Auslanderbehörde, Attempt Number 1

Upholstery on the S-Bahn

Thursday morning, 8:30 am.  It's cold outside and I've forgotten my gloves.  I'm in line at the Auslanderbehörde, the immigration office in Berlin (Friedrich-Krause-Ufer 24.) It's an ugly building in a rather industrial area.  Not exactly what you think about when you consider dreamy, artsy, progressive Berlin.  The building doesn't open until 10 am, but already there are about 20 people in front of me.  I have with me all of my materials, passport, letters of intent to hire, bank statement, college transcripts stating my areas of expertise, CV, everything except an official letter saying that I will be insured by a health insurance company once I have a tax I.D. number.  Robert, my hero of the day (he's my hero many days, actually) has gone to the Lidl a few blocks away to get pastry and coffee for the both of us.  My fingers are so cold they ache, and I wait for the hot paper cup that he will bring back with great anticipation.  Robert has come to translate for me.  It is a relief to have a native German speaker with me, and the company is nice as well. 
Finally the building opens and some people shove past me, getting through the door first.  I don't care.  I have promised myself that I will not stress or rush today.  I have been under a lot of stress lately.  It has been manifesting in my body in different forms, knots in my stomach, a clenching of the jaw and stiffening of the neck.  I take deep breaths, try to let go of the anxiety of alienness, of not understanding the language around me, of trying to grasp a culture that is not my own.  On the second floor I show my passport, take a number and Robert and I sit in hard plastic chairs in room 212, waiting.  I know I will not get my Visa today because I don't have the insurance, but I'm not sure how to get it and they will at least tell me what I have to do.  In line, I met an American ukelele player who has lived in Berlin for the past few years.  She is renewing her Visa today.  She has given me the name of an insurance agent who will sell me private insurance without a german tax ID number.  I can pay through my American bank account with USD.  I'll buy this insurance later from a British man named John Gunn, who is based in Hamburg.  As far as I know, he is the only person selling the private German health insurance that the Auslanderbehörde accepts.  According to immigration law, I have to buy three month's worth of insurance at a time.  It is extremely expensive, this stuff, but I am in a race against the clock and there is nothing else available to me.
After about 45 minutes, my number is called.  Robert and I go into a little room and speak with a joyless woman behind a window. She tells me that I have everything except the insurance and she can either give me an extension on my tourist visa for 3 months until my appointment, or I can come back on Monday or Tuesday with the insurance.  I opt for Monday or Tuesday. 
Robert and get on the train back to my place in Lichtenberg, where I currently have a small, curtained corner of the living room to claim as my own space.  I sit on the fluffy red comforter on my twin mattress and Robert lays his head in my lap whil I read him a short story by James Herriot. 
I feel positively drained.  I know everything will work out.  I am a strong and persistent person, and going back to the States in a permanent way is not a viable option for me.  The parts of the US I might like to live in are not set up for someone who doesn't drive, and I've no interest in living in New York. 
Tomorrow the Visa saga continues.  I'll take my letter from John Gunn saying I am insured to the Public Insurance Agency, who will then sign my official form that says they will insure me after me 3 months of private insurance is up and on Tuesday I will go to the Auslanderbehörde just before 7 am when the doors open and maybe, just maybe, they will give me my Self-Employment Visa then and there and I can start looking for some work.
Deep breaths.
It will all be okay.
Deep breaths.

