Day 32 – On my second day in Berlin, I moved into my apartment in Neukolln. It is an airy studio furnished with a bed, large desk, not just one but 2 rocking chairs, some other seating options, and a small rug that I meditate on. It is perfect! I’m on the 4th floor and my window opens up to the courtyard.
Before I knew where I would go to, or even if I would really leave LA, I did some writing about it. I had been feeling stifled and stymied, but was kind of paralyzed, afraid to take the leap. Instead I waded a bit in the waters of possibility. Then the signs started streaming in. Here’s an excerpt from those writings:
I woke up to an email this morning from Budapest. It was from a writer I’d met once. When I saw pictures of him standing on a balcony from his new Hungarian location, I pictured it furnished sparsely, with a bed of clean starched sheets and a writing desk near a window looking out onto the night sounds of a city thousands of years old.
I wrote him an email asking if he was doing a writing residency or if work brought him there. And now he writing me back, telling me how he did it.
For two weeks solid I’ve been feeding myself fantasies of European living. Watching House Hunters International obsessively, picturing myself in their shoes, wondering how desire translates itself into doing the thing you want. Rather, when one decides a want is a need.
Do I look more like a Berliner yet?
30 Days to Berlin 