I thought it might be better to spend the holiday by myself in Berlin—it had been a strange and awful year and rushing back to the States for a short, predictable charade of celebration felt off.
I had just lost my job a few week back and—upon a last-minute impulse—I decided not to move back to America; for what would’ve been the third time in one year. Literally the night before my flight, I hauled a big box of belongings to DHL to ship home and, in an agonizing, off-beat moment I called my dear friend Laura half-crying and we ended up hauling the box back to my apartment on Knorrpromenade. (My, what a beautiful street that was.)
24 hours before that, I had visited Aisha and Aliça to interview for their open room on Simon-Dach-Strasse—just in the case that I “might” want to stay in Berlin—and they invited me to move in after a short, wine-heavy interview.
So now, weeks later, I found myself alone in the apartment. They had both gone home for Christmas. It was a week of quiet, isolated repetition: waking up on my mattress on the floor, visiting Aprilkind in the mornings and Fargo at night, catching the last of the afternoon light in the cold December air. I remember it all just so. How there was an immense, peaceful quality to my ritual. Each day felt indistinguishable from the next, and the whole city seemed to move in a shuttled slow motion. Indeed, there is some special mental clarity that the bitter German winter affords you; things feel just so impossibly calm and transparent.
It was in that time that I wrote “In A Christmas Way”.
I wrote it the day before Christmas, on an old bean bag in my room.
And the next day, I played it for a few people at Zach’s apartment—he had had some people over and we drank many beers late into the night.
Listen to “In A Christmas Way” here.
