What do you see, Jeremy?
A run challenges my perception.
Welcome to my journal! It echoes my thoughts and feelings as I journey through life. I hope you connect with what you read. If you enjoy this journal, please subscribe.
I like to think that I know Berlin fairly well by now. I moved here about seven months ago. I visited for another two and a half months earlier last year. I’m not born and raised in the place, but I consider myself a Berliner. I don’t know every street name, but I know how to get around without relying on my phone. The prices, people and weather don’t surprise me anymore. I’ve truly acclimated.
On Monday evening I went for a run. Not counting a warm-up last Saturday, this was my first proper run since December. A cold, and a busy schedule put my running on hold in winter, and I hadn’t found the motivation to pick it up again until something pulled me out of my house on Monday night. After a dragging day of work, with muggy weather, I wouldn’t ordinarily turn to running to unwind. A cold glass of water or orange juice or beer on the balcony is usually a little more intriguing to me. On Monday, though, I threw on my running gear and got out of the house before I had the time to talk myself out of exercise. I turned out of the foyer and onto the pavement, following the same street for as long as I could. After about fifteen minutes and one T-junction I turned around and made my way back home along the same road. This is the way I usually run whenever I’m in a new place; the ‘stick-to-one-street’ strategy is supposed to minimise the use of my phone to navigate so that I can keep my eyes up and enjoy my surroundings. It also minimises the risk of me getting lost in the winding streets of foreign towns or suburbs. Of course, I was running in my neighbourhood, not a new, strange place. But perhaps both are true.
Yes, I know the tram tracks in my neighbourhood well, and I know which neighbourhoods they lead into. I even know where you should get off of the tram if you’d like to catch a subway or a bus. I know a few streets in my neighbourhood quite well (certainly the ones that feature cute, hipster cafés), but five minutes into my run, the streets were totally new and unrecognisable. I feel comfortable here. I feel like I know my way around my neighbourhood. My neighbourhood, however, is so much bigger than I previously imagined. My run transformed into an adventure, charting hidden and strange territories. I was genuinely overjoyed upon the discovery of every new landmark; I discovered a really impressive looking primary school, boasting modern architecture, and covered in lush green ivy; a handful of stunning old buildings that I would guess to be about a hundred and fifty years old or older, a rarity in central Berlin; I realised that I had walked one particular bridge before, and a map of the city streets, how each neighbourhood is connected, became clearer in my mind. It was sunset, too, which helped me romanticise the whole experience.
I still consider myself a Berliner, but my run posed a question. How much is there that is yet to be discovered in Berlin? Yes, I know the city, but how many of its details have I seen? This same phenomenon presents itself in my relationships—I know the people I love, but I continue to delight in the discovery and appreciation of new facets of their personalities. I love hearing new stories from my grandpa, about when he learned to drive or about going out dancing with his friends in the evenings of his youth. I especially love listening to his stories when they catch my mom and uncle off guard. If I hear my mom gasp in disbelief at the details of a memory, I feel privileged to know new and intimate stories about my grandpa, ones that paint his life in another brilliant colour. In the same way, I consider myself privileged to bear witness to the little details of Berlin. Nothing I saw on my run will be in a guide book or on a bus tour. But there are still histories to the buildings, stories shared in the restaurants, lives lived in the homes that I passed on my run.
I am reminded of another reason I run. I often pull my nose up at the exercise that’s involved in running, (or at least I have always made a habit of it, I think I am beginning to enjoy running because of the exercise) but it isn’t just exercise. It’s exploration, it’s engaging with the place I’m in, it’s an escape. For the first time in my writing, my view may very well be influenced by the endorphins that ran through my system that evening, but in any case, my appetite has been whet. I have resolved to get to know the little, interesting details of Berlin, run by run, eyes up and feet on the move.
I wonder if I enjoy exercise more as I get older… I can’t quite tell if I think that’s marvellous, or totally unrelatable. If you enjoyed this journal, please share it with some you love.
It's great that your running is giving you a new perspective on your surroundings, Jeremy. Super post!