Monday, July 25, 2016

Returning

I no longer write here almost at all – I suppose because this was begun as a travel blog, and lately I haven't been traveling?

But I think it's also because what I would be writing about, if I were writing, is the process of re-making a life in my home country after eight and a half years away, and that's a topic so big I don't really know how to talk about it in any sensible fashion!

Now, though, the "Berlinniversary" name is accurate once more, because I'm back in Berlin on a visit. ...And apparently "returning to Berlin after moving away" is also a topic too big to talk about sensibly, because I started trying to write this post when I first got here, and now it's a month later and I'm leaving in a few days and I still haven't managed it.

Meanwhile, here's the view from an old familiar haunt, one of my favorite cafés:


How can I possibly sum it all up? It's good and beautiful and wonderful to be here, to see friends, to bike along familiar cobblestone streets through the warm twilight of endlessly not-quite-dark northern European summer nights. I'm still glad I made the decision I did, I still want to make a go of it in the US, but there's no mistaking that being back in Berlin feels good.

It feels so normal to be here, as if I'd just stepped away for a few days and now am returning to my life exactly as it always was. I love going to a new and utterly unfamiliar country, but there's also something deeply satisfying about going to a place where I already know exactly how everything works, and can ask for a pastry at the bakery without even having to think about it.

Anyway, Berlin. Too enormous for me to talk sensibly about at all. At most, I'll probably manage to post a few photos, sometime later. (There are more travels ahead, so time's a little limited at the moment.)

For now, I'll leave you with a Berlin sunset – construction crane and all. (Some things never change!)


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