We had fun last night though I didn’t take any photos of Gayle’s family so as far as the internet is concerned it never happened. But I assure you it was fun. Oh by the way Rob (the husband) works for an American startup with one of those fancy indoor smart driven vertical planters GARDYN. Not that it takes no work at all, but I think it can even survive our friend Allie, not to mention it has a vacation mode setting so you can set it and forget it. It looks pretty nice too
We had a pretty low key day, just trying to catch up with life nine hours in the future. We met up with Gayle at MOUT near the end of a long video shoot for her upcoming video. MOUT was great, we got a seat outdoors near the fountains we walked by the other day. I imagine MOUT is the tourist friendly restaurant as it serves breakfast all day, Pho, Street Food and burgers and fries. It also fits with our daughters strict sensibilities for food.
It was nice seeing Gayle and getting to have real conversations about life, struggles, the state of the church in the Netherlands, healthcare and connecting in a place that doesn’t want to connect back. It’s a struggle living so far away from family. It was an encouragement being able to be there, talk through that and hopefully be a point of reminder that God is wither her and her budding family. Also be praying for their green card situation as that has been a pain and added to the disenchantment. Thank you Gayle for the time you spent with us. Thank you Rob for the lovely old fashioned. Thank you Ivy for letting me hold you and not crying immediately.
We walked home to find that the grand opening of the art gallery below our flat was still in full swing. On our way up the stairs I was pulled into conversation by Bart, our AirBNB connection. He was a nice guy who asked all sorts of questions about our journey so far, our company, our children etc and he offered me Whiskey, my liquid love language. We had a good chat and I headed up stairs to pack up for the morning. Once all the chaos was wrangled, bags were mostly packed I was beckoned by the shouts and laughter downstairs to get a refill and chat (it was 1AM at this point).
I ended up sitting down in the gallery and was able to have a conversation with the Artist, a guatamelan woman about her art and her story. We also got to speak on the blessing and challenge of artists intention vs. people’s interpretation. It was very fun to hear her perspective on this. It was also fun to hear that she, like myself, has a disdain for pretentious art that would sell a banana duct taped to a wall for $150k. She painted from memories of women all around that the world that she encountered whom she had memorable moments with and wanted to share those stories. Lovely. We had a great time laughing, talking and arm chair philophizing. Everyone is a philopher at 3:15AM in an art gallery in Hilversum.
I spoke with everyone else about travel, about their stories, the U.S., Gas prices, Covid in Holland vs. US, politics and religion. I found the one crowd in the world that I couldn’t complain about gas prices to as their prices are still higher than ours. It was all very interesting and very nice. Two women in the gallery actually grew up in Chicago 2 hours north from where I lived in Normal, IL in my teen years and another woman had family in Walnut Creek.
At some point, I told them I was somewhat of an open book and they could ask me any question they wanted on any subject.
What is one thing in your life you wish you could go back and change?
What is one mistake you made that you want to go make again?
Good questions. I’ll answer those some other time, but I loved the fact that despite the craziness going on in the world. Despite the division that comes from conversations about religion, politics, covid and the like when they had an opportunity to ask me anything, they just wanted to know about my life. I found that very refreshing.
It was time to go bed as I had to wake up in three hours. It was bittersweet, a great time visiting an old friend, not wanting this chance encounter to end but knowing it had to. It sort of reminded me of two of my favorite philosophers of our generation, Bluey and her mom Chili.
Bluey : Why did Jean-Luc had to go?
Chilli : Their holiday was over, Honey.
Bluey : But I want to keep playing with him! He was my friend!
Chilli : Well look sometime special people come into our lives, stay for a bit. Then they have to go.
Bluey : But that’s sad!
Chilli : It is! But the bit where they were here was happy, wasn’t it?
Bluey : Yea, we caught a wild pig together!
Chilli : Maybe that makes it all worth it?
Maybe we didn’t catch a wild pig, or maybe we did, we’re in Amsterdam after all. I guess you’ll never know.
