lie no. 35 | 02.24.20

I lasted one day at the conference that brought me to Amsterdam in the first place. Honestly, I’m still surprised I even made it that long. I practically ran out of the conference center after the last session of day one wrapped.

A friend messaged me on Instagram telling me to go see Dam Square—she’d read about it in Paolo Coehlo’s latest book, Hippie. I made a note, of both the book and the place—the former quickly proved unnecessary.

I headed toward the flower market, wanting to see it before the sun went down, and stumbled on the square as soon as I exited the conference venue. From there, I weaved through alleys and along canals with new-to-me music filling my ears. I passed a hole in the wall with a line out the door. I didn’t make it very far before my nose pulled me back.

It turned out to be a place selling those famous Flemish fries in a paper cone. I got in the long line. When I finally reached the window I asked the man taking orders which of the many mayo options was good. He looked at me like I’d just asked the price of gold in China, and I sensed it wasn’t because I was now holding up the growing line. Exasperated, he let out a sigh and said: “They are all good. Why would we put on menu if no good?” Me and Dutch food service professionals were  proving to be like oil and water. But again, he did raise a fair point.

I went with my gut (the one now growling) and placed my order. Only as I handed him my credit card did I spot the cash only sign. My stomach growled at me this time, almost loudly enough to drown out the sigh directed at me from the other side of the window. Annoyed with myself, I apologized, stuck my hands in my coat pockets and turned to leave.

My fingertips grazed what felt like cold metal in my pocket and, like magic, I pulled out a handful of coins along with that folded up piece of paper. I’d totally forgotten all about the change I’d been refunded for that extra latte a day earlier. Change, it turned out, to be exactly the cost of the small fry and single sauce I’d ordered. 

“If there were no change, there’d be no magic,” I smiled as I re-read the folded up piece of paper while I waited for my order. Touché, nameless Dutch man, touché.

Still lying to myself about attending the conference the next day, I wanted to make it an early night. I wandered for a bit longer, always ending up at another bookstore just as the cold started to get to me. I picked up a book of Van Gogh’s musings on creativity. It felt appropriate. Then I headed in search of an early dinner near my hotel.

I ended up at a casual spot in a neighborhood I’d walked through several times already. I let my eyes pick the place out. The memory reel started playing the second I spotted it. A small mountain town in the south of France called Vence. The birthplace of Matisse! Summer, 2017. Me and Matt eating Italian as a gaggle of giggling children played on the steps of an ancient church while the grownups they belonged to savored several bottles of Chianti. Not a care in the world among the lot of us.

But that was before—three months to be exact. Three months before I picked up the snow globe and shook the ever-loving shit out of it, sending any semblance of clarity into the air, blurring everything. I wasn’t sure the sediment would ever settle. If it did, I was certain nothing would ever look the same as before and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

In reality, the place in Amsterdam was nothing like the one that night in Vence, the one I could practically taste—fortuitous considering I was about to eat pizza off a paper plate. But it didn’t matter, that’s the magic trick of memories: the ability to be in two places, in two wildly different times at once.

This place was quiet, nearly empty. There were no children in sight. I sat outside by a heater despite the waiter’s pleas that I come inside. I’m fairly certain his concern was more for his own comfort than mine. I wanted to be outside. I needed to be outside. That’s where the memories were. I didn’t mind being cold, I wasn’t really. I didn’t mind being out there alone, I wasn’t really.

A gorgeous church sat not twenty feet away from me. I wasn’t sure which one of us looked more out of place: me or it. I couldn’t help but stare. My eyes started at the bottom, where the bricks of the sidewalk met the stones of the structure, and slowly worked their way up, taking their time taking it in.

“Oldest building in Amsterdam,” the waiter said as he pointed at the church. My embarrassment of getting caught ogling it dissipated as I noticed he’d put on a hat and gloves, my coat now draped over the empty seat next to me. Perhaps passivity does run in the Dutch after all.

For the most part I had the place to myself. I painstakingly watched one group of Americans come in and sit only to get so frustrated by the slow service they didn’t just walk out, they hurled insults at the staff and kicked a couple chairs on their way out. I cringed and kicked myself for letting my Spanish fluency fade. By this point I’d googled the phenomenon that is Dutch service so I had the advantage of knowing it had a reputation for being pretty bad by most Western standards. And yet, it tickled me how much it had taught me already—about using my voice to ask for what I want, about saying what I mean, about patience.

“Dutch service isn’t bad,” I jotted down the start of what would eventually become an Instagram caption. “Impatience simply does not translate here. They’re actually really good waiters. They’re just really good at waiting.”

I thought about Matt. I thought about how the past couple years of chaos swirling in my globe had affected the equilibrium of his own. At least I’d already figured out we each have our own globes, no longer under the misconception we share one, so that was one less pressure. When I was able to step back from it all for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, I thought about how he’d been pretty patient with everything, with me. He didn’t always react when I thought he should be overreacting. He didn’t always ask how my day was, which hurt when I was zoomed in but helped more than I knew it when I was finally able to zoom out again. By not asking me the most surface-level of questions, he saved me from having to choose between lying or being ashamed—and in that I got the space I needed to dig deeper. He didn’t always show up in the ways I wanted him to, or expected him to—but he always showed up, which was exactly what I needed.

A couple of cops looked at me as they walked by. It struck me that I’d been in this city known for debauchery going on 36 hours and these were the first police officers I’d seen. I hadn’t yet learned about the tradition of tolerance, as the Dutch call it.

Shortly after, another prospective American patron showed up only to complain about the fact the restaurant didn’t serve alcohol. I wondered how anyone could possibly complain about anything in this magical place. 

I don’t remember what I got on my pizza that night, but I hope I never forget how I felt sitting there under a nearly full moon, the buildings all awash in a crimson glow.

