I am not too sure where I heard it, but I’d like to start this retrospective with a saying: “It’s easy to exist, but hard to live.’’
Last year, we were all gripping at the surface of the cultural, societal and environmental tectonic plates that have been at tension. They have been vibrating so hard, pushing against one another. Globally, I think we can all agree that we have extra lines on our furrowed brows, at the very least. Going into 2022 now overwhelmingly feels like we are just waiting for those tectonic plates to finally give up their fight, to explode and release a diffusion of disasters. I didn’t even question the fact the number one Christmas film was about a comet heading to Earth for the imminent apocalypse. All in all, It has become much harder under the sun and much more confusing to know how to live, where your place is in the world, and what the future will look like.
Nevertheless, the septic tank that was last year isn’t fully jammed with skepticism and mourning. There is a silver lining. This story is about hope, about moving forward with love. In the night when the candles go out, that is all there is: love. It was a beautiful year, too. Spring looked like an overdue acid trip and summer was long and full of dreams. It is easy to exist and certainly hard to live, and although big bad things are happening, there are always good things.
As much as that slightly sinister saying above was ringing in my head when I began writing this, my brain was also met with the optimistic melody of ‘Special’ (2014) by Andrew Ashong. This song soon overrides the echo of the saying and takes first podium in my mind. This year was special.
Here is where it gets juicy. In order to talk about the juice, I must also mention the lack of juice I had in 2020. This was the year I lost kilter and was always off balance. I was fighting loneliness and an urge to jump in the river and be swallowed by the algae. I was able to swim up from the surface in 2021 and left my diving suit covered in asexuality and depression at the bank of that solemn river. This is a metaphor of course. Thanks to friends, family, and a hell of a lot of courage I began to feel a mojo that was now stronger than it had ever been before. The mojo pushed me to shake my hips on sun dripped dance floors until darkness wrapped itself around me. It allowed me to make friends who were magical. I was having sex with the same joy I had pre-2020. My heart was growing out again. It was coming out of its cave where it had been listening to Imogen Heap on repeat (a sad singer). I was dancing in nightclubs, nectar dripping from my temples, and winking at friends after losing my experimental virginity over and over again. After a lot of messing around, enjoying the mess and lingering in the aftermath, I met someone and began to reflect on love in Berlin.
After a while in Berlin, most people would agree, you start to yearn for permanence, stability or just something regular. Those three words sound very rational and boring. So I will try and romanticise this departure into living out those three words, because living them out is the most romantic thing I have ever experienced. I can only speak for the community I was in, in my four years of Berlin, but there is definitely a feeling of impermanence there that has affected my yearning for love. The people I met and became dearly fond of were all from other places, captured by the idea that the grass is always greener etc, and there’s a lot to say for Berlin being one of the best places to live in the world. The grass is neon green, still gripping on to beautiful socialism (although with tender hooks), still dancing all hours and still believing that freedom is the most valuable thing. You can really do anything there. It was like the Wild West and I was having so much fun at being a cowboy. If you meet a rare Berliner there, they will boast of the freedom they have been able to gobble all throughout their lives. However, in my opinion, it comes at a price. Too much freedom can lead to an element of madness, especially for someone like me who grew up with lots of rules. Hail Britannia. I began to watch the effect of this liberation and what it meant for love.
I was brought to Berlin by a Berliner who I was head over heels in love with. I followed him through dark, electric corners, mesmerised by the fact he could touch anything, do anything. Although now, in retrospect, after having been slapped out of that love, I can see pretty clearly that this mentality, created by Berlin’s Wild West, did not make for good boyfriend material, or at least produced a toxic relationship. It’s like being a free parent and never teaching your children discipline. They will keep breaking rules and will be surprised when someone tells them off. This relationship was a firework, expansive and beautiful, but Peter Pan let Wendy go. In this metaphor, I am Wendy and I feel a little older and bolder now, just like she does when she arrives back from her adventure. Obviously there are exceptions, but being a white, beautiful man, such as my Berliner ex-boyfriend, gives you pretty much the ‘first podium’ in society anyway. Then, having a Berlin upbringing also produces a person that wants to stay forever young, like Peter. The adventure is never over, and that’s totally fine, but it’s not for me.
