I don’t understand what I’m looking at. This afternoon, again in Rosenthalerplatz, I decided to walk much of the way to Kreuzburg, with a ubahn diversion through Kottbus Tor, and walked much of the way along the canal, adrift in though, a day of conversation, and despite my newly arrived status, much time was spent in the netherworld of internet with friends distant from here.
So, along the canal, often wondering if I was in the right direction, passing by very photogenic buildings I imagine have been worn smooth by too many photographs, and perhaps wanting some anonymity despite their bulk and imperiousness. A brick-red block vault like an upturned lump of wood with copper-green chisel roof jabbing thuggishly at the heavens, the reclining body of the edifice lurking behind, its own roof split by droopy buddha eye window slits, something abject in their curvature and presence on an otherwise smooth array of architecture.
Then this. At first I thought it was abandoned this complete, then looking more, and at the detritus of rusting girders and intricate graffiti of engineering markings I decided it, whatever it was is coming apart, and through such formidable design is resisting until the very end. I thought, seeing the sepulchral block of stairwell, amputated in the void beneath the steel mechano and large enough alone to be an apartment block, it might have been a vast theatre or aditorium, but couldn’t imagine the shape, how a theatre would fill these remains.
…
This morning I went to my first class, ballet, on a Sunday, packed in the warmth with 30 or so dancers. A new teacher, always disconcerting to elucidate what is desired from what is displayed. Simple yet hard and I was soaked quickly, my legs and body having forgotten how to dance, how to ballet, after a month without and what feels like this year where training has been so sparse. And fast and exhausting, to move so quickly, and not for just a few counts but both sides twice or keep going till you reach the other side of the room. mmm I’ve missed feeling speed and my body becoming possessed.
More of the same this week, and things to see, maybe an apartment to live in later this year, and… Berlin.
Paea and Daniel in Freiburg, Gala in Adelaide, moving and new beginnings…
I’ve been walking around Berlin feeling that I don’t want to leave, that here somehow is what I need for the next some years. A permanent stop? No, I’ve never managed more that five years in a place but certainly for a time here is where I feel I should be.
