rheine

it is periods of motion and tumult in life that force thoughts of longevity, proprioception increased, what you wish would surround you for always.

i love my family, my homes (memories and youth relived) more than i love the stars or the sun in the morning... but the world, the world and everything in it, what I want to see: midnight suns and wooden faces, the hidden bridges, hot and cold waters, the oldest stones, how people keep living even when they feel the moon may not rise again. what I want to see makes me move.

this summer (yes, it is november) after my homes, i started in köln, germany.  christian met me at the airport (how one should distinguish friendships) and we went back to his envelope of an apartment, dropped my shit and ran. ran to the singularly most impressive structure i have ever seen, the dom cathedral (the scale, the blacks and whites, what it witnessed). ran in the heat to eat some sausage at a hole in the wall with an open kitchen and server who would only offer more beverages when he felt it was acceptable (do NOT ask!), ran again, drank some beer, ripped a rug, made it rain.  

ran to beautiful bonn and the horrors of war held in a museum, partook in the fireworks festival (sans map! what a triumph!), a rousing night of kolsh (small glasses, loud voices), some karaoke and underground (ehrenfeld) to dance and dance and see the strangers as they passed.

essentially leveled in WWII, cologne is not a particularly beautiful city; grey, more modern, the charm comes from the attitude, a conviviality, the shared notion that nice is better and why not?.. we are all human anyways.  between the banks, the rheine flows at an astonishing rate, and the brown water took me with it as i ran north along the edge, through paths of trees, high brush and a transient community of nature dwellers (guitar-clad, inviting, lovers of earth and wind), those we should all meet to make sure we still live on the ground.  i ran out of the trees, past grazing sheep, and into a cove of soft round rocks that collected the river tide.  Skipping my stones in the dusk light, i recognized a peacefulness that cities sometimes possess, a peacefulness this city offered me in a time of need, as cities so often do if you let them.