Lockdown is over, and the city is a magical place again. You can walk into a shop where they sell you a cup of coffee, and you can sit down to drink it, on the premises! People enter like timid forest animals, and they flinch at the hospitality of the barista. Under their masks, those baristas are all smiles. I’ve rarely seen Dutch people so genuinely happy to encounter other human beings. The customers sit, and they relax, slowly remembering the old rituals. They look over their shoulders uncertainly, never sure that normal is still normal, that they have recalled their manners correctly, that the rules haven’t changed. They pay, and they share such a melting look of gratitude with the barista that the barista is astonished into uncharacteristic politeness.
The lesson of lockdown for most of us was how much society, and its metonym, the city, were refined and educated tastes. They were the artifice we took as nature. When COVID pulled the plug on daily routines, we were confronted with the ugliness of the city. Is this where I chose to live, this shabby alley of dirty lanes and old brick walls? Is this the place we found so romantic, the smeared windows and the littered curb? The city was always a construct in the imagination, animated by the activity on the street and by our interactions, the shopping, the entertainments and the meals in public spaces. Very suddenly, the structure was stripped bare. It was like a green screen malfunction.
These were thoughts as I took my walk last week while Baby was playing hockey. I wandered out past the edge of the city, into the blank fields in the shadow of the massive Van Brienenoordbrug, plots of tired grass divided by roads and bike paths leading elsewhere as expeditiously as possible. I reflected on the quick breakdown of the urban illusion.
Anything attractive about a city is a magic trick, order conjured by a spell and beauty printed like circuits on a board. It radiates from a centre, or from several centres, toward the edges. It forms, or attempts to form, one coherent design. The edges are not hemmed; they are left open, and they fray. There you find the clumsy boundary with nature, where nature is crushed, like the grass in a field where a festival has been held. Join me there at the edge, and you see the river flats by the River Maas, where nature once breathed.
I learned a lot about cities from my time in Addis Ababa. When I was there, the city hadn’t the resources of my American cities. Efforts to beautify the city had been relatively limited. I walked and walked my first few years in Addis; I explored many neighbourhoods. I realize now that I was occupied by a search for an aesthetics. I was puzzled. I found isolated bits of beauty; I found accidental beauty. I found human beauty and natural beauty and spontaneous moments of beauty. But there was no plan overarching, no design beyond function, at least one that I could apprehend. The result was a raw uniformity that met my eye, road after road and mile after mile. The edges were the middle.
Thursday, January 27, 2022
Saturday, January 22, 2022
This season’s suffering happens at the confluence of winter’s cold and the lockdown. I take Baby to hockey practice twice a week. The hockey fields are not only far away; they are situated at an edge of town where the city bleeds out into the river flats of the Maas. There the River Maas curves lazily, swollen with new waters from the Hollandsche Ijssel, and flows toward downtown Rotterdam.
The area is rather desolate. Even though the sports complex is a nice one, it feels as though its access street continues on into blank space, like an unfinished drawing. Even if there were no lockdown, there would be nothing to do nearby and nowhere to find shelter. During lockdown, it’s not even worth trying to travel to look for something. During lockdown, parents are not allowed to watch practice, so we have to kill an hour outside.
Baby and I have taken the tram this afternoon. I don’t have my bike. I pull my hat down over my ears, I zip up the jacket, and I set out for a long walk. There must be something to see. I stroll off down the street, off the edge of the world. The pedestrian pavements disappear. I’m walking along the bike path beside sprawling car dealerships. Then I’m under the mass of the Van Brienenoord Bridge rising high above the earth before soaring over the wide river. Beyond that I’m following a lonely bike path through muddy lots beside the grey pillars of the bridge, under which forklifts noisily rearrange building materials.
I’m fascinated by how quickly the city deteriorates into raw, muddy spaces and ugly industry or infrastructure. I’m crossing narrow roads where pedestrians on foot seem never to have been seen. Finally, I’m by the river, where the wide waters are the only natural things to be seen. The rest is bland function. On my right is the impressive span of the bridge under its arches. On my left, I can see the confluence of the two rivers, making an expanse of water like a placid lake. Set along all the banks are the kinds of buildings that are raised from the earth with only commerce in mind. It’s like they all have their backs to you. If these buildings had smiles to show, they would only show them the landwards. It feels lonely standing here.
