I´m doing my work correctly. I´m always here from 8 to 4 but usually I start earlier and go home much later. There´s no time for lunch or I being honest forget about it, there´s only once a month time for a cup of tea during the day. I´m not unsatisfied with the situation I stopped thinking about long ago. I don´t want that one has something to correct or any remarque concerning my work, I don´t like critics.

- oh, you´re still here?
- well...
- workingday´s ending at 4
- I know but I havn´t watched the time, I was busy with this special case here
- I know there are many people here who stopped working immediatly at 4, it´s honorable for you if you´ve other principles. I myself normally work till 7 or 8 that´s no problem (there´s a strange tone in his voice) if you find your work fascinating and like it. (he paused, then, as finding back to his daily voice) I wish there would be more like you here.
- thanks, I never thought about it.

He was a good boss, working hard for the firm, most of the time the first who came and the last who went. He was a calm person didn´t talk much, just the necessary things. He was very precice didn´t like pondering around and making a fuss of words over a thing. "Short and exact" was his device. There were this new employée, just one month in his group and even more quiet than himself. At first he hasn´t noticed her just wondering whoelse works early in the morning and still in late-afternoon. She reminds him of his youth, his start in this firm.

There it is, just a moment perhaps but precice like a shot in your heart: A sceptical glance out of the edge of his eyes and she knows, he has seen through her, he knows that she doesn´t like her work, this stupid and never ending documentation of cases, most of them closed years ago but for her still daily work. She is ashamed, looking down she tries to reconcil her composure. She works hard and overaverage for not showing how she hates it.

After 4 months she gets the chance to stay and work for the next 3 years in the firm, the leader of the whole department is there smiling enthusiastically at her and also her boss. She feels like being catched in a trap, fearfully she looks around not exspecting that anyone will understand her pain, her helplessness. She captured a warning glance from her boss and with a pang she realizes: The scepsis in his eyes, was it only for her?

I´m a human being, not more but also not less.
I´m not put into a drawer, not labeled.
I´m valuable and important, will be accepted for what I can and be.

Like this a human being can feel itself who comes to my yard.
Like this a human being should arrive and be allowed to be itself.
Like this it will be accepted for what it can and be.

No number any more, not put into clichés of gender and nationality, no diagnostic categories which brand and sorted out, not judged by superficiality and handicaps, but to see abilities and strong points, that´s an ideal that I want to realize.

Sometimes I ask myself, why everyone wants to be equal, why is equality often so much more important than differences, which makes everyone unique and to something special? Why is it even often necessary to use an equal language to be allowed to be part of a community? Am I another person if I use other words? Sure, but what´s so bad at? Aren´t we all unlike others and basically different and isn´t this exactly what connects us with each other? Why should I twist myself and adapt just to be like you if it is better for you and me to use the abilities and strong points from both of us.

My first friends in Kindergarten was an italian and a half-african girl. As a child I wasn´t aware about it, certainly, they looked a little bit different and they could speak different words as I, but for a child the differences are always much clearer and the world more manifold, but it doesn´t divide up or build categories.

Later I was on a girls school, the differences between us were gigantic, some were good in german, some in maths or sports, some were good teamworkers, some prefer working alone. At university I was confronted with young men, which always said "typical woman" by everything I wasn´t able to do, although I knew enough women, which have the ability to do this. I fought against their thinking, I didn´t want to stand for the whole woman-community with my individual and surely not genderspezific failings.

Not long ago I made the experience that in a group which is involved in the same project it comes also to a forced uniformity. In the sector of woman´s liberation-work there´s an unspoken but absolutely prescribed phraseology which excludes everyone sooner or later who doesn´t keep to. On the basis of seemingly unity and harmony every form of individuality is seen as a betrayal, if you don´t say "Gästinnenzimmer" (guestroom, constructed female form, doesn´t exist grammatically) and "Rechtsanwältinnenkongress" (lawyercongress, female form, excludes men grammatically) you aren´t part of. I´m definitivly tolerant in thinking and doing, even when I don´t use these wordmonsters and don´t subordinate to this languagedictate.

So I´d like to build a place where differences don´t led to hate and quarrel or even worse exclusion but where differences are seen as a chance, where different point of views, ways of go up to and ideas one can help each other and going forward and develop further. Each individual is unique and differ from all others. To see this and accept it opens the way to one and all, from human being to human being besides all differences.

I´d like to tell you a story, just a little one with no real ending because nobody knows what future will bring so at the moment the end is still open.

