The Venus Pool, or the Venusbassin in German, is one of the lovelier places that I have been to in Berlin, in fact the Tiergarten as a whole was wonderful from what little of it I saw. Because the Tiergarten used to be the Kings royal hunting grounds, I could easily see this place at one time hundreds of years ago being a secluded place of luxury where royalty would lounge in escape from all the affairs of their modern world. Hidden amongst the trees, the pool somehow still maintains a little bit of its seclusion factor, even after the massive renovations put into it to make it a public park.

The warm sunlight on this wonderful day makes everything feel so alive, from the grass and the leaves, even to the benches and the dirt. Because it is so nice out, I am not going to be able to find a place around this pool to sit by myself completely alone. There was another girl who appeared to be doing the same project I was, for she had found a nice spot along the pool to sit and meditate in the sun. I wanted to join her, but she looked comfortable so I decided to leave her in peace.

A lush green envelopes the pool, bushes and trees probably used to cover this whole area around the pool, now there are pathways entertaining from one monument to the next. Not 100 feet away is a statue of a woman riding a horse. I couldn’t decipher the name of this work, but I believe it had something to do with Amazon and horses. The horse was in fact facing the pool, should it have suddenly sprung to life, it surely would have journey moped in the pool as the nearest source for water for a refreshing bath. Horses were surely never let into this Royal pool though, and thus the horse would have met its demise through doing so. Should a horse do the same today, it would meet its demise in another way. The water in the pool looks not like something one would swim in, but rather like a science experiment. Surely with all the algae and bacteria present, one sip could be enough to cause a stomach ache like no other.

When I first researched this specific spot in the Tiergarter through google maps, it was labeled as Goldfish teich, Goldfish pond. From the side I arrived at first, the sun was at my back and the glare kept most of what was beneath the surface invisible. So from there I felt disappointed with the lack of fish, I even got up right next to the water in order for a better look, but I had no luck. So instead I wrapped around the pool taking in all the small details surrounding it. Nearby there was a woman who was spending her holiday working in the small garden nearby, good for her. On a map, this is labeled the Steppengarten. Farther down, at one end of thepool, seemingly the head of its shape, is a large concrete monument with gold on top. In this statue are carved the figures of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn, and thus this serves as a decimal, or memorial to them. Apparently the original sculpture was badly damaged during World War 2, and finished remodeling in 2007, so it, as well as many post unification constructions, is rather new.

Moving passed the sculpture, the sun was now above and in fronted me, and from here, the view of the water revealed what I had originally been searching for. Fish, hundreds of them. They appeared to be feeding on the moss the was growing in the surface of the water, for some reason this made me hungry and consider eating my sandwich, but I saved it for later. There really were many fish, they would flee when I got close to the water, so I had to keep my distance. However there was one good sized fish, by this I mean maybe the size of my hand, that looked different from the rest. if had a cool striped pattern and seems to be completely still. I, being a fool, got a little too close, when suddenly it slowly started to sink for a second or two before, fast a lightning zipped into the mossy bed at the bottom of the pool. I wonder how many were down there that’s couldn’t see? Probably a whole army, nay a whole civilization, waiting for evolution to give them an upper hand over humanity. Jokes on them, we’ll have gills soon.

I sat on a log in Tiergarten
only a stump of what it originally was
cut off at the trunk by who knows who
who knows when
and in what order the fallen or the cut I will never be able to say for certain.

This log, presumably some sort of maple based on the markings of the bark and the overwhelming amount of maples in the vicinity of said log, sat by a small and stagnant stream that slowly courses its way through the entirety of the park. The stream is filled with garbage, some sort of unidentified mucus or scum, many small fish and the consequent waterfowl I assume are mallards and a bufflehead couple of some kind. In an island maybe six meters across there was a red squirrel with tufted ears that played with its reflection on the trunk of a leaning cottonwood just above the surface of the water. There is a fox den about twenty meters north of this upturned rootball that the local rabbits come dangerously close to as displayed in their crepuscular grazing. There was a small mouse that came scuttling out for a brief errand from almost beneath the decaying monument. Although I was not able to catch a look of the beaver that chewed the alder opposite me on the island I was able to see in this sit that it had indeed returned to finish the job and had cut clean through the wood. Even so it was unsuccessful due to the clinging branches of the shrubbery below that would not release the fallen timber low enough for the beaver to harvest the fresh cambium lawyer from the twigs.

