not allowed to show the tension we felt. We didn‘t want to attract attention! The passersby around us were supposed to see a young woman in the company of a tall, muscular young man in jeans, perceive him as a foreigner, American. Nothing more. We pretended to own the bus, opened it and got in. I went to the back of the camping area and Rocco stayed in the driver‘s seat, slammed the door and locked it from the inside. All remained quiet. The STASI had not prevented us from getting in. Short relief! But how should we go on now? Where to hide?
In September 1989, the hurricane season began. We followed the weather reports and thus got to see how Hurricane Hugo was building up, gaining strength and heading toward Puerto Rico. I got goosebumps from head to toe and was sure that Hugo was going to hit us. And so it came: The hurricane swept over Culebra with full force. Because our neighbors‘ houses, like most on the island, were built of wood, we invited them to join us in the stone house for their safety. So did the wife and baby of a sailor we knew. Brian, that was his name, and Jack were determined to stay on their sailboats because they were convinced they could keep them from sinking if the worst came to the worst. Such inane nonsense! Brian‘s boat sank, but he barely managed to save himself to shore and lay there, facing the earth, his head in his arms, trying to breathe until the storm passed over him. Brian had been outrageously lucky. Jack‘s boat dragged anchor and landed in the mud of the mangroves. With the hurricane pounding our house at more than 200 miles per hour, the rain beating almost horizontally against the facade, and little rivulets of water squeezing through the seals of the windows, we were all very nervous and trying to distract ourselves. I had taken the plant pots and the chickens into the house. Two chickens in a box, which they took remarkably calm.
Was born on Easter Sunday 1938 and lives again in Berlin after her adventures. Ulrike had been dreaming of turning her diaries into an autobiography for some time. With Jan-Erik’s support, she succeeded – in German and even in English. Work on the joint book took only nine months.
Works as a communication designer and author. Met Ulrike in the neighborhood and spontaneously agreed to help when he heard about Ulrike’s dream of writing her own book. Jan-Erik has previously written two books – a novel as a young adult and a non-fiction book about the history of the famous Späth’sche Baumschulen in Berlin.
Your adventure through life is waiting
„Adventure through Life“ is available as a softcover and as an Kindle e-book. You can order both versions from the bookseller you trust – in your neighborhood or online.
Softcover: ISBN 978-3-384-01999-8
Kindle e-book: You have to look for „Adventure through Life“