In this story there´ll be a man of about 23 years, well, no, make him a little older, 25 and another man about the same age. They are friends since their time at school, where the story begins: One of the boys, I´ll call him Matthieu, is the typical outsider - quiet, likes reading, doesn´t like playing football at the playground with the others, isn´t good at sports, etc. and has no friends except Jim, the complete opposite as it seems - he´s always talking and laughing, having a crowd of boys around him which admire him and would go straight through the fire for him if it would be necessary. Normaly it isn´t because Jim is strong and sportive and needs nobody´s help. Matthieu has to accept the popularity of his friend. At the beginning it´s not easy seing all the others around him and seing how easy and quite natural Jim is everybodys darling, he is jealous, wants to go far far away and cut the friendship immediatly. But there are moments where he feels the speciality of their relationship. Something extraordinary he isn´t able to explain.

They grow up, Matthieu has learned how to handle the friends character, he accepts Jim´s other friendships because he knows that their friendship is out of compare and nothing will change it. There´s the time of first love affairs, a time when Jim adores every week another girl, hoping that there´ll be more than kissing and embracing at last, a time where Matthieu falls madly in love to a boy two classes above who has not the slightest interest. Later, at the beginning of their students time they both laugh about these "events".

Later on Jim has a relationship with a girl in his course which lasts nearly 1 1/2 year, then it is over, nobody knows exactly why. Matthieu doesn´t find someone - as expected, it´s probably his character, his destiny of an outsider. They study in different towns but they don´t loose contact, they write and one or two times a year they visit each other. There´s a change in Jim, he´s calmer now, not the talkative alpha-personality any more, perhaps we can say, he´s more serious, asking more philosophical questions about life and god, himself and love, etc. The relationship between them is even more closer, if this is possible, they could talk the whole night, never being without interesting theme. They havn´t always the same opinion, quite normal, but whatever they are discussing they know they are friends and nothing can break their friendship.

And then there´s this meeting after several months of rare contact, Matthieu is in Jim´s region and visits him spontaneous. Jim´s full of excitement overtalkative as in his early youth with burning skin and lots of news: Five months ago he has met Peter at a party and head over heels fallen in love and since two months everything is clear between them, they are a couple. He smiles his inner happyness, pride and luck out of every pore, alightning the world around. And Matthieu strangely feels that this is exactly what he has known all the time but didn´t want to see. He has closed his eyes for the most evident facts. A veil is falling between them, no, not a veil a wall of solid stone, black and no chance to push through. He remembers how easily he was able to accept his love affairs and even the relationship with the girl from Jim´s course, there was never jealousy because deep in his inner he had known that Jim´s heart wasn´t touched - long before Jim for himself knew. Now Peter will take Matthieu´s place.

Later he´ll manage to laugh about it - maybe.

"Why am I a boy!" It was not his usual manner to wish being a girl, he felt quite comfortable with his gender but just in this very special moments he knew that it would make things much easier for him and the rest of the world.

They were rehearsing for a christmas-show, again and again Peter the coordinator and trainer pushed them to do their best, trying flip-flops and acrobatic tasks separately to become familiar with them, his words were that they had to be so perfect that they could do it with closed eyes and right after awakening at night. Everybody knew his place and tried not to disappoint Peters high expectation. It was some sort of a tale, a light story about a girl trying to escape from her usual role and image in her family and fighting for justice and honesty. There was the part of her contrahent who wasn´t able to accept her wish of independance, but in the end - as usual - he had learned a lot and could accept and love her.

Peter was early, no sign of Anne, they wanted to try their special dance they would perform in the show, Peter had some new ideas concerning the lifting figures and as Anne was practiced they were sure to manage in 1 hour before the others would arrive for the complete going through the programm. "Sorry, I´m late, missed the bus, but let´s start immediatly." They trained concentrated and didn´t noticed that Max arrived, short after the beginning, sitting silent on the bank at the edge of the hall and watching carefully and as concentrated as themselfes. Later the others arrived, too and they stopped their private training and worked altogether.

"Have you seen Max in the girl´s clothes?" "Oh yes, he looks marvellous, perfect, and his motion, really sexy isn´t it?" There was a scene were three of the men has to escape in girls-clothes, Peter hast decided that this would be a good time for a rhythmic fric-froc-dance to animate the audience to clap their hands with the music. The other two boys felt quite uncomfortable but Peter knew that even if they were not perfect in dancing like girls the audience would love it, men in skirts can do what they want it´s a great spectacle and pleasure.

