This is a copy/paste from my daily morning journal. I’ve done minimal copy editing on it, and inserted photos.
Two weeks in Germany, Berlin is my new favorite destination.
I'd like to go back and drink coffee and take photos of myself in luxurious black clothing, being a secret private and personal star in a post-war metropolis. I think the jet lag is heavy, it is 6:23am and I have been awake for over an hour, with lengthy lists of things to do now that I have returned and no desire to do any of it.
That lamp is too bright, I pull the chord and turn it off.
Post-holiday blues but not, just tired and my mind hasn't caught up with the rest of me yet. This coffee is so good. The dogs are swarming around and happy to see us, I am debating if I should order a sweatshirt that I like online. I'm trying to rationalize it by saying I can wear it now we live somewhere that has a winter.
Saturday night in Mitte, I walked a few miles from the hotel to the shops and the theater that was screening Nosferatu. I walked through parks with war memorials and along the river, past the Dom and the radio (?) tower that looked like Soviet midcentury modern, a Sputnik Sweetheart towering over the city. I rushed to the theater to make sure it existed, like running to a gate in an airport hours before take off. I had almost decided against it all, I was in the hotel and pulled the Three of Swords over and over and over again, five times in a row, I immediately jumped to betrayal and then realized it was me, I was the problem. I was taking something away, betraying myself, by sitting in the hotel alone.
I walked so fast that I was sweating, I wanted time to walk more and to stop in the shops that there hadn't been time to earlier in the day. I browsed expensive magazines. I miss collaging issues of Dazed and Nylon for wrapping paper, I'd spend what felt like fortunes on magazines every month in the Barnes and Noble on State Street in Santa Barbara in the early 2000s. I'd wrap gifts with it, messy collages made out of the magazines I didn't have room to store in my tiny apartment.
I stopped to browse a second-hand shop full of high-end labels, two racks only, a Margiela pleated white tunic caught my eye in the window and I left with a sweater that I wore for the next few days. I extend an apology to whoever tried on the Yohji Yamamoto pants after me, I had no business peeling off my leggings and sticking my sweaty legs into them. I smiled at the clerks at Vivienne Westwood who were kind when they said only two in at a time, they said it so nicely that I went back a few days later and spent out of budget, but I used the bag every day for the rest of the trip so I don’t feel guilty. I'm still thinking of the bubblegum pink purse that was on display, and wishing that the blouse I had tried on was available in my size.
I made it back to the theater, I ordered salted popcorn and a sparkling water. I was still early and milled about, over-excited, and made a goth girl who very obviously was awkward and happy to be alone very uneasy by being an American with too many questions about where to wait. I saw an employee wearing a Nosferatu shirt with the theater's name on it, when the ticket collector came by to check me in, I asked where to buy it and he said the office was locked and empty. The manager eventually arrived and I went upstairs into the office area, it was outside the theater through a side door. He got fussed that I was sorting through the stacks of t shirts looking for the right print, keep them tidy he said and I said yes I am (I absolutely was). I was juggling my popcorn still, balancing it on a folded table leaning against a wall. I found a shirt in a size too large but it would suffice and went back to the waiting area.
I sat through the movie thrilled to be there, thrilled to be in Berlin watching a hundred-year-old vampire movie with a live orchestra playing the score, eating popcorn and being fully present and excited.
The walk back to the hotel was hurried, it was after 9pm and the sun was just setting, I shouldn't be as afraid but I am of men in the streets. The sky was on fire behind the Dom, it glowed an orange that would normally be used as an alarm, the Soviet needle reflecting a pale orange-pink on its white tower.
Palaces and bones are all that really survived, everything else is rebuilt and replicated, maybe that's why I liked it all so much.
What an exceptional way to enjoy Nosferatu.
(Also, that BAG!)
How absolutely wonderful, dark & dreamy