Berlin is gone. She disappeared backwards into the dusky passenger side window.
On the last day, somehow, I accidentally visited almost every place important to me in the last few months. Humboldt vorbei, the Linden trees, ancient hospital courtyards of St. Hedwig, those bridges, the hinterhoff with the bonbons, the riverside willows, my first neighborhood in Kreutzberg (didn’t I swing on those tires as a baby?). The cragged dry waterfall I climbed up with clare, the posh poplar avenue, the crisscrossed street star of Eberswalder station. The ink store, the gold victory statue, passed the glass spirals of the Bundestag, the Tiergarten area where I once got a tour from an old grandfather-like man and saw Christmas lights all along the Ku’damm and cried…but that’s only one story…
In the last week I saw all the people I meant to and said four hundred drawn out farewells, none of which felt the least bit final. Clare and Felix left before I did, to meditate ten days somewhere in the mountains. Goodbye to Naima and Örjan, who looked just once back in the night and Elena, after promises of going to help her brother make wine in italy. To andreas, who has begun to re-awaken and to mathilda, who has just begun to speak. Goodbye to Paul the towering upstairs anarchist who smiled so kindly and who shared so much. In this place, people are less afraid to ask what they need of eachother. How different this is from ny..where everyone is expected to do it on their own. Asking help..a weakness. But we all need.
These farewells were different than the ones I’ve been used to…fierce, dramatic, absolute. No, this was a calm and delicate parting, no ripping of muscle from bone. But I wasn’t disappointed, more relieved.
I’m tired of trying to make things more meaningful than they are. Things just are, and that’s meaningful enough.
Berlin will always be there, in one form or another. Nowadays, this city neither welcomes nor despises. She just lives there along side you, interested or indifferent, accepting, appreciating but preoccupied with her own ideas, and troubles.
Berlin is not trying to be majestic, be some glorious past, or the city of the future, or anything other than she is.
I don’t really want to attempt some long reminiscing recollecting meditation on ‘my time in berlin’. At least not now. And not all at once. There’s no wrapping up that could do the experience justice. And as far as that sort of tying up creates an immediate distance, I have the feeling that it is still going on… this is just the continuation and not a separate life.

Kiez Mentality

Kiez Kiez...like birds chirping.
Kiez is a word thrown around a lot here. It was one of my first new terms coming to Berlin and refers to a neighborhood or region connected by one community. Getting to know the Kiez means not just learning the streets geographically, but also culturally; the events and local happenings. There might be Kiez meetings, where members of the community get together to discuss Kiez issues. It can be used as an identifier, ie. ‘coming from in the Bergmann Kiez’ (in Kreutzberg). As in this case, it might be named for a popular/central street in that area (Bergmann str.). In Kreutzberg for example, you also have the Oranien(str) Kiez.
It might be mistaken to think of Berlin as a cohesive city. Something you can sense early on, is that it is very neighborhood based. Even more, areas like Wedding, or Charlottenberg, Spandau or Treptow are really their own self-sufficient little towns. Even Kreutzberg, Friedrichshain and Prenzlberg, though there is more crossover, can be very self-contained. The idea didn’t come together for me until someone pointed out that these names of present neighborhoods represent what once really were separate towns. Over time they expanded into each other and were eventually subsumed into the greater Berlin. Neukolln (the ‘junkie’ hood) was once a city, larger than Berlin. Until it was swallowed. In many ways, the ‘city’ is still just a collection of these towns, bound by name, some streets, some train tracks, separated by a preserved identity and their own Kiez mentality.
Undoubtedly there are other cities like this. NY is not this way, because it is so up-close against itself. Sure, it has areas with distinct personalities, but this is different than pseudo-towns because it was a modern, planned city as opposed to an evolution from ye olde townships. Berlin is just so verdammt big. I don’t know LA but from what I’ve heard maybe it has a similar feeling, or rather is on another extreme end: sprawling decentralization.

Results

Ethylhexyl Isostereate, Isohexadecane, isopropyl palmitate, oleyl erucate, propylene glycol, panthenol, decyl oleate, polyglyceryl-3 ricinoleate, sorbitan isostearate, prafinum liquidum, sorbitol, cera microcristallina...alien names? an Etrsucan chant? no. some of the ingredients in the highly recommended swiss eye cream that, according to the allergy test (and my own experience) I am very very allergic to. that's about as clear an outcome as I got from the test. the scary thing is, that's actually only the first half of the ingredients. the names get even longer after that. and what exactly it was that made my eyes swell to twice their size is anyone's guess. my bet? panthenol.

Allergy Test

means my back is taped up with a mass of very uncomfortable medical tape which wrinkles and buckles whenever I move any muscles in that area (which, considering the mechanics of turning one's head, lifting an arm or breathing, is hard to avoid). It makes me wonder how books with stiff spines feel stretching.

Poppy and Memory and someone else's poetry

"Corona"

Aus der Hand frißt der Herbst mir sein Blatt: wir sind Freunde.
Wir schälen die Zeit aus den Nüssen und lehren sie gehn:
die Zeit kehrt zurück in die Schale.

Im Spiegel ist Sonntag,
im Traum wird geschlafen,
der Mund redet wahr.

Mein Aug steigt hinab zum Geschlecht der Geliebten:
wir sehen uns an,
wir sagen uns Dunkles,
wir lieben einander wie Mohn und Gedächtnis,
wir schlafen wie Wein in den Muscheln,
wie das Meer im Blutstrahl des Mondes.

Wir stehen umschlungen im Fenster, sie sehen uns zu von der
Straße:
es ist Zeit, daß man weiß!
Es ist Zeit, daß der Stein sich zu blühen bequemt,
daß der Unrast ein Herz schlägt.
Es ist Zeit, daß es Zeit wird.

Es ist Zeit.


-Paul Celan

© 1952 Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt München
in der Verlagsgruppe Random House GmbH
Extrait de: Mohn und Gedächtnis
Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , München 1952
Production du son: HR 1963