The log let me sit there without question to observe the many neighbors it had come to witness throughout its time spent on the edge of the water. Based on the decay of the bark, the state of the wood, the lack of soil in the upturned root system, the hole left by the upturning of the roots, how much detritus was slowly filling this hole, and the consecutive years of nettles and wall lettuce growing out of the log itself I would say that it had been lying this way for over ten years.

A bench sits nearby where I have seen multiple couples sitting nestled into one another. How many kissing couples has this log been backdrop for? How many strange men or women have used the privacy and security of the sunken pit and the low pruned yew to urinate or sleep or what have you?

It feels the cold and wet spring with little shelter. It sees the sun in summer through sparse dappled light shown through the mostly maple canopy. The few roots still planted deeply in the soil are dead but still feel the cool water below the water table. It is slowly sinking into the ground as leaf litter, garbage, feces, and decaying plant matter growing out from under it slowly pile up around it to form a thin layer to provide nutrients for the next years vegetation.

It is taking slow, deep breaths into the ground as the wood it once pulled up from the soil touched by its roots comes back into contact with the layers of earth it rests on. The earths way of tilling the soil. This is the natural cycle that keeps the microorganism that remain safe in the darkness can continue to work even as biomass is pulled upward and folded back again. One can only begin to touch on the stories this simple log has been a part of in this saved little corner of the city.

28.04.2016

Honestly, how are you doing?

I’m pretending to do much better than I think I actually am. Though at this point, I’m not really sure.

Do you hate it here, or do you love it?

There are days where I think I could live in Berlin, and then other days where I think that the only place that will ever make sense to me is the United States of a-goddamn-merica, the latter of which I find to be truly disgusting and horrifying.

Are you homesick?

Incredibly so.

Are things getting hard?

A similar response to hating or loving Berlin–some days are exponentially better than any days I have experienced thus far in my young adult life, and others seem to be so difficult that I’m unsure as to whether or not I can get through them. However, my appreciation for my classmates and their similarly shared insanity grows with every passing day.

What is your temporal experience at this point? (For example: I don’t operate on dates or days of the week)

Time seems to move at an impossibly slow rate in Berlin, what feels like weeks ends up being an hour, and what feels like a lifetime has only been about a month at this point.

Are you remembering things? Can you access images and feelings and emotions at any point in this city?

What stands out the most in my memory right now are my dreams–I am very used to not remembering the majority of my dreams while at home, and the ones I do remember tend to be end-of-the-spectrum outliers. Since I have been in Europe I have been able to remember almost every piece of every dream from every night, something that makes me incredibly uncomfortable.

Are you unable to?

I wish that I was unable to remember certain dreams, especially the recurring PTSD nightmares that I have become unfortunately familiar with over the last five years of my life, and even more so upon my arrival in this bizarre continent.

Are your habits changing?

I know that I have been drinking and smoking more, but I also knew to expect this based off of my last school trip to Europe two years ago with Dark Romantics. I do think that my study habits continue to get at least minimally better, I care more and more about school every day, even with the knowledge that a loss of credit wouldn’t necessarily affect my ability to graduate this quarter, and I can at least take solace in that.

What is scaring you?

One of the things that scares me the most is my quickness to anger–I like to think of myself as a fairly level-headed person, and while I would certainly not go so far as to call myself calm, I do take at least some pride in the idea that I can maintain my composure in less than agreeable situations. In Berlin, however, my ability to rationalize diminishes everyday, and my desire to empathize with those who frustrate me ebbs and flows at a startling rate.

