Fall in Berlin has two sides. There is this side of it….

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But then there is also the side in which I looked up at 4:30pm yesterday to find it already almost completely dark. I don’t feelready for this shift. In the wee hours of Sunday morning our clocks fell back an hour, a week before the United States does the same thing. For one glorious week we are only 8 hours apart from each other instead of 9. For my morning pup walks it is also good news but for the evenings it means for long nights. We aren’t even at the shortest days yet. We still have a month and a half more to go of shortening days before the light returns second by second.

Berlin this morning is grey and kind of damp. This is the other side of autumn in Berlin. It gets greyer and greyer and darker and darker. Before I moved here, all sorts of people warned me about the fall and winter here. I should have more stamina for it coming from Oregon, I naively thought. The big differences are that it is a shorter day even though you would think we aren’t that much further north than Oregon. The weather temps are close but Oregon just seems more green to me all around. The people here get grumpier and grumpier in addition to the shorter days and it just seems like way more grey, dark and cold here. It isn’t the best thing ever. Friends yesterday here were posting at sunset….take your vitamin D! Here we go, everyone get ready! And so on.

We will cherish a bit of sun here and there but all of us are starting to brace ourselves. Last year at this time, the more extreme lockdown had begun and we couldn’t go anywhere to get any bit of relief. The numbers aren’t great here right now but vaccinations are rising and I think we have all resolved to try to live the best we can in our world with safety and mindfulness but also still living into the world. In 10 days, in order to get ready for what is to come here, Ana and I (if all is still going ok) are flying to Tenerife, Spain in the Canary Island. We want to get some island sun before settling into the darkness and before I go to the states for two weeks on my own. We will be safe and take precautions but we also realize that we will need this for the months to come.

How are you preparing for the months ahead?