An Exaltation of Larks and a Crowd of People

I don't know what happened but summer in Berlin lasted about three glorious minutes this year and I didn't want to waste it working on my blog ...so this is the first post in many months. Also, when I thought about things to write about I kept finding myself thinking negatively about city living which wasn't so inspiring.

Moving through crowds everyday is strenuous on the soul. In English, we have many different words to describe a group of animals depending on what they are. Sometimes we big brain creatures forget that we too belong in this scientific classification. Most everyone knows a herd of horses, a flock of birds, a school of fish. But do you know my favorite: an exaltation of larks? Now think of the word 'crowd'. For one thing, it rhymes with loud. It has a a hard, closed feeling, quite opposite to the open grandeur of 'exaltation'!

Have you ever wondered how birds flying in a large group manage to stay in graceful synchronization with each other? This is especially noteworthy when they suddenly take off from the ground, or wherever they have been at rest. They follow cues that are invisible to us. Evidently we do something similar when we are crossing streets and working our way through congested areas, but I suspect that our modern habit of living with our heads in the digital clouds is seriously damaging this delicate mechanism. City people are becoming less aware of where their body ends and other's begin.

The Berlin undergound at major stops like Hermannplatz and Mehringdamm are life-threatening during peak travel hours, I AM SO tired OF BEING SMACKED AND POKED without so much as an "entschuldigung" as commuters run around blind corners and down stairways, or push into the car without waiting for the passengers inside to aussteigen! Really, folks, is this necessary? Sometimes people walking directly at you stare you down like in a game of chicken.."you step aside or I will mow you down." I gradually became aware of how often I was altering my path, bending to this silent aggression.

If I was more hardy, I'd stay on my bike all winter. A herd of horses, a pack of dogs, a gaggle of geese, a crowd of people, and a lone biker.