We come from six different countries. Our "day jobs" cover the spectrum from literature professor to student to waitress to pastor. Our creative interests vary from memoirs to film scripts to short stories. But we all have one thing in common: We like to write.

For the last six months or so, I've been getting to know a small circle of aspiring artists who -- like myself -- have long enjoyed writing as a hobby, but who are now looking to improve their skills and put their stuff "out there" a bit more. We found each other through a collective of international writers in the city of Amsterdam called wordsinhere (and through word-of-mouth, as things developed), and there are now ten of us who meet together as a "fiction critique group" every other Monday evening, in a small cafe in the Jordaan.

Last night, we met in the home of one of the members of our group, where we were treated to an Indian Tea and some wonderful homemade Indian snacks. A number of the members from our group couldn't make it yesterday (so unfortunately, they didn't make it in the pictures), but we really had a fun time together.

I'm going to miss being involved in the group this summer, while I'm gone in the United States...

Amsterdam is not a city of superlatives. Oh, I'm sure the folks at the VVV or the "I amsterdam" campaign could work up some statistics that would show how Amsterdam is the biggest or best at something. But the fact of the matter is that Amsterdam is not an inherrently "grand" city. Beautiful? Yes. Interesting? Absolutely. But let's face it: Amsterdam is not a city built to impress.

The city's "illustrious antiquity" is not self-evident -- as it so clearly is
in Rome, or Athens, or Beijing. Rather, the oldest buildings in the city date
back to the end of the Middle Ages (though there aren't many that even go back this far). There is very little in the way of massive monuments -- like you'd find in Paris, or Washington, or Moscow -- celebrating the city's or the society's greatness. The tallest structures in Amsterdam are stubby office buildings and hotels, very practical and proper, and if you were to look down from the top of one of these "tall" buildings, you would see a very sporadically sprawled, mismatched, happenstance arrangement of architecture spanning the last five centuries. The labyrinthine avenues worming through the city -- cutting thin channels through buildings stacked four, five, or six stories tall, just about everywhere -- are certainly fascinating and intriguing... But they are not impressive.

Consider this:  Commission any ten people to buy you "the quintessential" postcard representing the city of Amsterdam, and I'd be surprised if you got more than two or three that were depicting the same scene.

As any true Amsterdammer knows, the strength of the city lies in its incomparable ordinariness in the midst of its incredible diversity. By looking at a collection of scattered samples of items that more-or-less fall within the same category, one gets a better idea of the city. Taking fifty portraits, if you will, to get a single impression of Amsterdam.  But even then, the impressions of the city are never complete. They are constantly evolving. Stereotypes and clichés and slogans must be brushed back like the dust and cobwebs of a forgotten attic -- and then, only then, by way of glimpses stolen through the chinks and cracks and hidden crannies of honest everyday acquaintance can one begin to know Amsterdam. Not completely -- never with truly divine omniscience -- but more intimately, and increasingly more meaningfully.

In order to see Amsterdam through the eyes and ears of Amsterdammers, one needs to examine the images and stories of the city, uncluttered, stripped of any presumed glamour and grandiosity. But because Amsterdam is a mystical and spiritual city, we cannot help but be awed and impressed. The everyday gives way to the ethereal. And the small slivers of humanity, grasped and glimpsed through the tiniest of ever-moving spaces, illuminate the true greatness of Amsterdam and the presence of God in the city.

I came back to my house after a week away. Picked up the scattered pieces of mail in the front entryway. Ritualistically put away the things from my suitcase. Started a load of laundry. Rifled through the mail.

Out of all the various pieces of mail, there was only one hand-written envelope -- so, of course, it was the first one that I opened. And as I read the contents of the envelope, I was touched by the beauty of this hand-made (though seemingly professionally-printed) Easter card. Very simple: a beautiful photograph (or is it a painting?) of a screw through weathered wooden planks, with an original poem printed along the top. And yet very profound. I thought I would share the poem with you:

Hout van God


Delen van die boom
Van goed en kwaad
Mijn oog verblind
Kennis van duizend dromen.

Toen keerde ik terug
naar mijn gestrande schip
Alleen nog wrakhout van de boeg
Lichten van jutters doemen op
Wartaal door de splinters in hun ogen.

Nu zit en pent mijn hart
Op de balken uit mijn ogen
Mijn tranen zullen niet bedrogen.

De Timmermanszoon woog kundig
Zijn kruishout voor mij af
Haaks op mijn bedacht bestek
Oogt het soms één millimeter te lang
Zelfs één millimeter te zwaar?

Zijn adem blies Hij er over uit
En riep: houd moed...