Boddinstrasse Pinwheel, Neukölln

TV Tower at Night

Alexanderplatz

Alexanderplatz

Partings, Kefir, The Cold

I have developed a taste for Kefir, a yogurt drink my grandfather used to drink.  I remember being young, going to the stuffy apartment in Los Angeles, the shelves laid heavy with tchatskies and candy, and drinking strawberry kefir from a small, round glass. 
Now, I sit in the spacious kitchen on Spittastraße at the round table and drink unsweetened Kefir from a plastic container, it's foil lid crumpled and peeled back.  I look around the space, appreciating the vibrance of this, my temporary home, the high kitchen counters, the orchid in bloom on the window sill, the small, random stuffed animals and figurines placed on shelves without reason or ceremony.  There is ET, a clown fish, and a blue troll/monster that I have named Aristotle.  He's got all the answers.
The air has a bite to it today and while I am tempted to build a fire, I think it would be a waste.  I'll only be home for a few more hours and then it's off to childcare.  I'm doing 4 overnights with a two-year old.  I've never done overnight childcare before.  While I'm nervous about this, I think it might actually be pretty fun.  Also, it is relieving quite a bit of my financial stress.
Also, it will be a nice distraction from my rapidly changing world.  Eve and I had our last show on Sunday at Silver Future, a small queer cafe which is one of my favorite spots in Berlin.  We were well received and after sat for quite awhile with Daniel, Asia, Sharon, Robert and Eve's friend Jakob.  The mood was festive and close.  I felt belonging.  I felt like home.
Last night Eve left for Prague and onward.  She will be flying out of Barcelona back to Canada on December 19th (my birthday.)  So concludes this chapter of my life as a clown.  I try to remember that we are all on our own paths, that everything is temporary.  I think of my favorite Robert Frost poem"

Nothing Gold Can Stay (1923)

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay. 

 

It's true.  I accept this.  But this knowledge doesn't make the parting easier.  I feel that with Eve's leaving, I lose a part of myself.  Maybe I lose this one part to make room for another.  Now, instead of focus on clown and performance, I focus on language and immigration.  I start my language class on November 21st and I will be making my first attempt at obtaining my Visa in the beginning of Dezember.  Still, it is hard to say goodbye to HE: A Genderstranged Clown Duo.

 

Another difficult parting is that of Sharon, who is going back to Israel at the end of November.  He does not know if he will return to Berlin.  This really tears my heart in half, but everyone has to take care of themselves, and he is doing what he needs to do.  I cannot imagine Berlin without Sharon.  He was my first friend here.  He is my brother.  I feel an understanding, a connection with him I don't feel with most people.  And I'll miss his dog Zigi also.

 

Everyone does things for their own reasons.  We are all free agents.  We are all temporary.  The leaves on the Sycamores on Türrschmidtstraße turn gold and fall, floating softly to the ground.  Gravity is gentle with them, forms them into large, soft piles that one can jump into, kick into a flurry.  Soon it will be winter.  Snow and ice will cover the ground, the barren trees standing sentinels watching over the world.  

I fasten myself to myself, dry my tears, take deep breaths. Wait.

There is No Masengil in Deutschland

T, J and I sit around the kitchen table Monday morning.  When I entered the kitchen an hour ago, I was offered kaffee und früstuck.  I sat and listened to their conversation in Deutsch.  I could make out that they discussed, Nazis, politics, history, cultural observations.  It is not at all uncomfortable for me, these situations of not understanding everything that is being said.  I trust and feel accepted by the people I am around, and it is good for me to be able to pick out words that I recognize and try to piece sentences and ideas out of the few verbs, nouns and adjectives that are familiar to me.  Eventually J turns to me and asks, "Do you understand what we are talking about?"
"Sort of."
They speak in English a bit and I join the conversation.  Somehow, we begin talking about insults.  "Douchebag is the best one in English." I say.
"What is this?  J asks.  I explain what a douche is.  T translates a little into German.  (These are my favorite types of translation scenes, the ones that are always about something slightly taboo.  The German culture, I feel, is not so prudish, so there is rarely shock value involved.)
"It is a medical device?"  J asks me.
"Nein, it is for 'freshness,' so your vagina smells like a field of daisies."
Slightly bewildered, she turns to T, reiterating what I have said , but in German.
"Ja," T confirms that she has heard right.  "I hear this on 'The Sopranos' a lot.  I can never figure out what they mean.  I always thought it was a type of bag you put water in to pour over yourself."
I laugh.  The German word for shower is Dusch, so I understand the error.  I imagine a German tourist driving through America, hearing the term "Douchebag," and wondering why we all talk about portable showers in such a negative way.

