Koningsnacht

Amsterdam has put on orange, turned the volume up and decided Monday can deal with the consequences. #

Koningsnacht, and the city started changing before we even left the house. You can hear a major night in the centre through the windows. The density of voices changes. Music appears from places that are normally quiet. Groups move below instead of individuals. I stood at the window while doing my hair and watched orange pass under us in pieces. Hat. Jacket. Scarf. Another hat. Somebody already singing with the confidence of somebody who had begun celebrating significantly earlier than I had. I finished my makeup, changed earrings once, changed them back, put on perfume and looked at the orange accessory I had spent far too much time choosing. Perfect. Small enough not to make me look like a traffic cone, visible enough to demonstrate civic cooperation. Yuri was waiting. «Ready?» «Almost.» «You’ve been almost ready for twenty minutes.» «That is how ready works.» He has known me since 2001 and still occasionally pretends time estimates mean something. We went downstairs and stepped directly into the beginning of the night. This is one of the strange privileges of living so centrally. We do not travel toward Amsterdam celebrations. We open the door and they are already happening around us. It can be noisy, crowded, absurd, and I love it. Not every day. Obviously. But on nights when the city has collectively decided to become a party, being inside the transformation is wonderful. We walked rather than cycled because cycling through certain crowds would have been less transportation and more performance art. Music everywhere, some good, some less good, none requesting permission from neighbouring music. People drinking, talking, laughing. Orange multiplying. I saw outfits that made my tiny accessory look almost insulting. Respect. We met people, had drinks, moved around, stopped somewhere, moved again. No rigid itinerary. I have learned not to fight a city event with plans. Let the streets decide. At one point I looked at Yuri beside me and had a sudden flash of our first big nights here, when I was still watching Amsterdam as much as participating in it. Tonight I was not thinking about being foreign or new or adapted. I was thinking that my feet were beginning to hurt and I wanted water. This is belonging in its least poetic form. Knowing where to get water. Knowing how long home will take. Knowing which street will be impossible. Knowing that tomorrow requires sensible shoes no matter what fashion says. We came home late enough that technically I should already be sleeping if tomorrow is going to contain anything resembling energy. I took my shoes off downstairs and carried them up because dignity had completed its shift. Yuri laughed. I told him this is advanced urban technique. Makeup off, water, hair tied up. The orange accessory is on the table beside the camera. Battery charged. Tomorrow the whole city does this again in daylight, only bigger. I can already hear someone outside continuing tonight without concern for morning. Amsterdam is awake. I am going to attempt the opposite.

Remember me, Eclipse.