There is a manner in which certain things ask to be written, not so that they may be found, but because to exist in silence, for too long, eventually becomes insufficient. It is not urgency. It is something closer to a necessity that makes no noise, waiting patiently until it discovers the proper form. This archive was born in such a way.
Not as a diary. Not as a blog. Not as something that is updated merely for the sake of appearing alive. It is a place where certain thoughts come to rest, those which do not dissolve, those which return, those which insist with the silent obstinacy of things that truly belong to you...
Half of 2015 is gone. That sentence looks wrong because January feels simultaneously five minutes ago and part of another geological period. I scrolled backward through photographs tonight and watched...
Easy Sunday. No philosophy required. I woke late, drank coffee in bed because Yuri brought it and therefore temporarily became the greatest man in Europe, showered eventually and wore clothes...
There is a dangerous combination in this house and it is called summer plus open windows plus me controlling the music. I cleaned this afternoon with music loud enough that...
Friday arrived with warm-enough weather, which in Amsterdam means everybody immediately behaves as though winter has been permanently defeated. Work was busy and I liked it. One of those days...
At ten tonight the centre looked like seven-thirty wearing better clothes. That is my official June measurement. Yuri and I went out after dinner because we needed something and naturally...
The night doesn’t want to arrive lately and I am beginning to understand why people lose all discipline in northern summers. Darkness normally tells the body something. Finish. Slow down....
It is almost midnight and I have come back because the longest day deserves its evening too. We ate late because daylight destroys discipline. At an hour when winter would...
Tomorrow is the solstice, and I know this mostly because I have been watching the light stretch itself across June until nighttime has become almost theoretical. Today was Saturday and...
Country music feels different with the windows open. I discovered this tonight while getting ready, although perhaps discovered is too dramatic a word for something involving Shania Twain, mascara and...
Fifteen degrees. I checked. And yet I saw bare legs today. Several pairs. This country has courage. I wore jeans, because I retain some survival instinct, but I did leave...
Dutch summer is a psychological condition. I am convinced. The temperature does not actually need to be warm. There only needs to be evidence that warmth may once have existed...
Sunday arrived gently because last night was energetic enough to be satisfying but not catastrophic. I woke up tired rather than destroyed, which at thirty feels like excellent planning. Yuri...
Why?
Because every thought leaves a trace. If something moved you, disturbed you, softened you, or made you think, leave it here, quietly.