Bear with me

"zo stoned als een garnaal"

--

It was scheduled for last week - "speak with D". It stands for a Hebrew name, literally translated as "Bear". Not a code name, just a well known Israeli character in Amsterdam.

Lazily, I'm getting up from the sleeping bag near the heater in the living room, and ride to his office.
I fear he'll ask me "What would you like to work in?"
I am an immigrant, any job would do for now. My dream is to work in the cinema and is quite far enough from my present self. Actually I fear the dream, not the question. Running away from it led to other objectives (such as find yourself living in another country making a living and friendships) in search of greater self reliance and confidence.

After sharing the script writing dream D' shared his movie-like immigrant's ascension story: 16 years ago a young man, with no passport other than an Israeli one, came here without knowing anyone yet with a strong belief that things will go well. He first went to a hotel, booked a room for a month, and bought a lot of dope. Once in a while he'd got out to a grocery store and sometimes inquired about a job. Mostly he was stoned, but still a believer.
His hotel neighbor was a successful prostitute. One night she got into a quarrel and got beat up. He was nice and caring and made her some tea, helped her out. Kindly enough, she paid a favor back and set him up working for a restaurant, knowing about 5 phrases in Dutch and inviting potential customers to get in.
The restaurant was owned by an Egyptian fella and had an Egyptian chef who did not care for Israeli D'. He'd always ruin his break meal on purpose which led D' to quit (rather than wanting to kill him). He found another job working in renovations. He noticed all the workers are eating separately on their break time and one day decided to gather them all up for a proper meal he bought for them all. For the first time, the foreigners of different origins sat and ate together. It became a routine.
D' assembled the crew and managed to get it a reconstruction job. His team did it so cheap and efficiently, in a shorter time than expected, that he went on establishing a construction company. In time he initiated a project of maintaining and renting out apartments for owners and another project of purchasing and selling. Thus, he has became the well respected mediator, the one who gets the job done and knows everyone.
One thing I particularly liked about him is how he learned to speak Dutch and Arabic off the street. I felt comfortable with the bear. It is not for no reason that people trust and love him, nor that he loves and has faith in some sort of a supreme force, as I suppose he does.

As he was busy with phones and people, I was talking with his plants master, my first to know Serbian person. I liked him since he was both crazy and simple. What I mean is that things were quite clear to him regarding the hells his countrymen have known. His mind is all too made up about communism, Albanians  NATO, Germans, and more. Come to think about it, these people got fucked over and by so many sides, no wonder he says they revolted against the police and made personal arms legit.
Minding fucking, he also told that homosexuality is strictly way off any Serbian norm. The straight traditional people are so convinced that according to his tale, two gay Germans were kissing together in a pub and a guy took out a knife and stabbed them. "The fact that they are Germans was extra".
Forgiveness is a harsh virtue, and just as unacceptable as any other shit endured in their history.

At some point of his telling, he then mentioned he was once caught at the border from France to Italia. He had a lot of marijuana at the time but was only halted for not having a passport. His weed was returned to him and he even smoked at the border-police station. At this point I understood he uses MJ so I suggested we smoke one now. He then offered me what he was smoking (I mistook it for merely tobacco). I only took a few puffs but it was strong enough.

All this while I am waiting for D' to finish his phones, however when he does, he must attend some errands and he takes me for a ride. Some day to choose not to take my jacket with me... Hack the wind chilled my face to tears and my body to shake! We get on the scooter and go to several places he has businesses in. His mind is generally multi-occupied. He talks on the phone, call after call, while riding, sending a kiss to the cycling Rabbi from across the street and once in a while converses with me in the back.

Being a bit buzzed this whole meeting and riding from one place to another - it felt like tripping. That feeling I liked so much about traveling - meeting new people, getting to new places, unveiling new situations, opening for new opportunities, revealing totally new histories ... It all sums up to people just liking one another. This bear, he is an honestly human liking one.

It might just be that the next day I feel all these possibilities are denied and give false hope, but for this day... I learned it is nice to smile optimistically again, to regenerate energy by believing eventually things will go just fine. Even if my main achievement for a month is to get stoned.

Two'sday

Spirit of this prose "Susan's House" by Eels (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC3MH-U6yDk)


I got up late, lazily letting time go by till I was late for a train to Leiden. Usually I tend to act out the procedure of buying a discounted ticket (40% off) which requires "teaming up" with a local who holds a card that enabled a friend's-discount. It is a reasonable chance I'd find such a blessed stranger while waiting for the train. Finally I see which platform I need to run to but I missed the train by 12 seconds. Another person who ran to that platform went rushing for another. Trusting he might pursue a similar destination, I follow his running. The train is departing just about NOW. I've missed the "while waiting for the train" phase but taking my chances anyway.
I ask passengers if I could tag along their journey but they're either not destined as far as Leiden or not capable of enabling a discount. As the coaches are uncomfortably packed with passengers, I only ask people at the spaces between the carriages. A woman comes to the passage coughing. I ask if she could help me. She nods her head and coughs some more. "Perhaps it is I who can help you. Water?" I offer and let her my bottle. At least some good was benefited by my approaching people.
I feel lost. What happens if i get caught? How humiliating and painfully expensive it might be. I should have just paid the full-fare rather than be haunted with anxiety and guilt of putting myself in this situation.
It seems I probably avoided the control once by switching between the two floors. The stress messes with my mind. I yield. I sit down and let any controller have me. Time for me to learn a lesson. I get everything for free anyways (movies, music, programs), it's about time I pay for my usage of services. LET THEM COME!

A controller passes next to me and walks on.



