On one of my last days in Berlin, my boss asks me to translate the word “cusp”. We are looking through the poetry collection I produced at work and, in a piece yet to be translated, which reflects on the beautifully curated children’s book Manchmal male ich ein Haus für uns: Europas vergessene Kinder (Sometimes I paint us a house: Europe’s forgotten children), I refer to someone being on the “cusp of sleep”. I ponder and eventually offer up “Grenze”, which translates as “border”.

In Berlin, the past division of the city seeps into every concrete curve. As I walk with my dad beside the remains of the wall, I think of the past. I think of my own, of the city’s. I think of barriers and division between past and present, life and death. And I wonder if, like the Berlin Wall, hastily erected to solidify separation, the barriers we enforce between life and death might not also be too firmly cemented.

In this new installment of the Berlin Bulletin, European columnist Sophie Clare takes us on a tour of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. From stadiums, to Savignyplatz, parks and palaces, and even David Bowie’s regular haunt, she covers it all in this gentle tour of just one Berlin district.

In the first instalment of her column Berlin Bulletin, German columnist Sophie Clare begins to share the hidden sides of Germany’s capital. In her exhilarating account, Sophie takes us on a tour of Berlin’s history through the exciting story of Formula E at the world-famous Tempelhof air field.