20 Year Jubilee

I'm cold as fuck, and wet. These are my primary thoughts on this, the 20th Anniversary of the Berlin wall coming down. On this day 20 years ago, I was, for the first time, a Berliner. Today, I am again a Berliner, if not a little less happy about sharing that honor with the thousands of other soggy Berliners blocking my view. Like Kennedy before me and Obama quite recently, Berlin embedded itself in my soul on that day. I had taken German since my first year in high school so I'd had a number of years to think about a divided Germany. I'd made numerous friends from "west germany" and always found it sad that they came from a divided land, a divided people, relatively innocent puppets in a world-wide game played by giant masters of distant lands. And I recall the tears as I, an African American with no German lineage of which I am aware, vicariously experienced the ecstatic joy at being one, being reunified. Of course, the actual re-unification would come some months later. But we knew, upon the crumbling of that wall, that re-unification was just around the corner. Needing to feel even closer to the German people, I recall placing a call to my friend Markus. He was one of my best friends and certainly my best German friend at the time. Speaking to him greatly enhanced this feeling of unity, of one-ness.

Just as Germany has altered tremendously since that time, so too have I. I have always known that someday I would live in Germany. I can't say, therefore, that I would not have dreamed that I would be at the Brandenburger Gate at the 20 year celebration. In fact, I would have hoped to have arrived here much sooner. However, standing in the rain with so many tourists and visitors from around the world, I was reminded of the journey that has brought me to this unified Germany. Since being here has always been a dream for me, today I take a moment to enjoy the dream of Germany. The dream of unification on their part and a kind of spiritual unification for me. For what is a dream fulfilled if not a unification of sorts. I toast Germany's 20th anniversary since the fall of the wall and simultaneously the fall of the wall that kept me from moving here. Prost to us both!!!

Why

After ma, mommy, or daddy, "why" is one of the first 5 words the average child learns (no scientific study here, just good ole fashion bull). That said, they learn this word early and use it often. It sticks to our souls, this word. Why are we here? Why am I in this relationship? Why am I still at this sucky job? And, for me, why am I in Germany? This last why is the one of greatest concern to me right now, in this moment in which I'm living. In a deep sense, moving here represents two significant opportunities. On the one hand, the fulfillment of a life-time dream. I've already discussed this aspect of my German trip and will not rehash that ground.

On the other hand, however, this move to a foreign country creates an opportunity to re-fashion myself, re-brand myself in the language of marketing. My own version of re-branding is happening not just in a theoretical sense. I have the opportunity to become someone, something other than I was at home. Though Germany presents enormous challenges work-wise and career-wise, I possess various experiences that make me unique here. Moreover, being an African American is, itself, so unique as to allow me to refashion, or perhaps, reconceptualize myself in yet a very different sense. I should add that I say African American in order to distinguish me from the many African Africans that live here. While it's not at all uncommon to meet folks from the continent here, African Americans are much more rare. I am a creature that presents somewhat unexpected ideals, thoughts, paradigms from the mostly African black population (either from central Africa or, more likely, a francophone county, including France itself).

But why do dreams become hard-wired into our heads? What do they mean to us, to me? Have I longed to perceive of myself as "special", in the way those who've had expat experiences necessarily are? Or is it possibly about expressing myself, my thoughts and ideas, in ways objectionable to most Americans? As I've said before, I'd hoped to find people who were my soul-mates, who's general natures gelled well with mine. Have I found that? Yes and no. Certainly, Germans, in the broad, crude, overgeneralization kind of way, demonstrate a greater affinity towards intellectual discourse than is typical in Americans.

For example. Recently, I was returning from playing pin-pong and I stopped in at my local 24hr grocery/deli. I mentioned to the clerk that I'd just discovered that evening that the German language does not possess a grammatical tense expressing continuous time. You know. Something like, "we were driving to the store" or "we've been meeting for months now". This was quite a revelation to me. Although I am fluent in the language, I've never really thought a lot about this fact. I've just accepted the language on its own terms without any comparisons.

The clerk, who's apparently studied multiple foreign languages, didn't miss a beat in taking up this subject. He discussed his own experience learning this continuous time tense as well as tenses in other languages that one finds in neither English nor German (e.g., the French subjunctive tense). All my American readers (which means, all seven of you) know for certain, this is not a conversation you could have with a 7/11 cashier in the U.S., he of the movie "Clerks" variety. They simply lack the educational background and, even imagining they possessed that, the interest. Such a discussion is, assuredly, above their pay-grade.

I've had similar types of discussions in various random places here. I recall early in my trip asking a family at a german museum about the grammar of the saying inscribed above the entrance, "Kunst den Deutschen Volk"? Or something like that. Again, they didn't miss a beat. The whole family engaged in answering the question why the title above the door was written as it was. An American family, especially a white American family, might either have ignored me, or huddled together, children on the inside of the circle, like water-buffaloes, and mumbled something inchoate and moved quickly away from the obvious crazy person.

In this sense, therefore, Berlin is, at once, more intellectual (and, as an aside, less racist) than America. But does this really answer MY "why" question? Why this dream? I guess another issue in the U.S. has been the slim dating prospects in Cincinnati. I just cannot find many guys who successfully engage both my intellect as well as my gut (ok, my dick). It seems to be one or the other and, quite frankly, much more the latter than the former. Since my first awareness of Germans, I knew they were interested in black men. Simultaneously, I knew they were prone towards a familiar intellectualism. At a really deep level, I've always believed, known, that the man of my dreams was to be found here. Moreover, I always expected this to be a place where I could, again, feel attractive. And that has, indeed, been the case. Without doubt the German class of white guys have a completely different take on black than do most of their American counterparts. So does that make me a person who wants to be the object of fetish? Not really. Most of the white guys (since I've also met and chatted with black men here) have primarily dated other white German dudes, so there's been no real danger of being fetishized. It's just that a greater part of their sexual interest includes black men. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing. At least I should say, I've yet to experience the down-side of this, though the potential downside is rather apparent I would say.

So there's the why. To reposition myself both in personal and professional ways. To start anew. Have I really spent the bulk of my life passively dreaming of starting anew?