On the magazine cover left on table 4, there is a bikini clad woman made out of carrots, all shards, all pieces. The man next door sits on the corner table outside, clad in plaid (per usual), rejoicing in the bark of his Dalmation, exchanging flan and flogging with his true New York speech. We shuffle back and forth, having lost all curiosity but still true to the art. The nights end prematurely, Europeans declining the signs that the restaurant has laid its head to rest. With mint tea and cappucinos, bendable bikes, they charge into the night, soft vocals that not only penetrate but disquiet my memory. At 11, my coworkers are dancing, 1980s song steaming the radio, their aprons around their ankles, fat with exhaustion and the exhaust of the streets. The chefs are drinking coca-colas on the street corner. And I, with my guarana and this strange magazine of edible women, am trying not to close my eyes, trying not to exit the euphoria of sitting, waiting, sipping, Breathe Me playing in the background of this small world. I am happy in these moments, though tired--warm inside,.
Berlin is what draws me out, encouraged by conversations, the music, the men seated under our silocone sky. I am lost in the overwhelming emotions I had there--even the thought of them quicken my heart. What love.
The cafe, civil and stern below my apartment; the grand garden where I witnessed the reign of the old east; the familiar ride to work, the small French crossoints prepared by a small, French lady; Spanish cinema; devlish department store bakeries; crusty rolls; quick steps; sleepless nights; virtuality; broken plants, unpotted, uprooted by my toes; sheep rugs; raw sunrise wrecking the path to Prague.
This is the most vivid, heart-wrenching and yet beautiful of my memories. There was nothing, nothing but a pure, if purposeless feeling. I fell victim to my own lake of yearning, wall-less, swordless--no way to protect the very heart of it all.
I am not lost today, as I was then. Do not attempt to lose myself in urbanity, forgetting or fretting or fawning independence. This city, just as Berlin, has a way of bringing me back, swinging me (with real possibility of falling) into a past, fat as our ankles at midnight, of both goblins and grace.
There are women at the restaurant dressed all in green, or tickled in turquioise gems that match the walls. A middle aged woman with a cat-eye shirt, where the two green gawkers cover her nipples. Between iced lattes and other simple concoctions, I manage to shrug of exhaustion, manage to beat back my thoughts. Now this is the most honest of love-hate relationships of my life: this cool. cubed restaurant and I, full of friends and temptation, pallatal sensation and severe windows, misshaped and sharded, into the lives of others.
Which brings me back to Berlin. Bent subway tracks and three-legged dogs. Symphonies and Turkish restaurants, leafy tea. That belly of history, pushed to the forfront, frantic if full in monument. Stalinist homes side by side with the small, quaint canal abodes. How I could have been home there, if only I could have quieted the lake inside, a pool of underwater creatures that have no name.
If I could go anywhere in the world, it would be Berlin, both a reality and a memory of heat and longing, hurt, regret, love. Because, if I could breathe, unveil, re-create the most essential me, she would be intensely sensitive, touched by each moment to laughter or tears, slayer of iciness, acutely responsive to the racket inside, and unable to say goodbye. Uninhibited if not refined. Cognizant of bird songs, broken day breaks, hollowed hearts. Inescapably empathetic, perhaps, but always present, always home.
