There’s a building on the water! When did that happen? Have I been gone that long?
I’m on the seventh floor, waiting for my students in the classroom, scanning the view out the window. Our building overlooks the Rijnhaven, an old and abandoned port that lies like a reflecting pool in the midst of this up-and-coming borough, high-rises and construction ringing it on every side, with a cute little pedestrian bridge connecting either side of its narrow passage to the River Maas.
And now there’s a building on the water! I looked it up online. Indeed, there is now a drijvend kantoorgebouw on the Rijnhaven, a “floating office”. It was placed there back in February. Have I been away that long? I’ve had to work at home, convalescing from long COVID. This is my first day back in the classroom.
It’s both heartening and amusing to work in this buzzing little buurt, amusing because we so clearly don’t belong here, the awkward little business faculty, placed temporarily among the dynamism while a humble building of their own is being raised in a sleepier district a few kilometres away. My less-than-fashionable students are down below, poolside, finishing their cigarettes, quite unaware of their awkwardness, while I self-consciously drink in the high-rent view that I don’t deserve, and noticing that there’s a building on the water! Amusing how the history of cities is written on the landscape. It’s an arcane script, decipherable only by the urban elites who read real estate like psalms and participate in perilous investment games.
The River Maas takes a turn here so that, looking out the mouth of the Rijnhaven, one looks downstream. It looks like every boat has come from the Rijnhaven or is approaching to enter it. And yet, the harbour is empty of ships.
Xenophon recites rivers as though punctuation for his march. Who knew Mesopotamia was so awash with rivers? I suppose the T&E need their tributaries. Every time they come across a river, he records how wide it is. It makes sense. They are formidable obstacles.
“After three days march, we came upon the Nieuwe Maas. It is three hundred metres wide.” What if he had written a chronicle of crossing the Netherlands and he described his progress according to bodies of water? It would have been a very long march. “After ten minutes, we came across the Herengracht. It was thirty metres wide. After ten more minutes, we came upon the Keizersgracht. It was also thirty metres wide. After ten more minutes …”
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Saturday, August 27, 2022
Their competitive spirit is growing. Last year, when they were six, they ran more or less randomly around the field, knowing vaguely they had to hit the ball with their hockey sticks, knowing vaguely there were goals to aim for. Some had more sense of the game than others, and when they had the ball, they moved it in the right direction. Goals were haphazard.
This morning, the girls had more direction. Some still looked dazed or bored. Some spaced out mid-field while others gathered around the ball and swung sticks. But the ball was moving down field and up, and goals were scored. The girls celebrated their goals. Baby Jos scored twice herself.
They’re named after a famous king. This whole club, one of four major hockey clubs in Rotterdam, is named after a king. Guess his name. He was seventeenth in his family line. He was descended directly from Heracles. He succeeded a half-brother who went mad. He was succeeded by his son after ruling for ten years. He led his army against the superpower of the age, who were attempting to invade, and he was killed in battle. One of several famous quotes attributed to him is, “Come and take them.” (His response to the superpower king when that king ordered him to surrender his arms.) Can you guess yet? Final clue: this king was played by Gerard Butler on the big screen. How many kings can claim that? Furthermore, this king was married to a woman named Gorgo. In the same film, Gorgo was played by the actress who would later play Cersei Lannister in “Game of Thrones”. This kind of star power makes it real history. Can you guess?
Okay, yes, this is a continuation of my obsession with the Greeks. Clearly, the universe is speaking to me when my daughter’s hockey team is named after a famous Greek king and when the pro football club in my neighbourhood is called “Sparta”. The universe is clearly directing me toward a destiny that can only be fulfilled by a portion of ouzo on a Greek beach under a fiery Greek sun, and my order for that ouzo delivered in flawless Greek.
Isn’t it wonderful how friendly the Fates are? How much more clearly could they have spoken? The times are friendly ones. We are no longer forced to read the entrails of bird and beast to understand the divine will. Why, we need look no further than the names of local sports clubs for impartial prophecy.
For the moment, there is nothing more to be done than to celebrate Jos’s goals with a lemonade in the clubhouse with her teammates. We shout, “Yamas!” and “Death to the Persians!”
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Everything Greek is in fashion at my house this summer. It started with news of a wedding in Athens. I entertained a fleeting thought that I might attend. I started playing Greek on Duolingo: modern Greek; I had (very casually) studied ancient Greek when I was younger. I began refreshing my memory about ancient Greek history. I read, I found podcasts. I found my copy of Pope’s Homer. I started reading about the history of Homeric manuscripts. (I suddenly wondered, how does a 2,700-year-old poem come to us?) I grazed among other classics.
Xenophon was stranded with an army of ten thousand in Mesopotamia when Cyrus, a contender for the Persian throne, died in battle. The only fight ahead of them after Cyrus was dead was to get out of hostile territory, pursued by a vengeful king under the hot sun of Tigris and Euphrates River Valley. It’s one of the greatest adventure stories in history.
Xenophon had consulted no less a personage than the philosopher Socrates about the invitation to join Cyrus’s army. Socrates had advised him to consult the Oracle of Delphi. After Xenophon asked the oracle the wrong question, Socrates washed his hands of the silly boy. Months later, Xenophon stood before the desperate army of Hellenes, when all seemed lost, to offer then a plan to get them to safety.
