I should be writing an essay right now but then I just tuned into the news for a quick second and realized that today is the 21st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and as usual, it took me back to the time that I visited that oh-so-historic wall two summers ago. I wrote a blog post about this last year as well and here I am writing about it again. There's something about this moment in history that gets at me every time. Any time I visit a museum, watch TV, or browse a newspaper, if there's something about the Berlin Wall, you can bet that I'll spend time visiting that exhibit, watching that show, or reading that article. There's something infinitely alluring about the history behind it...maybe it's my disbelief in the incredible scope and depth of oppression experienced in East Germany at the time...or the story of the triumph of the human spirit against that very oppression...or perhaps it's that electrifying collective effervescence felt around the world the night and days after the wall fell, and that even I can still feel just by watching videos from that time....

Whatever it is, I'm drawn to this particular moment in history like a magnet...but I won't linger and write more. Last year's post captured my feelings exactly...