Living in Berlin, I often feel I have fallen down the rabbit hole.Last night, after a perfectly sensible evening of homemade shepherd’s pie and German homework with a friend, I attended a composer’s birthday party in the emerging area of Neukölln.I was also invited to a fashion show at the Martin Gropius Bau, and a burlesque/ laser tag evening at the Planetarium, but I had RSVP’d, and I am punctilious in keeping my word…. most of the time.In truth, I often don’t go to parties, preferring as I do to cocoon and drink tea in silence, but I felt that in this case I felt I should make an effort, not only because I think I should expand my horizons, but because I need a new place to stay. You never know who you might encounter…
There seem to be two constants in Berlin:parties and moving, and if you think about it, perhaps this is what life is about anyway.Oh, I should apologize for being so deep so soon.In writing, as in relationships, they always say you should wait to reveal.But I have been writing poetry of late, and poetry has a way of infusing meaning into everything, which is useful, and in fact why poetry exists, but quite annoying when trying to do anything which requires split-second decision making…like buying stamps or crossing the street.Should I go? Should I stay?If I go now, will I get run over? Is crossing the street a metaphor for life?
See, there I go again.
Now I have committed the second cardinal sin in writing: going off topic. I wonder why these things are so important; being topical - skimming the surface until you are sure the reader/object of your affection (and are they not one and the same?) has been lured into your trap.I think it is all about control, which is what most things are about anyway.Parties, moving, control.What else is there?
Oh yes - there is having coffee in the Literaturhaus on the Fasanenstrasse with someone perfectly lovely -- one of those afternoons when you plan to meet for an hour and then notice it is getting dark.You wonder where all the time went, forget about crossing the street….even about control.You begin to think life can be about poetry after all.
I think it was Mark Twain who said that life is just too short to learn German.My internet connection is down so I just can’t be sure, but he seemed to have a lot to say about the German language – none of it positive. As for myself, I have nothing in particular against German, except for the fact that upon hearing it I can’t help but be reminded of the annihilation of my family.But let’s not dwell on trivial matters. After all, German is a perfectly serviceable language….good for commands and such, and I have been happy absorb it in my own way for months now, using the time-honored tradition of immigrants everywhere:television.I have also been learning a lot of German by arguing with government officials, cab drivers and sales people.Everyone comments on how “good” my German is, not because I can speak the language particularly well, but because I am a very good mimic.But you’ve heard all this before…
Unfortunately, there is only so far you can go with a charming demeanor and the native cadence.Sooner or later, the movers and shakers will find out that I learned German on the streets (and not very nice ones at that), and I am loath to see the doors of opportunity closing in my face.No, it was definitely time to enroll in another German course.
But where?
Well, there’s the Goethe Institute, but they’re ruinously expensive, as are individual tutors of any quality.Private schools which cater to diplomatic wives and aimless Americans are also quite dear.I have been a diplomatic wife, and have already met quite enough aimless Americans to last a lifetime. (Where are you from?Portland.What do you do? I’m a gallery assistant…and a performance artist…I have a band…).There’s the public language school, but they require all sorts of documentation which I don’t have, and which I don’t want to go through the bother of getting…although maybe I would learn a lot of German in the process…
There remained only one option:The Jewish Community Centre.I know it seems ridiculous, learning German under the auspices of the Jewish Community, but there was no entrance exam, no documentation required, and two months of daily instruction for only 80 Euro.Talk about wholesale!Who knows, maybe I would even meet a nice doctor out of the whole thing…. (A charming story, really…Shimon and I connected in Berlin…at German school of all places!I knew we were beshert as soon as I heard him conjugate reflexive verbs in his intoxicating Israeli accent.We live in Switzerland now.)
So my friend and I enrolled.As usual, I charmed the pants off of the intake officer.As usual, I was placed in a level which far exceeded my skills, so now I am faced with homework which I have no idea how to begin:
“Exercise 1a:Case.Choose the appropriate case for the following examples and explain your choices in detail.Please use the following:Nominative Case, Accusative Case, Dative Case, Genitive Case….”
(Basket Case
Mental Case
A Case of You…)
Okay….make herbal tea, do calming breath exercise… here goes:
1) The thick white girl gives the jocund blue ball to the squat purple antelope.The squat purple antelope belongs to the tolerant flailing zebra, which enjoys playing handball with the amicable green giraffe.
What is this, German on acid? I am beginning to think Mark Twain was right.
January is a difficult month at the best of times.Most of us are fatter and poorer then we were in December and have little to show for the excesses of the season except a few trinkets and the memory of family feuds.I think my friend Rebecca had the right idea by hibernating with her husband over Christmas and making pasta from scratch.Rebecca is often sensible and I miss hear dreadfully.We have been friends forever and were neighbors for a time, creating a warm community by the ocean in the midst of a city of strangers.I would go over to her cozy apartment every Saturday and she would educate me about Afrobeat.We would make homemade mozzarella or drink tea and consume an entire loaf of Cobb’s fruit and nut bread, toasted just so.For her birthday I prepared scallops in a cream sauce, enriched with egg yolks and crème fraiche…I have always believed that butterfat equals love, and Rebecca agrees.
I knew Rebecca and I would become fast friends the day I met her in the music library at the University of Manitoba. She was wearing velvet pants and a peasant blouse and was doing her theory homework on vellum with a vibrant purple calligraphy pen. Her long blonde hair cascaded in defiant, unruly tendrils. I felt as if a light had been turned on.