- I like most the dance you perform with Peter at the end of the show
- Well, I´d say you like most Peter, correct?
- Oh, you...
- I´m not blind Max
- But I..., I...
- Shhhh, you needn´t search for an excuse or so, it´s no reason to blush or to be ashamed
- But how do you know? I never said a word to Peter or someone else!
- Your eyes say enough
- To tell you a secret, I often have wished to be a girl so that I could take your part in this dance
- That wouldn´t change anything
- But why, my feelings would be acceptable
- Peter isn´t interested in girls

Help, help, I shouted within myself but no sound was coming out, it was too ashaming searching help, longing for someone to talk to in this area of studying, learning, trying to become professionals. Shame, head deep down, don´t let someone see into your eyes, looking for something what perhaps nowhere exists.

"Come on, don´t sit in this room, let´s go and have a coffee at `Barn´s', it´s just the right time, isn´t it?" She was surprised, I could see it, she tried to find words to handle the situation, I knew it would be too much for her. "No no nothing else to say, just come with me." Too perplexed to escape she went with me, no question, no comment till we had taken our places and were drinking our coffee. So I was able to look into her inner. It was frightening and painful.

He asked me what´s going on, why I felt like jumping out of the window and definitively made an end. How could he know? Was it written in my eyes? Didn´t I control myself enough so that this thought could slip out? There were so many things I wanted to say, a lot of questions I never was able to discuss with someone but still there was a barrier I wasn´t able to jump over.

"You are surprised?" I´m your teacher since you came to this school, 3 years already, that´s a long time not only to find out about the skills and knowledge of my students but also about personality and character. And to say something privat, you´re in disharmony with yourself." "How can you know that?" It wasn´t only surprise but feeling catched in her voice as if I had found out a crime. "I´ve seen the cuts on your arm, no satisfied person would do a thing like that to herself." "That was at the beginning of the time here. It could have been an accident or from another person." She tried to stay polite and calm, but her voice was trembling of hate and anger. "Yes, yes, only at the beginning you wore summershirts, there were no acute cuts you had to hide."

How did he know about, how was he able to know about her selfhate and her way to punish herself, the only way not to commit suicide when hate and selfdenial overwhelmed her. She always had thought she could manage that nobody would notice but...

"There´s no other person who knows about." "How can you be sure?" "Well, you are playing your role of an interested and hardworking student perfect. There´s no doubt that my collegues only see a friendly girl, perhaps a little timide and quiet but 'normal' as they would say." After this remark she had thrown all barriers and skruples away and talked without hesitation: about selfhate, looking for her way, trying to like what she had to do, her loosed god, her struggle for efficiency, the only way to become accepted, her unability to find friends, her sexual indifference, her only friend who has just madly fallen in love, and everywhere always the role of the listener and watcher for her, always staying outside, having a look on life of others but nothing for herself.

How could he do that, why had I told him all this, feeling relieved but full of shame. He will think I´m a hysterical person which has no idea what real problems are and like a good dramatical performance. Oh, how I hate me, why did I go with him for a coffee?

"Why are you going? Hey, wait a minute, there are no courses in the afternoon, please stay." "Well, I have to go, I´m thankful that you had time for me, but it´s nonsense I´m talking, you´re wasting your freetime, I´m sorry there are much more important things than that." "What´s more important than helping a person to find a way for holding life and herself together? If you like you can come for a coffee whenever you want, you´re welcome." "Thanks a lot."

He is so polite and friendly, sees so clear the problems of others and tries to help, he must be very sensitive and mentally strong, but I´m not sure if he had found his way already. Looking at his vita there are so many different things he had tried and made, just like herself, study this and that, working here and there, doing completely other things for a time, etc. But he always finished what he´d begun, that was the important difference.

Going back to his room he thought about himself in her age, there were many parallels even if she would always just see a teacher in him. A teacher isn´t better than his students only because of his position, he has to struggle for love and friendship like them, for good working results and for finding a sense for his personal life. He also were searching for something what perhaps never exist. Thoughtfully he rubbed over his arm, through the clothes, always correct with shirt, tie and suit, he could feel the cuts.

He was a composer, his name is not important because nobody knows him, only his variations over a famous children-song in the style of the great composers during the centuries is known and liked, more or less it is quite famous.

