Ok everyone. Take the old 'roller-coaster' cliche, and make a more creative one. Now, take this sentence: "Man have these last few days in Holland been one heck of a roller-coaster ride!" and substitute my tired, lazy attempt at illustrating a point, and substitute your own...
I hope you get the idea! Well, now it is up to me to try and convey why...
When last I wrote, we were staying in Hilversum, Brooke and I, and I was still feeling a... tension as I tried to feel as though I was completely part of this corner of my world, my life, my past. It is such a complex sort of experience that I've been having here. I feel as though I've come home, that this place is part of me, and me a part of it. I feel like I know Holland, like we've been friends for years, and even though I haven't been privy to every detail of it's life while we've been apart, because we were friends so long ago, I have an essential sense of it's essense that I have and will coninue to carry throughout my life. I feel really like Holland is another home for me, it is a place I know, and love and am welcome in.
However, while I feel all this, there is also a sense that I'll never REALLY be a part of it, that I am just too far removed to ever completely dissolve into the place- you'll always be able to see little granules of me floating around in the glass, and know that I haven't and cannot be totally incorporated. I feel like that last piece in a puzzel- that one where you can see exactly where it gos, because there's only one space yet, but the piece was cut just that slight bit too big, and even when you punch and push and sqeeze it, it never sits totally flush with the rest of the picture.
I've cried a lot. I've cried because I'm happy, I've cried because I'm lost, I've cried because I want someone to see me, but I feel like something inside of me is reaching out and pulling everyone's eyelids down. I've had such amazing, precious moments of pure, liquid contentment. I've had moments where happiness and joy have flooded over me and all I wanted was to bask in it forever. I've felt so welcome and loved and cared for in Marc, Astrid, Myrthe and Malou's home. I've really felt a part of something, part of a family, part of a world.
They took us to a Dutch market, where we watched men scuttle around cutting wedges of beautiful, BEAUTIFUL cheese, and we gasped at the twinkle of the oh-so-fresh fruit and vegetables, and sighed at the smell of warm stroopwaffles. They took us for coffee in the town centre, and we sat in the square with the sun on our backs and the tick-tack of shoppers' feet in our ears. They shared the most wonderful dinners with us, dinners that melted along, moving fluidly from the meal to conversation punctuated by good bread and amazing cheese. They've shared their home, their minds and their hearts, and I love them all very dearly.
At the retirement home where my Great Oma lives there is a small chapel. Here they hold church services, presumably every Sunday. However, last Sunday there was (for a reason I am actually unaware of) a special twist to the service. My Great Opa was a successful Dutch composer, so on the anniversary of his and Great Oma's wedding, their son and his church choir travelled up from Luxumbourg, and at this particular Sunday church service, they sang all the normal hymns, as well as a couple of Great Opa, Herman Strategier's compositions.
Myself, Marc, Myrthe, Malou and Brooke all travelled together to see this, and this adventure ofcourse carried with it the added experience of meeting the grand matriarch of that part of my family for the first time in conscious memory. I was scared... she had always been a somewhat of a 'larger than life' figure for me in my life. I hear about her, I hear of her, I very occassionaly hear from her- but she's always been a distant figure, more almost of an idea... It was very daunting, and very intimidating to meet someone who is so important in the lives of so many people who have so much to do with my life and how it has unfolded and who I have become.
Well, I probably could have handled it better, but what's done is done, and she has too many people to love and to think about to waste her time thinking I was stupid or dull or silly. I was so glad to have met her, and touched her hand, and kissed her cheek. As I sat near her, and listened to her speak, felt in my gut the same feeling I always felt for my grandfather (on my Dad's side), and I realised 'wow, she really is family'.
Sitting in that church, I understood not a single word of the Dutch sermon (I lie, I understood 'Amen'), but as I sat there, surrounded by my new-found family, listening to voices flitting about giving life to my Great Opa's music, I felt an incredible sense of contentment, and pride- pride particularly being something I didn't expect to feel.
Now everyone, put your metaphor hats on again. I want to say that now came a crossroad in our journey, but just how revoltingly uncreative is that!?!? So, once again, insert your own, and I will continue...
So, Brooke and I had reached a point where I in particular could no longer ignore my rather naive and embarrassing lack of judgement and foresight concerning this particular leg of the trip. How could I not have known that we could never share this place, because it could NEVER be, that we would have anywhere near the same experiences of it. She could never feel the things I was feeling- she has none of the links or connections or secret hidden ties that make this place and these people resonate so very deeply and so wonderfully strongly for me. She could love Holland, she could love it with all her heart and soul, but she was never going to feel it the way I did, because it will never hold her past. I also had no idea how personal and internal this experience was going to be for me, and I had no idea how intense either. It is so emotional for me- emotions I don't really understand completely, or rather, that I can't explain, rationalise and articulate. I didn't realise it would be so complicated and complex! Anyway, as these things slowly began to emerge from the darkness, and the light revealed the truth of them, Brooke and I started to realise that maybe plans needed to change! No matter how much fun she was having here, we could never reconcile the two experiences into one cohesive enough to share with eachother. Holland was not something for us to do with eachother, because we couldn´t hold it at the same time- I needed to hold it one way, and she another, and it was getting twisted and contorted as we tried to juggle the two approaches.
