little amsterdam
The flight does not feel nearly as infinite as I'd worried. We'd been rerouted by the volcano, sent up through Portugal by way of Newfoundland, but I spent the hours modifying my mental state, enabling the European fixtures of my personality -- something not quite Kafka-esque.
Descending into Amsterdam, reading an interview with Robert Downey Jr. -- an esoteric man I've had the privilege of standing within five feet of -- on his arguments for criminalizing marijuana. "It's the biggest ambition crusher of them all... insidious... just take the sharpest table, round the corners and then keep wondering why you gouge your knees on it."
I'm here for a different kind of mind expansion. I'm hoping it's not the altitude or the wistful, fledgling vacation mood that has me giddy about exposing myself to, well, something else. Art, reading, culture that isn't at my fingertips, talk that isn't marketing, decisions that aren't routine.
They're good memory triggers, a restart button that jogs all the things I learned and then put on the back burner; it reassembles them in odd associations and says to me "here, survive on this now."
Not that any of these places are inhospitable, but speaking the primary language in only one out of three countries we are visiting will make this trip truly visual, visceral. I'll be connecting my own dots.
Out of cloud cover, the Netherlands are flat and quaint and as dark as I remember. A deep, wet green soaking up water from both sea and air.
The airport signs are all readable in English. We pass through the gates and I point out a crowd waiting in the terminal. "Those are the most American-looking Europeans I've ever seen," I say to Michael. They're on a flight to America, he points out.
We're greeted by Fran, Michael's long time best friend from the European school in Holland and perhaps the first transgender person I find strikingly attractive. Fran shows no signs of ever being Francesca, though childhood photos of that life and paintings bearing that nom de plume are still strewn about his father's house, where we've arrived after the Alfa Romeo dodges across dreary morning traffic.
We discuss the British general elections and Fran's veterinary work. My sister would adore him -- a charismatic pet doctor with an adorable British accent.
Inside the house is decorated like my grandparents' home -- ostentations 70s colors with shiny metallic objects that could catch your eye anywhere. I find my personal loves in the house quickly: a grand piano in the study, Chagall paintings on the third floor, bold red tile in the bathroom. Outside there is a courtyard which must be pretty when Holland is having weather not so typically Dutch. Here the neighborhood is bright with lively architecture and over the top gardens. The orange tiles and blue flowers are viewable from balcony after balcony and I'm fearful of all the mud we might trudge in.
I settle in with a song. Not to sound new-agey but sometimes the piano just tells you things. It's the first instrument I've played on this continent, beautiful in tone, though scratched like she'd once been a workhouse. We have a good conversation and I feel welcome.
Descending into Amsterdam, reading an interview with Robert Downey Jr. -- an esoteric man I've had the privilege of standing within five feet of -- on his arguments for criminalizing marijuana. "It's the biggest ambition crusher of them all... insidious... just take the sharpest table, round the corners and then keep wondering why you gouge your knees on it."
I'm here for a different kind of mind expansion. I'm hoping it's not the altitude or the wistful, fledgling vacation mood that has me giddy about exposing myself to, well, something else. Art, reading, culture that isn't at my fingertips, talk that isn't marketing, decisions that aren't routine.
They're good memory triggers, a restart button that jogs all the things I learned and then put on the back burner; it reassembles them in odd associations and says to me "here, survive on this now."
Not that any of these places are inhospitable, but speaking the primary language in only one out of three countries we are visiting will make this trip truly visual, visceral. I'll be connecting my own dots.
Out of cloud cover, the Netherlands are flat and quaint and as dark as I remember. A deep, wet green soaking up water from both sea and air.
The airport signs are all readable in English. We pass through the gates and I point out a crowd waiting in the terminal. "Those are the most American-looking Europeans I've ever seen," I say to Michael. They're on a flight to America, he points out.
We're greeted by Fran, Michael's long time best friend from the European school in Holland and perhaps the first transgender person I find strikingly attractive. Fran shows no signs of ever being Francesca, though childhood photos of that life and paintings bearing that nom de plume are still strewn about his father's house, where we've arrived after the Alfa Romeo dodges across dreary morning traffic.
We discuss the British general elections and Fran's veterinary work. My sister would adore him -- a charismatic pet doctor with an adorable British accent.
Inside the house is decorated like my grandparents' home -- ostentations 70s colors with shiny metallic objects that could catch your eye anywhere. I find my personal loves in the house quickly: a grand piano in the study, Chagall paintings on the third floor, bold red tile in the bathroom. Outside there is a courtyard which must be pretty when Holland is having weather not so typically Dutch. Here the neighborhood is bright with lively architecture and over the top gardens. The orange tiles and blue flowers are viewable from balcony after balcony and I'm fearful of all the mud we might trudge in.
I settle in with a song. Not to sound new-agey but sometimes the piano just tells you things. It's the first instrument I've played on this continent, beautiful in tone, though scratched like she'd once been a workhouse. We have a good conversation and I feel welcome.