How do you handle being alone?

I actually quite enjoy being alone, that is every once in a while. So far on this trip I feel like I haven’t gotten quite enough alone-time, which is not to say that I haven’t been enjoying spending my time with the various people I’ve been encountering, but I also would not mind wasting a bit more time on my own bullshit without having to think of the wants and needs of others around me quite as often as I have had to. Does that sound selfish?

What could you possibly do in a strange place to truly calm down? (For example: when things get bad, I go into antique shops to assuage my anxiety)

When things get bad, I call my mom. If the time difference won’t allow for that, I spend time with one of my very best friends in the entire world, Gabby. Should location make that impossible, I am forced to quell my anxiety with deep breaths and sedentary moments of reflection, something I am still learning how to do in my ripe age of 23.

Is class stressful?

I have never loved a German class so much as I love Evita’s class at CIEE. I was truly beginning to think that there was not a single good German professor in the world outside of my beloved Frau Hommel (a professor before my time at Evergreen) and then I met Evita. She has reignited my fire in language learning and reminded me that a bad teacher makes for a bad learning experience, not a bad edification altogether. I cannot possibly express my gratitude and appreciation enough to thank Evita properly, in German or in English, but hell if I won’t try.

What kind of thoughts are you thinking? There’s usually a pattern there.

Currently I’m thinking about what excuse I can use to get out of eating dinner with my host family tonight that I haven’t used too many times before.

Do you miss anyone (it’s ok to not)?

Above all, I miss my mama.

PSYCHICCITY

21.04.2016

For this assignment I chose the bedroom that has been designated as mine in my host family’s apartment in Charlottenburg. I chose this space very purposefully because while it is supposed to be a place that I can temporarily call my own and make into the crabby cave of my dreams, it has become a place that I feel entirely uncomfortable in and am constantly hesitant of stepping outside of my shell while here. I do not like being a long-term guest in someone else’s home, I do not enjoy feeling like a teenager who is on a perpetual curfew, and I do not relish the fact that I can’t walk around in my underwear whenever I so please. Lying on the bed I have finally started to become familiar with over the past month, I shut my eyes and opened my ears.

My ride is here–the pitch of the screeching sirens steadily rises as they beckon me nearer and nearer, then suddenly it drops down and stretches out of my ear’s reach, clueing me in that my ride home has left without me. The sound of tires rolling against the asphalt brings me back to the Boros Bunker, I wonder how worn down that tire is now… Boisterous animals corral around my window to bleat and baa in every direction until my room is so filled with sound that my head begins to ache. Wind whistles through the open window and slams the door shut with an unanticipated shock, rattling my nerves to the point where I think I need to stop for my own mental health.

PSYCHICCITY

Just a random mix from my notebook from the visit here. I definitely left feeling dispirited//far from inspired, there was regrettably little to draw from, especially with a constant flux of tourists coming through and taking selfies with the christfigure.
2//5

Pray, what was the last hope you sacrificed to flame?

Here, last hope, survived the flame.

Little more to consume,

little left to praise.
Just holy kitsch and historical clutter,

fragments that connect one era to another.

//////

seven by seven

upright remains

wax gold stone,

glass

wood marble metal

cloth canvas & paper
pure body, no spirit (I have brought my beaming own)

Where is the place that is all spirit and no body?

\\\

blue is the hottest flame &

seven is a holy number–

Still the spirit has flown,

And the wreckage rests at Teufelsberg,

last vestiges,

“We will pray for you”

Every Tuesday there’s a jazz party at a place called the Eidelweiss party lounge. Different local bands come to the stage and perform, so you can really see all the different cultures that live in Berlin. Parties start at 10:00 pm, so it’s a little late, but it’s a fun event.

Adolph Eichmann at his desk.

27//4

An evening tour through archives and installations documenting the rise and expansion of the National Socialist regime, at the site of the former Gestapo headquarters. Situated across from the Luftwaffe complex, as directed by Hermann Göring, this district was the throbbing center of administrative power for the Third Reich.

