funny how
New York meets Berlin
It’s 3am now in New York but when we landed in Berlin, it was 7 o’clock on a sunny Sunday morning. It is colder. I am tired. My first time arriving in Berlin from the States and the subway, the U Bahn, seems immediately different. People are different and I can’t put my finger on it. “Thinner,” he says, and I gasp. He is right. They do not seem to be eating themselves to death. They are playful with one another, with strangers, in a way that seems to me to take a different kind of things seriously. They chatter and laugh, fall asleep, excuse themselves to one another as they pass. There is a different kind of facial expression, something hard to quantify. There are many many fewer really giant large people. They seem, I don’t know if it’s more alive or simply more awake. I do not cherish myself making these observations but in between the long spells of sleeping sickness on the swaying bus and the whispering silky smooth train I keep noticing. The train platform is not a kind of caged forest. It feels spacious and light. I didn’t expect to feel this way. There is a lot less staring into phones. People look to me fresh somehow. They seem grimmer and less disheartened.
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it’s quite the coincidence that another friend who lives in Berlin just posted about New York subways and the humans thereof, two hours after your reflections on the trail: “Män, they have UBahn…. Too cool to hate it. Not running here, not running then, not stopping here but yet today… Nobody knows everybody goes. God give me the serenity etc
” (Petra Pintar). I offer this to illustrate the kind of difference housed in “Nobody knows everybody goes.” How easy it was in Berlin merely to turn a smile towards a stranger and check in. Not everyone is going, many are primarily being, then thinking of the next thing. Free, not caged in any way, and light, without fat spilling out of every other ass girdle. I think the difference has something to do with those angels Wim Wenders brought to film. And the wall coming down only a generation ago. Glad you are back in the land of the less disheartened.
Thank you James! It’s funny how Berlin seems to have its own ecosystem of social interaction, isn’t it – inimical and not quite just exactly like any other city. The feeling I get is it has taken many many hands some years, maybe 90 or so, to build this openness and grouchy acceptance on the site of a former fishing village.
Feels good to hear another person’s reflections on the place. Thank you for sharing them.
I like your observations. I suppose, home is where the heart is. Good to see the two of you. Auf bald.
Danke liebe Lia. Ich wollte dich gerade schreiben, to say thanks for having us. I am so glad you like reading these. Cxx
Hi Cathoel. I like this little pocket of rain memories. I started my poetic journeys because of a poet’s yellow rain suit. Tom lux. I admire your journey
Dear Rita, thank you so much! My fingers inside my rain pocket wave to you inside yours. Tom lux! makes a beautiful toast. Let us prey.