Grachtengordel
Four hundred years old and still functioning as somebody’s Sunday route home. # Grachtengordel. I like the Dutch word in my mouth now, even if my accent probably remains obvious...
History & Places
ECLIXAR
digital diary
Journal.
fragments of quiet intelligence
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...
Every article is a scene. Every word, a frame of something that would not have remained, had it not
been writtenFrom the archive.
Journey & Time
Days With No Destination
A city becomes yours when you stop needing a reason to walk through it. # No destination today. We left home because staying in felt wasteful and then allowed streets...
Affinity & Heart
Vrijdag
Lipstick on, workweek off. # Friday. Good day at work, better evening afterward. Drinks with colleagues first, Yuri later, then city, music, walking, laughing, home later than planned. I caught...
Journey & Time
Ordinary Days After Enormous Ones
History happened last week. Today I needed toothpaste. Life is extremely good at scale. # Ordinary again. Work. Bicycle. Lunch. Bug. Fix. Coffee. Another bug. Another fix. Grocery shop. Toothpaste....
Questions & Musings
Freedom
Some words are so large that I trust them more when they appear in small things. # Freedom is one of those words that becomes useless if you stare at...
History & Places
Liberation Day
Yesterday remembrance. Today freedom. The two days belong beside one another. # Liberation Day. Another date I am learning through living here rather than simply knowing about it intellectually. There...
History & Places
Remembrance
A city capable of celebration is also capable of becoming quiet. The contrast matters. # Tonight the tone changed. After the noise and colour of April 30, remembrance feels almost...
Beauty & Art
Museum City
I moved here partly because of music and somehow ended up surrounded by paintings. Life has excellent side effects. # Museum city. Music city. Bicycle city. Canal city. Work city....
History & Places
Another Reopening
Rijksmuseum in April, Van Gogh Museum in May. Amsterdam is reopening itself room by room. # Another reopening. Another reason to remember how lucky I am to live close enough...
Memory & Time
I Have Never Seen Amsterdam Like This
I know this city well enough now to understand exactly how extraordinary today looked. # I have never seen Amsterdam like this. That sentence is the only one that keeps...
Memory & Time
Tomorrow
Tonight the city is waiting for morning. # Tomorrow Queen Beatrix abdicates. Tomorrow Willem-Alexander becomes King. Tomorrow the centre of the city I live in becomes the physical stage for...
Traditions & Culture
The Centre Is Turning Orange
Our neighbourhood appears to have been attacked by a very patriotic citrus fruit. # Orange everywhere now. Properly everywhere. The centre is preparing and because we live in it there...
Why?
Because every thought leaves a trace. If something moved you, disturbed you, softened you, or made you think, leave it here, quietly.