Germany is dark a lot. Sometimes it seems as if the clouds will never go away, and the people will never shed their unhappy, shades-of-gray coats. In the cities, they dress very chic, layers of winter matching everything just so, and their stylish boots conquering the cobblestones with every step. The villages don't adhere to so strict a dress code: old women wear long, puffy coats from twenty years before, feet tapping the sidewalks clad in shoes rescued from the second World War. Their eyes sit in soft wrinkled flesh but flash with intelligence and impatience. Everything happens on time here, on the dot, and for mistakes, there isn't much room.
On the other hand, I hear them laughing sometimes completely without restraint, and I think to myself that if they did that more, and out of doors, maybe the laughter would punch holes in the dreary clouds, and the sun would show its face again. Of course, I write all of this in winter when it seems the entire universe has never known such a warm and inviting star. Having lived here before, I know that in summer, the foliage is so green it hurts the eyes, the air is fresh and pleasant, and the warmth of the rays caress with promise: if only one can survive the winter. I'd rather inches and inches of snow than this constant, dank dreariness that seeps into my bones.
Other times, I love the fog and the wetness of the leaves on every black sidewalk. The air is a damp, foresty velvet like the breath of Earth itself. Despite the cold, I could swim through it, this cloud that's graced the ground with its visit. It fills my lungs, and life is so solid in that moment I can almost touch it.
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