What brings out our best

 

Europe is edging toward an energy crisis.

Everyone is getting letters from their gas and electricity providers about price hikes.

By law, my office must limit the temperature to 19 degrees. They're offering blankets and everyone is layering up.

A war rages nearby. Europe boycotts Russian oil and gas. Underwater pipelines explode. Everything costs more, far more.

During the warmer summer months, I told a friend that aside from the news reports and refugees, the war in Ukraine feels distant from Berlin.

It feels closer now.

The upside is that we're finally noticing where our cheap gas and electricity came from, and what it's funded.

If you still don't know, google Bucha.

It's a chilling, helpful reminder of why we stopped buying gas from them. And why it might be worthwhile to feel a little colder this winter if they get less of our money.

As a Canadian, winter always seemed to bring out the best in people. A stranger's car won't start? We give them a boost. We'll shovel a neighbour's driveway, or buy cup of hot chocolate for the panhandler in front of Tim Horton's.

I'd like to think this energy crisis could bring out the best of all us. That we wouldn't sacrifice our principles to pay less for heating and electricity and everything else.

Principles aren't easy, convenient, or painless. And that's the point. It's the toughest winters that bring out the best in people, if we let it.

Our little circles of influence

The professional day drinkers who usually gather in front of Sudkreuz train station were pleasantly surprised about a month ago. Someone had pitched a tent, laid out some food, and put out foldable tables and chairs.

It's exhausting work to stand outside all day drinking and panhandling, so Sudkreuz's hard-working professional drinkers made themselves at home. They stretched out, drank their beer and cheap wine, and enjoyed the sun.

The next day, the tables and chairs were roped off and guarded by volunteers wearing yellow vests emblazoned with the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag. What the hard-living party folks of Sudkreuz mistook for their beer garden was a meeting point for refugees arriving by train from the war. Mostly women and children.

Sudkreuz is the last stop before Berlin's central station, where thousands are streaming into the city. A colleague arriving at Berlin, schlepping luggage with two kids trailing behind her, was graciously greeted by eager volunteers, mistaking her for one of the many mothers coming from Ukraine with small children.

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You would know Under den Linden in Berlin if you've visited Brandenburger Gate. It's a popular street in the Mitte for strolling shoppers, tourists, and locals. You'll also find the Russian embassy dominating an entire block on the street.

The embassy, which also sued to be the Soviet embassy for East Germany, is now walled off from pedestrians by barriers and patrolled by cops. 

The big headlines-grabbing protests usually take place on Sundays. 

But every day I've passed, there's always this quiet crowd of protesters on the tree-lined boulevard, holding Ukrainian flags that hang limply in the wind.

They don't do much. They don't chant or march. They stare at the embassy, its curtained windows, and its imposing stone facade.

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It might be easy to lose hope. There's an overwhelming feeling of despair about this war, its utter pointlessness and cold brutality. We all wish we could bend the arc of history in a better direction.

Most of us don't have the influence to start or end wars. But we all have our own circles of influence. We can do what we feel is the right thing to do within this circle. We can donate to a cause we believe in. We can let strangers from a war-torn land into our homes. We can march on the streets. 

The point isn't if we can change the world. The point is to make decisions and act closer to what we believe is right, and be able to live with ourselves. If we can live that way, then we might change our little circle of influence for the better in the process.

Travel in the Time of Covid

A rare sight: No one taking in thr East Side Gallery

When I checked into my Berlin pension, the desk person told me I was the only one staying in there that night. Travel restrictions were still in place, so you could only book a hotel room if you were on business, which meant budget lodgings, like my pension, in the heart of Berlin's touristy shopping district wasn't a a big draw.

Just outside, along the shopping strip in Charlottenburg, shoppers ignored the 1.5 meter of social distancing to line up in front of their favourite brand name stores, which still had to maintain a capacity limit inside. Some shoppers wore masks, but a freakish amount of people didn't bother with masks. For someone who had been locked down for two months, this was disconcerting.

That Saturday was the first day that Berlin loosened its quarantine laws. It was also a warm, sunny spring day. A powerful combination for people cooped up for two months in their flats. So people gathered outside in the parks and patios to walk, drink, flirt, and simply walk around.

Yet, the country was still locked down, even as restrictions were lifing in Berlin. This meant the city belonged to the Berliners. They sat along the Spree and sipped beer in the sun. They shopped, or at least they lined up to shop. The crowded onto patios to eat burgers and kebab. The tourist spots, on the other hand, were deserted.

On my way to an apartment viewing, I walked along the East Side Gallery. Usually there are hoards of people snapping selfies in front of the murals on the old sections of the Berlin Wall. I had the gallery to myself. The Berliners had no time for something they see every day.

Later I came back to my lodgings. The desk clerk had already left for the night, leaving me alone in the dim pension (unlike a hotel, there's no 24/7 staff on-site). 

In the morning, I ate breakfast in the grand old dining room alone - the old hardwood floor creaking loudly underfoot as I refilled my coffee. Through the tall windows, the city was already coming to life. Chairs and tables scrapped pavement as they were being laid out in the cafe below, currywurst stands were opening, and traffic was humming along.

Inside, the pandemic seemed like it still was going on. Outside it seemed like it was over.

The coronavirus comes to Germany

The coronavirus’ spread been a slow burn in my corner of Germany. The first cases were found in Heinsberg, about 60km from the Dorf and a 45-minute drive from Aachen, where my office is located.

New cases pop up in my state of North-Rhine-Westphalia daily, but no town is under lockdown, like in Italy. No mass digital surveillance system – that we know of – is watching our vital signs, like China. And there’s no sick health minister coughing and spreading the virus at news conferences, like Iran.

Life goes on in Germany… just a little differently. I catch a train twice a week to work in the Cologne office and no walk through the train station is complete without seeing a few commuters wearing surgical masks. People go to work. They hit the gym. They go out for beers. Most schools and daycares are still open. For now.

But beneath the business-as-usual attitude, there’s an underlying, repressed panic that’s difficult to hide. Walk into the drug store to buy hand sanitizer and you’ll see an empty shelf. Pasta and canned goods are popular. A local Ramen joint that used have people lined up around the corner is nearly deserted. Kata saw a woman carting away a dozen jumbo packs of diapers, which must be for a do-it-yourself mask that I haven’t heard about yet.

But those COVID-19 push notifications tell us about every new case. And if you only pay attention to the numbers, it might make sense to hoard on canned beans, masks, and shotgun shells. If you paused and thought a bit, you’d realize a better tactic is washing your damn hands and covering your mouth when you cough or sneeze.

To the German government's credit, they’ve been open and honest about new cases and their response to it. Trust in the health authorities here seems high. People are worried, but they’re not hysterical or ignorant of the facts.

With the coronavirus, it seems like we don’t care about it until it’s too late, or we expect governments to fix the problem. But mostly, it’s up to us.

Ten years ago, I was riding a subway in Toronto. A woman was coughing and hacking a few seats behind me. She sounded like she was going to die. As I left the car, I looked back and saw her coughing again, without covering her mouth. That night, I woke up coughing the same cough that woman shared with the entire train. A day later, I visited the doctor, who told me I had pneumonia.

The coronavirus will be around for a while, so we should get used to taking responsibility for ourselves. That doesn’t mean stocking up our doomsday bunkers. It means doing things we should've done more in the past: washing our hands, covering our mouths when we cough, and not being hoarders.