Liking places has always felt like an easier task to me than liking people.
This is why for the majority of my childhood and teenage years I'd been a loner. Actually, that's not quite true. I was indeed a loner, but it was because nobody had taught me how to like people. My parents, I think, don't like the majority of people either. They don't have a lot of friends, mostly acquaintances and colleagues at work, but even these didn't really come over to our place all that often. Mom is from a different city altogether, and I assume a lot of friends got lost in the move. Dad, well, he's a character and a half, which makes him difficult to tolerate. He doesn't try to be more easy-going either.
When I was a kid, I lived in a relatively recently built neighbourhood, which was quite a walk away from what could be called "the Old Town". There lived most of my school friends, and so meeting up and making plans to go somewhere together was not really something we used to do up until I was like 12 or something. But even then, it'd take you quite a while to wait for the bus going across the bridge over the train tracks into the Old Town and as a kid, there was no point in ever being home on time, so instead I'd be only allowed to go outside for an hour or so. That was not at all enough to go see friends, so I'd take a loop or two around the block, and then, when I grew up and could walk quicker, around most of the New Town.
By no means those walks were pleasant. The city outside Moscow where I grew up seemed like an architect's attempt at a fresh, modern, vibrant place to live which had failed completely and utterly. So, the city was a kind of an unsuccesfull marriage of opposites (kinda like my parents') - not at all beautiful and at the same time not ugly enough. There are almost no corners there that I consider "my own". I hate every district, every street and every building almost to the same extent. I guess that city taught me to "shut up, buckle up and wait". Wait for my pimples to leave, wait for my muscles to grow, wait for my face to become more handsome, wait until I'm finally 18, wait through the interrogation-like arguments I had with my parents, wait through the days, stay up all night long waiting for something meaningful to finally happen. Waiting to leave this place.
Then, by a peculiar change of circumstances which I will not go into right now, I found myself in a small Scottish city. When I first got there, I was way too stressed to appreciate its beauty. But then...oh God, the sounds of the sea, and the gulls barking, and wind and fog and sunrises and the hills to the right of the pier, that all barged into my heart and immediately barricaded the exit. So I think I have stopped feeling hate then. My anger went. Only saddness remained, the kind of deafening sadness that has been brewing and cultivating within me for years, and have been now pouring out of me wherever I went and whoever I was with. It would get so bad that sometimes, once it would get dark, I would run out of the campus gates and down to the waves at the pier. It seemed that only there could my soul be at peace. I did not have to explain anything to the wind and the sand - they understood me and accepted me just the way I was. There, on the dark brick roads, on the cliffs above the stormy waters, in the foggy valleys, I could finally see that I had to let the feelings that were cluttering up my chest out, one way or another, be it laying down on the cold November sand in my trenchcoat or writing poems on a Friday night in my room, at 2 am, when it was as if the whole boarding house belonged to me and me alone. I say "there I could finally see", but really, it was more of an instinct, an understated premonition, a survival mechanism. So, I suppose, it is that little coastal town that I have to thank for helping me become a person who can realise stuff like that. But all roads lead to London, and that mesmerizing little place became too small for me. We parted ways in 2017. Hopefully, to meet again some day.
Just like I said in my university application letter, I was "ready to dive into the challenges and opportunities London had to offer". This time, everything was quite different already from the very start: no longer was I a scared little mouse, avoiding the curious gaze of the border control officer. No, now I could return it, give her a kind of a half-smile and make small talk. So confidently that I almost could fool myself. And, shortly after I moved into my residence, somewhere between the first and the second pack of rolling tobacco to be precise, or even perhaps after my second or third time throwing up from drinking too much wine, I felt my eyes light up with the previously unfamiliar feeling of power. My original shyness was long gone, I have learnt to talk to strangers - at the train station, on the plane, at a cafe, anywhere; now, all I had to do was to do it all again, but with a purpose of making friends. Though it felt slightly nerve-wracking at first, I quickly got into it and started enjoying the process of seducing a listener, or rather, of how the anxiety, which pulsated in my chest like a dove while I said my first line, quickly disappeared, transforming instead into wit and charm. But then, a new enemy came. He did all in his power to make it seem like he came from the outside, but really, this new enemy was simply a reflection of the void behind my own eyes. It was the manifestation of my hunger and my thirst for more, for being the best version of myself I could be. This is how they get ya, these sneaky substances. With their help, I could do whatever I wanted - I could see lucid dreams, I could read between the lines, I could understand the intricacies of social cues and relationships, I could be confident, I could make people fall in love with me, I could, I could, I could... But I could not see, for some reason I could not see how one late night a week turned into hazy mornings, and how the point of my life was suddenly to keep going, to not stop, to dance, to have my heart stop right on the dance floor if that's what it took to remain in power, to stay on top of the world. Right up to the very moment it was time to leave for Berlin I still did not see what I was doing. So, you can imagine what the transition phase, the three month layover back home was like. Absolutely dreadful.
I didn't go fully sober then yet. In fact, the hunger which sat in my chest, the lust for more excitement, more thrill did not let me go until several months later when I checked into a hospital in Germany. It was unrelated to the hunger. I'll tell you about the hospital some time soon. But here in Berlin, especially after the virus came, I had a lot of time to think about what exactly happened there in London, what exactly was going on, what force was dragging me into a hole that progressively grew deeper and deeper? I still don't know fully. But what I know is that London, I guess, showed me how high I can go, how beautiful and magical life can be, with its twists and turns, highs and lows, with friends and by yourself. It made me more reckless, more daring, but also emptier and darker. I say "London made me that", but it had merely showed me how I can be this black hole that only grows bigger and more insatiable.
So, what did Berlin do to me? Well, I suppose it has brought me back. This city, as cosy as a petrol station in the middle of the woods, had helped me return to the basics. It showed me how much I can enjoy my degree, how decisive and diligent I can be. It showed me that I don't have to be things I don't want to be. To tell you the truth, I am tired of craving. I really would just like some silence and some peace of mind. But, apparently these are a luxury I cannot afford right now, and so I am going to make something of myself. So that my mentors, my cities, my dearest forests of concrete, asphalt, glass and stone could be proud of me. So that I could undo the knots on the fabric of the Universe that I have neatly tied with such passion just a couple of years ago. It might take a while, and there may be side roads to explore along the way, but I hope that by the time I leave Berlin (hopefully, also to return), I could preserve the gentle shoot of blinding light that has firmly planted its roots right into my heart.
Cover image source: https://www.artsy.net/artwork/piet-mondrian-composition-with-large-red-plane-yellow-black-grey-and-blue
