Mishaps with a mannequin

Hindsight is the most beautiful frame and perhaps the singlemost greatest key for me to remain present and I currently live on a different continent than my history, and history is the only road paved to today.  Ive never been one to think much about the future which is really hard, living in Germany, a culture of planning. Plans- if truly thought about make me laugh- because plans??!! NOT one thing on my most important things for my next chapter list,- as close to a plan as i want to make –  is in my life now- not one. I would never have planned to move somewhere that stereotypically is everything i avoid. It just happened. That’s a great answer to give here:)  germans are know for their structure…..It strangles me, amuses me, makes me feel superior and yet I have come to deeply appreciate the way in which a German kitchen functions, every detail planned to facilitate easy use and cleaning- it does make a difference. But. Then if you use it- you have to restore it to order.  Some days I want to ask a German – what will happen if you leave a dish on the counter? What will happen if you dont dry your shower?…Like really what will happen. I would say Im a moderat in level of stress I creat to maintain order, and our society does favor those that are ordentlich. So…sometimes i feel like Gregor, who I have a new opinion on . Perhaps Kafka was writing about what it feels like to wake up surrounded by a different culture. I feel so different from people here- and I crave the invisibility that can come . In india, ahimsa prevents many leaute from killing bugs, so a bug on the kitchen counter would perhaps be allowed a break from buzzing around waiting to die. I guess this migration of mine makes me reflect differently on things, how different parts of the world shape and change reality. And until you migrate- in a human body, you just can’t know, feel or have any idea what its like. To untether, to  move, to let go, to assimilate, to be the odd one out by language, behavior, tradition. Being untethered is different from being free. 

 Birds migrate for better conditions for the seasonal periods. Migrations are usually embarked on by a subtle force.

Mine started on a hill in Baltimore, filled with dread. Absolute panic at a total migration I could feel descending over me. Talking to a friend I would see when I arrived home.  We’d walk our dogs and enjoy the warmth of friendship the day after standing on a hill, speaking on a telephone, through emotion in my throat, the kind that feels like its choking you with the need to cry, and in that moment you are sure of nothing else but that THIS time if the tears come they will never stop. Baltimore would have been a better “plan”, but I just could face the truth yet.

On the way to the airport- my mom and I went to see an exhibit called- “Migrations”. It was edgy. Music, the sensation of being in a white room. Minimal. Focused on black culture- jesus. I miss black culture. Even though in the US we are racist motherfuckers-  we have black culture- whatever that is or isnt and Im fucking white so what do I know-  We have black people here …but no black culture. At least not that is presented in the usa, so maybe that which we see in the USA is problematic- which I suppose everything is as we change the lens. That’s what this fucked up migration im on has done to me, shattered the lens which had my world in focus. Now everything is out of focus, because we aren’t birds. The mixed media exhibition was mostly film-flickery and black and white. Not by accident. Flickery is when pieces of one’s history are on another continent. When you migrate so far from home -the lenses in which you are viewed are so different, you are alone, behind a wall more powerful than any government can build. Because until you leave everything you know- you can’t. Because now I see you can’t make america great- because it was already king. Switzerland started identity politics and with so many decisions to make in expat life, North Korea has some advantages- you literal dont think or you die.  Netrality is an act of war, and identity politics defined. Trade is life. Pathogens are the one thing we will always share.  Leaving one’s country is the fastest way to patriotism even if you rejoice in being away from said land- to run from that that created you and celebrate that is a form of worhip/ . Europe has universal health care- but there are days I feel panic at the fact if I leave my house I HAVE to be surrounded by cigarette smoke. I hate it- universal health care comes from within. Your country is the  thing that’s formed you, but until we leave we dont know. Standing on that hill in Baltimore, I can remember my feet planted in America, what that felt like and how great it was- though at that moment I didnt notice.  Now I get chilled at the memory of that exibit …the feeling of lightheadedness .At the time I blamed my head cold, now I suspect it was something stranger…..memory flowing in the wrong direction. That which marks the point of my migration but I didnt know it, my body remembering the future. And maybe the world is much bigger than we are meant to handle. we dont need to build walls because the ones you cant see are the most powerful walls that contain us. The US government is so powerful do they really expect us to believe a man on his knees can be such a threat. “On your knees”…how many movies does this line indicate death, rape , being completely dominated. Yet the army the powerful US president ( rapidly losing power but he doesnt know it)built up to get “them” out cant handle a man face down on the ground without shooting. Fucking bitch. Such a satisfying thing to say- even after you shoot someone, you have to throw that in- proof that real power comes from words. Fucking bitch, even the bullets paled to those words. Everytime is a weird, dire time to be alive, when my father was a kid they worried about the ice ages, just all of the sudden freezing the world out. Now democrats make paper signs and march in the street to protest climate change. And republicans seem to not understand trade or decency..worse they do but ignore it.  To disagree is ok, but to cut off thy neighbor is insane. I think Carl Jung once said something to the effect that once the collective is so sick, everyone must work on themselves to heal the world. I try more than ever to remember that. I have a friend who sees the world very differently- not close- but someone who has helped me when I was down, on my knees. To love him now is something that is hard, but its impossible not to, because nothing can really define us in a world where everything defines us. Migration is weird- my entire history took place on a different continent, in a different culture. Sometimes I worry that I’ll never recover from the decision to migrate, because it breaks and builds a soul. I used to go home at the end of every day and I loved it. I havent had the feeling of going home in over a year now. In January of 2023, I saw that exhibit, and in November of 2024 I migrated. Now Im a foreigner, one of the “people pouring across the border” and no wall any government could possibly construct could ever have the solid construct needed to keep someone out, because the most powerful walls arise when you get in.Surrounded by we the people, and we the people become those you love.