Finally a near full night's worth of sleep. What a difference it makes. The air just outside is still, but noisy in the distance. Farm animals make faint morning sounds. This is one of the pleasures of living next to a small petting zoo. There are chickens, donkeys, roosters, peacocks, llamas, pigs and sheep to name a few. It helps one feel as though they live on an idyllic spot of land as opposed to the dirty streets of Neukölln. The other day I'd come across a Reddit post that showed video footage of what it's like to walk through the nearest subway station to my apartment. The video captured numerous discarded needles, blood-stained napkins, heaps of litter, and the generally grotesque sense of depravity that can be witnessed when transiting that station. The entire stretch from Kottbusser Damm through Boddinstraße is like this. I'll have to check if I ever recounted the story here of the time I'd accidentally walked directly into a cloud of crack smoke being blown from a white-eyed homeless person's mouth while on my way to work at 8AM. If not, that's a story for tomorrow morning.
Berlin is an odd city. Having been fortunate (or unfortunate, take your pick) enough to have lived only in world famous cities like New York, San Francisco and Berlin, Berlin takes the cake. People say New York is the city that never sleeps. Untrue. Berlin doesn't sleep. It's because of all of the speed, affectionately called pep. Berlin is both more progressive than San Francisco yet somehow more cold than New York - both in terms of weather and disposition. It's a very metropolitan city, for sure, and there's always a lot going on, but as a foreigner, one never quite achieves the feeling of belonging. I remember years ago, before I left San Francisco, I'd been talking to Q's wife Rachel about her time spent living in Berlin. The thing she said that stood out as strange to me was that she 'never felt like one of them.' How could you, I thought? You aren't one of them. But now, I get what she meant. It's a thing one has to experience, I think.
I say this as an immigrant who is both white and male. There is a burden to carry as an immigrant in a foreign land that isn't just bureaucratic inconvenience. The most obvious issue is the language barrier. Performing simple tasks like making a doctor's appointment over the phone, or trying to explain to a German plumber that your bathroom sink is leaking, or merely receiving a piece of mail each become large lumbering ordeals that strain you intellectually and spiritually. Then there's the norms and values of the place, the history and culture, none of which you have direct access to. Some Americans might know of Willy Brandt, or the year the Berlin Wall fell, or may even have thorough knowledge surrounding World War II, but we don't have access to what it's like to actually be German. Even a second generation immigrant born into a family of immigrants who'd fully assimilated wouldn't know what it's like to be a real German, they'd only just be second generation immigrants.
I try to explain this to my father sometimes, to combat all his fear-mongering talk about boogeymen crossing the boarder. Perhaps, I tell myself, if he realises his son is an immigrant he'll have more empathy for those who are just trying to live their lives like he is. But it doesn't work this way. Well, you're not there illegally, he says.
No, I don't think I'd have the courage for that. It's hard enough as it is.
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