Amsterdam Meet-Up

I think it would be the best to start from my last memory of the meetup in Amsterdam. I find it that Hanif Kureishi says it best in Intimacy when he opens with It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back. That thought went through my mind while I was going back to the Steyokey hostel in Amsterdam, leaving behind my new found friends at the Leidsplein, and strolling slowely behind other group of friends, trying to pass unnoticed, trying not to harm my happiness in any way. Though I will be coming back for sure, I feel that those memories, moments shared in the Spot, are to stay mine forever, and can't be traced down and eradicated by some rude intruder, not a single second, not for a single second. That is the reason why these entries will not function as a real travblog, but as a memory of a traveller and a friend, and depicting my feelings, thus, can't be captivated into such strange syntagms as diary, lenght, enumaration of actions, etc.

They are subjected entirely to me..

Meeting Devi was the first thing I did, on Friday evening. I had just returned from Utrecht and Houten, where I was building excellent friendship with Nienke, another of my new, good friends. Nienke, a very generous and great person, had spent the whole day with me, trying to find a person in Houten together with me, talking about having a house with a great view in Utrecht's centre, big writing table next to a huge window, exhausting personal library, and a lot of time to write and read, to drink coffie without thinking about the worst question a person of our character could think about - Whatfor? A friend for life? - Most likely..

I can still remember Devi's eyes looking how would I react on our first encounter, she was apparently a shy person, but I wouldn't let them intimidate me, so I hug her as strong as I could, and as longer as the courtesy of a first meeting was allowing me.

It felt as if she made a step back, in a moment she needed to precess she was actually hugging me, and not some unknown person, but after a second her embrace was getting stronger, as mine did, as if we both needed a second or two to start beliving we actually did finally meet. After three months. We had wonderful time at the meetup, something we can both take with us to our homes, and return to it when we feel most generous towards ourselves. What does it take? It just takes patience..

It is interesting how we find ourselves in other people, and how those others find themselves in us. It is even more interesting how none of us know this until it is really late, until we part. But, isn't it the point? While I was having conversations with Kim, I couldn't stop thinking how I felt so strongly about those same things, thinking about it made me aware that sometimes we could change our lives without even noticing it, and become friends with a complete stranger in a matter of seconds.

Best friends? - That's for sure!

I missed meeting Marcel in Croatia, and now I learned that the two of us just lost time, lost a drink, a coffie, a night out, which we could use. Having conversations with him and Paula was great. And Sylvie, I met Sylvie already in Antwerpen. She was ready to spend the whole day with me, we had a lot of fun, which we just caried to Amsterdam, and having those moments in Antwerpen together with Pieter, just made me nostalgic about travelling, about friends. Sylvie was there for me when I needed her the most - a smokers crises, and a full meal in Quick. Some friendships are formed in smoke, but don't end up in smoke so easily, but are bound to last for a long time. Can't wait to come to Antwerpen again to meet my friends in Belgium - Sylvie, Pieter and Kim.

And also to meet many others, some who came over the Atlantic, whom I've never met, or exchanged a single message, and yet, showed completely as brothers. Jeff. And looking beyond that, Lauro, who was cheering for my arrival since December. Wendy with whom I was spending the last day when everybody already left. Ket. Ruby. Wayne. Mandy. Melle. Many many others..What are names, but merely synonyms for ourselves. Synonyms for me.

There are some things you wish you could take back, erase, and never again encounter in your life. For example - the lack of time. We have all experienced a lack of time at least once. But experiencing the lack of time when meeting your friends is the worst of all. It gets you unprepared, and it leaves you with a sense of soft powder on your fingertips, if you know what I mean.

So it goes. Everything is thought-provoking, should we only live for tomorrow, and today be on a road towards there? How to capture everything? :) Maybe Cummings can help here:

all ignorance toboggans into know
and trudges up to ignorance again:
but winter's not forever,even snow
melts;and if spring should spoil the game,what then?

all history's a winter sport or three:
but were it five,i'd still insist that all
history is too small for even me;
for me and you,exceedingly too small.

Swoop(shrill collective myth)into thy grave
merely to toil the scale to shrillerness
per every madge and mabel dick and dave
--tomorrow is our permanent address

and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do,
we'll move away still further:into now

People?Travelling was the thing we all thought we have in common, but, actually, it's only something that brought us to a single place.

What we have in common is the meeting ourselves with others, meeting ourselves with us, meeting ourselves with terms that define us. One who doesn't understand this isn't a traveller, isn't a wonderer, but merely a sad existence. Caelum, non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt.

Distance doesn't stop us from being with someone. From being with our friends..