Photograph: Denis Boulze, Léa
Berlin Berlin
I’m now in Rhode Island, somewhere in the woods, and I’m craving nothing more than the ability to leave the house by foot go to coffee shop, a subway stop, a newsstand––to see strangers, and smell shit, and descend into urban anonymity. Oddly enough, when I initially wanted to write this post, over a month ago, I was on the express train back from Berlin, seated in an air-conditioned car, sitting in front of my laptop and my opened Word document for 30 minutes, not doing anything really. Now again, as on that train back from Berlin, I am experiencing the same apathy, or indolence, or summer ennui induced by the strange liberties of the academic calendar. Perhaps my mood stems from a severe lack of caffeine, perhaps I am just sitting here, unsure whether I am on vacation from work or just momentarily amnesiac about the infinite to do list I have been ignoring for a long time.
I haven’t been home in over a month, and by home I mean my apartment in LA. My life hasn’t been the same since I left my tiny Los Feliz apartment in my car on April 4th to drive to Berkeley, and I knew it wouldn’t be. I’ve been traveling nonstop, and all I want is to be somewhere still and set down my roots, to finally nest. I miss my cat; I miss New York; I miss Berlin; I miss Berlin most days.
Last month, as I returned to Berlin, the city of my heart, everything felt very different to how I remembered it. I returned to spend more time with my friends, people who grew up with me, who I met in high school, or at Bright Eyes concerts, or later, at parties that would change my life. And I also returned to meet my foreign rights agent and my German publisher, to celebrate my novel. After walking out of the lunch at a very cute Vietnamese spot with my brilliant, glamorous agent, I passed the building that housed the retailer I used to work at a decade ago, when I was a college drop-out and lived there. The retailer is defunct; but the building, and the commute from there back to my apartment in Neukölln are so deeply embedded in my consciousness that I had to implement them in my novel. I started crying: I was dreaming of the life I’m living now when I was working there, when I had no money, when most days, I would eat Brötchen and Kinderriegel and was so grateful we had unlimited coffee at work. The city never let me go. It’s the best thing that’s happened to Germany, the best and worst thing that happened to my life, and I will never forget the days I spent here as a young person.
Berlin is a haunted city. It’s plagued by both world wars. You walk past a plaque every two minutes––something to remind you that history happened there. Your own personal histories intertwine with the architecture. Everywhere you go, the fog of ghostly matter at your feet: serpentine, and impenetrable—and I feel that most expats who write contemporary novels or poetry about this city just get it wrong. The last thing Berlin is doing is persecute white American women. But I can see why Berlin, and its impenetrable East-West-German essence, would be disadvantageous to their constitutions, and mostly confusing to foreigners, although its tension is also what is so enticing about it.
Anyway! Here are some Berlin and non-Berlin things I read recently, re-read recently, and am recommending:
Things to read:
- Tracy Fuad’s poem in The Paris Review
- Jenny Erpenbeck’s newly translated novel Kairos, out with New Directions
- Isabella Hammad’s new novel, ENTER GHOST
- Kathleen Alcott’s short story collection EMERGENCY, out with Norton on July 18th
And here are some events I’ve got lined up for July:
July 18th, LOS ANGELES – Stories Books & Café, 7 pm. Kathleen Alcott will be reading from her brilliant new short story collection EMERGENCY, and I will serve as a kind of interlocutor
July 26th, LOS ANGELES – I will be reading with a few others for something something, hosted by Annabel Graham