Epiphany
People used to ask me why I like Glasgow so much. I just had an epiphany and can now clearly answer where I used to give a shrug cause I didn’t really know myself.
Glasgow is the Berlin I used to know when I was a kid.
I grew up in East Berlin, very close to the border. Berlin consists of many quarters, like villages within the city. We were a close knit community and interested in the other person. We helped each other, we knew each other and even strangers were greeted nicely instead of ignored.
I knew who was living in my house (a tenement with 4 stories, within a complex of cubic build houses with many little courtyards). I knew who was living in the next building and I knew many people from our street and all the side streets. I didn’t know them well, merely their name and occupation and maybe who their friends were. I don’t remember ignoring strangers or people who need help. It wasn’t anonym. We were a community.
If nowadays I walk down the same road I grew up in, I recognise the buildings and it is all familiar but at the same time it isn’t. There are so many memories connected to it but it feels so strange and distant. People barely look you in the eyes and all seem to hurry. If I stumple and fall, nobody would help me on my feet, no matter what age I am. It used to be different and thats what I see in Glasgow.
I might be blinded by what I saw in my past and what I think I see in Glasgow. I am aware of it. But still, it seems so similar. I walk down Buchanan Street and of course people are busy and in a rush but they look at you. I walk through the botanical garden and people I’ve never seen before say hello. I pay something at Sainsburys cash desk and the cashier starts to talk to me. I stand on the side of a road with a map in my hand and somebody points me in the right direction.
So, for me, Glasgow feels like my Berlin of 1985 :) and I love it!
Of course with 2010 technique and style :)
