Marcel Winatschek

Exactly Like This

I wanted my new apartment—didn’t matter which Berlin neighborhood, Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg or wherever—to feel exactly like this. Like home the moment I walked in.

Even though I board the U-Bahn at different times and always end up in a different car, I see the same people. The tall woman with the light blue jacket reminds me of the giant from Big Fish. A businessman learning vocabulary cards. This girl with an iPod using the dark windows to finish her makeup. I sit down with my headphones and it clicks—this is it. This is home already, without any effort.

It’s been a long time since I ran across my neighborhood for someone. Just a girl, nothing dramatic. But I sprinted the whole way to the Esso station, past Wilmersdorf Arcades, past the kids trying to look hard, past the Turkish woman who looked genuinely concerned I was about to use her doorway as a launching pad. I got there breathing hard and kissed her. It felt good. And I realized I should do that more often—run without calculating it first, move like something actually matters, even if it’s just the most trivial thing.