I still remember that first spring in Berlin, with far more specificity than the stacks and stacks of other springs that linger only as a hazy wash of black manure and optimistic snowdrops. This time, I tracked each change in nature with dogged attentiveness. This had, I am sure, little to do with what happened next, and far more to do with the fact that I was so unoccupied, and that the overdose of sterile grammar had starved my brain of organic pleasures.
