Five Years of 'Under Four Eyes': How a German Author Listens to Mallorca Week by Week

Five Years of 'Under Four Eyes': How a German Author Listens to Mallorca Week by Week

Early in the morning, when the first delivery vans rattle along the Passeig Mallorca and the cicadas are already loud, she sits down for her coffee. From this small routine a regular piece of island life has grown for five years: the column 'Under Four Eyes', which appears every Thursday. Talia Christa Oberbacher has written more than 230 issues and does not seem like someone who has to search for topics—rather like someone who encounters them.

The images she works with are often unspectacular. A bowl of lentil soup in a regular cafe becomes a memory of home; a conversation in the practice turns into the idea for an advice piece. Her days unfold between consulting rooms at the Palma Clinic, meetings with clients online and hours in the small finca near Llucmajor, where a little tower house is her studio and a hammock by the pool is her thinking space. She draws from such scenes, attentive and unpretentious.

What distinguishes her column is not a spectacular gesture but a voice that listens and responds. Oberbacher is a hypnotherapy practitioner and coach; both can be felt in the texts: a sensitivity to inner states, practical hints and an invitation to turn one's attention to everyday life. She does not recommend major life overhauls but small moments of mindfulness—a pause at lunch, a closer listen in conversation.

Alongside her practice she has developed a second field: painting. Brushes, tubes and canvases fill the studio in the tower. There she creates abstract works meant to smell of Mallorca: future paintings with pigments from the red earth, with salt from Ses Salines and stone meal as a material. The idea of creating an edition that bears the island's name on the title connects her artistic work with her daily life here; she even muses aloud about small, informal painting courses.

You can meet her at concerts or on the edge of local festivals, at classical evenings as well as at electronic music events—culture is not, for her, a question of genre. Recently she attended the summer festival in Sol de Mallorca; such encounters nourish the column just as much as the work with people. The mix of practice, art and participation in cultural life gives her texts grounding and makes them readable for different generations on the island.

A particular strength is her ordinariness. Oberbacher talks about the hammock by the pool as if it were a practical form of office time: relaxing and at the same time sorting ideas. When boredom comes, she says, topics bubble up. Those who live on Mallorca know such small rituals: the click of the coffee grinder in Palma, the chirping of birds inland, the dusty air in the lanes of Llucmajor on hot afternoons. All of this appears in her columns, not as a tourist postcard but as a shared experience.

Why is that good for the island? Because local voices that listen and explain make everyday life more comprehensible. Oberbacher's texts remind us that personal stories and practical tips form a social fabric: people recognize themselves, feel taken seriously or gain a new perspective on problems. For a community that lives a lot from arrivals and departures, such a consistent tone is valuable.

And the future? The next topic is already sketched out: films that have shaped her. Readers can expect anecdotes and familiar quotes, as they have from earlier columns. At the same time her art project is growing, and the idea of incorporating natural materials into the visual language could produce visible works in the coming months.

At its core the message remains simple: writing is not a secret but an attitude. Those who look and listen closely—on the streets of Palma, in a café or in the hammock near Llucmajor—find stories. And when one voice shares these stories regularly, a piece of familiarity remains in the island public sphere. That is, on a hot August morning, hardly a small thing.