The Cruelty of Berlin

Weather is rarely obvious, decided, easy to figure out, especially not in Berlin: Here the weather always comes with a hidden meaning or agenda, there is some undertow to it, some otherworldliness even, that makes it very uncomfortable and hard to adjust. Yesterday, for example it was supposed [more]

Weather is rarely obvious, decided, easy to figure out, especially not in Berlin: Here the weather always comes with a hidden meaning or agenda, there is some undertow to it, some otherworldliness even, that makes it very uncomfortable and hard to adjust. Yesterday, for example it was supposed to be around 14 degrees and spring in Berlin, and this is what it looked like:

There was a hazy light, this grey mist hanging over the city, the typical suicidal situation known from many a Februar day, and the shocking, underlying coldness of this morning felt like a personal insult.
This is what weather does to you in this city: It humbles you, it wants to hurt you, it imposes itself upon you, much more than in other cities. Munich for example is a city where the weather is either good or bad. It is never that easy in Berlin. You have to figure out, what the weather means, what it wants, what it demands from you. You have to react, you have to be prepared, ready, for anything. The ambiguity is mostly malign. Even today, when the sun finally came out and the promise of spring seemed to be fulfilled, it took only one minute with clouds covering the sun that the warmth, the friendliness, the very perspective of the day was taken away again.
Rarely you feel cared for or comforted by nature in this city – but maybe that is also only because I come from the south of Germany and thus the harshness of the Northern climate will always seem foreign to me. There is one good thing though, and one good thing only that I take from this: It is like a constant reality check – you realize, walking the streets of Berlin, chilly and windy, that it might be, it must be nicer some where else, right at this very moment. The weather in Berlin destroys the present for that matter, because you start to drift, to long, to wish for something or some place else. This is the undercurrent: Flight.