“When the weather gets better…” is a phrase I hear a lot in Berlin. Sometimes I wonder if it’s related to that phrase “right person, wrong time” or “one for the road.” My friend Jess wrote a poem once that ended, “going and going from nowhere to where/ it’s not time yet,/ and if it’s time, I am not right yet.” I’ve been thinking a lot about time and being/not being “ready.” For example, all these “beach” plots along the Spree that remind me of last July and Paris Plage, and how the weather was similarly mild and the beach chairs seemed similarly out of time. A very young cousin of mine died recently, a childhood friend only a year older than me. She was found dead on the floor of her home from yet unknown causes. I suppose it shouldn’t be such a shock to me since all my life my family members have died too young— a result of being from a reservation. But being young, we presume to have the luxury to wait until the weather gets better. I never want to live like that.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about the Berlin wall, and city apartments, and the fear of feeling.On one side of the wall there are these sometimes very spare, sometimes intricate, sometimes deep and/or cheesy, always deliberate murals every few yards. Very artistic. On the other side are these haphazard, “ugly”, toyish tags on every square centimeter of concrete. Although not inherently a composition, I prefer the ugly side. Not because it’s punk or whatever, but there’s heart, travelogue details—dates and countries people are from, similarly cheesy but really impulsive, and even sometimes endearing and/or scary little messages. It’s not beautiful by any means, but it seems both momentary and enduring.