notes from amsterdam

dear friends,

I’m writing to you from aboard a train leaving Amsterdam. I spent three days here to see a dear friend, for whom I’d been working on a children’s book for the past three years. on Saturday, I handed him (and his three kids) - the first copy of the book. tonight, I will be in Paris.

I’m writing now, because in a week’s time, all the cities I’m visiting - Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona - will have melted together in my memory to form a new organism, loosely labeled: “Europe, 2019.” but right now, singular moments of my Dutch experience are still distinct and evocative, like the notes of a light, floral perfume.

any travel writer who says he will capture a city in words is lying. travel writing is always more about the writer rather than the place, the I rather than the them. (who am I to pretend I know this place, or them?) so in this letter, you will not see Amsterdam. you will see me, and you will see New York. let me show you.

on Sunday morning, my friend, who lives on the outskirts of the city, took me and his toddler on a lake in his inflatable boat, and through an intentionally overgrown park containing very artistic, children’s playground structures made out of wood. there was a tiny canal and a wooden raft connected to land by rope-line, temporarily operated by a Peter Pan-esque gang of nine year old boys. no adults in sight. in this Dutch playground, they do not optimize for safety. or cost. instead, they optimize for delight. beauty. enjoyment. this, to me, seems to be one such definition of being “European.”

unlike in new york city, where you must learn to become selectively dumb and deaf; where pedestrian life is often deliberately death-defying, where it’s not unusual to chase after indifferent bus drivers, who, on frigid winter nights, will still pull away while you wave and holler - in the Netherlands, urban life seems truly… pleasant. I mean that in the best sense of the word. people do not seem constantly tense and ready to fight. policeman do not patrol subways. the bus drivers do not yell, or roll their eyes at you. that would be ludicrous. instead, they seem even tempered, giving you directions as if they were the concierge of a high end hotel. nobody is annoyed that you don’t speak Dutch. even in the museum district, when confused tourists create traffic jams, nobody honks. nobody curses. the quiet is gentle, rather than totalitarian, or austere. it is the patience of a society that seems to think that it has plenty of resources, including time.

even the trees are well behaved. they line up on the side of the road, or stand in tall circles in park clearings. there are no plastic bags remaining stuck in street side tree branches for years. there seem to be no plastic bags, period. in a country this small, everything seems well tended to. cared for. which is not to say that it is manicured, like Florida - not at all. in city center apartments, each building is paraded by an overwhelming number of bikes, each door framed with overgrown shrubs, effusive vines, and wild roses. nobody seems to prune. it is a deliberately artistic overgrowth. bouquets stand in the center of dark living room windows. in the laundromat, there are succulents filling the window display, leafy plants lounging on top of each machine. it is an aesthetic of contrast: everything carefully measured, economically sized, technologically modern, balanced by greenery, flowers, and wood. organic, but not as a self-conscious identity. it simply is.

on Sunday afternoon, I rode a bike alone 11 km to the city center, and felt such pure joy. the little pleasures feel vividly tangible here. touchable. would it be enough for my restless spirit? am I addicted to the grit of new york city? I’m not sure. I’m not sure that I would want to move to the Netherlands - the tango here left too much to be desired - but I felt momentarily comforted by this life. the ease. the canals. the effortless terraces and quiet grocery stores and soothing bus rides. and ice cream, only 1.75 euros a scoop.

a friend of a friend explained to me that the Dutch are very straightforward - to the point of not putting curtains on their windows. because there is nothing to hide. if the motto in New York is “survival of the fittest,” he said, then the motto here is “live, and let live.”

yesterday it rained hard in the city. I sat in a corner cafe at a window seat, drinking rose eucalyptus tea, sleepy from a heavy Dutch sausage lunch, my leather notebook and pen ready, but my whole being emptied of words. how to describe Europe? Amsterdam? my travels? I can’t. I can only describe myself, in this particular moment, riding a train to Paris, slightly hungry, hours away from entering a city that will evoke something completely different.

Paris, a different perfume. Amsterdam will linger on my wrist - with its scent of delicate white florals, crisp, sun-dried laundry, rain, and wet forest earth. I was here once before, ten years ago, with my parents and brother. that time was different. next time will be, too.