I start my German classes in a little less than a month.

I am excited to sink my teeth into the language in a booklearning way.

The other night, in a desperate attempt to make Deutsch sprachen more a part of mein Leben, I watched 'Bad Teacher' dubbed in German.  I didn't understand most of the dialogue, but the plot was not so hard to figure out.
It is a blessing and a curse that the people I know speak such marvelous English.  A blessing because we can speak about abstract and important things.  I have the opportunity to develop deep understanding with people.  There is an opportunity to make close friends.  It is a curse because I have been here a month and a half and still have great difficulty speaking Deutsch.  But I will start school.  I will learn enough of the basics to be able to learn more.  I have stopped caring about grammatik, speaking correctly.  If someone can understand what I am saying, this is enough.

And with moving to my new environment, I have place myself around people who want to speak more German with me because the y want to speak with me!  I am at a truly blessed place in my life.  How long will it last?  I don't know, but it seems with my move to Kreuzburg, I have had an explosion of positivity in my life.  Tobi and I have long conversations about the mind, culture, media, ourselves, love, relationships, everything at the round kitchen table in the day or night with more and more frequency.  I have developed a strong connection with a man named R also.  We sit up until 6 in the morning talking about ourselves, our pasts, sharing music and youtube videos.  R, like J, has been a perpetual student of Psychology in a Masters' program in Berlin for the past decade but has become disenchanted with the program.  The mind on this guy is pretty fantastic as is his ability to communicate emotion and show vulnerability.  We discuss the psyche in abstract and also how it pertains to ourselves.  He opens himself to me, possibly afraid but doing it anyway.  for this he has gained my utmost respect.

I also have landed a job as a babysitter/nanny for a 2 and a half year old child.  The mother is single, American and a sculptor.  I will be doing four overnights next week because C (the mother) has to go to Belguim to work on a large scale iron sculpture she is designing.  I am nervous but excited for this.  It is good to work.  It makes me know I live here.  I am not just passing through.  I am also doing some figure modeling for a drawing class tomorrow and sometimes walking a very bad dog in Wedding, which is too far away from my liking.  I will let the dog walking go soon, but not yet.

I have stopped fretting about immigration for a moment, but need to start focusing on this again soon.  I cannot go to the Auslanderbehörde until early December, close to the time my Schengnen visa expires.  Until then, I will focus on getting everything in order.  I am getting quite a bit of help from friends and family here and in the States, and for this I am so grateful!

Don't get me wrong.  Life is not easy in Berlin.  I am terrified a lot.  It is not an easy, luxurious dreamland here, but I do not feel as hopeless as I did in San Francisco, and I appreciate that the communication between people here is more direct and to the point.  No one here is perfect.  The culture here is not perfect, but for me, right now, it really works, and I don't question it too much.

The Tower, Housing, Stumbling Through A Language

The Tower is a very trying Tarot card to receive in a spread.  It is about the world crumbling around you, everything falling apart so something new can occur.  Sometimes this card is necessary, but it is never an easy thing to pull.  While I have not drawn the tower in quite some time, there have been moments where I have really felt like this is what has been happening to me. 
*Something is wrong with my Paypal account. 
*It is getting very cold.
*I have no work permit and need a job.
*Immigration and all the papers I must get together and all the money I need to manifest completely overwhelm me.
*I need to find a place to live by November 1st.
*I don't speak the language here and it is hard to learn because all my friends speak good English.