Basically, after a great deal of reflection, thought, and emotional upheaval, we decided it best to accept that some things are too personal to be able to share- some things need to be felt and moved through alone. Brooke would travel down to the south of France to stay with her neighbours from back home at their farm summer house, and then would tour around the UK, while I stayed back in Holland and completed my exploration of the motherland.
But before she left, we had Amsterdam to come to! Here in Amsterdam, we encountered yet more open houses and open hearts. My mother had a friend in primary school, back here in Holland. Mum left when she was twelve, but still to this day, she keeps in contact with that friend. The miles and miles of space, or time, of events and changes and growth that have occured over these years, and still they remain features in eachother´s lives. I think that is so special! And here I am now, in that friend´s home, sitting on her computer, writing about the wonderful thing she shares with my Mum! Anyway, as soon as we arrived here, I felt INSTANTLY at home. Anne-Marie is so open and honest and leaves no room for the bullshit and farting around that consumes us so much of the time. She is so genuine and real, and I felt my insecurities, those little nibbles at the back of my neck that tell me to regret something or hold something back, I felt them all being banished to the woods somewhere. There are so many wonderful people in the world.
Brooke and I went on a canal cruise. It was lovely, and it was good for me, to take the time to get into the groove of the city, to slowly adjust my breathe to move in time with that of the place I am in, rather than hitting the ground running and coming out the other end having taken on nothing of the essence. I really love Amsterdam. It is my favourite of any city have seen so far. Normally I find cities to be harsh, grating, raspy and they make me so, so tired and lonely. I can have fun, A LOT of fun in a city, but I always feel there is a marked lack of humanity and homliness that drains me. But Amsterdam to me feels like a city- it has all the perks and advantages and wonderful features of a city- but it also has a dense, aromatic, lucious humanity and soul. It doesn't feel dry and isolating, but rather it moisturises itself and opens its arms to you. It's a city with a heart, and I feel safe and secure and comfortable here.
We also saw the van Gogh museum, which was good to have seen, and I know I learned from it- but it wasn't the most inspiring experience of my life.
The next morning, I dropped Brooke at the train station, and said goodbye to my travel partner for about 27 days! It will be so odd to turn around and not have her there! It will be strange to want to say something, and not have her sitting around the corner to say it to. It will be interesting to see how different things feel when you are seeing them completely on your own, and don't have another person to share it with. I'd never travelled before I left on this trip, and I still have never travelled on my own. So, it's going to be yet another learning curve- something which there has been no shortage of this past month and a half!
After I said goodbye, I went to the Anne Frank Huis. I didn't expect to be moved as much as I was. It is an incredibly impressive museum. The space holds so much, so many memories, feelings, emotions, experiences, thoughts, fears, events, sadnesses. You really feel it- it hit me like a brick wall. To enter a space, and really, in your gut, feel the people who once occupied it, to feel their hearts and their thoughts... it was pretty special. Not only was I incredibly moved, but I was really inspired. To think that one person, one little girl's experiences, ideas, words could reach out of the masses, and touch the hearts of so many hundreds of thousands of people across the world and across time- that seems pretty inspiring to me! Just one girl, and she saw so much, and she shared it so successfully with so many. I love those moments, those occasions when I feel really and truly as though on some level, in some way, I have connected with another human being, with another life, with another world through whatever medium or process or event- I think those moments are what make life really special, and really worthwhile.
The pictures she pasted on her walls to brighten up her bedroom are still there, behind perspex. I looked at all the movie stars, and cartoons, and then I got to the end of one wall, and staring back at me was a big sulphur-crested cockatoo! A little wave from home... good times.
After that I wondered around Amsterdam, and saw some more lovely things. I went to many a park, and relaxed many a time. It really is SO beautiful here. Anne-Marie and Pieter invited me to have dinner with their friends. It was lovely, and I could continue to practice my Dutch by trying to deduce what they were saying to eachother! When we came home, Anne-Marie sat on the couch with me, and I regressed back to infancy. She couldn't babysit when I was a child, so she made up for it now, and went through some 'My First Word' books with me as we both committed me to a stern resolution that I WILL learn Dutch- to some degree at least. That was so nice, so special, to sit with someone who has shared my Mum's life for years, and learn with her, and laugh with her, and have her further my education, and connect me deeper to my roots and to my heritage! I sounded like a moron a lot, trying to pronounce these ridiculous sounds, and trying to unlearn the basic rules of English, because the Dutch ones are the exact opposite, but walls were not to be seen, and I enjoyed that time so much.
Now I am off to explore Amsterdam some more.
Thanks for reading...
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