Why Amsterdam?

This is why we come to Amsterdam. The 20:49 sunlight hangs low and steady in the sky, looking forward to two more hours of fade. Streets calming after post-work rush into short errand runs and rendezvous on bicycles. Open doors on to porches adorned with summer greens nursed in the shade of chesnut groves.

There’s work to be done inside. My brother and his design partner are debating layout. My Action for Life matters call me, but I can’t head in. There’s too much in the air. I’ve just retired my guitar, laid out in the evening air and put my hands to type.

My brother travels amidst a journey that has taken him to Africa. He showed in town a night before me for a bro-down we’ve planned on six months. I followed a night later, traversing Swiss and German countryside and three lingual regions to arrive. It rained terribly and the water soaked rails slowed my progress leaving me off in Amsterdam an hour late.

I caught him by surprise. He had stood up to search Centraal for me when I walked up, heavy laden with backpack and guitar at the terrace of the Dwaze Zaken -- an old haunt from our last sibling reunion a year previous. We shared a drink and stories. He made famous friends on the direct flight to Holland, chumming with four other globe-trotting, ambitious young creatives. I told him of the freak train accident I saw en route, when a ceiling latch loosened unexpectedly and doused my neighbor’s laptop in rainwater. We broke out my departing gift from Caux, a tiny, hand-carved wooden Ukrainian man, who puffed on the paper cigarettes we lit in his mouth. We fell back in lockstep.

Rain and clouds stormed the first days here, cooling the city and driving us to lively, watertight bike rides. Hitting the old Coffie Salon and failing in our search to find the new one. Meandering over to the Stadelicht Museum and eyeing up African photography. Combing the cafes and joyfully watching the boats putt up and down the canals. The setting painted the background and inspired the foreground.

This is why we come to Amsterdam. Our refuge. Our retreat. We read it and it reads us. We watch it and we are watched. We drink deep and yet we pull from the well. We are the invited, yet we invite. We are the guests but we host. We are characters, but we write.

This is why we come to Amsterdam. Because. Here we are. And we are, here.