It's a lot.  But deep breaths.  Things are beginning to look up.
When it rains it pours and now instead of having no options for housing, I may have two.  Jana Korb, who I met through my first gig here at ZirCouplet is flatmates with Tobias Stiefel, who is the MC of the varieté show.  Jana is going to be traveling for over a month in November and then Tobias will be travelling in December and January.  So they have space for me to rent in their giant home in Kruezberg.  I said yes to this.  It is at the top of my manageable price range (250€/month.) I have the rent for November and I have over a month to find a job.  With my tenacity, I can manage this.  Then, two days ago, I get a text from a WG (Wohngehmeinschaft: shared space, generally somewhat communal) that they would like to meet me.  They have 2 large dogs and are across the street.  It's a little cheaper (220€/month), there is a shared vegetarian food budget of 20€ per week, and 9 other women live there.  The flat is the 2nd or 3rd floor of a converter warehouse and has a community space that is a bar once a month on Thursdays and I could possibly have rehearsals/teach workshops there if I went to a few meetings.  I would not be allowed to cook meat in the house, but that is really the only rule.  Meat is expensive anyway.  This doesn't bother me at all.  Honestly, this WG is my Berlin fantasy.  I hope I get it.  Otherwise, I am very excited to live for a month with Tobias and then a few months with Jana.  It is a hard choice to make, actually.  I don't know what I want more.  The house in Kruezberg is warm with a woodburning stove.  Hmm. 
Maybe I will not get the room in the WG and it will be decided for me.
I have been beginning to get my things together for my trip to the Auslanderbehörde (alien's authority.)  Most daunting right now is health insurance, mostly because I can't read German well enough to navigate the websites.  Also, the fact that I have to bring a translator with me to the Auslandbehörde.  Also, everything.  But I really shouldn't go until the end of November anyway, as my Visa is not up until December 12th.  My German class is from November 21st to December 16th, so I'll have to get a little bit of an extension, anyway.
And I discovered something.  If you don't immediately get your Visa, they don't just tell you to go back to your home country.  Nope!  They give you an appointment to come back with the stuff you were missing or need to amend and an extension on your Visa until that appointment.  So I figure as long as I can keep myself housed and fed, this is what I will do.  Even when I come back to the States for a few months to teach summer camp in June, I can still be working with the German Embassy there to get me my year long Visa.  Or maybe the first time I go will be I will luck out with someone nice and I will get it the first time.  The point is, if I make the effort, I will be able to stay here legally. 
It's not just me that can do this!  I am not magic. I am just driven!  If you don't like a situation you are in, leave!  Find something better!  Take a risk at failure! 
Go somewhere where you don't speak the language!  Stumble and fall!  Be afraid and sit with the fear!  Challenge yourself!  You can get back up!  You can!
And speaking of language, it is really hard to practice your German when you can hardly ask "Vas ist dein Name?" and "Woher kommst du?" when the person you are talking to speaks English well enough to have deep philosophical conversations with you about how the mind works, what makes us attracted to certain people, and how fear can control us if we aren't careful.  You begin to feel like you will never be able to be so fluent and why not just speak English.  This is not a good feeling when you sit alone with it or you realize that you don't know how to ask someone if they need help.
Last night on my way home from watching this month's Zir Couplet show, I sat on the train across form a Turkish man who obviously wanted to talk to me.  We made eye contact.  "Ist Kalt!"  He exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. 
"Ja!" I agree.  "Ist Kalt."
He says something else and I am confused.  "Es tut mir leid," the words feel blocky coming out of my mouth.  "Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut.  Langsamer, bitte."  He says it again.  I understand a tiny bit.  "Ah, America!  San Francisco, California."
He asks how long I have been here.  Slowly.  I can't really understand every word, but I know what we are talking about.
"Ein monat.  Ich Versuchen,"  I stumble.  Did I say the word right?  Versuchen- I try.  I think I conjugated it wrong, though!  I feel my face get hot.  But the man is so patient.  He smiles at me.  I try again.  "Ich versuchen bleiban."  He nods.  I say, "Ich versuchen bleiban.  Visa. . ."  I trail off. 
"Visa problems."  He says.
"Ja."
The train stops.  "Viel Glück." He says as he departs.
I feel like an idiot because I am so ridiculously proud of myself.  I just need to start trying more.  I wonder what kind of reward I could give myself for going out into the world and speaking no Englisch for a few hours?  I wonder if I would cry?  We'll see!

Vending Machine at Ostbanhof: Candy, Red Bull, 

 

Condoms, Pregnancy Test