“Blessed are the dead for their hands do not freeze…” (Kris Kotarski, Berlin, May 2009)

Layers upon layers of history coexist in the Reichstag, which has been home to the German Parliament since 1999.

Some coexist gracefully—for example, Norman Foster’s glass dome is a beautiful and unabashedly modern addition to the original 1882 design. Others, such as the Soviet graffiti still found inside the building, continue to cause friction (I promise a photograph sometime soon). Such is the fate of the building that once played such an important role in Hitler’s rise, and which remains a powerful symbol of German reunification.

I took the photo earlier this month when my cousin from Warsaw visited Berlin, and we both smiled at the fact that those layers of history are not so easy to figure out sometimes, even for us.

“Should we tell our grandparents that we stood on the roof on the German Parliament?” he asked.

“They probably won’t mind,” I answered.

“But should we tell them we were sightseeing?”

Still searching for some great reward. (Kris Kotarski, Bieszczadzki Park Narodowy, July 2008)

Once upon a time, when I was a little boy, I walked down from a grassy mountaintop after a long hike. I was tired, and I wore a frown. I was frustrated that I was too old to be carried on someone’s shoulders like my little cousin, and equally upset that I was too young to be on equal footing with the adults.

She was eight, maybe nine, and she liked to sing the same gypsy folk songs that my mother and aunt so adored. She wore a loose sweater—I do not remember if it was purple or blue—and I wore a red flannel shirt with clear plastic buttons.

I did not like folk songs, I liked my dad’s Depeche Mode cassette. I was walking behind the others humming a tune to myself, when, during a moment of collective silence, she slowed down, looked at me with a smile and told me that I should enjoy the view.

“What is so special about this view?” I asked.*

She crinkled her nose, and looked up toward my aunt in search of approval.

“Maybe some day, when you are older, you will understand…”

* My aunt took this photograph twenty-some years later, and showed it to me last month. Same spot, give or take 50 meters.

Faith? (Kris Kotarski, Warsaw, April 2009)