For the first time today, there was a smell on the street that made me miss home...some sort of metallic post-rain scent coming up off the cobblestones. And for the first time, in a long time, I paused in my flight and cared about direction. So the wind blows.
A few days back we visited the heavily touristed Checkpoint Charlie and it was absolutely worth it. It was a very moving experience to connect histories I've learned (am still very much learning) with a specific place. In most neighborhoods, the former wall has left a scar on the city; it is remembered by a line of cobblestone zigzagging through busy intersections, homes, and overgrown lots. This wall, that people died trying to dig under, fly over, sneak through in a cramped car-compartment, is now a monumental cicatrice that traces a big hurt through the city of Berlin. August 13th marks fifty years since it was built.
Imagining so many forbidden spaces, obliterated contact, and the rubble that it has left here, makes this line of Steinbeck's linger longer with me in a new and strange way: "I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction."
On a brighter note...
I miss everyone Stateside. Come join me on our porch for dinner? Love, T
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