A Stroll in the Park and Little Ghosts

In more cheerful news, after only going out once each the past Thursday mornings to go grocery-shopping in the organic food store across the street — it is almost empty at that time, with four staff distributed over it and maybe up to three shoppers in the whole store, so the hypochondriac in me could hardly have been happier —, I finally went outside for a frivolous, selfish, healthy walk this morning.

It was quiet and there was an early morning feel although it was past 9 a.m., the birds were cheeping and whirring, the number of pedestrians was low and the vehicular traffic is much sparser this week compared to the beginning of last week. In preference to pressing pedestrian crossing buttons, I have to confess that now I sometimes just amble across the street because there are no moving cars nearby. A police car rolled along the street and I wondered if they were checking for social distancing guideline adherence.

(In the past two weeks, I also saw police cars patrolling to make sure that the restaurants observed the then-6 p.m. curfew. Now, of course, it's forbidden to sit down in an eating establishment; one must order to-go, and the chairs are stacked inverted on the tables. There is a daily update about social distancing infractions on the Berlin city government's website and in the Berlin evening news, which mentioned 40 infractions yesterday.)

On March 17th, the last time I'd been on a proper walk, it had been a surprise to me that cinemas etc. were closed and dark without any signage whatsoever, except one piece of paper in a poster vitrine that promised 'Wir sind bald wieder für Sie da.' They were shut down too quickly and it was too unclear when they could reopen. But now shops are prepared.

And on the elaborately carved 19th-century door of a residential apartment building, I saw a sign that promised help and offered phone numbers to anyone who wished someone else to go shopping on their behalf. This kind of initiative is often being taken for Berliners with preexisting medical conditions.

Then, after 'checking in' on familiar shops on my block to see which ones were open and which weren't, I decided to enjoy my freedom and try to regain a feeling of normality by going to one of my favourite walking destinations. And soon I reached Viktoriapark in Kreuzberg and walked briskly up to the pinnacle in the centre.

Of course the city panorama reminded me dimly of Wordsworth's view of London:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.*

Synagogues, churches, mosques; industrial brick buildings from the Wilhelminian epoch and building cranes and the Sony Centre at Potsdamer Platz; the TV Tower; tree-lined streets and the renovated façades of Kreuzberg apartment buildings along the streets named after places and generals of the Napoleonic Wars. All of these were half-immersed in a blue-grey morning haze.

Red and white tape was hung across the children's play areas. And since yesterday or the day before, it's been forbidden to sit down on the grass, and sitting on benches is only recommended for short periods.

I was one of three people who had surmounted the veined pale stone steps to the enclosure surrounding the pinnacle. Around the pinnacle itself, there was an even more silent host of beer bottles from the bacchanalian nighttime revels of neighbourhood ne'er-do-wells, standing dispersed around the steps.

And at the foot of this enclosure, a man in his forties or fifties had his little portable wheeled suitcase ('Hackenporsche' in German; I'm bad at thinking of the English-language equivalent) with him as he pottered around the waterfall, beyond the wooden fence.

But what I loved were the signs of spring. Green leaves appearing more fully formed, like salmon 'alevins' becoming recognizable fry, narcissus — always yellow and perfect large stars, fragrant hyacinths in white that had blossomed so far that they had toppled and were beginning to wither at the edges of their petals, annual golden cowslips or primroses, and violets in white that were (I thought) more funereal-looking. Little ghosts at the foot of a large tree.

After I was warmed up, I jogged for a minute or two on the way home, feeling healthy and strong and hopeful again.

* "Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802" [Wikipedia]