A Change of Frequency

I absolutely love Amsterdam – the vibe was happiness. A cultured chill with something for everyone.. The sound of the saxophone under the trees outside the Van Gogh museum; beautifully dressed women appreciating each others efforts with the tiniest tilt of the head and a flicker of a smile; a young person randomly bursting into song on the tram . Even the sulkiest of teenagers are lifted by the frequency with their Rubenesque perms and glittering gauntlet chains around their necks squinting into the sun.

At the zoo, the butterfly rested on my forehead for what seemed an age – (my third eye my son jokingly called it). It got me thinking that stillness is a kind of courage. I didn’t want to move but was acutely conscious that passers by were observing me as now part of the animal exhibition. Maybe it is easier when you get older. Nothing strange about an old person sitting still and just staring, just being – without the need to disguise your presence with the pretence of being busy with a phone. And yet the artists I had just immersed myself in, were desperate to be seen – aping each others styles evolving the concepts maybe each privately hoping that the world, through the validation of their art, would really see them.

It is a cliché that as we age we become invisible but maybe we just forget how to be visible in the face of the flowering brilliance of youth. That said Amsterdam is the place to be invisible; to be a watcher – watching art watching people watching the windows in the redlight district watching animals in the zoo watching the boats watching the buildings… .

At times I felt I was so still I literally become invisible – dropping away from the speed of the present moment. On this frequency you notice the layers of people – men scurrying between bins emptying them of tins not too shabbily dressed, leaving you unsure whether they are beggars or just broke, but moving in a timeline of their own unaware of those around them.

Amsterdam challenges your expectations and broadens our perspective like all travel must . Perhaps the vibe, the Vivaldi busker; the nutritious fast food, is curated for us but in the end is that even relevant as we each experience it differently. The teen spontaneously hums along recognizing the music from a game he has played online, unaware of its classic heritage but enjoying the tune nonetheless. Whether it is curated for us or by us in the end we are the curators of our own lives with our own decisions creating our experience..

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