Let’s fast forward to dancing and having my mojo back. I remember after the long, hot summer I began to realise that we, including me, had all been enveloped in this Peter Pan-like state. I had lost my Wendy identity, and just like her, my ideas of home began to fade. What replaced home – rules and structure – was a fierce need to liberate myself, to hold onto nothing. We were all aching to not grow old and we were all treating Berlin as our Neverland. ‘To land’ is to retain some level of expectation of destination. ‘To land’ is to reach somewhere and stay there, and for us, it was never an option. Neverland. There was a whole lot of beauty in this. I wish to get back to it one day. It is an amazing mentality to have. Hook, the oldest person in Neverland, always seemed sad to me. As he grappled with the past in order to stay ahead of the young, he could never move on or forward. I didn’t want to become Hook. I wanted to have an adventure on my side, but not forget that life can be as meaningful with rituals, habit and concretism.
Love is also wrapped up in this tornado of freedom. You can find it, but it will be fleeting. Men would never expect you to think that having sex with them would lead to anything serious, and vice versa. There would always be multiple men I’d be courting, flickering shadows ready to fade out. Brutal. We all shared this feeling though and we expressed it. Everyone knew everything was casual. After a while though, it makes you crave longevity, ‘landing’ and more loyalty. I remember in my first week I started chatting to a girl who had just moved from London. She told me, “I never make friends properly here as I know they are all going to leave.” I never thought much of it at the time. Now, I see. Berlin is Neverland and some people choose to grow old. To leave the chase for freedom behind. I believe there is a way to live there and grow old at the same time, but to hold onto love is another thing.
I digress.
I want to tell you now about how this mentality made me yearn for a deeper love. I began to manifest my landing and by some miracle, I found it just when my heart had rebuilt its roots. If you had told me this while I was looking into the deep green waters of the miserable river, I would have not believed you. I hear the song ‘Special’ again and my brain begins to go fuzzy, like it does when you take ecstasy, or, for those who have never tried it, like popping candy between your brain. I had forgotten what it feels like to have love. My god. To be held and to hold. To tickle and to be tickled.
I believe there are three true loves in your life; or three phases of your career in loving. I will not talk about self-love as that’s a whole other piece. The three loves. The first kind is the love that is new, explosive, and extremely volatile. Your first loves. That is the love where your heart is shattered and the music you listen to takes a dark hit. I had that love twice and am heavily inspired by those two loves. The second is the one where your heart has learned what it likes, it knows that endurance can only be held if the person holding it is kind. You begin to understand the value of that human and you want to work alongside them, instead of on top of them. This love is not suffocating. It is not selfish. It values longevity. It values learning. The third, although I am none the wiser, is a love of wisdom, a love that has surpassed age and pain. It is a love that you are surprised about, maybe it doesn’t value the same things the first two do. It has surpassed superficiality. This third love is like an armchair that is soft in all the right areas and hard in all its structures. Hard enough to hold two figures.
I am in the second stage of love now. I have left the Berlin Neverland that couldn’t provide the ecosystem to raise and nurture this second kind of love. The freedom of Berlin still exists in my mind, but I am content knowing I have grasped that idyllic island and that my boat now lays only at the shore of the mainland, ready to be untied again. Not for a while, though.
I’m ready for phase two of love.
Words by Eliza Lawrence, as featured in SLEEK 72 – LOVE. Available in print and digital here.
Eliza is a British writer. Having studied English at the University of Edinburgh, she set her sights on becoming an actor and writer in Berlin. She mostly writes poetry and drama. For her, the power of the stage is its ability to present multiple perspectives on different topics.