Nothing quite like death to stop you in your tracks…mid-step…grab you by the scruff of the neck, stuff your face in life’s mountainous dung heap of inanities..
.petty concerns, self-obsessions, pointless pursuits of cash sex power…And I’m not talking about abstract deaths, the Iraqi ones you’re lapping up like dogs as part of your daily TV entertainment package…ordered by millionaires executed by morons “I come here to fix things that’s broke” inflicted on unpeople deserving of death for being dumb enough not to be born in the UK or USA…where all the good people live…Nope, not the ‘collateral damage’ deaths devalued by Ari ‘the fetus’ Fleischer on the Nightly News… The death I’m talking about is of a Dutch woman I knew…a fine Hollandse vrouw…as good as they come…the kind of Dutch woman who especially impresses us foreigners…So fresh-faced & healthy…schoon… indeed, clean Dutch beauty…& smart & kind…aardig…yet modest too…Zij straalde kracht uit…such an impressively powerful personality that it’s impossible to believe she’s dead…
Nothing quite like death to make writing ‘an amusing column about life in Holland’ seem so inane…But the show must go on, right… But flat & empty & mourning at 2 a.m…write about what?…Only the wind occupying me, rattling my window, demanding attention…why not…the sometimes wicked sometimes wonderful Dutch wind is worthy…one constant & inescapable reality of this Dutch life…which every foreigner living here must finally accept…our rite of passage to becoming Dutch…At first, the Dutch wind tormented me…pissed me off…but I’ve gradually come to accept and even value it as what makes the Dutch Dutch…On their bikes they grow up with the wind…it toughens them up, makes them particularly humane…wary of absolutes…good…evil…aargh! Go eat your cowboy hat!…always mindful of a greater force…their relative smallness…The Dutch wind’s a teacher, teaching humility… I learned that on my Dutch bike too…What is now, what will be later…depends on which way the wind’s blowing, on which way you’re going… wind mee of wind tegen…wind with you or against you… I experience it everyday, cycling along the Vliet…Days when the hard cold wind is behind me I feel strong…invincible!…pedal once-twice-thrice and I’m away, effortless, being blown toward my destination…delusions of physical grandeur creep in…looking at the cyclists heading the other way, wind tegen…beet red faces…snot pouring from their noses…shoulders back arms the whole body pedaling, pumping out kilometers in slow-motion…wind-blasted watery eyes sneaking quick peaks at me gliding by, wind mee…I try not to grin, to gloat, to shout out, ‘Hey! snot nose!’…feeling just great! that I could, should! keep cycling forever…why stop at Den Haag?…heck, onwards to Leiden …Amsterdam …Friesland…the North Pole!…be there in no time…no sweat!…Why not?…Because Dutch Lesson #1 learned young says for every heen there’s a terug, wind mee now is wind against you later…so keep your pants on!…doe normaal!…relativism, jongen!…don’t gloat!…and a fart upon your moral absolutes!…If only rich boys Blair & Bush had had to ride their bikes to school against that wicked but wise Dutch wind, they’d know more about Life…
Nothing quite like death to stop you in your tracks…mid-step…grab you by the scruff of the neck, stuff your face in life’s mountainous dung heap of inanities…petty concerns, self-obsessions, pointless pursuits of cash sex power…And I’m not talking about abstract deaths, the Iraqi ones you’re lapping up like dogs as part of your daily TV entertainment package…ordered by millionaires executed by morons “I come here to fix things that’s broke” inflicted on unpeople deserving of death for being dumb enough not to be born in the UK or USA…where all the good people live…Nope, not the ‘collateral damage’ deaths devalued by Ari ‘the fetus’ Fleischer on the Nightly News… The death I’m talking about is of a Dutch woman I knew…a fine Hollandse vrouw…as good as they come…the kind of Dutch woman who especially impresses us foreigners…So fresh-faced & healthy…schoon… indeed, clean Dutch beauty…& smart & kind…aardig…yet modest too…Zij straalde kracht uit…such an impressively powerful personality that it’s impossible to believe she’s dead…
Nothing quite like death to make writing ‘an amusing column about life in Holland’ seem so inane…But the show must go on, right… But flat & empty & mourning at 2 a.m…write about what?…Only the wind occupying me, rattling my window, demanding attention…why not…the sometimes wicked sometimes wonderful Dutch wind is worthy…one constant & inescapable reality of this Dutch life…which every foreigner living here must finally accept…our rite of passage to becoming Dutch…At first, the Dutch wind tormented me…pissed me off…but I’ve gradually come to accept and even value it as what makes the Dutch Dutch…On their bikes they grow up with the wind…it toughens them up, makes them particularly humane…wary of absolutes…good…evil…aargh! Go eat your cowboy hat!…always mindful of a greater force…their relative smallness…The Dutch wind’s a teacher, teaching humility… I learned that on my Dutch bike too…What is now, what will be later…depends on which way the wind’s blowing, on which way you’re going… wind mee of wind tegen…wind with you or against you… I experience it everyday, cycling along the Vliet…Days when the hard cold wind is behind me I feel strong…invincible!…pedal once-twice-thrice and I’m away, effortless, being blown toward my destination…delusions of physical grandeur creep in…looking at the cyclists heading the other way, wind tegen…beet red faces…snot pouring from their noses…shoulders back arms the whole body pedaling, pumping out kilometers in slow-motion…wind-blasted watery eyes sneaking quick peaks at me gliding by, wind mee…I try not to grin, to gloat, to shout out, ‘Hey! snot nose!’…feeling just great! that I could, should! keep cycling forever…why stop at Den Haag?…heck, onwards to Leiden …Amsterdam …Friesland…the North Pole!…be there in no time…no sweat!…Why not?…Because Dutch Lesson #1 learned young says for every heen there’s a terug, wind mee now is wind against you later…so keep your pants on!…doe normaal!…relativism, jongen!…don’t gloat!…and a fart upon your moral absolutes!…If only rich boys Blair & Bush had had to ride their bikes to school against that wicked but wise Dutch wind, they’d know more about Life…
Comments are closed.