Monday, February 26, 2007
If not, Winter
February is ripening on the vine. Big as a mini-van, vicious as a hippo, any day now it’s going to break from the branch and smash its grey juices down onto an unsuspecting March. I’ve taken to wearing flip-flops and summery color-schemes around the apartment, waiting for the trees to bud like a drunk teenager waiting for the next night bus. Somehow my month here in Berlin has had a lot in common with that of Jet Blue Airlines and that hick-up girl Jennifer Mee—except that I haven’t yet made it onto Meet the Press to dish on my own private February. And so I blog.
Two thirds of the way through this winter, my current apartment already has the dubiousness of an irregular third-person past-tense verb, like “fled” or “sought.” I look around it and think: who came up with this silly room, this etymological folly! How could any of my forebears stand to utter it, year after year? I’ve discovered that, though I love to keep a counter gleaming, to roast a parsnip well, to prepare a pot of tea, I lack the will to pursue these things for my own benefit alone. So there’s a Wohngemeinschaft (shared flat) down in Neukölln, with some fantastic people. The building is falling down, and the place looks like a barn, but it’s full of love and chatter and the smell of other people’s cooking. I want to be living there soon.
Anticipation in German is “Vorfreude”, which means something along the lines of pre-joy. I like this much better than ante-capere, which is much more like pre-take. Like Joan Didion teetering around a sidewalk sale in her oversized sunglasses, I’m in the market for some pre-joy, some future tense.
So, friends, please give me a good talking to the next time I romanticize “having my own place.” I'm thanking you in advance.
Two thirds of the way through this winter, my current apartment already has the dubiousness of an irregular third-person past-tense verb, like “fled” or “sought.” I look around it and think: who came up with this silly room, this etymological folly! How could any of my forebears stand to utter it, year after year? I’ve discovered that, though I love to keep a counter gleaming, to roast a parsnip well, to prepare a pot of tea, I lack the will to pursue these things for my own benefit alone. So there’s a Wohngemeinschaft (shared flat) down in Neukölln, with some fantastic people. The building is falling down, and the place looks like a barn, but it’s full of love and chatter and the smell of other people’s cooking. I want to be living there soon.
Anticipation in German is “Vorfreude”, which means something along the lines of pre-joy. I like this much better than ante-capere, which is much more like pre-take. Like Joan Didion teetering around a sidewalk sale in her oversized sunglasses, I’m in the market for some pre-joy, some future tense.
So, friends, please give me a good talking to the next time I romanticize “having my own place.” I'm thanking you in advance.
# posted by David @ 3:15 AM 
