In Berlin and Munich, old cemeteries are turned into parks, sometimes with a cafe, sometimes a playground. The dead give the living a green lung.
On the paths between the gravestones, people walk in circles, strollers with sleeping babies. An elderly woman stops every 20 meters as if she has forgotten
something, as if she is recollecting. Others just walk, some run. I knit.
These are strange times when we, the grownups, are really glad not to be young
A uniformed policeman arrives, looks, smiles unexpectedly, and takes real interest in my knitting project and where I come from. A group of kids passes. The policeman and I agree – these are strange times when we, the grownups, are really glad not to be young. During the conversation, he takes off his hat in a gentle gesture and places it over his chest, as if he would already like to take off his uniform.
On the tombstones, there are dates. The life in-between. That person was born and died before, or after, or during that war, or the previous one, and what did he do in the war, or what did he want to do after it.
A mother and daughter leave the playground barefooted to bury a snail in the grass. A creeping spiral of time. I forgot to ask the policeman before he left what he’d like to be when he grows up.
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