The facts – an onslaught of names and ranks, statistics, strategies, the implicit vie for power, prestige, honor, recognition reduced precisely to the banality described by Hannah Arendt in her book Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil. After a few heavily invested and attentive moments as we were guided through the documentation center, my interest waned to a minimum, I was overcome by an irritation and lack of shock about the inner-workings of fascist machinery. Nothing was, in the abstract, shocking or interesting here, from the dullest bureaucratic moments to the extremes of terror. Probably this reaction was a mode of self-defense agitated by the excess of trivia about the regime, and the inability to make sense of the extremes between the minutiae and horror. And certainly I was fed up after an emotionally exhausting engagement with the stories and experiences of the murdered, those who bore the weight, brutality and expense of this machine. This collection is documentation of fear of the Other manifest in the extreme, and the lifting of the veil here revealed nothing more than the frenzied, albeit well ordered, deluded, yet exact, attempt to realize an Absolute.

Honestly, how are you doing?
A: Honestly, like anything in life, I have ups and downs. I’m navigating a new city in a new country, and I’m still learning the ropes on the language. But I’m still optimistic, and learning as I go, and doing the best I can, which is the best anyone can do.
Do you hate it here, or do you love it?
A: In general, I love it here. It’s relatively clean, for every bad apple I’ve encountered there has been fifteen friendly and accommodating people that just want to help, and the food is sensational.
Are you homesick?
A: Well, yes, of course. There are, and always will be, times where I do something or see something and I wish I could share with my family. But that’s what pictures and the internet is for, and I have the opportunity to make new friends and family here.
Are things getting hard?
A:Depends on what you’re talking about. Things were hard the moment I stepped onto international tile, but challenges are the spice of life and help keep you on your toes. Of course classes are hard-I’m drained from just trying to understand my German classes before I plunge into class seminars, and I often feel vastly unqualified to participate during seminar-but the best I can do is listen when I have nothing pertinent to say and try to integrate what I learned into the next session. Doesn’t mean I succeed, but I do have some interesting notes as a result of listening.
What is your temporal experience at this point? (For example: I don’t operate on dates or days of the week)
A: Try, try, try. If I fall, I just get up, dust myself off, and keep going. My existence is juggling far too many things at this point and smiling while trying to pick up whatever I’ve dropped without breaking rhythm. I don’t always succeed, of course, but I try.
Are you remembering things? Can you access images and feelings and emotions at any point in this city?Are you unable to?
A: For the most part, yes. I remember things of priority, but sacrifices have to be made. I’ll remember to read the week’s readings, but forget to buy toothpaste. I can remember some landmarks to get home if I go on autopilot, but lately remembering the city’s topography on top of everything else is a tall order.
Are your habits changing?
A: I was never an early bird. That has been forcibly changed. Any new habits picked up are forced or for survival
What is scaring you?
A: Showing up to class late, not having a bus pass,  getting so sick I have to miss class, and of course, the ever looming shadow of failure.
How do you handle being alone?
A: If you go to a bar, You’re never truly alone. And you hear some interesting stories. infants and drunks never lie.
What could you possibly do in a strange place to truly calm down? (For example: when things get bad, I go into antique shops to assuage my anxiety)
Get out of the street traffic, close my eyes, take a deep inhale/exhale, repeat as many times as necessary, then open my eyes and troubleshoot until I get clarity.
Is class stressful?
A: I mean, it’s an upperclassman class abroad. That’s to be expected. It’s not so bad that I’m tweaking out in an alley somewhere, though. As long as I don’t screw up too majestically, I can handle it.
What kind of thoughts are you thinking? There’s usually a pattern there.
A: Man, what I would give for a a drink right now (Answer: about €1:80). Also, Where am I? I think I took a wrong turn…
Do you miss anyone (it’s ok to not)?
A: I miss my friends and family back home, and the solid grasp of the English language. But once I go home I’ll miss German charm and the smorgasbord of meat options.