Category: Story
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The Accidental Fulfillment of a Lifelong Dream, and other small miracles
My bedroom windows face the street, my favorite way for my bedroom windows to face. On the lower half of the windows is translucent, prismatic contact paper, which I dislike because it keeps me from staring down at the goings-on below me, but which I appreciate because it distorts the bright lights that would otherwise… Read more
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im Gleichgewicht
Merry Fourth Day of Christmas, vom der staat Nordrhein-Westfalen im Deutschland! I am sitting on the sofa at Inge and Karl Heinz’s house, watching the unhurried turning of the huge windmill’s unbelievable sails as the setting sun sets jet trails a blazing orange above the deep blue silhouettes of the mittelgebirge, themselves hunching shadows behind… Read more
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Samedi Soir a Paris
Despite its cozy appearance (and ‘cozy’ may be an understatement), this little French pub is freezing. Paris is the worst kind of cold tonight: windy, hovering just above freezing, and throwing biting little raindrops every which way. But this tiny corner bar is staffed by a young woman wearing cat-eyed liquid liner and a hoodie.… Read more
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A Week in the Haus
A classmate was out of the country at a conference last week, so I sent them daily updates about what we did in class. I thought you might enjoy this insider view the first week of the Poetic Embodiment module. MONDAY Today Instructor M brought in a bunch of different objects for us to play… Read more
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Saturday Night Womb
It’s my first Saturday evening in Berlin out from under the cloud of jet lag. I’ve found a gorgeous little spot called Rhinoceros, a small, dark, candle-lit cocktail bar spinning jazz on vinyl. It’s one of a handful of English-forward places I’ve found—anywhere that calls itself a cocktail bar is liable to be, I think—and… Read more
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A Failure to Communicate
The irony is not lost on me, going from my job as “The Communicator” to a place where I, mostly, cannot communicate. I’ve been here a week and a day. In the last weeks before my departure, I spent my churning anxiety steeling myself against the gnawing loneliness of these ten days, between landing and… Read more
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Where I Am and How I Got Here
Guten Morgen! I am here! In Berlin! In . . . a flat. My huge windows are flung wide, and the church bells are ringing again, clamoring around the courtyard my flat faces. Between the peals, I can hear other Sunday morning sounds—a man unlocking his bike, a gabbling child, an unseen neighbor puttering around… Read more