The Many Hues of Angst

This month found me in Canada, hanging out with my German relatives. We are excellent cooks and bakers—a family in which love is measured in butter and worry is expressed through compound nouns.

English gives us the word anxiety and expects it to cover everything from a late bus to the collapse of civilization. Germans require greater precision, and around our dining table, everyone has chosen a specialty.

Cousin Greta surveyed the table, bypassed the fresh rolls, and sighed deeply before passing the marmalade. She carries the Weltschmerz, or “world-pain.” Today, between the weather, global politics, and the price of dairy, the world had once again failed to live up to her standards.

Across from her, Klaus was already checking his watch, though breakfast had barely begun. He suffers from Torschlusspanik—the fear that life’s gates are closing. He had arrived forty minutes early, would stay entirely too late, and was currently attempting to organize Christmas dinner while we were still chewing our morning toast. He wants to consume everything he loves in life as fast as he can before its over.

Cousin Otto sat quietly, buttering a single slice of bread with meticulous, agonizing slowness. Otto suffers from what our family calls Torschusspanik, or “goal-shot panic”—the paralysis that strikes just as an important task is about to be completed. It may not be an official dictionary entry, but Otto made it necessary. He once renovated his entire kitchen, only to leave the final cabinet handle unattached for eleven years. Finishing it would create expectations.

Brigitte, meanwhile, stood over the spread, adjusting the angle of a fresh plum cake by a fraction of an inch. She carries the Erwartungsdruck, or “expectation-pressure.” Her cake could not merely taste good; it had to vindicate the culinary reputation of seven generations of Bavarian women.

Then Hans looked up from his coffee, visibly pale because someone’s daughter was ten minutes late returning from the bakery. Hans is plagued by Kopfkino—“head-cinema.” In those ten minutes, he had already written, directed, and screened a full three-act disaster featuring a ditch, a rogue bear, and a complicated international insurance claim.

By the time the coffee pot was empty, I felt a familiar tightness in my chest. I had developed Verwandtschaftsangst—the fear that if I spend too much time with my relatives, I too will begin worrying in compound nouns. I caught myself wondering whether Dieter had checked the tire pressure on my rental car, and whether Greta was right about the butter.

Fortunately, my German relatives know the ultimate cure for existential dread: pour more coffee and put another torte on the table.

The family self-medicates with kuchen—though no one in the room is convinced there will be enough to save us from the every present angst.Kim