the blooming grime

Though I live in one of the grimiest areas of Berlin, and that’s pretty grimy, right now and for a few short blessed weeks I can walk – from my house – clear down to the UBahn station – under an alleyway of pink cherry blossom.

It’s like a fairytale. All I have to do is cross to the middle of a major road and then walk down the raised dividing strip, which now after months of litter and dirt is transformed into dense grass and litter, and then I walk, as if entranced, among the flowering trees, burying my face in their lowest-hanging blooms.

Traffic roars on either side but I don’t care, I am in wonderland, and I walk this almost every day. Yesterday there was a hailstorm – Spring! – so I was able to gather handsful of the foaming blossom that had been stripped off the trees by sparks of hail the size of unbroken buds.