December 10th – Things are coming together! I moved into my new apartment with Jasmine, a painter from New York who came to Berlin at the start of the summer. She visited for 2 weeks, went home, packed her clothes, sold her furniture and moved here permanently. Meeting her through our mutual friend Lizzy has been such a boon. Jasmine has excellent style and the best sense of humor. She believes in the magic of coconut oil and the joys of blathering about our days over a glass of wine in the evening. It’s a perfect fit.
(my bedroom, a portrait of minimalism)
(move-in day, construction zone kitchen)
Before moving in, I felt a little odd about having a roommate, but looking around at our giant apartment, with its high, moulded ceilings, two bathrooms, and sweet location in Neukolln (right upstairs from my friend Ariane), I couldn’t feel luckier. We’re looking forward to furnishing the place so we can host dinner parties, brunches — really any kind of food with friends situations that exist.
In other news, it is winter in Berlin. The daylight has been reduced to what feels like a few hours each day and all the trees look like twigs for kindling. The brightest sky is still a variation of gray, but there is a kind of quiet, hunkering down it provides. I hear that the light returns, in shades, starting in January. Jasmine says if she didn’t know what summer was like here, the phenomenon of practically existing only outdoors, by the canal, by a lake, on the streets in those long, warm days, she wouldn’t survive the winter. I’m looking forward to that, reminding myself that adventure contains not just chaos, but onerous bouts of waiting, and then refusing the idea of waiting, as if there were something better, as if difference suggests a hierarchy.
The layers of clothing, the quick descent down the basement stairs of winter, the folding up of nature, turning into itself for a long meditation, bones cold as I hurry down the street burying my nose in my scarf — I wouldn’t have known any of it without being here.
Oh, and I went to a Christmas market last weekend!
Finally, my neighborhood contains cafes like this, so really, you never have to feel the cold.
30 Days to Berlin 