Why I Really Go
Blond talks about turning Berlin into a village, which is a weird way to describe a city of nearly four million. Twenty-two years in Pankow, she’s lived the slow version of Berlin, and now that she’s moved to Friedrichshain and actually exploring the Mitte, everything feels new. She’s got opinions about people who let music channels think for them—no sympathy there. You have to actually know what you like.
There’s something true in how she describes herself: talkative but antisocial, someone who prefers staying home even though it contradicts everything people assume about her. During her hermit phases she doesn’t answer calls, postpones everything. But then the moment she says she never goes out, a party phase starts like clockwork. Everything flips.
She tries to look melancholic in public and fails immediately—people just talk to her. She’s been in Berlin long enough to know that whatever you claim about yourself will probably reverse, and there’s something almost comforting in that. No use fighting it. In a city that constantly contradicts you, where your stated self keeps turning into its opposite, she found a soulmate. Someone who gets the instability and doesn’t flinch.
That’s Berlin, I think.