Ever since I can hold a pencil, I've been writing and drawing and letting my imagination run wild. As a result, one day during my first or second year of secondary school, my parents came to me and said: “Your German teacher just called. It's about the last test…”
I was startled… but then my father couldn't help but grin, and my mother smiled: “She said she's never read such a well-written story by a student your age! She's absolutely thrilled!”
In the years that followed, foreign languages were added: English, Latin, French… and I knew: the word, the language! Why is a dead language like Latin so fundamentally different from a language that is still spoken? Why is it that we can express so much in words, yet never really capture the essence of things?
In 1990, I went to Japan to experience a completely different culture, language, and with it way of thinking and mindset. I mastered the language spoken and written and studied linguistics there. Ever since then, I have been captivated by and fascinated with the art of translation, the psychology of language, the differences between languages and cultures that sometimes seem insurmountable… and the realization that, deep down, these differences aren't really that great after all.
Eleven years later, my path led me back to Munich, where in 2010 I had the life-changing encounter with my spiritual teacher. The year after, I followed her to her ashram in India. There, among palm trees and coconut trees, in an international and diverse community, with meditation, yoga, singing, and a wide variety of tasks and activities, I soon became manager and consultant for the translations of the countless books, articles, and other publications that were constantly being written by members of the ashram and its affiliated NGO on a wide variety of topics.
Now I live in Mexico, where I advise international clients on all matters related to localization and multilingual communication.
I also have resumed creative writing and now guide and support individual clients and organizations, because there's one thing no technology in the world can do: feel, and understand what another person is feeling, and express this creatively in a way that others in turn can feel and understand.