“The days and houses of our life, the days and houses of the people with whom we are involved, books and images and thoughts and conversations—all these things feed it, and it grows within us.”
—Natalia Ginzburg in her essay, “My Vocation”
i. Christmas, New Year’s, my dad’s seventieth birthday and relatives from abroad visiting Malaysia for the occasion, friends’ celebrating their fortieth year on earth, various belated wedding catch-ups, a new acquaintance baby dog’s birthday party (he turned eight!), meeting the tiny humans recently ushered into the world, Chinese New Year chaos... this visit home has felt like a whirlwind of celebrations, one after another. It has felt, for the most part, nourishing, and makes me feel grateful that some of my friends and I still try to keep up with each other in some way, if not often while we’re apart then at least when we’re all drawn back to the same place. It’s a contrast, still, to my life in Berlin. I’ve made a handful of individual friends here, and we meet D.’s friends in groups at times, but I haven’t yet gathered my own group. In truth, I think I am better at one-to-one meet-ups, but I have always also had some sort of group around me (sometimes very small, sometimes very large)—with the exception of the year I spent on my own backpacking in Central America. It’s never been something I had to miss too much, so in that sense, Berlin is taking some getting used to.