Tica In Amsterdam

The building has grown a beard, just like many men in corona times. It is a way to say, leave me alone! Underneath the building hosts a jazz-themed bookshop. Only cash and debit card payments. It seeks small posters and old books, mostly in Dutch. It is a beautiful reminder of a world before digitalization. The green beard and the plants seem to be there to protect the shop and Jazz from modernization, pollution and noise. 

The Dutch are wizards of water. Imaginative. On a random walk, yesterday, I found this bridge over untroubled waters. What made them so good at this? Perhaps the sense that they were vulnerable and they needed to understand how to make water their friend. 

I have been reading “Don Quijote de la Mancha” and this giant tree with its big arms made me think of the moment when Don Quijote looks at the wind mills and believes it is gian men with big arms. The more I spent time with books and going for walks, the more peaceful I feel. 

Trees makes me humble, flowers curious, birds grateful. We spent one hour in this natural bath and by the evening I could see the effect it had on my reading and writing: patience, attention and humor. 

What a joy it gives to stand here while breathing and feeling free! Despite the pandemic some open parts of Amsterdam —the cáñala — look as if no pandemic is not occurring. This view is peacefully urban because we are inside the capital. I suspect it has looked like this - unfettered, relaxed, serene—for at least one hundred years. 

This is the bookshop in the street where we live. Every time I walk by, I stop. To enjoy it. To pay my respect to the authors. I admire them and seeing the covers gives me the impuse I need to finish my own book. I am working on it every day. 

The city feels like a young person wearing make up to look cool, to feel attractive, to get attention. This is around the corner from where we live and it is a revealing act of love for the street, for the season, love for life. A few blocks below I noticed a magically shiny spot while I walked back home to fetch a call. I stopped and discovered that I could see the lanky trees reflected on the sidewalk.  It is the city testing us, sending an SMS to check if we are paying attention. 

This place breaths silence. Liquid silence. Surprising silence because Amsterdam does not tell you it can be a silent city if you know where to find her generous quietness. I don’t ever want to take this generosity for granted. The world is aching and I too ache and need these moments of noiseless-ness to reflect on how to live in peace while knowing that out there most people are struggling.  For now it is the breathing and the writing, the reading and the walking that build some invisible connection to the world outside that I am failing to understand but I still love. 

This is my walking & writing 30-day challenge : To go for a walk every day - even if it is 10 minutes - and spot something small and big at the same time. Some insignificant that could have a deeper meaning. Something that allows me to sharpen the power of humble observation; the magic of looking at the city with the eyes of a small girl, because the older I get the more I want to remain that small girl.  Here is my first example: a flower asking the bike to take it for a ride to celebrate that the spring has come to town.