Early in his youth he started playing the piano, his father had inherited an old Steinway from his grandfather but never played because he hadn´t the courage, disturbing a Steinway with tinkling - unthinkable! The son wasn´t shy he havn´t a feeling for the heavy importance of the piano, Steinway ment nothing to him so he was free to discover the land of music on himself. The whole family wasn´t educated in music so they couldn´t see the talent their son shows immediatly, bus as usual in such cases, there was a competent uncle...

I´m 20 now and I started studying music with first instrument piano and second clarinet. Since I´m 16 I´ve composed concerts and bigger things like messes and fugas. But nobody is really interested, they hear them, give mostly a very positive feedback and - forget about them immediatly. No publisher wants to print them, no opera- or concertleader thinks about performing them in his institution, it´s ashaming and frustrating. What can I do? What are the reasons for their behavior? Will there be a time sooner or later, where it will all be changed, where I will be known as a famous composer and my music, my ideas and thoughts expressed in it will be plaid everywhere in the world in operahalls, in the radio and all my former friends and comrades will listen and understand?

- Hey, what´s wrong with you?
- oh, nothing
- you´re looking really depressed and gloomy, can I help you?
- no
- come on, we´re friends, aren´t we?
- well o.k., I´m thirty now and noone is interested on my composition
- midlife-crisis? (they both laugh a little)
- perhaps not at all wrong. Others in this age can "proudly present" the results of their life, and I...?
- there are all the fantastic pieces you´ve composed during the years
- which nobody wants to hear
- that´s wrong and you know it
- all right, there are my family, their friends, my friends, who like them when I´m playing them in an intime little circle, but that´s it.
- your music will survive and perhaps later there will be a generation who can understand it better than we all can. It´s not satisfying, I know.
- classical music is so conservatic, there´s no chance of becoming as accepted as the whole glorious "century-composer": Mozart, Beethoven, Strauß, Tschaikowsky, Wagner, Verdi and all the others. There´s no place any more in the music-heaven. And when you´ve plaid them so often and are so familiar with their composingstyle, they are sometimes too ridiculous.
- hey, what´s about showing this exactly the audiance?

The day was there, the musichall was completely full of all sorts of people and they all listened with joy and amusement to his satirical work. He has composed what his friend had offered and he knew it was good work. Most of the audience were regular classic-hearer and familiar with the famous, they reckognized every intended composer he had imitated in his special and ridiculous way immediatly, it was fantastic seing the people listen and after a few notes or tacts smiling, whispering the name to their neighbours. When the last variation was over they crazily applaused standing-ovations and flowers were given to him: the composer who was sensitive enough to feel himself into the manner of nearly every famous composer.

I´ve given them what they liked: the famous composers and their music. I´ve presented them by exaggerating their style so that everyone could laugh about them. But I´ve killed myself, I´m a nothing my own compositions will die as my name and there will be nothing from my work, my thoughts, feelings, ideas and pain, except this imitation, a joke.

Are you disappointed? Are you cynical? Do you think you´ve wasted your life because nothing of yourself will stay? Don´t! If you are able to laugh about the seriousness of the stars, laugh about yourself with the same heartyness, your joke will be immortal and we, the later generations will love you.

What is it that keeps you away from peace and calm, why do you have to run around, finding no place for yourself at all, is there a chance to get out of this vicious circle?

Paula was afraid, before her she saw 3 weeks of never ending panic and stress, the time of the final exams, a horror for everybody but exspecially for Paula who felt unsecure about her qualities and knowledge and was full of self-critizism and suspiciouty. How could she manage this time, would she be able to go through it?

"Oh, what´s going on here?" "Nothing, I´m just dying" Paula laid on the bottom, arms and legs stretched out, nearly not breathing and 3 of her compagnons sitting on a bench nearby were joking and laughing to forget about the near oral exam. Paula´s "dying-experiment" released them from taking her serious, it was too obvious that she was making fun of them - so they thought, but Paula never was more serious than in this peculiar moment. Normally she would never allow herself to form her inner wish into language and speak from it, but today she knew nobody would ask her in detail what she means with it. The exam was a good excuse for unregular thoughts and crazy actions like her laying on the floor and forming the picture of Jesus on the cruzifix. "That´s all? All right then, but die quiet!"

