Tuesday, September 30
Frau Negativ
We're just at the beginning of our journey, sensing what it might be like to live a little lighter. The outer layer of the onion has been shed with many more layers to go. There are questions, curiosities, concerns. What is the point of it? Does there need to be a point. Isn't the point merely the journey itself? I think it's about letting go. All these years I've been so attached to things and accumulation. It began to feel like a burden and so selling our apartment and getting rid most of our belongings and losing the debt felt like a huge relief. In the final run up to our departure I thought these were the solutions to all of life's problems, and more specifically to my own ennui and dissatisfactions. Yet, here in Berlin, having achieved that, the same worries and self are creeping back out.
I think of the old adage: 'Wherever you go, there you are...'. And here I am, in Berlin and where the hell is my peace of mind? I thought I packed it...did I forgot to put it in my carry-on.
What does a woman in my situation really have to bitch about? There are people, millions of them all over the planet with far greater concerns than my little soif d'eternite. But isn't every person's struggle their own? I think I've developed a deep resistance to myself. Sometimes I feel as though I am watching two me's battle it out in a boxing ring. I think that's commonly called a neurosis, or in Victorian times, hysteria. Either way, sometimes I think I'm out to lunch.
I guess it's better to be out to lunch in Berlin than on Flatbush Avenue.
It's one of the curses of our generation that we've never really had to live with compromise and/or real suffering. Of course people have troubles to get through, but as a society we've never had to live in the midst of a war or through famine or oppression. This is when people really have to deal with life's exigencies, putting aside own immediate concerns for the greater good. My brother (a former Marine in Iraq)is the only young person I know who has any idea of real rather than perceived pressure. Maybe that's changing. The world seems to be moving in fast forward. The first major hiccup of globalisation.
I try to keep things in perspective as I tackle the tiny agonies that fly around my head like gnats. Wake up leibling - it's called "get over yourself".
Pathetic as it may sound, sometimes I imagine I am a celeb trying to be incognito. It's even more fun to play this game overseas. I can tell this confession may come back to haunt me.
Speaking of celebs, I hear Brad and Angie are here with their whole UN kinder-armada. Supposedly they were seen chilling at the spielplatz in our nabe a few days ago. Those guys are real down to earth you know - jet-setting from palace to mansion to villa to premiere -it's so easy to relate to them. I hope they're buying carbon off-sets. Maybe we'll get together for an ex-pat playdate at their Schlosspalace. I'll be sure to post pics if we do.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