On the short walk back to my hotel I noticed a banner stretched across the staircases of several homes. “Enjoy it like you would your own neighborhood,” one said alongside a photo of a couple sitting on a stoop. “We live here,” said another with a picture of kids playing.

I looked around and stopped in my tracks when I saw a group of men ogling a window a stone’s throw from the church I myself had just been ogling. Oh. My. God. The crimson glow. The police. That’s right. My romantic—hell, downright spiritual—dry dinner for one underneath a nearly full moon had been smack in the middle of the Red Light District.

...

The next morning I got up and headed back to the conference center. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Not unlike the day before, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough—only on day two I left before a single session started.

It felt like I was skipping class, even though there was no one taking attendance. There certainly was no boss back home I’d be disappointing. I took myself out for a Dutch pancake breakfast—hilariously similar to my favorite pastime of going to ihop instead of class—then I went to the Rijksmuseum. The museum was showcasing all of Rembrandt’s work to mark the 350th anniversary of the Dutch artist’s death, which seemed like a pretty once-in-a-lifetime exhibit to see. Plus, it was on my nameless Dutch friend’s list. I glanced across the Museumplein to the Van Gogh Museum, also on his list but voted meh across the board by pretty much everyone else on my crowdsourced list of recommendations. The conference I was no longer attending would be ending hours later and I still had a full day ahead of me before I had to go home. I could decide tomorrow.

When I re-emerged hours later I walked in the general direction of a restaurant with an epic tasting menu that came highly recommended, stopping wherever I wanted along the way. I figured it was worth a shot to try and walk in without a reservation at a place booked solid for months.

In a food coma after a mind-blowing, multi-course, multi-hour meal I got an uber. It was still somewhat early so I wasn’t ready to go back to my hotel. 

The level to which I abhor small talk with strangers, or really anyone, is the exact opposite of my absolute adoration of diving into the deep end with uber drivers. I’ve told more than my fair share to keep the fare running while we continue our conversation parked outside of wherever I’m supposed to be in that moment. It doesn’t make sense—but not everything does, I’ve learned.

That night I struck uber-philosopher gold. The conversation I had with that driver likely ranks among my most memorable ever. It totally shifted my thinking about time and perception—pretty weighty stuff for a ride-share app. (For context, I once lapped downtown Chattanooga like it was Daytona while a professional clown named Sunshine dished about her celebrity clients who should seriously consider using NDAs—lookin’ at you, Dan Marino!)

Me: Good day so far? 

Him: It’s been busy. Very busy. But I didn’t get any work done. I needed sleep. Then I had to exercise. Then I got a massage because my body needed it. So there wasn’t any time for work. Maybe tomorrow won’t be so busy and I can get some work done. But, I don’t know—it’s a full moon tonight.

Wait. What?! Nothing about what he said made any sense. It wasn’t so much what he said—I understood the words coming out of his mouth despite my brain not being programmed to compute them in that arrangement. It was how he said it—as if it was the most normal, socially acceptable thing in the universe to be busy with something, anything, other than work. I’d spent the past year trying to make not being busy cool again, and this guy just effortlessly waltzes in here making himself, not his work, the priority.

Him: How will you be celebrating the full moon tonight?

OK. Now we’re talking, buddy. I’d always been more of a sunset girl, myself, so I wasn’t sure what, exactly, one did for a full moon.

Me: No real plan. I was thinking about finding somewhere to sit with a good glass of wine and a book I just picked up. Any suggestions for where to do that?

He gave me a name and I plugged it into the app to change my destination. I was so relieved to see it wasn’t too far from my hotel. See?! I can be carefree-ish!

“Did you know the moon doesn’t generate light?” he asked, pointing out the passenger-side window as we drove across a short bridge. The brightest moon I’d ever seen came into view down the canal before disappearing again. 

“It’s the sun’s reflection,” he said as he hit his steering wheel with his fist. “It’s only an illusion, everything is. Reflections and illusions.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, and I wasn’t sure there were enough drugs in Amsterdam to get me to his level, so I said nothing the rest of the ride. I wished him a less busy week ahead and I closed the car door behind me—although, honestly, he made busy sound blissful.

The place he suggested was perfect. It had this dark, sultry feel on the inside, even if the music was a few notches too loud for my taste. Out front, down the wrought-iron-lined staircase, heaters sat alongside wooden tables and benches draped in blankets.

I made it maybe 15 minutes inside before I took my glass of red wine and book outside, slipped my AirPods in and hit play on the audio file from my session with the shaman in Mexico, recorded three weeks, to the day, earlier. 

I looked up at the full moon and thought about what my uber driver said about reflections and illusions. As the familiar voice in my ear got to work on my chakras, I remembered I wanted to text Matt a song I’d heard earlier that made me think of him, of us. “Listen to these lyrics!” I wrote, knowing full well he wouldn’t last 20 seconds with an Ed Sheeran song; not yet knowing it’d be the last time he, or anyone else for that matter, would hear from me for the next 24 hours. I knew he’d never make it to the part about the stars in Amsterdam and how they look the same in America. Or if he did, he either wouldn’t care, wouldn’t still be listening or wouldn’t be paying attention—which was exactly what I needed to be doing in that moment. Reflection. Illusion.

In my ear, the shaman began guiding me back into that forest—just as he had the first time. 

I put my phone in airplane mode—just as I had the first time. 

I hung on his every word, shifting occasionally to be sure I didn’t go into a trance—just as I had the first time. 

Reflection.

Nothing was as I remembered it. There was no “your life started with loss.” There was no “you weren’t ready to leave the womb.” There was no “reaching back for something you don’t want to leave behind.”

Illusion.