The Sun Above Munich

I’m in a café at Odeon Platz in Munich and something’s happened that I didn’t want to happen. The guilt came first, then the happiness. I fell for this city. The light, the old weight of it, streets that don’t demand anything from you. The whole thing. And I knew the whole time I drove down here exactly why I was coming.

Berlin got into me. Three years and I became someone who needed the chaos, the constant remake, the sense that something real was still happening in a major city. The poor-sexy story, the hipsters, the idea that collapse and rebirth were around any corner. It changed me. But somewhere it stopped being alive and started being a job. The rebellion’s just a bit now. The hipsters have settled, grown apartments and day jobs. Everyone’s still performing but they’re waiting for the audience to leave so they can rest.

Munich doesn’t perform. It doesn’t try. The old buildings just sit there being what they are. The traditions exist and nobody’s thanking anyone for them. There’s no politics to it, no desperate need to prove something. Maybe I’m tired of politics. Maybe I’m just tired, and sitting in the sun changes how you think about things.

All the reasons to stay in Berlin are good ones. My people are there. My work is there. Everything I’ve built is rooted there. Leaving would mean tearing all that out, and I’m not sure I have it in me. But I know Berlin was something I needed to move through, not something I need to stay in forever. I’ve already decided that much. I just haven’t said it to anyone, and I don’t know when I will.