berlin is full of endings.
it is also full of beginnings.
with evey end, it promises me something new. and i am coming to welcome that. to enjoy my hellos and my goodbyes.
today i said goodbye to my class and to some girlfriends. i was surprised at how sad i felt. while i'm excited for my upcoming travels, i also feel very grounded here. stable and fairly calm and happy. camille and mari and i went out to lunch. we sat huddled under umbrellas outside in the torrential rain, which has arrived to flush me out of berlin. make it fluid. let me go. when lunch was over, it seemed too soon to say goodbye so we went for cake and coffee. we ate cheesecake and laughed and took pictures and looked at each other with the kind of eyes you have when you are certain that life is beautiful.
i hugged baby french camille of so few words and so little outward emotion. she is tall and thin with fiery red hair that cups her face and long hands that move deliberately and delicately. she is reserved and lovely and sophisticated and everything i am not. and i love her. as i walked away, i started to cry. it is one thing to know you're coming back to someone, but quite another not to know if you'll ever see them again. maybe a minute later, she sent me a text that said, i miss you already. and i was happy. she will always be in my heart.
i am happy for these goodbyes, for their difficulty, because it makes me realize i've made bonds here. i have roots in berlin now. and though they might only be just plunging below the surface, they are there. i am taking shape. i am laying pieces of myself into the world. i am finding my stability.
i walked home, full and warm in my sadness and i felt so alive, so electric. along the way, there was a thunder and lightning storm and i could tell berlin was feeling for me, that we were feeling each other.

soon after, my phone rang. i looked out the window. and there was thomas.
every time someone visits, i am surprised at how not strange it feels. like they just belong here. i kept saying, we're in berlin! like somehow that would help me internalize the largeness of it all, but despite it, it was still just my friend thomas and i in berlin. and maybe it is better that way. it makes the world seem more accessible. that love looks the same everywhere you take it.
we walked to hackesher markt and had dinner. it was raining and i, being perpetually underdressed, was lucky enough to be held by thomas under his jacket. we talked and talked and talked and when it felt too early to go home, we went for coffee and pastries and talked some more. we talked about families and love and relationships and the kind of things you talk about when you're first making friends with people. big things. life things.
and strangely, i felt like i was meeting him for the first time. this person i've known for six years was suddenly so new and full of possibilities. and i loved getting to know him. i also realized how much we've been through together, how long he's been a part of my life, how much i've grown in that time, how he encourages me, how he believes i am capable of all things good, how beautiful i feel when he is around. i feel lucky to have him here. i feel safe. we brushed our teeth side by side and i laughed harder than i have in a while, when he said his toothpaste tasted strange and realized he was using face cream. i have just tucked him in-- tight and cozy into the stiff white sheets. it is friday and it is still early and tomorrow is also full of possibilities. we will stay the day and then leave sunday for prague. i am nervous about leaving. i am also ecstatic.

last night i had one of those moments, walking toward the sunset at the end of a hot summer day, listening to my music, and i just felt incredible. i felt how enormous everything is, how wonderfully different and the same it is everywhere, and how glad i am to be here-- in berlin, in the world, on that street, with myself. i wore a silk green dress and could feel my body being strong. i couldn't look at anything but the sun, the distance, the way ahead of me, the places to go. my eyes felt like they were glazed in syrup. dewy and sweet and shiny. i am usually fairly invisible in berlin, but this time i could feel people watching me. maybe they knew i was seeing something special.. and coldplay, who reminds me of my first days of college, and so many changes and so much hope and fear and possibility, sang into my ears,
we live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do. we live in a beautiful world...
and out loud, i said
yes.