Yesterday, for instance, it rained so hard my jeans, sweatshirt, and tote were soaked through by the time I rode my bike to Coffee Cult to meet with Laura for fica (tea and cake). I sat shivering, hands warmed by a glass of yogi chai. At home, I took a warm bath, made some more tea and oatmeal, and curled up under my comforter. Today was quite similar.
The temperature feels like mid-October in the Midwest or like Paris in early spring. I'm not the only one to feel the cool crispness, or to glance suspiciously at the brown fallen leaves as I trample them jogging alongside the canal. My playlists have also shifted toward autumnal sounds; this year the Buena Vista Social Club made it less than a day in my iPod.
I went to a café (San Remo, Falckensteinstr. 46) to eat brunch and to read (Paul Auster, "The New York Trilogy," page 79 or so). I ended up spending most of the time gazing out of the window, watching the rain, watching the bees, watching passerby. Sitting at my table, sheltered from the dreary and damp Saturday afternoon that was waiting for me outside, I was steeping my darling Darjeeling when I watched three musicians (wearing guitar cases on their backs and Rastafarian dreads on their heads) stroll by passing along a joint. I don't think Berlin will ever need to have a designated Hash Bash.
To eat, I ordered an omelet with onions and cheese. The taste of eggs and onions together sent me a year back, thinking of Rodrigo and the Spanish potato omelet he made me in his small Parisian apartment. And later, of our time in Madrid, which was also rainy and chilly, and of trying to explain to the pharmacist that I wasn't pregnant, that I had a bad cold and needed some paracetamol and a large box of tampons.
After having realized I was the last person in the café, I hopped on my bike and returned to the apartment. Mira's picnic was cancelled due to the rain, so I have spent this afternoon at my computer, once again huddled underneath my landlord's comforter and drinking herbal tea.
I have been thinking more about the conversation Laura and I had yesterday, about friendships. Both of us made friendships while abroad with people who we probably would not have been friends with had we been in a more comfortable, familiar situation. For better or worse, we had met people who were also feeling stranded and alienated from a lack of peers, and we befriended them despite large differences in personalities and interests. Sometimes it's easier to connect with these people on a much deeper, more intimate level, because we realize that superficial differences (such as what kind of music we like) truly don't matter. But sometimes it's purely out of panic that these two souls find solace in one another, large amounts of booze gets involved, and the friendship is built on a mutual desperation... not exactly the most stable or healthy foundation. But it's true, this experience does at least temporarily bind two people together very closely.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, it is possible to travel across the world and meet someone with whom I share many interests, with whom I feel intimately and spiritually connected, and yet with whom I can hardly speak a common language.
It's amazing we make friends at all, really.
I love that there are people (only a few, but that alone is plenty) I feel so in touch with that months or years can pass by, or continents can separate us, and our friendship never faults. And (hopefully) they feel the same way.
That's progress.
