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I didn’t write last Sunday, because I just didn’t feel like it after Warwick left. And I threw myself into a ten day work frenzy. Then on Thursday I flew to Berlin to visit a dear friend, and a new(ish) city. It was just what I needed and in very un-me form, I didn’t glut myself on manic what-t0-do lists. Instead, I hung out in Neukölln, and got to know this neighborhood built right next to an airfield-now -park, hung out with my friend, saw her life, had very many interesting conversations with people old and new, and left feeling thoroughly restored and happy to tackle the last few weeks here.
On the flight home while listening to this song on repeat, I jotted down these ‘sketches’ of things that passed through my mind during my few days there.
Vignettes from Berlin

I

We are the people we wanted to become and lose sight of that in our daily life. We are so enmeshed in our worlds that we forget that snapshots of our life are exactly what we hoped for, and yet feel so different from the inside.

II
Singing ancient hymns with strangers in four part harmony until my voice went husky, I felt a physical exuberance I hadn’t felt in a long time.

III
A city with so many layers of history, so rapidly accumulated. A contemporary palimpsest, crushing history into bodies and buildings.

IV
The concentric rings of time, community and friendship. Getting to know friends at different stages of our lives over and over again. Remembering why we love them, and finding new things to love and respect. Shared histories.

V

Sitting around (tables, bars, lounges, coffee shops, parks) talking to people from all over the world about coding, not-enough-information, algorithms, elections, shared feelings of commiseration, feminism, producing records, writing books, having kids, not having kids, surviving, the difficulty of making friends (while we’re making friends), wine monopolies, labour politics, how to cook, what to cook, how to live. Does every generation feels so familiar with their contemporaries? Or are our middle-class lives just so similar across the globe, that itunes, Thai food and good books connect us in a way that nationality or geographical location previously might have?

VI
Sitting on a couch, drinking coffee and just passing time. Not being productive or improving. And feeling content. In an unknown digs, not really knowing anyone, lurking in the way I might’ve at varsity, but no longer with that sense of insecurity around what I’m doing there, because I know my own story now too. I can sit and read the Nan Goldin book lying on the table and not have to explain what I think or feel or pretend.

VII
Having adult homes. Enjoying being able to rest in the welcoming space of friend’s home and longing to be back in my own. Because I have that too. We are the people we wanted to become.

VIII

Being in an airport and my whole body expecting to be flying to Joburg. And then seeing a mural of a Cape Town as I get off the plane. It is looking across to the north, as far as Tygerberg Hill, advertising global connectivity, and feeling at home in the calm of Stockholm’s airport, with its Christmas lights, and knowing the calm of looking at that same view from rhodes memorial. Knowing both feelings from the inside. Carrying places with you in your body.