2000-10-31 In Munich, near Marienplatz, is St. Peter's church. I seem to think it is called that, although it could be something else instead. It's the one with the high tower you can climb up to, the one that has, in the hallway, one of those funny little machines you can put a coin into, and it flattens it, carves a messy image on it, and drops it on your palm to take home as a souvenir. That place, yes. I climbed up the narrow stairs all the way to the top almost exactly eleven months ago. The night was falling, the air was crispy with coldness. Munich is a strange town, that way. It gets colder and it snows more than I would've expected, considering how far south it is (at least from here). The light dies quicker there, it's that south. Here it takes hours to come completely dark. There are the everlasting hours of blue, when the air itself seems to reflect my mood. In the falling dark there, I stood on the frail railing that surrounded the tower from the outside. It was slippery from ice, and the ground seemed so far away. The noises were muffled, and people rushed by like tiny animals far below me. I could hear their clear voices but not what they were saying. The sky with the last hints of the setting sun was enormous. It hung like an indigo veil over my eyes, and the stars seemed to closer as the light faded. If I looked down, I could see the red and orange lights of the town. Munich is a town that's colored orange in the evenings. The sky was like liquid and I wanted to dissolve into it, into something so dark and soft and cold. I could feel the coldness piercing my clothes, I hadn't expected it to be that cold up there. Every breathe I took seemed to bring a piece of that vastness, a piece of that enormous calmness and peace and I'm-in-the-right-place-in-the-right-time -feeling a little bit further inside me. It felt like I was being filled with an enormous sense of purpose, the meaningfulness that seemed to come from the rotation of the earth, from the balance of the universe. I can't eplain it, I can't tell what made everything so absolutely right at that moment. I felt closer to heaven than I've felt before. I felt as if I could almost suck the universe inside me if I just could breathe so deep my body would crack open and let the air in, if I could breathe so deep I could let the air consume me. There was that anticipation, we all know how it comes. There was this I-want-more-this-isn't-enough -feeling. I felt I was so close that if I reached my arm into the air in front of me I would be able to touch perfection. I couldn't. The railing is sealed with a net that keeps the suicide candidates like me from falling through the air into freedom and fulfilment. I cannot fit my hand through the holes in it. If you ever go to Munich, climb up there, in the evening when it's getting dark. You might catch a glimpse of eternity, or maybe a falling star. |
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