Travelogue 1075 – 31 December

Good Day for a Drizzle

It’s a day for contemplation, walking in a light drizzle under noon skies no lighter than a summer dawn, quiet in my mind even while foot traffic along the Nieuwe Binnenweg is at a holiday pitch. I’ve come out for groceries. My stomach hurts because I’m recovering from a winter bug. I’m thinking about light things and dark, the way rainy days can be so pleasant, the way gloomy days can be sweet.

I’m walking slowly, even for the holiday crowd. There is a narrow section of the pavement where a few local bars have tables along the street. I am forcing people to alter their pace while I crawl along with my heavy bags. I sense the restlessness of people dealing poorly with the stress of a day off.

Maybe we thought life was too easy, having been reared in a time of uncommon concord and peace. Maybe we forgot that life was struggle.

Maybe we thought life was too hard, raised by parents for whom struggle was romance and fact. Agon was the way of all life and, as long as you were on the results side of the agon, as my parents were, it was a romantic notion, worthy of great puddles of sentiment.

In the end, we make it down the pavement safely. We have our provisions for New Year’s dinner. We have the change in our electronic purses for a treat and a coffee. What need is there for tears today? Whence the inspiration for conspiracy? We are strolling toward goals in sight, chins high to the light touch of rain, and hearts unexpectedly touched by the sight of the low clouds, swept quickly along by the wind.

Travelogue 1074 – 30 December

Rebels Popping

What can we expect in the new year? Shall we read the reports of the firecrackers? There must be a code behind them, even if it’s the cosmic code of chance. In interval or in series or in number or in volume, these explosions from every side must communicate something. Otherwise, what would that signify about fireworks at New Years, that it’s all meaningless mayhem, the handiwork of real children and grown children who are entertained by noise, and not in isolation, but in endless repetition? That if firecrackers were in infinite supply and free, this sub-class of the planet’s most intelligent species would set them off and watch them with every free minute, perhaps for the rest of their lives, trance-like smiles frozen on their washed-out faces? What a disillusionment that would be for optimists about human nature! Better we resolve that the relentless pop-pop-pop tells us about creation and the spirit that enlivens the universe.

Are there portents for the new year in the news? We find that the QAnon prophets were right, after all, that politicians and celebrities were lying, and that they were trafficking in children. It turns out it wasn’t Hillary Clinton or Tom Hanks, however, but in fact members of their own cult. In just the last week or two, we discover a Republican got elected to Congress lying about his education, his work experience, and his ethnicity. He even lied about how and when his mother died. And a high-profile right-wing nutbag, last seen taunting Greta Thunberg with his collection of high-polluting autos, has been detained in Romania in connection with human trafficking, joining QAnon darling Congressman Matt Gaetz in this exclusive club of accusers being accused. Fair enough: when we search for effective insults, we catalogue our own darkest drives. But now, with QAnon freaks taking over the swing vote in Congress, shall we see normalization of their sins?

Is there a silver lining in the cascade of bad news? There might be. Whether we speak about COVID or politics, culture wars or real wars, we see that one persistent human trait prevails: contrariness. As a parent, I have certainly become refamiliarized with this human impulse, the need to rebel against authority. So far, we’ve seen a preponderance of the negative side of that trait, like death threats to poor Dr Fauci for daring to be an expert, or power handed to the likes of Marjorie Taylor-Greene, whose sole qualification is relentless contrariness. But we’ve also seen some rebellion that makes more sense, rebellion against the Trumpian crime-family code, rebellion against Putin’s violent realpolitik, and rebellion against easy cultural codes of virtue offered by either side of the political divide.

There’s been a lot of chatter about the death of democracy. But rebellion and human contrariness are building blocks of democracy. I have been as sensitive as anyone to the fears of growing authoritarianism in world politics. Now I see things a little differently. I think democracy is forever resurgent. Sadly, the darker impulses among us are stronger than we thought, and the work of buttressing democracy is harder than we thought, but we may discover surprising allies in the fight, given that the instinct to rebel is in everyone.

Travelogue 1073 – 22 December

An Age of Amazement

It’s an age of amazement. Little Ren has become very chatty, and she likes to recount to me short stories with her eyes wide with wonder. She’ll recall what happened on some TV show, or she’ll tell me something that happened to a friend at school. That she still wants to share these confidences with her papa makes me absolutely delighted. Her big sister is at an age where most of the things she shares are snarky. She means them in good humour, but they are self-aware and wry. That’s fine, and of course it’s fun. But I will miss the earnestness of their early years.

