To get to the cinema, I had to take the 200 bus from Potsdamer Platz. At the bus stop, I watched a well dressed young man carefully place his Red Bull can on top of a metal box, rather than in the nearby bin. I wondered if he was coming back for it later, leaving it for someone else, or constructing a street sculpture out of the grey metals.
At the bus stop I read a history plaque about Varian Fry.
He rescued Marc Chagall! And then I imagined being one of those surplus intellectuals who failed to be rescued. And shivered.
The bus stopped before my stop and turned us out. Roads were closed. Police cars lined the streets. Barriers blocked the pavements. It turned out that Israei Prime Minister Netanyahu is in town for talks about peace talks.
I was escorted through the barriers to the cinema, where I watched the new film of Heidi, one of my favourite childhood books. Maybe the series of sad films that I had chosen at the film festival was influencing my viewing but there were parts of this lovely film where I found myself shivering for the vulnerability of the child - as the parson checked her body for illness, as she was left alone with her unknown grandfather, and as she was taken away from him to the city. I seem to find a terrible combination of innocence, vulnerability, and loss everywhere I turn just now.
More children in the U-Bahn station to go home.
Back in my studio, I painted and wrote furiously about these feelings:
We tried them once; they broke our teeth. acrylic on paper, 43 x 60 cm. Lynne Cameron, 2016.