Rebecca and I were the misfits of music school: we were queer and had voices that just didn’t blend.People often told us to sing more quietly, to tow the line, but we couldn’t and we would often cry together in an empty practice room after our voice lessons, overwhelmed by the frustration of wanting to express the infinite through song and not really knowing how…..some day we will be able to sing as loudly as we want and nobody will tell us to blend. This I promise you…
We often cry together still, out of love, out of longing…because we miss each other.Yesterday, Rebecca and I talked on the phone for the first time in almost 2 months and I told her all about my Berlin adventures - how I ran out of coal over New Years and thought it might be a good idea to burn the discarded Christmas trees I found on the side of the road to keep warm.She said I was like the little match girl, that I needed a knight in shining armor to rescue me.I told her there are no knights in shining armor and that maybe I should have just remembered to order the coal already….
For there are no knights to rescue us, no silver bullets, no miracle cures. There are, however, laughter and tears, and the desire to express the infinite through song with a voice that is your own. There is friendship.There are scallops in a rich creamy sauce…
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for not writing.You see, over the last few weeks I have been trying to radically change my life.I am trying to eat better, think better, be better, do better….but not in the context of a comparative framework which would destroy the fragile self esteem I have acquired by nurturing my inner child – that sensitive creature neglected by a perceived lack of parental support during times of trauma during adolescence whose dysfunction is compounded by feelings of shame and inadequacy due to an overly competitive nature and destructive perfectionist tendencies which engender feelings of worthlessness.
Can you tell I bought a self-help book?I have also eliminated (since yesterday) refined sugar, dairy, chocolate, alcohol and worrying. I now eat my organic porridge in blissful silence and ponder the complex flavors and textures of a banana - chewing each mouthful precisely 20 times so as not to cause the malnourishment resulting from an inadequate absorption of minerals, and thus having to endure the anxiety and irritability which would accompany such rapid fluctuations in blood sugar. But have you ever tried to chew a mouthful of porridge 20 times?It is like waiting for death!
Despite my new regime of health, fitness and intense self care, I still manage to make time for recreation.Why only yesterday I decided to submit myself to the ministrations of a Turkish barber and I can safely tell you that heaven on earth is having your eyebrows threaded by a 250 pound Middle Eastern hunk. It is just the right mixture of pleasure and pain, with the exciting frisson of the forbidden.I also had him trim my beard, but I don’t think he understood what I was saying because he fashioned my facial hair into narrow sideburns and a Lothario's moustache.I now look like some sort of pimp - which is appropriate as my street is known for its “nocturnal activities”. I should mention at this point that I grew a beard because my teacher told me I am no longer a character tenor but rather a Spinto which is an Italian tenor that gets to sing all the lovely emotional music that critics love to hate, but which makes ladies of a certain age (myself included) swoon.Having a butch voice means you have to embrace your masculine side, but if you have no masculine side then facial hair will have to do… so maybe it is not such a bad thing that I look like some sort of shady swindler rather than the anxious cherub I really am.
However, the transition is not quite complete… I may have facial hair, but my wardrobe needs a little work.Last night I wore a bright red sweater and a fetching ascot to a concert at the Philharmonie.I thought red was appropriate, since the work performed was a setting of the Communist Manifesto by the German-Jewish composer Erwin Shulhoff.Apparently, this piece has never before been performed in Germany.After hearing it, I can tell you that there are several good reasons why.My friend, who is actually a bona fide Communist and quite knowledgeable about music but too kind to say anything mean, exclaimed “oh, but what a wonderful text!”
I think the school’s out on that one.
Ok – now I’m off to visualize my life goals which today seem to be grounded in images of chocolate.
...because today, for the first time, I allowed myself to grieve...
There is a picture of my family which I particularly love because it was taken before our world fell apart. We are sitting on a carpet of leaves in the park. It is autumn and the warm sunlight dapples my father’s golden hair. He has impossible hair, my father, and a corsair’s moustache: a survivor’s bravado. My mother has impossible hair too - long and black like Joan Baez. She leans on my father’s shoulder and smiles the smile of a woman grateful to have been released from demons.As for my brother and I, we are quirky and alive in a way only children who are deeply loved can be. My father is holding my brother up by the arms, all baby fat and bad moods. I think he is sort of weird but cute - me with my Mona Lisa smile and cowlick that just won’t stay put.
When I tell you I had a perfect family, please don't feel envy, for our world fell apart. Instead, feel awe and reverence. Know that the shining sunlight of promise did indeed shine for a time on four lovely people, two golden haired and two dark haired; two older ones, two younger ones, intertwined – sharing a simple picnic on a carpet of leaves, laughing in the beauty of an existence unclouded by illness...
Mourn, my mother says. Mourn the loss of this world.Know that you cannot go back, for it is not there. We were lucky that for a time we knew this peace and this ease, so blessed. Take your hand in mine, my son, for I have been waiting for you. Go out into the wide world laughing and aware and accepting yourself for who you are. You cannot hide in a blanket, nor crawl back into my arms – nor should you, for all the security in the world can be taken away from you when you least expect it. We are living proof. Because of this, and especially because of this, but not only because of this, be brave. Take your hand in mine and know that the sun shines on us still, and that the seasons will turn and in the fall there will be a carpet of leaves to cushion our steps. We may not be able to ride our bikes to the park, but we can take your father in his wheelchair and you can make that potato salad he likes so much.
I wonder what this picture will look like….
I push my father in his wheelchair through the streets of Berlin.His hair is still impossible, Einstein-like; wild.He sits on that wheelchair like it is a throne. Until the end he will never give up an inch of his dignity.My father has not been back to this part of the world since he was a boy.He tells me that Berlin reminds him of Poland. But he will not go back to Poland. My father and his sister walk with pain even though they are still young andI know it is because their health was compromised when they were children: I know this is because of decisions that were made in Berlin. I push my father in his wheelchair, the sleet pelts my face. I am glad for it because maybe he will not notice I am crying. But would that be so bad?
