Ikea!

S Friedenau

I have a home in Berlin.  Finally.  And after almost 6 months, I have my own bed, too.  Something I really never thought about (because I've had the same blankets and pillows since college) was having to buy bedding.  Sure, I would buy a new sheet every once in a while when one of mine got too stained with the monthly or too threadbare and full of holes, but I never really thought I'd be without blankets and pillows.
Well, when you think you are just going away for a few months and then you end up moving to another country, you end up with needs such as these. 
I recently had a small sun of cash from an experimental film I did.  (UDK Student's thesis work.)  So I decided to go to Ikea and get myself some bedding.  Dear readers, I pride myself on being anti-consumerist, on finding things on the street and in the trash, on buying used instead of new, on living with less rather than more.  But when I got off the train at Sudkreuz yesterday to go to Ikea, I am ashamed to admit that as I walked the short distance from the station to the store entrance, my pulse quickened.  I developed an extra spring in my step.  An involuntary, dopey grin arrived on my face and wouldn't leave.  I started to sing little snippets of songs.  The excitement I felt upon entering the home-making superstore was damn near erotic.  I had only one thing on my mind: Swedish meatballs.
As I made a beeline for the cafe, I began to think about my mother, the biggest Ikea lover of them all.  She's coming to visit me in Berlin in April, and I am making lists of inexpensive and fun things for us to do.  Through my mind flashed, "Ikea cafe and looking at all the pretty Ikea arrangements."
THIS IS A HORRIBLE IDEA!  ONE DOES NOT FLY ACROSS THE OCEAN TO GO TO IKEA!
Forgive me mother.  It was just my delirious excitement at my mass-produced, Swedish-style meal on a tray.
After eating one of those shrimp-and-egg open-face sandwiches and drinking a cup of coffee, I ventured into the children's section, where I gazed longingly at the stuffed animals, the creative and colorful lighting, the heart-shaped mirrors.  I grabbed a pack of acrylic paint and a stuffed red-heart with arms, then remembered I was on a budget and put them back.
In the closet/storage section, I fell into a deep trance with the collapsible boxes.  When I came to, I had a set of hanging cubbies (SKUBB: Black) and a hanging wardrobe (SKUBB: white) under my arm.  Since my closet situation was basicly a suitcase full of stuff on the floor of a wardrobe, I decided to keep both of these things.  I'd take the doors off the wardrobe when I got home and have an exposed closet, making my tiny (less that 10 sq. m) room seem bigger. 

My bed.  Mine.  I own it!  Exciting stuff, this having a home.

I did not allow myself to go to the kitchen section but instead went straight to the marketplace where, using more self-control then an addict in a pharmacy, I bypassed the many colorful and oddly shaped containers for things like laundry, the shower, etc, and went directly to the bedding.  I bought a comforter, two fitted sheets (one red, one black), a duvet and pillowcase set (Blue polka dots), two pillows (80cm x 80 cm, standard European size) one more soft and expensive for sleeping and one a little lower quality for leaning against, a set of 80cm x 80 cm pillowcases (red) and a set of 40cm x 80cm pillowcases (black) because I have not changed my pillowcase for the pillow I brough from the States (40cm x 80cm) since September.  Possibly disgusting but hey, we don't have dryers on this side of the pond, so if you want to do your laundry, you must wait until at least the next day to wear your freshly cleaned clothes again.
I spent 140€ which was almost within the budget I gave myself for spending and definitely within the "if you want to eat next week you can't spend more than this" number.  And it feels wonderful to have my own bed, to not sleep in my sleeping bag or use someone else's stuff.  I am no longer travelling and wandering.  I live here.  In Berlin.  I have a home.
Yes.

Clown Workshop today and the Ponderance of "Home"

I really want to write a post about my new neighborhood, Kruezberg, but I think I'll wait to take some more photos so I can actually show you what it looks like as well as tell you about the vibrant colors of the murals and graffiti.  It definitely rivals San Francisco's Mission District in terms of 2-D street art.
My new living arrangement has it's high points and low points.  I think I'm still adjusting.  It's true, I have my own room and bathroom on a separate floor from the family whose children I'm caring for, but it seems that when I was told that the living room was not used much, what the parents really meant was that THEY don't use the living room so often.  There was a family from Hamburg with three or four kids staying in it for 2 nights.  This I am completely fine with, but I wish someone had told me in advance.  It was a complete surprise.  I think I will ask the mother to please keep me informed of guests in the living room for my mental health and such.  My "kitchen" (an electric kettle, fridge, sink, microwave and two burner portable electric stove) is in the living room, and well, it's disconcerting to feel like you can't make yourself i cup of tea without being "on," especially when you have planned  quiet, reclusive evening of noodles, tea and Kurt Vonnegut for yourself and then an army of sugared-up (yet adorable) kids arrive.
Still, I can't complain much.  I am, after all, living rent free.
The upside to this gentle invasion was that the visitors offered to take Younis to Kita on Friday morning, so I got to go to Roberts dinner party, where I met some great people. They spoke English with me but mostly German with each other, little of which I understood.  My progress with the language is slow but noticeable, though in a party environment with people talking fast and several conversations going on at once, I don't stand a chance.