Still there were over 3 hours to wait, she was nearly the last of her course this day and there was no hope to do something useful in between, because her nerves were shattered as usual, her head were loosing more and more of the information she felt quite certain about the days before and knowing that it would irritate her more than helf she didn´t start looking again into her books and notes. Perhaps it would be good to perform as every day at this hour, so she went to the cafeteria nearby the school and having a cup of tea and a sandwich she tried to recalm herself. Suddenly her heart starts beating like thunder, she felt it everywhere in her body, her head would certainly explode every second and her skin was burning. Is there a little hope for dying immediatly?

Walking home, trying to learn for the next one, not an hour later, panic, running out of her room, into the town again, through the streets, seing nothing at all, feeling only the heavy thoughts in her head turn round and round, to capture one and concentrate is impossible, like a storm of wild information, picture-shots of situations, persons, no structure, no contents, running, thinking, running, running, thinking, thinking, escape, what can I do, what must I do, is there a way out, come on, come on, let´s die and go.

There´s Peter, he has problems with one of the teachers. In a former exam he has failed because he said his personal opinion which the teacher wasn´t able to accept he felt insulted, really an overreaction but what could Peter do? There was no witness, and the official version was that he couldn´t answer correctly - how absurd. Now he had an oral exam with this teacher again, understandably he was full of anxiety and feared that the negativ feelings had grown and he would fail again.

- Hey, what are you smiling? How was it?
- I´ve an A!
- What?
- Yes, imagine an A! I can´t believe it, reckon my last exam with my "favourite" teacher?
- Sure, you´ve failed because of your individual thinking
- Well, I´ve changed, I spoke exactly in his way, exactly his words, the expression and phrases he uses, it was disgusting
- But he must have liked it
- No wonder, everybody likes claqueure more than critizanes
- Don´t think about any more, it´s over and we´ll have him no more, isn´t this great?
- Great? Fantastic, indeed!
- Let´s have a drin, and cheer your A

There are still 2 weeks left, 2 weeks spicked with exams, fear and panic. And the results? Are you proud when you receive your good grades? No, there´s no power to be proud after 3 weeks shattering and getting hysterical more or less daily. But then there´s the party, the big event when you´ve managed, when hell is over. And suddenly strengths came back and you realize: Your are still alife.

First time I saw her I knew that she was the person seing directly into my inner feelings. It was a view full of power and immediate understanding. I was shocked and afraid but in some way relieved. Everyone I met was in this time a danger, because everyone could throw me out of my position in the firm if he knew what she had captured from one to another moment.

Our teacher looks pleased he likes being nearly into the center of everyone´s attention, he jokes, he laughs and is completely master of the situation as usual. We are visiting a chemical firm with our chemistry course to show us what could perhaps be a later job for us if we´d like to study or made a training in this area. We needn´t come to this excursion today, only the really interested are there because final exams will take place in a couple of days and nearly our whole course is learning. There´s the leader of the laboratory, he explains the structures and processes, the possibilities of working here, he shows us the machines and what happened where, it´s interesting and all of us are absorbed by his intense manner of speaking, his voice is low and not very loud, from time to time it sounds like breaking after a very long speech with cough, he is exactly the opposite of our teacher. I like him as you like an ill person who suffers of the same as yourself, quite familiar, there´s no need of explanation I see, that´s enough, and I know that he knows that I´ve seen and understood. Poor fellow.

What´s that for a chap, quite surprising, he always looks at me with this nearly colourless grey-blue eyes and there´s something inquiring in it I´m not able to describe. I´m a little irritated and somewhat disgusted. I´m sure my wife could explain his manner, perhaps I should ask her this evening she is much more sensitive than I. Silly chap, I hope my girls won´t be attached from him, but capturing their eyes I´m quite sure that our "class-spectator" must have reckogned something.

There´s no doubt about, some really bad event fixes the two together, even if our teacher doesn´t remember because he is the type of man who forget easily and never is deeply touched from events he causes in others. He is a so called "healthy man", strong, loud, without much thoughts about heaven, god, death, love, etc, just ordinary, normal, common. Looking at the other part I know he is burned out to the deepest of his inner feelings, his shame is nearly consistent to me like a picture he has to present to sensitives who can see and imagine his suffering.

There had been a festival in town and nearly everybody was there, wandering around in the pleasent summer-evening together with the beloved person, the whole family or friends, only a handfull perhaps lingering alone through the many attractions. And there was the teacher, together with his wife, his arm negligent around her shoulders and their two little kiddies, a completely happy family having fun and enjoying themselves. And there was the other, in the crowd of extremely positivity, alone with his unsatisfied longing for love and friendship, alone with his beating heart as the family passed and for a moment their eyes met, alone - as usual.