Listening to Fool by Perfume Genius

Letter's to my Daughter #4. Plot twist decision, moving to Berlin.

Hi baby girl,

You were up for 2 hours from 3am last night raving inside the womb. A new rhythm. I’ve taken to keeping a box of muesli bar’s, or granola bar’s as they call them here in the states, next to the bed to keep the hunger at bay for these happenings. Which are actually very special to me because I feel like we’re bonding in these moments. Being awake with you is different to being awake by myself during all the previous bouts of insomnia I’ve endured over the years. Especially when they were raving induced. These hours with you in the early morning kicking are precious in fact. So thank you for keeping me company. Even if it means less sleep for me. Your thumps are so cute.

Marino is away for 3 whole weeks and I find myself more lost in my rich inner world than I usually have the privilege of being. I’m making pasta inspired by spring fresh vegetables from the farmers market and pouring myself glasses of ghia for one. Sophistication is refined in solitude, always remember that, but I do laugh a lot more when your Dad is around. It’s hard to believe this is the longest we’ve ever spent apart, since the time I was telling you of, my chapter in New York. Where we left off last chapter was the moment I knew he loved me, and I felt the instinct to move to Berlin coming over me like a wave. The song he sent me was ‘Better Days’ by Graham Nash.

The lyrics go as follows:

When your love has moved away
You must face yourself and you must say
I remember better days
Don't you cry 'cause she is gone
She is only moving on
Chasing mirrors through a haze

Now that you know it's nowhere
What's to stop you coming home?
All you got to do is go there
Then you'll really realize what's going down

You went to a strange land searching
For a truth you felt was wrong
That's when the heartaches started
Though you're where you want to be
You're not where you belong

The way this song summed up how I was feeling about New York was profound. Realising the dopamine I had been chasing and living off was unable to dull the loneliness I truly felt on days off. Realising being a stylist was never really the dream. Realising when someone (aforementioned Hari Krishna adjacent skater boy) asked me what my idea of love was, on a summer’s day, all I could think of to say was, Marino. There had been other signs leading to this moment, such as the book I had been reading at the time, Patti Smith’s ‘The M Train’. She travelled to Berlin in that book. A copy I sent him living on our shelf now in Los Angeles, an inscription still very legible.

So I went and did what any 23 year old woman in their rational mind who needed an exit plan would do after receiving a song in the middle of the night from an old flame. Booked a one way flight to a different continent 3 months later with no back up plan. Departing New York as Winter began. My friends were bewildered, you see no one leaves NYC, there is nowhere better… This is the mentality that our survival in the harsh city was built on, getting through it together, forever, and against all odds.

But as the leaves began to fall, so did my friends plans to stay in the city too, the unforgiving realities of visa’s laid out, gainful employment harder to come by, and thousands of dollars needed to sign on to stay with sponsorship. It was proving tough. The days were getting shorter and time was dwindling, so I set my sights on an indie fashion magazine based out of East Berlin who agreed to meet when I arrived for an interview. The day I chose to nonchalantly tell Marino that I was moving to Berlin, there was nothing that could have prepared me for what he would reveal in return.