It's Still Real Life

Some notes on the dailiness of things

In case you were having idealistic visions of what living abroad is like (perhaps you’ve been picturing endless days of calm exploration and pastry eating, where no one feels tired and everything is easily accessible by cute bicycle with wicker basket), I am here to clarify.

The bad news/good news is that it’s not like that, at least not for us. I say “bad news” because who wouldn’t want to live a life of relaxed sightseeing and bakery hopping via quaint two-wheeler? But it’s also good news because that kind of breezy life doesn’t exist in the long term, so we can give up yearning for it (even if you hold the ideal image in your mind and wonder why you can’t have all the pflaumenkuchen or pretzel buns in the city). And while there are smaller moments that resemble the ideal, our life is still very much our life.

Do I sound grouchy? I don’t mean to. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Part of the lure of coming to Berlin was living like a local and that means all the demands of daily life still apply. Children need to be fed, laundry needs to be done, and the bathroom needs to be cleaned.

What I have noticed, and this surprised me a bit, is that daily chores are now imbued with a certain something: a little sparkle and shine, if I’m being honest. Since everything is new, everything is new. You know?

For example, doing the laundry requires a new strategy. This being Europe, the washing machine is about 1/3 of the size of a typical North American washing machine, there’s no dryer, and all the buttons on the machine are in German. Needless to say, I had to do some research and planning before I washed our clothes for the first time. I also had to find a spot with the best air flow for the drying rack, not to mention scaffold the washes to ensure we all had clean clothes.

Gripping stuff.

(If you’re still reading, then you’re either a laundry enthusiast like me, or you’re one of my family members. If you belong to neither camp, I thank you!)

All I mean to say is that this is still regular life, but because we’re in an unfamiliar environment, the mundane tasks have temporarily transformed into interesting events. Grocery shopping is a joy (I could spend hours looking at all the different products), and it’s an activity I do every day because we have no car. I have to cook differently, shop differently, and get to and from the store differently. With a new perspective comes a new way of seeing and appreciating the things we stopped noticing. I’m grateful for this.

But my favourite daily activity happens in the early morning. While the kids are still in pyjamas, and Jake is making coffee, I walk to the end of our street to buy fresh bread. The city yawns and stretches into morning, people are already riding their bikes to school and work, and the sunlight glows through the trees along our street and in the park up ahead. The bakery staff are starting to recognize me now; we smile knowingly at each other as I buy the usual: a loaf of roggenbrot (still warm) and sometimes a kardamom knopf for M. and a brotchen (bun) for E. I want to linger in the cafe portion of the bakery, sip a coffee, and read the newspaper like the older men do. But my family, and the daily tasks (now fresh with the newness of our experience), await down the street and up the stairs.