Berlin or bust

"basic gravity"

Do you remember Keiko? On New Year's Eve she bit my ear.

It's because she likes you, said the Boy.

Just like Cleo.

Last night Keiko had a solo opening, on Brunnen Strasse. I had seen her paintings before. But not her drawings. Oh!

"The movement!" I told her. "Amazing!"

She gripped my arm. "The movement!" The word came out a yowl. "That is exactly what I want to hear!"

Her scarf was blue. Her pants were white. Her hair was black. Her shirt was yellow.

Later she went wild with a bouquet of flowers.

She twisted and bent. She arced and whipped. She stretched her eyes at us, wide as saucers.

We watched from out on the street.

The dance of her own ink. Burst to life behind a glass pane.

photo by bayreuth boy

When you can't do much else

I lie still on the sofa. Cleo's hot fuzzy body anchors my chest.

The French windows to the garden are open. In the distance, hammering, heavy engines. Bird song -- fast, flurried. Silence. Then again.

Cleo has a damp dark nose. It goes twitch, twitch, twitch.

I shut my eyes.

A fly buzzes, knocks himself against the wall.

*                    *                    *

I have decided I am channeling my grandmother. By the time you hit a hundred, there's not so much you can do. But. You can notice.

Stella had a black rolling chair. A crystal dangled in the bay window. Knocked rainbows onto the carpet. Always a cat, Piccolino, Tai-Tai, Misty, languid in her lap.

She sat there, on Mason Street, for hours. The Italian kids loped by, a blur of checkered skirts, St. Peter & Paul insignias. The Chinese grandmas shuffled, pink plastic bags, knotted shoulders. Cable cars tolled their bells.Tourists hung sideways. 

Later, on Baker Street, there was not so much to see. Friends took her to Cafe Greco. She ordered cappuccino. She spooned the foam. Her hair was fresh-snow white.

She was not a peaceful woman, god knows. How she raged against age, and all that it stole from her.

But as I climb the stairs, palm propping me against the wall, I think of her.

I told my friend Coley, I walk so slow, people might think I'm standing still. It's kind of funny, really.

Last night, Peter said, why are you limping?

My legs are made of glass. If I step too hard, my feet might splinter.

*                    *                    *

I make myself leave the apartment. I go to the Coffee Bar, around the corner. I sit very still on a bright blue bench. The tables are round, plastic, knee-high. Shameless orange.

I drink my coffee black. It is fresh ground, not filter. Soft bubbles skirt the surface. I sip those first.

At another table, an American is lighting a Pall Mall. Her Scottish friend has dredlocks, tips stained blond.

Tourists pass. Baby carriages. Children on bicycles.

"If you are every going to buy me a car," says a grown man to his grown friends, "make it that one."

Tires on cobblestones go bump bump bump.

The sky smells wet and sweet.

A breeze snags the air, chases up my sleeves.

And here it comes.

Spring rain.

"I look terrible in tennis shoes," says the American.

I am noticing, Stella, I am.

A Blessing for a Friend on the Arrival of Illness

By John O'Donohue (listen to him read it)

Now is the time of dark invitation
Beyond a frontier you did not expect;
Abruptly, your old life seems distant.

You barely noticed how each day opened
A path through fields never questioned,
Yet expected, deep down, to hold treasure.
Now your time on earth becomes full of threat;
Before your eyes your future shrinks.

You lived absorbed in the day-to-day,
So continuous with everything around you,
That you could forget you were separate;

Now this dark companion has come between you.
Distances have opened in your eyes.
You feel that against your will
A stranger has married your heart.

Nothing before has made you
Feel so isolated and lost.

When the reverberations of shock subside in you,
May grace come to restore you to balance,
May it shape a new space in your heart
To embrace this illness as a teacher
Who has come to open your life to new worlds.

May you find in yourself
A courageous hospitality
Toward what is difficult,
Painful, and unknown.

May you learn to use this illness
As a lantern to illuminate
The new qualities that will emerge in you.

May the fragile harvesting of this slow light
Help to release whatever has become false in you.
May you trust this light to clear a path
Through all the fog of old unease and anxiety
Until you feel a rising within you a tranquility
Profound enough to call the storm to stillness.

May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:
Ask it why it came. Why it chose your friendship,
Where it wants to take you. What it wants you to know.
What quality of space it wants to create in you.
What you need to learn to become more fully yourself
That your presence may shine in the world.

May you keep faith with your body,
Learning to see it as a holy sanctuary
Which can bring this night-wound gradually
Toward the healing and freedom of dawn.

And she's lying flat

Shit.

Proof that Berlin is not the Germany you thought you knew

This weekend was Karneval der Kulturen in Kreuzberg.

The Boy said, you must see it. He's away, though, visiting family in Franconia. Dylan had work to do. Amie is afraid of crowds. My cousin is in Costa Rica.

So I went alone. Me and my half-ass digi-cam.

The weather was outrageous. The crowds were hyperventilation-worthy. I climbed out of the subway into a mash of hundreds of thousands and nearly dashed back underground. But no. Modern German Culture must be pursued.

Here is what I found:

Your typical Bavarian Schuhplattlers.

Just like my Oma used to dress.

How much do you love her?

And him?! Work that orange velour. 

This dude was attached to...

...this thing. Which had something to do with...

...this thing. Um. Really, I have no idea.

Hula hoops. Never out of style.

Do you see her? World's tallest, palest Mariachi dancer, twirling in the background.

The riot of color! The flurry of motion!

And again!

A little less color, a lot less motion: Your intrepid ex-pat photographer. Getting a friggin' tan while on the job (she who has not had a friggin' tan in seven years). Woo-hoo.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day

That would be today.

Seemed worthwhile to mention it.

Would be nicer, actually, not to be aware of it. Nor is there any reason for you to get aware. But should you wanna, or should you, god forbid, need to, CFIDS is a good place to start.

And for the rest of you, three fun facts:

1. Cher has it. Which makes that headdress so much more impressive.

2. Keith Jarrett has it too. Which probably means more to my jazz-smart brother than to me.

3. Laura Hillebrand, author of Seabiscuit, is another. Have you read the essay she wrote for The New Yorker, A Sudden Illness?

So scary. So good. Please do.

Sometimes you must buy yourself a doll

Especially if it is the first Saturday in May and all Berlin's politically correct Prenzlauer Berg-ians are swarming the organic market on Kollwitz Platz, stocking up on small tart apples and ruffly tulips and white asparagus and forest mushrooms -- and you yourself are caught behind a thick gray veil, limbs slow and leaden.

This is Lotte. I saw her and I had no choice but to take her home.

Bayreuth Boy laughed. She is a typical Prenzlauer Berg enviro-hippie toy. I do not care.

She is made of felted wool. She has pale-blue undies beneath her dress. I would take her everywhere with me if people wouldn't think me loopy. As it is, my handbag (Lower East Side find, natch!) is vast enough that sometimes I can stash her without anyone the wiser.

Lotte means free. That's what I'm aiming for. 

She's back on her feet

Woo-hoo!