Flaneuring in Berlin, Madrid, Heidelberg, Gottingen, Trieste, Bologna and around the way, wandering, questing, searching and unearthing the strange, the lost and the wondrous.
One day after arriving in a European city, I looked at the sky and realized I didn’t know anyone, nor anything anymore.
I only knew the sky. It was a simple and profound moment.
A sweet epiphany that I was starting over at 45 plus years.
My old life was far away, many friends that faded away, mistakes made, loss grabbed me by the neck.
I would have to begin again.
My only hope lay in the hunger to explore.
Navigations, perambulations and the street.
I was ready to walk and fall, reach out toward the unknown maps and wander the strassen and the boulevards.
The rue de so and so.
The dark calle that had no end.
The street screamed.
The street was my only hope.
On the street I would be the fool, people would laugh
at my pathetic language flounderings, keeping things fresh
and vulnerable.
It was simple.
I would find my way.
Each week I’ll wander the streets,
Unearthing surprises of architecture, old salts of
men and women of Germany, Italia, Spain, wherever I
end up.
People, places, products in shops, curiosities mostly
ancient and simmering for ages in sunlight and rotting in darkness.
All things medical history, naturalists, botonists, dreamers, visionaries, saints, hallucinators, miracle workers, wonderments, sky writers, scene stealers, doctors, faith healers, curators, lawyers and journalists and more.
Please partake, indulge, check it out check it out!
And hopefully you won’t say like the 90 year old
fruit guy on Maybachufer in Neukoeln as he walks by one of his fellow fruit stalls, grabbing and chomping down on a perky plum with vigour and zest:
“too much bla bla bla” in a thick Greek accent!
Spitting the pit out as he proceeds to saunter in the fruit
paradise market on a sour summer day!
To roam,
No one knew me.
No one looked at me.
No one found fault with me.
Baudelaire