I’m practicing writing letters of the alphabet with Little Ren. It’s astounding how deeply these lines and squiggles are ingrained into our minds. I could never see them the way Little Ren does. She has to ask which way the little ‘b’ or the ‘d’ faces, and I sense in that moment how arbitrary it is, the shape and orientation of any of these tiny signs. But so powerful! No wonder we imagine magic in the form of signs, runes and numbers and letters drawn with dark purpose. Written language, our scribbling, is so trivial, and yet so mysterious in it effects. In its particular, writing is idiosyncrasy. In its aggregate, it is like a flood, an unstoppable force.

I picked up something by Philip Roth at a second-hand shop recently. I had my doubts, but I liked the first page or two well enough, and I bought it. When its turn came among my queue of books, I gave it a sincere effort, but I couldn’t finish. There’s something about the middle-class realism of the post-war American novelists from the Northeast that just dries my eyes and makes me doubt myself. It’s plain how good they are as craftsmen, but also plain how particular their world was to them. How is it that something written within living memory is less accessible than something written hundreds of years ago?

The subjects of these earnest authors are not obscure, the stories not arcane; they just don’t inspire the same passion for me as they apparently did for the authors. Roth’s first strike with me: his novel is a story about an author. Something in my mind withers when faced with fiction or poetry about writers. It never works. I got as far as a scene in which Roth’s character is peppered with naïve questions about writing by a new friend. Oh, the trials of the artist! I really had to set the book down. I felt guilty doing it, but my recovery was accomplished quickly with a bitter anodyne of Anthony Burgess.

Travelogue 1072 – 10 December

Fatigue Plus

Yes, it’s a time of fatigue and viruses, but it’s also a time of fireworks. I speak from personal experience: a few have just been set off outside my window. These fireworks, I will interpret, were meant to celebrate Morocco’s win over Portugal in the World Cup. This advances them to the semi-finals. Anything that Morocco’s fine team of eleven does excites the huge Moroccan community in this town. Fireworks are the preferred method of expressing excitement at this time of year. Since communities in the Netherlands have begun shutting down the beloved tradition of New Year’s bedlam, our good citizens have responded by setting them off on every other day between October and February.

For our family, it’s been a time of birthday cheer. Little Ren wanted a special party this year. She informed us of this in the summer. She reminded us at least weekly since the summer. We scheduled a party at “Bounce Valley” for her and half a dozen friends, and we think it was a success. Little Ren is modest with her enthusiasm, but we could tell by that special, shy, and contained smile of hers that she was happy. And every one of her friends showed up, even though most of them had not showed up at school that day. … The next day, on her actual birthday, Little Ren was already sniffling.

It’s been a season of viruses and fatigue, but the winter World Cup has been a comfort. I have stood firmly with those who are curling their lips over Qatar, the scandals, the human rights abuses, and the interruption of the international football schedule; but I have to confess that the ritual has been a comfort during the darkening of the days. I have been an avid fan despite myself, and this Cup will be one we remember as a family.

Travelogue 1071 – 7 December

Back to Sea

Sinterklaas has left the Netherlands, steaming back toward Spain, and we enter the twilight between Sinter and Santa. It’s the lingering half-light we stumble through toward the end of the year, a bitter final stretch in which the last day of work before holidays acts as a sort of finish line. It feels like a scene from Squid Game, in which we limp forward among a cohort of the distressed and wounded toward sanctuary. The reward will be some sleep and a new year.

There are gaps in every line-up. Class attendance is spotty. Teachers are tag-teaming like tired athletes. The girls’ hockey teams can barely meet quorum for their games. Friends vanish and arise again, as though we’re an army making our way through marshes, sinking suddenly and climbing back to our feet again. We trade quick nods, and we march on.

Is the natural state of life and matter motion or stillness? This is a season to wonder. We long for the still state, though we are trapped in motion. If we had time to reminisce about our last vacation, we might remember the moment we became restless. Stillness has its term, too. Moving water rarely freezes, and this is a region defined by its moving water. It drops from the skies, and it joins rushing waters toward the sea. When it empties out to the sea, it discovers stillness. It’s a relative stillness. Absorbing sea salt, it resists freezing again, resists real stillness, to swirl and drift in its long, quiet meditation on arrival.