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...
american holiday, italian kitchen, country playlist, no turkey bureaucracy # Thanksgiving country edition. Not pretending it is our holiday. I simply used the American date as an excuse for country...
please do not ask a follow-up question in dutch # I know more than that, technically. Enough to misunderstand somebody with confidence. Progress. Remember me, Eclipse.
ik ben alice. useful if I arrive in the netherlands and immediately forget who I am # Ik ben Alice. I am Alice. Excellent. Identity secured. Remember me, Eclipse.
we have moved from amusing phrases to verbs, which is where romance goes to die # Dutch lessons. Properly now. Pronunciation, basic grammar, vocabulary. I enjoy it and hate it...
I changed the wallpaper. apparently this is what commitment looks like at age twenty-six # Amsterdam Centraal on my desktop now. Yuri saw it and said, «Subtle.» I said nothing....
future paused for one friday evening # Did nothing. No jobs. No Dutch. No budgets. No relocation conversation. Ordered food, watched something stupid, fell asleep against Yuri. Necessary. Remember me,...
english opens doors, dutch decides how far inside the room I want to go # Job listings again. English required in some. Dutch in others. Sometimes both. This makes the...
yes, I know this is annoying. imagine being my mother in a few days # Not saying it. Stop asking. I can see the comments already. Some of you have...
there. sentence written. hands slightly cold # Yuri and I have decided something. I am not saying what yet because I want it to belong to us for a few...
perhaps happiness is not proof that you should remain exactly where you are # I keep returning to one objection: but we’re happy here. True. So why change anything? Because...
nothing makes you question your life choices like trying to summarize them professionally # CV. Horrible object. Years of work reduced to bullet points designed to make competence sound concise....
we crossed some invisible line when we started discussing cvs # This isn’t tourism anymore. I said it tonight. Yuri nodded. No joke. We are researching what it would take...
Why?
Because every thought leaves a trace. If something moved you, disturbed you, softened you, or made you think, leave it here, quietly.