zuhause in berlin

I've been thinking a lot about how multifaceted the word "home" is. To me, "home" can mean where I'm from, where the people I love live, or where I feel "at home.”

I recognize the three places I’ve lived as my homes: Berlin, New York, and Lancaster. They are all home to me for different reasons, and I feel rather equally comfortable in each. Choosing a favorite would be quite difficult since each city serves a unique purpose in my life, so I see how lucky I am to be a college student not yet forced to settle in just one.

In German, there are two terms I'd like to discuss: Zuhause and Heimat. Zuhause means "at home.” Heimat is more difficult to define; breaking it up, the word Heimat comes from Heim–home–but means something closer to homeland. There are some complicated feelings surrounding the word Heimat, largely due to its association with National Socialism, but the term was previously a huge theme in German Romanticism. A closer examination of the word’s etymology shows it means more than hometown; it refers to emotions around a deeper meaning of the word "home" rather than a specific physical space.

When talking about New York, I always refer to it as "my place." I guess "my place" is my rough English equivalent for Heimat; there are more complex emotions involved with talking about New York as "my place" or "my home.” New York has built me and broken me and picked me up and pushed me back down. It has rebuilt my personality, altered my style, shaped my opinions, and made me question the world to understand it better. There's me before New York and me after New York, and similarly, I think there will also be a pre- and post-Berlin Maura.

Weil ich mich in Berlin wie zuhause fühle. Because I feel at home in Berlin. I've felt at home in Germany since I first did an exchange trip here four years ago, and maybe, somehow, even before that. It’s a feeling that’s difficult to describe. I had only previously spent about three weeks in this country, yet it feels like a home that had been waiting for me to discover it. I don't know if that has anything to do with my German ancestry or my perhaps stereotypical German personality traits or my connection with the language, but Germany has never felt “foreign” to me. Living in Berlin feels safe, normal, and comfortable, and, just like when I'm in New York, I have no concept of Heimweh–homesickness–here.

Berlin has put me in touch with my feelings. The best metaphor for this is crosswalk signals. In New York, crosswalk signals are mere suggestions and usually shouldn't be followed––you walk across as long as you think you won't get hit. You might *almost* get hit sometimes (at least once a day), but you survive by moving forward with reckless abandon, and you get where you're going faster by just pushing through. In Berlin, Ampelmännchen, literally "little crossing light men,” are very well respected. You don't often see someone crossing before they turn green, no matter how long it takes—even if the road is clear as far as the eye can see. I have to fight every urge to cross (as my German instinct of shame immediately kicks in for not following the rules) and instead just stand patiently as I wait on them.

In Berlin, I'm checking in on myself like I never have before, and I think it's shaping me to be able to handle any future encounter in any future Heimat. In New York I've learned to shove it all down, to push onwards and run forward. I hope to learn and carry on with Berlin's lesson: you have to make yourself stop sometimes—actually, a lot—and check in with yourself. Stare yourself down, ask yourself what you really need. Take your headphones out and wait at the crosswalk with friends and tell them what's going on instead of running across the street to your final destination. If you don't stop sometimes and you eventually get hit from running recklessly across too many streets, you probably won't make it to your final destination any faster than if you had just stopped and waited at those crosswalks.

I have yet to see exactly how Berlin will shape me. It has pushed me out of my "go, go, go" New York attitude and forced me to stop and look at myself again, to realize that my lovely New York is not everything I have made her out to be in my mind. She's not flawless. Her public transit is kind of awful, her streets smell, her people don't know how to relax, and she's just too expensive! New York is part of my soul, but Berlin has stepped in to tell me that she's better at some things than New York—and that's ok.

Who knows where I'll end up, but I'm certainly lucky to have Heimaten—more than one Heimat—and to have the freedom to choose which one I want to spend time in. It's hard to think about choosing one to live in after I graduate,. It could very well be Berlin. There's no final decision, though—no singular Heimat I have to choose forever. I just feel lucky to have three incredible (and incredibly different) Heimaten that have shaped me into the person I am now, whose lessons I can carry from place to place.

Now for some Nietzsche regarding Heimat:

Vereinsamt

Die Krähen schrei’n

Und ziehen schwirren Flugs zur Stadt:

Bald wird es schnei’n

—Wohl dem‚ der jetzt noch — Heimat hat!

Nun stehst du starr‚

Schaust rückwärts ach! wie lange schon!

Was bist du Narr

Vor Winters in die Welt — entflohn?

Die Welt — ein Tor

Zu tausend Wüsten stumm und kalt!

Wer das verlor‚

Was du verlorst‚ macht nirgends Halt.

Nun stehst du bleich‚

Zur Winter-Wanderschaft verflucht‚

Dem Rauche gleich‚

Der stets nach kältern Himmeln sucht.

Flieg’‚ Vogel‚ schnarr’

Dein Lied im Wüsten-Vogel-Ton!

—Versteck’‚ du Narr‚Dein blutend

Herz in Eis und Hohn!

Die Krähen schrei’n

Und ziehen schwirren Flugs zur Stadt:

Bald wird es schnei’n‚

Weh dem‚ der keine Heimat hat!