Saturday, January 15, 2022
Little Ren is a philosopher. Her mother is Christian, and so she is quite curious about the deity. I usually defer all religious questions to the kids’ ma, but I must admit, sometimes it’s fun to debate the undebatable. Little Ren is quite adept already at philosophical discourse.
Last night, Reni was wondering whether God had teeth. I tried with the old dodge that God doesn’t have a body like us, but she would have none of it. She said God must have teeth; otherwise, how could He chew? I countered that God might not have to eat food like we do. She conceded the point, but shrewdly changed tack. If God had no teeth, He would not be able to speak properly. Then no one would listen to Him. I gave her that one.
Furthermore, God would not be able to smile properly, and His friends would make fun of Him. An interesting point, I admitted, but God should know better than to have friends who would laugh at Him based on His looks.
Ultimately, I could never really question a child’s musings about God. Children are supposed to be closer to God. Maybe God does worry about His smile. What do I know? We all worry about our credibility in the eyes of others. Maybe God does, too. Would that extend as far as His looks? Does God get laughed at by other gods? Or by angels and saints? Does anyone else get close enough to have the opportunity to laugh at Him?
I would welcome a deity Whom I could blame for the weather. When we finally got a break from the rain, the temperatures dove. Then the fog came. We’ve had days it, cold and damp. Weather like this takes on the appearance of mildness, all misty rain and soft, billowing fog. But it gets under your skin quickly, and you suffer.
This morning Baby Jos and I went to hockey practice. I was teamouder, so I had to stay on the pitch the whole hour. It was fun – I cheered the girls on; I acted as an inept goalkeeper for them; I corrected their technique, (with my five months’ experience in hockey,) – but halfway through Jos was in tears because her fingers hurt. I held her gloved hands in mine, and then encouraged her to go on. Other girls had no gloves at all. The Dutch are hardy.
Cycling home, I was the one tears. A few fingers were numb, and I steered the bike with one hand while the other hand recovered in my pocket.
Shall I blame the deity? Judging by history, no god would stand for it. They are great at projection. It would be my fault somehow, once all was said and done. I had created my own experience, through sin or through lack of imagination. It’s best to keep it secular, I suppose, safely impersonal.
Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Cold Morning
The morning sky is vibrant with colour. We’re out early, walking together toward the tram station before the sun rises. Light is breaking slowly, and the clouds are painted with the day’s first warmth. The girls are very excited to see so much pink in the sky.
School is back in session. We’re getting up before dawn again. We’re packing lunches and dressing up for the cold. We’re milling around at the tram stop, trying to stay warm. People seem awfully cheerful for a weekday morning after a long vacation has ended. It could be a sense of relief that we’re done with holidays for a while. But, no, that’s probably just me. It’s likely the chill in the air. Northern folks like all things brisk. We’re back to work, and it’s freezing; life is good.
The girls are excited to start school again. We managed a few play dates while school was out, but they really want to see their friends and teachers. There is no hesitation at the doors to the school. Those days are gone.
The intersection of narrow streets in front of the school and next to the playground are a nexus of Dutch briskness. There are children and parents crossing, bikes coasting in. Some of the bikes are those unwieldy bakfiets, cargo bikes with the huge boxes in front for children to ride in. Cars are edging around the corner. No one hesitates, but it all ticks along as though it’s choreographed. I join in the dance, crossing the street and weaving among the families.
I walk along the River Schie before I cross and head for the store. Along that quiet stretch of river side, I encounter two groups of people training. In one case, there is a gym with a street-side door like a car mechanic’s. The door is wide open, and people are on the ground in formation, stretching and working out. It’s one degree over freezing, but they’ve got their butts on the cold brick of the pavement, and they’re grinning like it’s the first day of spring. Music is pumping from inside, and their coach is shouting. I haven’t seen a group of Dutch adults this happy since the last time I saw a group of Dutch adults drunk. Lockdown has made some of us giddy, I suppose. When we get a chance to spend time together, we’re like pre-teens at their first party.