Part 34: Berlin
… was already spring-like and housed us for two months. A daily routine set in. Lots of fresh air and lots of alone time. The other mothers had older children and had mostly returned to their desks. A week to the grandparents. Milla began to slur her words and because she was so fond of saying Ai Weiwei, I took her to the exhibition in the Gropius Bau. Otherwise, on swings and roller rinks, in cafes and living rooms. More and more often on the floor. The others crawled and Milla rolled. Music she liked, cobblestones not at all. The first porridge, the first teeth. Fever and tears and then it was good again. She especially liked to eat books, otherwise rice cereal with milk. Gianni came every evening and usually took her to his place. Three hours of child-free time. Data, jogging, vacuuming. All things that otherwise came up short. After that the music box, drink milk once and then eyes closed and another two hours remained for me. This worked quite excellently and yet I was looking forward to the next tour. In the still distant future, even kindergarten and return to work flashed. And even though I wasn’t particularly keen on crawling out of bed early at five, I was looking forward to making some personal progress. As nice as time off might be, there remained a sense of unproductivity that was a problem not because of itself, but because of the desire to create.
