Control is an illusion, at least that's how it felt on the way to Brussels.
I walked out of the house early for my trip to Brussels, taking in the crisp fall air, jumping on the tram to Alexanderplatz.
Caught the S9 at 9 am, trips to the airport every five or ten minutes.
Off to Spandau the train took me, away from the airport.
Not that i knew that. An S9 is an S9 I imagined.
I didn’t notice a problem reading the NY Times.
Finally around 10AM, looked around, there was no one with a bag to the airport, just a man sleeping across from me. We moved further and further into the country.
I looked up to check my location, on the map; 90 minutes away from the flight say the coordinates.
Jumped off the train, next train to take me the right direction to Brandenberg was 20 minutes away.
Back to the airport, we careened, my mind racing, losing my mind.
Flight delay.
Maybe I was lucky?
Not my flight, says the lady at Ryan air. Not so fast.
Your flight has gone.
It was ok.
There were articles to read, Max Weber and the protestant work ethic, class materials, Thomas Mann and Dr Faustus.
Sat there all day, thinking about my life, 53 years, alive, mostly happy, occasionally falling apart, distracted, daydreaming. And then happy again, woods ebbing and receding, ever shifting, new friends, age old friends, Caroline and the teenager at home, the other teenager in LA doing her tours, reading her poetry, chilling, the best friends, James and Irene, who i was going to see, sympathizing and supporting, friends in New York organizing their holiday parties, our parties in Berlin, all our lives ever shifting, connecting, separating.
Scrolling, posting thank you notes, to friends.
“Happy Birthday,”says Virginia. “Ben, the hardest-working/playing/reading/philosophizing/getting-arrested-in-a-tie man on two continents! Miss you, buddy.”
Miss you NYC. Loving reading all your posts everyone, i post. Means the world to me to hear from you. Thanks for keeping the conversation going through times friends. You mean the world to me.
Obits obits, gun shootings and more obits,
RIPs
“Staughton Lynd passed away early this morning,” posts Andrej. “He was 92, almost 93 years old. He was my friend, comrade, co-author and so many other things. Our friendship has profoundly influenced and transformed my life.”
I just met him once.
RIP CarolLeigh and sex workers, majestic heroes, workers, ever struggling, harm reductions, reducing wounds, cleansing souls and bodies, helping and illuminating.
Back to the night before, trail my thoughts, back to the Stereolab show at at Huxley's Neue Welt on 17 Nov 2022.... As it all comes together… dinner at Max and Moritz in Kreuzberg.
And the bike ride all day long with the teenager, reading Master and Margarita and Anna Karenina.
Thinking about roots and forests, and tomorrow's parties, riding across the city, through the forest, visiting Nico's grave at Friedhof Grunewald-Forst (Friedhof Grunewald (Forst)) with my bff. "Please don't confront me of my failures, I have not forgotten them."... We played "These Days" over and over. I asked to play Femme Fatale. Bear said that wasn't a song Nico wrote. It's about Eddy. But it's really about all of us...
"Here she comes
You better watch your step
She's going to break your heart in two
It's true..."
Its sooo true.
I remember the first time I heard that song just before she shuffled off, listening over and over. 35 years ago in high school. Now I'm older, still getting goopy to the emo anthems. Maybe around for another 35? Who knows. Seems like it passed pretty quickly.
Dad read us Howl at dinner.
The teenager is sending me texts about her favorite stanzas on “Carl Solomon, who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse.”
God knows we have all been there, through hopes and flux, pick back up Thomas Mann Faustus. Adrian is introspective and conflicted:
“[I]t is a source of of endless wonder that one flesh lusts after another; it is indeed a phenomena - yes, well, the perfectly exceptional phenomena of love. Of course, there is no way to separate sensuality and love. One best acquits love ot the charge of sensuality by reversing things and proving there is an element of love in sensuality.” He ponders the idea of lust, “the strangeness of the I and the you, of the self and the other… every sensual act implies a tenderness…” But Adrian worries about the taking, Mephastopholies whispering in his ear, in all our ears.
At some point, the flight takes off for Brussels.
Walking out of the train, I see friends from everywhere, Nigeria and Bulgaria, Russia and the USA, walking the street, selling their wares. Brasseries open, immigrants, those stopping in and out. James makes sole meunière, sharing with all of us, laughing about friends who’d been in town all week, their exploits, here and there.
We chat all night, playing techno from Paris to Berlin, covering all our topics, recalling lost friends, low moments and high, when people let us down, and we wanted to let go and then it all changed and we changed and the world changed, and things ended and we had to move and move again, from city to city, continent to continent.
The sun is shining by the time we retire.
Sleep, trains here, there, friends appealing, disappearing, illusions, memories, not quite there, or maybe there, an apparition, then she’s gone, but i’m not sure. Not today, she says, another time, next time. It all blurs, looking at the city, people in cafes, stopping at Saint Marie, arriving, departing, not quite here.
And off to Lille, on the border, capital of the country's Hauts-de-France.
Women in plaid shirts, hanging out with their friends tasting wine all afternoon, Macon Village and pinot gris alsace wines, like desert, lime, lemon, green apple, dried fruits and honey, wines growing instead of conflict there. The pouilly-fuissé chardonnay is lovely at Le Salon des Vins with James and Irina. Cheese and sausage, on one side, not this one.
Nothing mixed with wine, my heads spinning.
I forgot to spit, drinking every sip.
Finally a pate baguette and l’eau saves the day.
Off to the philosophers club for more.
Chatting and disco into the night.
Not sure how to find my way home.
Flights canceled.
Customer service from who knows where barely there.
Maybe I'll never get there, I think on hold sitting in the hotel in Lille.
Sun rising, problem solved for the moment.
Good morning Lille.
Walking back through the little town.
Quiet morning here...stumbled into a church with a message.
Peace for Ukraine.
James and Irene meet me on the way back to Brussels on my way back home.
Old friends still chatting away into another adventure.
Reading about violence back home.
Less laws, more guns in the USA.
“We stand with the Club Q community today,” says Gays against Guns in New York, as I”m leaving. Jaywwalker is “at the @gaysagainstgunsny #TransDayOfRemembrance event at @thestonewallinn. We had a wonderful outpouring of community outside at the rally for TDOR and in response to the horrific mass shooting in #ColoradoSprings.”
On my way back to Berlin.
Maybe never quite home. But still on my way.
For a while, we are alive and connected.
And then we separate and sometimes chance encounters and serendipity, before it all disappears.
Doors open and close.
On the way back to Berlin, to say hi to Caroline and the teenager.
I’ll bring chocolate and greet them, even if they are asleep.
S9 across the city.
The train from Alexanderplatz home.
Another weekend, another birthday.
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