Leiden is sweet. pretty, peaceful, slow. I meet Roni and Manon. Taking a break from their gallery I walk around a little bit, to see the town and smoke a joint. Roni says it is illegal, "because of the new law". Cautiously, I roll one near a gorgeous cathedral and the authorities-phobia charges me again. This is not what Holland should mean!


Earlier today Nathalie asked if I am to show up at the weekly ping pong night at OverToom301 ex-squat. I grant that I shall and she admits to come as well. A few good hours into the evening, still in Leiden, I eventually SMS that I will not make it. She updates me she's also waiving the night.
What purpose was it intended to serve, declaring and assuring at first we'd go there?


After a most lovely evening with the couple, being presented to art, educated about fine music and talking about love and life, Roni and Manon drop me back at the train. This time I get the fully priced ticket.
Night time, alone in the train, listening to music via the radio of my simple phone.
Pressure to be productive. "Read that book you're delaying with" stresses a thought in my head, "use the time". I never get to fully enjoy listening to music anymore. I choose to be with it, and not having the music once again serving as a background dish for some main activity. 
A great tune is on. How could I ever get this track? Surely a trained Buddhist would be able to enjoy this one time listening to it but I am possessive, and possessed by the will to be able to recapture this joy. No title is given for it. Does GOOGLE really know everything? Would it find a track that was played on 104.40mhz at 1:50am? I used to use a forum to identify songs according to lyrics, but this one has no lyrics. 
Once, back in a pub in Cape Town  I asked some guy about a song that was being played so he checked through some App on his smartphone and approved it was the band I guessed it was. How could they have already developed an app that detects the room's music and matches its title? How does the algorithm work? Who prepared the database?! It drives me crazy sometimes I have no clue how this world is being managed by these invisible forces which keep it going to new stages.
I tried to remember now which song it was back then. Then the following song, on the radio, was the same song I heard that Cape Town night!!

2am. Amsterdam Central's such a big station and the exits are closed except for the one on the far end. That means I'd have to go all the way back to this side where i got off the train from to fetch my bicycle. One could be pissed off about it, or sink into observing the city with joy. Easing in, I find myself spectating the central station's magnificent architecture. I notice new ornaments built into it, new to my own attention. Across the street is the marvelous Victoria Hotel.
The voice has changed, more calm and reassuring: "Enjoy the city for what it is, like listening to music rather than putting it in the back".
I love this Amsterdam, it holds so much grace.

Return of the Joodi

When God created the world, it created Adam and Eve.
When I contemplated if I should stay in his holy (but not only) land, I decided to A'dam I'll leave.
After 2 short weeks in Israel, I laid about doing nothing for a week of rest from my vacation of living on holiday-mode.
In Israel most my friends have daily life, and it was hard to give up my holidaily life for that. Not yet.

Doing nothing doesn't mean "La Dolce Far Niente" since Niente won't taka ya too far. I DO wish to have a job. But I also wish to make something out of the time spent while not having one.
At the age of 18 till 19 I did not do anything. Now I don't do much more, but there's more to write about.
That'd be another form of admitting - Wha I do have is enough time to practice writing.


Amsterdam. Automn.

How does one portrays in words the taste of the air here?
Green trees spreading out their yellow leaves on the vermilion bricked roads composing the grey gloomy town.
The air is a fresh soundtrack to the classic Euro-scenery. If the air we live in is the water fish dwell in, this sea (or aquarium) is well kept. Clear, opened, and lucid enough to see the bottom of it.

Wednesday I went to Diemen, the neighboring town, my municipality and home to Marella, my non-biological auntie here. Riding my bicycle back to A'dam I meant to stop in a lovely park I once explored. This time I ended up in a Cemetery (as my sense of orientation, much like my sense of humor, is occasionally senseless). Inside I spotted creative tombstones. A stone shaped as an electric guitar; A tomb covered with a coat of AJAX and a statuette of an Ajax player placed on the grave; Another grave hosted a statuette of a clown playing an accordion; On one tombstone an engraving of a man with bicycle and angels. Rest in creative peace.

Thursday morning, a scheduled appointment to see a room in the house of a Jewish family (I am a well sponsored homeless, writing this post at the bath of a friend, but still a homeless). I arrived a little after 10am, his wife (an Israeli woman) immediately asked me about income and money to pay rent. It seemed she's more concerned for that before getting to know me at all. Then the husband I came for was too busy going to the University, and still shaken of what's going on in that vibrant family house in the morning, the wife goes to the supermarket - I find myself in their house, with pannenkoeken made for the child. Even the maid was only there first time and was'nt supposed to be left alone already. The husband, with whom I wanted to speak about potential connections to help me get a job, is too occupied and then too out to converse with me. Should I stay or should I go ?
I decide since that woman was crazy enough to leave me at her house with the kids, it's gonna be a crazy day if I wait for her, and indeed it was wild. We took her kids to the school, then went to a few shops of jews (they used to be marked with a yellow Magen-David in the past, nowadays they sign with a blue כשר Kosher. Merely a cosmetic change). Then, after meeting some contacts, she shows me around in her tiny car she called a motorbike. It's like a Smart car, only smarter. We stop at some point near the Amstel river. I never knew the Amstel had such beautiful sides to it. She feeds the ducks and meerkoeten (the ugly bastard nephew of the ugly duckling). The sun sprinkled on the calm river water. Gezellig!
Cycling back home I made a small stop to enjoy some urban sacred tune of a square musician at Leidseplein. These musicians and artists are as significant in the city as its old buildings' ornaments integrated into their architecture.

Amsterdam, round 2. Still no job, but I am alive, as DuDe as it gets.