My own Anabasis involves getting two little girls back to school. It takes place under a hot sun in the Maas River Valley. We are attempting to escape the wrath of an angry taskmaster who feels betrayed: Summer itself. He is a god jealous of our attentions. He has no patience for those who turn their backs on him. His season, after all, is still in full swing. This was slated to be the year for corrections in the calendar, yanking forward the launch of the school year after a succession of years in which it drifted downstream toward autumn.
Summer’s tactics are ruthless. Turning one furious eye upon us, he bleeds us of energy; he burns the skin; he distorts even our thoughts and emotions, turning virtues into their opposite, patience into impatience and tolerance into aggression. Interior landscapes are as scorched as the brown grasses in the Dutch parks.
But being a parent is no ordinary responsibility. We must maintain the posture of virtue at all costs. We stand scattered around the schoolyard, waiting with our children for the doors to open, or waiting for the to emerge in the heat of the afternoon. Composure must be sustained. The stakes are high.
It’s a new school year, and there are new parents. These new faces are keen reminders of the passage of time. We were the new faces so recently. Now who are we, whose eager and proud smiles have faded with experience. Summer laughs maliciously from the glare of the sun off the car windows. This is what comes of defying gods. If only Socrates has warned us. But that’s not his way. When will they open those doors?
Monday, August 22, 2022
Yesterday was the last day of summer. The girls returned to school today, and I’m back to work. Vacation time is over, no matter how summery still the weather.
It was a happy summer. It was a summer of hot days, ice cream, and afternoons in the inflatable pool. It was a summer of visits to the beach. It was a summer of local museums and walks under canopies of tree leaves.
And still there’s a shame in returning to work without stories of international travel. It’s an autumn ritual here. Colleagues are comparing travel stories within minutes of first greetings. There is always a polite but gloating, “Oh!” awaiting any admission that my family and I stayed home for summer. I’ve learned to deflect the judgement with a threat of counter-judgement: “We chose to focus on the children.” I return the condescending smile while theirs waver, and the conversation moves along.
I think of Kant, who famously never travelled. I think of the stillness of the COVID years. I think of everyone re-evaluating travel now, post-COVID, while the climate has gone wonky. People are rediscovering the local. I count myself among this new breed, but cautiously and with lots of qualifications, like: well, it’s somewhat involuntary; and, well, I’ll travel when I can; and, well, I’m still travelling, even if locally. Our trips to the beach still consume some portion of the fuel burned by trains between Rotterdam and Den Haag.
On the final day of summer, I made one last trip to the beach. I can say with a touch of pride that my footprint was minimal. I cycled to the train station, rather than use the Metro. At the other end of the train trip, I rented a bicycle to pedal all the way from Den Haag Centraal to the beach.
The occasion was a birthday. The weather was lovely. My claim to be championing the environment was suspect, I admit, undermined by every degree in temperature and every minute of clear sunshine. The ride was short and easy and very pleasurable, leading through the elegant streets of Den Haag, through peaceful parklands after that, and through the posh outskirts of Scheveningen.
I discovered old Scheveningen, tucked into a pocket south of our usual tram stops, and south of the beaches we frequent. It was refreshing to see the historical town, still alive and kicking under the late summer sun, the old lighthouse standing red and tall on its hill, and the old church at the base of that hill, standing at the end of the town’s shopping street, so forgotten it displayed no plaque or sign describing its centuries of history.
Monday, August 08, 2022
I’ve been teaching in the afternoons this week, standing at the whiteboard in a stuffy third-floor room overlooking the busy Herenplaats square near the Blaak, while summer’s clouds mark the regular, muted progress of long middays.
I introduced conditionals into the muggy air of today’s lesson. We use ‘would’ in the future unreal; we use ‘would have’ in the past unreal. I had students imagine life after winning the lottery. They imagined what might have been had they done things differently. Lack of vocabulary keeps our dreams and regrets very tame. They were excited to learn the word for yacht.
Though I’m working, it’s still summer. In the mornings, I try to plan family fun. My plans do battle with summer laziness; occasionally they win, and we make it out the door. Today we made it to Rotterdam’s Natural History Museum. This small museum is housed in a nineteenth-century mansion that stands a stone’s throw from the much-larger modern art museum.
It’s an old-world museum, full of specimens and short on text. Rotterdam’s Maritime Museum is far more child-friendly, with its interactive exhibits and play areas. But my girls are quite entertained by it all. Seized by a kind of restless, galloping wonder, they dash from one animal to another, issuing comments and questions in a rapid stream. We struggled to keep up.
For my part, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a natural history museum. I’m enjoying it. In the same way that I find myself reading more biographies and history of late, I find myself appreciating the taste of reality. On my own, I’d only pay for a museum ticket if art were involved. Here I am, admiring nature’s creations. And I like it.
Afterward, I regard the city’s art and architecture with slightly altered sight. The products of human imagination appear as little more than distortions of nature’s. All we’ve ever come up with is interpretation.