Berlin (Germany)
One last time in Berlin. It can always be a last time, or one of many in between — you never know in advance. But for us, this is the last time we drive to the storage unit we rented four years ago, to keep all the things we couldn't or wouldn't part with. It turned out that everything we owned fit into a room of nine square meters. And even then, we had a narrow aisle we could walk down almost to the back wall.
This time the storage unit is almost empty. A few shelves and drawers we had to leave behind, plus one large and two small empty boxes. Then the umbrella stand my father built himself, with care and love, large and heavy — the gleaming stainless-steel form hidden beneath a milky, matte but very sturdy plastic cover. It brings to mind the VW Beetle I see at the Neue Nationalgalerie, wrapped, hidden, and packaged by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. But I only connect these two images a day later, when I stand right there, in that museum, in front of the artwork.
Here, in this room starved of light, these things stand and wait for their release. One trip and they're outside, loaded into the car. We sweep the floor, and as the door closes, I feel little more than I would leaving a supermarket. What we had to do is done — a duty, nothing more. That's what surprises me: I had assumed it would stir stronger feelings in me. Any feelings, but not this dull indifference. After all the years this room served as a shelter for what remained of our things, no wave stirs inside me anymore.
Everything else that will happen this weekend moves me more. The family visit. The trip to the Neue Nationalgalerie for the Brâncuși exhibition, and the intense fields of color in an oversized painting by Gerhard Richter that greets visitors the moment they enter the Richter exhibition in the same building's basement. Or the walks through Berlin on this warm, later scorching Saturday, with all the calm or chaotic impressions of this still-unlovely city. So much touches and moves me — just not the farewell to the room that held it all together.
It had long since lost its meaning, fulfilled its purpose. It was something necessary, nothing emotional. With the big move a few months ago, it became nothing more than a fixed point in time that would draw us in one last time. Whatever deeper meaning it once held has been swallowed by time. I'm not even sad about it.
Only a few days later, back in our new home, I finally feel something: relief. We are finally free of this place and this city, which I could never love, never even like. There it is, then — the feeling I had so wanted to feel as the red door closed for the very last time. Relief.
One last time in Berlin. It can always be a last time, or one of many in between — you never know in advance. But for us, this is the last time we drive to the storage unit we rented four years ago, to keep all the things we couldn't or wouldn't part with. It turned out that everything we owned fit into a room of nine square meters. And even then, we had a narrow aisle we could walk down almost to the back wall.
This time the storage unit is almost empty. A few shelves and drawers we had to leave behind, plus one large and two small empty boxes. Then the umbrella stand my father built himself, with care and love, large and heavy — the gleaming stainless-steel form hidden beneath a milky, matte but very sturdy plastic cover. It brings to mind the VW Beetle I see at the Neue Nationalgalerie, wrapped, hidden, and packaged by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. But I only connect these two images a day later, when I stand right there, in that museum, in front of the artwork.
Here, in this room starved of light, these things stand and wait for their release. One trip and they're outside, loaded into the car. We sweep the floor, and as the door closes, I feel little more than I would leaving a supermarket. What we had to do is done — a duty, nothing more. That's what surprises me: I had assumed it would stir stronger feelings in me. Any feelings, but not this dull indifference. After all the years this room served as a shelter for what remained of our things, no wave stirs inside me anymore.
Everything else that will happen this weekend moves me more. The family visit. The trip to the Neue Nationalgalerie for the Brâncuși exhibition, and the intense fields of color in an oversized painting by Gerhard Richter that greets visitors the moment they enter the Richter exhibition in the same building's basement. Or the walks through Berlin on this warm, later scorching Saturday, with all the calm or chaotic impressions of this still-unlovely city. So much touches and moves me — just not the farewell to the room that held it all together.
It had long since lost its meaning, fulfilled its purpose. It was something necessary, nothing emotional. With the big move a few months ago, it became nothing more than a fixed point in time that would draw us in one last time. Whatever deeper meaning it once held has been swallowed by time. I'm not even sad about it.
Only a few days later, back in our new home, I finally feel something: relief. We are finally free of this place and this city, which I could never love, never even like. There it is, then — the feeling I had so wanted to feel as the red door closed for the very last time. Relief.