In the past two months I've trudged over sand dunes in northern Michigan, made my longest drive alone to visit Karen and her cozy gingerbread house in Ithaca, and visited my family more often than I have in a long while. My job at the bookshop stopped much sooner than I had anticipated, and for all of October I was left unemployed. As a result I have been implementing the spectacular budgeting (and cooking!) skills I cultivated in Berlin. I have done a minimal amount of shopping since returning, which is especially difficult given that they opened a new Whole Foods not too terribly far from my apartment. This week I finally caved in and purchased some warmer pants for my chilly fall runs and (as yet unrealized) trips to the gym.
After a few tough weeks of looking, I found an apartment right downtown. My roommate is generous, amusing, and predominately absent. We have both slept in the apartment at the same time only once. The apartment has wooden floors, a living room spilling over with Danish modern furniture, books of impeccable taste, a record player and plenty of LPs, and a working Rhodes electric piano. The privacy lends itself well to practicing my Beethoven, and it is only a block away from the food co-op and the bus that takes me up to campus. The only downside is an apparent infestation of house centipedes.
Although the reasons are becoming (immer mehr) unclear, I have been continuing my German course at the university. Nearly all of my friends have graduated and left town, leaving the folks at NPR as my primary sources of entertainment. I notice a similarity between being in Ann Arbor now and being abroad. When abroad, I do a lot of listening and not so much talking. That's due equally to not knowing anybody and having to deal with a foreign language. I am restricted to ordering food and telling someone I like their shoes. Now I might pass a whole day without saying anything of substance, and it's even more disconcerting in a city I've lived in for over four years.
That said, I haven't been going out too often. Four times to the Blind Pig, twice for Soul Night, once for Matt's band's cd-release party, and most recently for the Yeasayer concert. (I missed most of their set in Berlin, making it for the last two songs only, and bought tickets shortly after coming back.) I did go out this past Friday night for Halloween (I dressed as a mouse -- sort of). I have restarted my semi-obsessive film nights: The Spider, The Mistress and the Tangerine (a documentary about Louise Bourgeois) at the Detroit Film Theatre with Alison, Burn after Reading (which I found entertaining at best and strange that John Malkovich can be more attractive than Clooney and Pitt) at the Michigan Theater with Kebra, several German movies (Gegen die Wand, Auf der anderen Seite/The Edge of Heaven, Die Stille nach dem Schuß/The Legends of Rita, Sonnenallee, Goodbye Lenin), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (which I loved despite it being very painful), Down by Law (I had to round out my Jarmusch), The Shining (which provoked a number of embarassingly audible squeals), No Country for Old Men (excellent, but not nearly as good as There Will Be Blood), Be Kind Rewind (unfortunately boring), Le Gai savoir/The Joy of Learning (a dare I say "instructional" Godard), the very beginning of Alphaville (I fell asleep, film noir is not my thing), and The Other Boleyn Girl.
I recently finished Calvino's The Baron in the Trees, which was magical and sad and everything Calvino's work is and should be. Also picked up: In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (my god-send question-mark), The $12 Million Stuffed Shark by Don Thompson (who by explaining the economics of auction houses completely kills the personality of art), and A Short Life of Trouble: Forty Years in the New York Art World (the memoir of curator Marcia Tucker), and some of the house Rimbaud. Currently I am re-reading Amy Hempel's collected stories in preparation for her upcoming visit to the university.
And what have I not mentioned? My god, the Election! Two days! This is an exciting time for us Americans. I am looking forward to being a (small) part of this (pathetically huge) accomplishment. My absentee ballot has already been cast. And may I never speak to the soul who doesn't get out there this Tuesday and vote. (Let's hear it for Obama, the man who is willing to actually work to fix our country!) There are also two proposals on the Michigan ballot: the first wants to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes and the second wants to extend state laws on stem cell research to match those on the federal level. I personally recommend voting yes on both of these. If a desperate, but all-around healthy man can ruin his life with alcohol, then why shouldn't a terminally ill man be allowed to ease his suffering with an altogether natural and time-tested medicine?
What now? Last year I made Berlin my goal, my project, my pet and my love. When I decided to come back to the States, it was under the general assumption that I would be returning to Europe in the not-too-distant future. If things failed to work out with Matt, I would resume my German adventure where I left it. In the ideal situation, he would return with me as my partner in crime. In some ways, everything is going according to plan. But perhaps that is only because the plan was always very simple: return home, resume the relationship, decide on the next step. I feel it's about time to be giving serious thought to this Next Step. Moves, especially when they involve crossing large bodies of water or driving across the country in the middle of winter, aren't planned and executed overnight. I'm ready to start conquering this project -- but time (and money) is needed before much more can be done. One fantasy we've come up with so far includes WWOOFing (volunteering on organic farms) in France and Switzerland, and then moving on to settle semi-permanently in Berlin (my choice). A more realistic alternative involves moving out to Seattle, where Matt can find a farm and I can find a museum or publisher (or, gasp, Amazon) to take me under their wing. In short, we aren't sure. It depends largely on what employment I find in the meantime -- how much money I'll be able to save, what professional experience I accrue over the next four months.
Have I regretted leaving Berlin in the first place? Sure. The days when I am happy with the decision I made outnumber the others, although my regrets have been increasing over the past couple of weeks as my anxieties over having to make decisions about what I want escalate. I am eager to stay in touch with Berlin any way I can... and I miss very much the few good friends I made while I was there. I wish some of them weren't scattering elsewhere around the world, that I could just keep them leashed to a particular place so I would always know where they are.
Curious, I checked out one of the blogs listed to the right...about Gary Snyder's reading/music collaboration.
Ask me sometime about the poet.
Another story.
down by law, check.
dead man yet??
come over here! detroit is not so far! and then, at least, you can have some respite from NPR for a day or two . . .