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For the past two months, I have been living in Berlin and it has completely changed my life. I don't write this lightly or impulsively as I have taken the past month to try to find the words to describe this shift in perception accurately.
My way of life today is a complete antithesis of how it was three months ago. I'm completely independent, in a completely different time zone, culture, and language environment. It is probably the most uncomfortable I have ever felt and yet I have never been more in love with living. Although that is and sounds beyond cliche there is no other way to fully encapsulate the feeling I have every morning when I wake up. Being here feels as if someone opened a door to an entirely different universe full of opportunity and space to grow.
I don't mean to be unrealistically optimistic because feeling overwhelmed and homesick is indubitably part of the experience but it feels as if those moments where I miss being comfortable make me experience independence on a more holistic level.
I remember one specific day in which I stared at my life almost from a third-person view unable to grasp its reality. I was sitting at a cafe where the walls were lined with books in all languages. The windows were large and arched accompanied by tables each set with a lit candle and a rose. Looking around, the eclecticness of the people I was surrounded with astonished me. I watched as the man in front of me read and annotated War and Peace by Tolstoy at the same time that the woman behind me cried silently and rolled her own cigarette contemplating something that seemed life-altering. In this moment, I felt part of something bigger than anything I'd ever experienced before.
I've had several of these moments in these past months. It happened as I stood front row watching Angela Davis speak on feminism and human rights, it happened when I watched one of my favorite ballerinas, Polina Semionova, dance 50 feet in front of me. It happens during intense class discussions, and when I walk through museums. It happened as I watched an alternative jazz band perform a 30-person concert underground in Paris. It's happened so much that my life has become a series of these moments where everything feels surreal.
The feeling is truly indescribable. It kind of reminds me of the feeling that I would get as a kid when I thought I had seen Santa in the sky or a mermaid in the ocean. It's like an enamored excitement for simply existing, a feeling that life is so much more than just weekly routines and comfortable familiarity.
I'm including this in Members of the Earth mainly for myself. I want to capture these moments and maintain them so I can come back and fall in love with this time in my life all over again.