Transcendence in Berlin

Lately I’ve been exploring transcendent moments. I’ve tried to let go of the strictures of dance, override the bodily chemical reaction of fear, the memory of shame that surrounds the times I’ve allowed myself to move and react with a whole heart to a spiritual impulse. But it’s hard.

Since my divorce I knew if I wanted to travel, I’d have to go alone. It’s okay, I almost prefer it, then I don’t have to worry about if someone else is hungry, overtired, their feelings. I only have to worry about me—and getting lost. When I traveled this past fall, I’d already overcome many anxieties that come from traveling solo—with a bike. I managed to get me and my bike on the train to Berlin despite the fact that it seemed I had no real seat assignment, despite a fellow passenger telling me in English that I must have a valid ticket to ride. Thankfully, when the person coming through the cars asking for papers scanned what I produced from my backpack, all was settled. Then at the Berlin station, humongous and chaotic even at midnight, I discovered there were no working elevators. I watched as a woman got onto an escalator with her bike and was nearly swallowed by the moving parts when her bicycle fell over on her. Lesson learned, I would manually move my bike down to the ground floor, first carrying it and then running back up for my bags. What a relief, I thought, when Mia gets here to pick me up.

But where was Mia?

She’d gone to the wrong train station. I tried to tell her, using the German flip phone loaned to me, that I was on the side of the Bahnhof, the Alexanderplatz side, before we hung up. I still wasn’t sure if we’d make the connection.

Yet, she arrived. I’d worried that we would need lights to ride at night and pulled a headlamp out of my bag plus my front and rear taillight. No matter—she wasn’t even wearing a helmet. The belt of her raincoat dangled inches from her drivetrain, able to be sucked into the gears. She hugged me as a busker played in the background. I relaxed into her arms. Yay! Then she laughed and swayed to the music. Still holding onto me she made me dance. I was as stiff as the bike frame I held onto. Wearing my helmet, I moved like a robot at first. I can do anything for a few minutes. As it turned out we danced for nearly an hour, In joy, laughing, unbelievable that I was here with Mia, the platz all aglow, the lowering Berlin skyline, after so many years, a pandemic, the ravages of relationships. I eventually relaxed and let go.  

This would all become my memory of Berlin, those first fraught moments of feeling lost, incapable (certainly how I felt for half my trip) versus the feeling that I was actually doing this thing, dancing, biking through new countries, meeting people, strangers and friends. It was happening to me. Now.

Transcendent moments, unplanned serendipity, the joy in the journey. I was giving into it.

But, before long, I tired, returned to my body, said I wanted to leave the square, go to her apartment. For sure! We got on our bikes, whereupon Mia took me all over the city on a two-wheeled tour that extended into the wee hours of morning.