The Berlin Era: A Reckoning
I only have two more nights in my apartment here on the Grunewaldstrasse. Today I went to my boss' place and returned all of the materials I have for giving tours, and paid in my last tickets.
I've got the entire contents of my wardrobes out on the floors, and I'm trying to decide what to take with me for my More Swedish Life. Ibuprofen, yes. Sewing kit, yes. Most of my clothes, no. (I have a lot of clothes.) Oh and my books. I don't even want to talk about it. They're not coming, the poor dears. I'm trying to transfer all of my CDs onto my computer, a project I should have started much earlier...
The sun's going down here in Berlin, and I don't know when I'll be back. I'm listening to German film music from 1929 to 1950 -- so mostly Nazi-era music. It's mediocre with the exception of the wonderful Hans Albers and Marlene Dietrich. But it's a Berlin mood.
I'm getting a bittersweet feeling of nostalgia for my life here.
So I thought I'd write up a reckoning of my time.
I came to Berlin in early January 2003, and I've stayed until almost the end of 2006. So almost four years.
I've enjoyed being at the university. The Berlin universities are giant, with no money, and no personal attention -- so one is simply an anonymous face amongst the hundred thousand students. But it's been a wonderful way of observing the intellectual culture here, getting tuned in to German literary theories and conflicts, and the people who set the tone in those worlds. Also, it's been very helpful in guiding my reading. My university life has helped my bookish pursuits stay on a sophisticated level. This is important, I think, because since I've had a lot of good quality food for thought, my appetite for German literature and history hasn't waned, as it otherwise might have.
I worked for a long time for the Harvard Center for European Studies, every week assisting at their transatlantic dialogues that compare the European and American political, economic, and cultural systems. This was also a thorough and enviable education.
But it's been working as a tour guide of Berlin which in the end has enabled me to put down the deepest roots here. There's nothing like being asked to be an authority figure about something, even in a modest way, to make you invest deeply. I think mostly because of this job, I've done more than live in Berlin. I've really appropriated Berlin in a way that is not typical for five years in a place (I was here for a year before this four year period). I've become more at home here than I've ever been anywhere. I look around with a kind of surprise and realize that I know my way around every neighborhood; I know where most streets are by name alone. I know how much every ticket on the subway costs. I know when each neighborhood was built, also when many individual buildings were built, where the bombs fell and what they took out and what was rebuilt. Who lived where, when, and what each architectural style is called. There are hundreds of street corners in this city which fill me with associations, both personal and historical. I can't say that about any other city. And what this knowledge gives me is a four-dimensionality of experience. Berlin has become the ground for my imagination and dreams, and a very fertile ground it is. Furthermore, no one is more suprised than I am at this happy proliferation of my knowledge of Berlin. I may sound as if I were crowing over my achievements, but honestly, I'm awed by what happened while I wasn't looking, just in the course of my work.
I'm glad to move to Stockholm, because 1) I love novelty and 2) as those of you who are faithful readers know, I'm currently admiring Swedish society above all others, and to be honest, I prefer Swedish social culture to German. So I want to see how happy I can be there, with my wonderful THS, who has transformed my life and from whom I don't want to live separately.
But that doesn't mean I'm not already nostalgic for the good years I have spent here in Berlin. It's goodbye to this cryptically exciting and pulsing place, the place that has seen me into adulthood.
I've got the entire contents of my wardrobes out on the floors, and I'm trying to decide what to take with me for my More Swedish Life. Ibuprofen, yes. Sewing kit, yes. Most of my clothes, no. (I have a lot of clothes.) Oh and my books. I don't even want to talk about it. They're not coming, the poor dears. I'm trying to transfer all of my CDs onto my computer, a project I should have started much earlier...
The sun's going down here in Berlin, and I don't know when I'll be back. I'm listening to German film music from 1929 to 1950 -- so mostly Nazi-era music. It's mediocre with the exception of the wonderful Hans Albers and Marlene Dietrich. But it's a Berlin mood.
I'm getting a bittersweet feeling of nostalgia for my life here.
So I thought I'd write up a reckoning of my time.
I came to Berlin in early January 2003, and I've stayed until almost the end of 2006. So almost four years.
I've enjoyed being at the university. The Berlin universities are giant, with no money, and no personal attention -- so one is simply an anonymous face amongst the hundred thousand students. But it's been a wonderful way of observing the intellectual culture here, getting tuned in to German literary theories and conflicts, and the people who set the tone in those worlds. Also, it's been very helpful in guiding my reading. My university life has helped my bookish pursuits stay on a sophisticated level. This is important, I think, because since I've had a lot of good quality food for thought, my appetite for German literature and history hasn't waned, as it otherwise might have.
I worked for a long time for the Harvard Center for European Studies, every week assisting at their transatlantic dialogues that compare the European and American political, economic, and cultural systems. This was also a thorough and enviable education.
But it's been working as a tour guide of Berlin which in the end has enabled me to put down the deepest roots here. There's nothing like being asked to be an authority figure about something, even in a modest way, to make you invest deeply. I think mostly because of this job, I've done more than live in Berlin. I've really appropriated Berlin in a way that is not typical for five years in a place (I was here for a year before this four year period). I've become more at home here than I've ever been anywhere. I look around with a kind of surprise and realize that I know my way around every neighborhood; I know where most streets are by name alone. I know how much every ticket on the subway costs. I know when each neighborhood was built, also when many individual buildings were built, where the bombs fell and what they took out and what was rebuilt. Who lived where, when, and what each architectural style is called. There are hundreds of street corners in this city which fill me with associations, both personal and historical. I can't say that about any other city. And what this knowledge gives me is a four-dimensionality of experience. Berlin has become the ground for my imagination and dreams, and a very fertile ground it is. Furthermore, no one is more suprised than I am at this happy proliferation of my knowledge of Berlin. I may sound as if I were crowing over my achievements, but honestly, I'm awed by what happened while I wasn't looking, just in the course of my work.
I'm glad to move to Stockholm, because 1) I love novelty and 2) as those of you who are faithful readers know, I'm currently admiring Swedish society above all others, and to be honest, I prefer Swedish social culture to German. So I want to see how happy I can be there, with my wonderful THS, who has transformed my life and from whom I don't want to live separately.
But that doesn't mean I'm not already nostalgic for the good years I have spent here in Berlin. It's goodbye to this cryptically exciting and pulsing place, the place that has seen me into adulthood.
posted by Ida at 7:03 PM
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