berlin summer diaries

ongoing visual diaries of this berlin summer —
witness to the fullness of life that i lived

Kening ZhuJuly 9, 2021berlin diaries, summer, visual diaries, ongoing

bike to a lake for a bath

bike 6 miles to a lake on a hot summer day, and pretend the lake is your bathtub. lay down in it. surrender completely to the stillness. tread water only to keep warm. if you let go, the water will hold you, and the water spirits will say soothing things in your ear. tell you exactly what you need to hear.

this is what i did yesterday. i almost fainted biking the way home (damn that giant hill) but that lake bath was exactly what i needed. my heart is a water creature, for sure.

Kening ZhuJuly 7, 2021berlin diaries, soothing room, travel diaries

berlin summer roses

i took this photo today, mid-afternoon, at treptower park. the roses are slowly wilting, but the glory of their colors arrested me — if only for a moment — to wonder if there was a way to live life, such that each moment could be felt with its full vibrancy and beautiful intensity — even the moments that suck. what if the bitterness, too, could be simple and sweet?

Kening ZhuJuly 2, 2021berlin diaries, summer

the feeling of coming home

here is a flyer i saw on the street sometime last winter — on one of my daily zombie walks during that berlin winter which never seemed to end. here's the translation of this ad:

"We are looking for a home!

We — two educators - are looking for a quiet and bright 2-3 room apartment, preferably with a balcony. Vozagweise in Neukölln, Xberg, Schöneberg or Tempelhof up to a maximum of 1000 euros" —

email address: feelingofcominghome@gmail.com

seeing the worldKening ZhuJune 18, 2021berlin, berlin diaries, travel diaries, making home

a berlin spring weather log

spring weather in berlin, for me, is far more unbearable than winter. in winter you know it’s dark. but early spring in berlin consists of a tortured moodiness and inconsistent sun that will drive one crazy. that is to say, spring in berlin is a wise teacher for all the important lessons you need to learn in life: on endurance, patience, and grace in the face of sudden, drastic change. on living totally in the moment of the weather.

I’m playing an experiment for the next month or two — where I’ll do the opposite of a weather forecast.

Kening ZhuMarch 30, 2021berlin diaries, berlin, weather diary, travel diaries

the bird of here and now

I’ve been in an off mood. this berlin pandemic winter was so dark and so long it was almost… charming. I embraced it with both arms and sunk into the darkness. but now that spring is like a spider-thin, barely-there thread, just forming, I feel an old restlessness in me stirring again; an agitation for escape. for some other world.

notes on the journey, seeing the worldKening ZhuMarch 27, 2021berlin diaries

ongoing illustrated map: berlin

3.11.21 — my life is just four parks & one cemetary

it’s time to start my ongoing map of berlin. I’ve been making illustrated maps of the cities I’ve loved since I was in college, when I started a project, wandermaps, to capture the world through my eyes.

now I feel like my entire website / webhouse / digital existence is an expanded version of the world through my eyes. this is what it means to be an artist, no?

art from my soulKening ZhuMarch 11, 2021berlin, berlin diaries, illustrated maps, travel diaries

ongoing illustrated map: tempelhofer feld

3.11.2021 — the beginning of a map

since moving not-moving to berlin, I’ve been walking, nearly everyday, to this airfield park. it is the most expansive place I’ve been to in a big city, where the horizon stretches out in all directions, and you feel like you could be somewhere else, anywhere else. this is the magic of an airport — it is an in between space.

art from my soulKening ZhuMarch 11, 2021illustrated maps, berlin, berlin diaries, travel diaries