My trip across the Atlantic, my decision to stay in a country where I struggle with language, it has made me think about the concept of home a lot.  What the hell is home?  I had one in San Francisco, a place where I felt safe and protected, almost up to the point when I left.  Then I made the mistake of letting someone I was dating move in with me and my feeling safety vanished.  I got a little back in the end, when he moved out (finally) 3 weeks before I left the continent.  Living at Bridge's plae on Hermannstraße, I couldn't relax.  I felt extreme comfort at Tobi and Jana's place in Lichtenberg, a type of acceptance and a willingness to let me be myself that I strive for in a living situation, but I knew from the beginning that it was a temporary situation, living in other people's rooms, surrounded by other people's things.
Now I have my own space but there are unspoken rules that I must abide by.  I hang out at Robert's house a lot get along with his roommates.  I'm comfortable here.  Is where I live home?  Is Robert's flat home?  Do I still have a home in California?  My stuff and some of my friends are there.  Hmm, things to think about.
I am searching for a home that is mine, a WG (community living space) in March or April.  A place with only adults, where I can make eggs and coffee in my underwear if I want to, where I can feel completely comfortable having friends over.  We will see.

In other news, I am co-teaching a clowning and dance workshop today at the Shake! Zirkus from 2 to 5.  Getting paid to do what I do well!  Oh, yes!

And it's official

Der Friedhof, Hermanstraße

The Dezember blues are here.  I thought I could leave them in America, but no, they have followed me, sleeping monsters in my luggage on the plane, they've finally woken up, these blues.  Now they sit heavy on my chest. 
Really, there is no good reason for these Blues to be here.  I have obtained my 1-year Visa.  In January, I will exchange my stellar version of childcare for a rent-free flat.  I have a beautiful, intelligent, supportive partner.  I have been making friends and connections.  I will co-teach a 2.5 hour clowning and movement workshop with Daniel Alon Rahmano sometime in January, and I am beginning to work on a curriculum for teaching English as a Foreign Language.  No good reason to be depressed.
And yet...
I am beginning to miss having a home and wondering if and when I will again have a place to call my own, a dresser in which to put my clothes, a wall on which to hang a poster.  Right now, I have a small section of living room cordoned off.  It's rather cozy, but I have been in the common space for almost 3 weeks, and it is beginning to make me feel a little displaced.  This has nothing to do with the folks I am living with, two fabulous artists.  I really love being around the both of them.  One is a mischevious trickster, the other witty and sharp as a tack, with a hint of mama-like nurturer underneath. 
I hope that before I return to the states for a few months, I find a place to call home here that is mine, where I can leave a few things and have somewhere to return to.  But I try to take things one month at a time.  Breathe.  One step, then the next.

I have been walking lately.  My favorite stroll is along the Canal between Neukölln and Kreuzberg.  I walk along Maybuchufer until I come to a small bridge.  It takes me to Paul-Lincke-Ufer.  I stop and look at the swans, huge, white beasts, graceful and vicious, asking for crumbs.  I always choose the path away from the street, through a small park with a playground.  At the edge of the park is a village of caravans.  They captivate me, old gypsy wagons and train cars converted into living quarters.  I dream of living in one of these, building it up from nothing.  A woodburning stove to keep me warm, solar-powered lights or possible piped-in electricity.  I could learn how to do the electrical myself or find someone to help.  Doing laundry by hand does not seem like such a burden in exchange for one's own caravan dream home.  But who knows, by the time I am ready to buy one, maybe I will be able to figure a water hookup for a waschmaschine as well.  Oh, dreams of home, dreams of home, not a physical place, but an idea in my mind...  and now, photo-time.

Train Cars, Nölderplatz

Neukölln

Along the canal, Neukölln

Caravan Village, Neukölln

Winter

Der Spielplatz.  Playgrounds here are not rubberized like the are in America

Tons of Drunk Santas were on the train at Alexanderplatz last night

Rotating Nativity Tower at Alexanderplatz.  Bizarre!