-- Kees Roeleveld, Pasen 2008

I was going to try and provide my own English translation of the poem (and maybe I'll still get around to providing it sometime soon) -- but then I started trying to do it, and I realized how difficult it is to accurately capture the meaning and feeling of poetry in translation.

For now, I'll just leave it at that -- and I'll wish you a very happy Easter.

Christ is risen!

Elliot's best friend Tobias is moving away from Amsterdam in about a month. They were both born in Ohio, within six months of each other: both the first-born children in their families. They both moved to Amsterdam within three weeks of each other. Together, they formed the backbone of Zolder50's kids group. I can't remember for sure, but I think they have celebrated all ten of their birthdays together (and they'll get to squeeze in an eleventh yet, when Elliot turns six, just before Tobias leaves). They've definitely shared quite a bit of history. But unfortunately, their paths will soon be diverging. Understandably, Elliot has been sad about saying good-bye to Tobias. But he's processing everything quite well, and I'm hopeful that we can make it an emotionally healthy experience.

Part of Elliot's emotional processing is drawing pictures and writing songs about his friend Tobias. Recently, he completed the above piece (complete with a tune to the song and everything!). In case your understanding of six-year-old phonetic spelling (he did the project completely by himself, during an afternoon rest time) is not the keenest, the words of the song are as follows:

All the good times we had

But we have to move on

I know I really know that we

Don't want to go and

Then we went away

From each other.

At the bottom of the page, Elliot added some beautiful collage work. The figures on the left side represent him and Tobias together (in Amsterdam). The figures on the right side represent the two of them separated. The shorter figure (in the middle) holds a flag representing England (you can see a dog eating a tomato, with the word "tomato" is written on the flag understood to be pronounced "to-mah-to" -- which, Elliot explains, is the best thing that he could think of to represent the British way of life); and the figure on the far right holds a flag representing the United States of America (with an American eagle has been emblazoned on this flag).

Sad and sweet, isn't it?

Things really started to get weird when Mary bought the dress for the monkey.  Not that they weren’t weird before.  But when she turned up on Thursday afternoon with a pink, lacy, sparkly party-dress just the right size and shape for a small monkey, the weirdness rose to a new level.  Crazy-weird.

“Isn’t Frederick a boy monkey?”  I asked.

“That doesn’t matter,” Mary replied, in a matter-of-fact tone.  “I think it’s a beautiful dress.”

“Whatever,” I mumbled in response.  As far as I was concerned, she could do whatever she wanted with that stupid monkey.  Oh, you might think it would be kind of cool to have a real-live pet monkey living in your house -- and Mary certainly thought so -- but I just thought it was annoying.  He couldn’t purr like a pet cat.  He couldn’t (or wouldn’t) play fetch like a pet dog.  He couldn’t talk like a parrot.  He would just make messes in my room that I had to clean up.  He would steal my raisins when I wasn’t looking.  And he would only do his tricks for Mary; her shoulder was the only one he would sit on.  Monkeys can be very particular in that way.  They’ve got a lot of personality -- and not always a charming one.  Sometimes, the idea of having something, like a pet monkey, is better than actually having it.  You know what I mean?

So anyway -- I feel kind of guilty in saying this -- but I was actually kind of glad when I heard a couple of weeks ago that Frederick the Monkey was sick and dying.  I can’t remember what it was -- some bizarre monkey disease -- but he was going downhill fast.  Mary, of course, cried a lot when she first found out.  But I was secretly satisfied (though I tried to pretend like I was just shocked).  Don’t get me wrong.  I wasn’t mean-spirited.  There was a part of me that was genuinely sad -- but there was another part of me that was relieved and looking forward to a simpler life without a bad-tempered monkey banging around our family room.  Still, as time went on and Frederick became more sick, my feelings followed.  I felt bad for him.  I felt bad for Mary.

But what was strange was the way that Mary seemed to become happier as the day of Frederick’s death drew nearer.  Instead of drawing and coloring pictures of Frederick -- which had been one of her favorite hobbies -- she started drawing pictures of little girls with blonde curls, drinking tea, wearing party dresses.  Instead of playing nursemaid to Frederick as the little guy grew tireder and sicker, she started cleaning the house of all its pet monkey toys and trinkets, humming a happy tune to herself as she worked.  And when she came home that Thursday afternoon with the tiny prom dress, she merely swept over Frederick’s bed long enough to size up the dress to his shriveled form, as if to make sure that it was the right size, and then she went to her room to clean some more.  I just figured that each person -- even incomprehensible little Mary -- had their ways for dealing with these things.

Oddly enough, I was the only one who was there for Frederick’s last breath.  It was on that Friday, the day after the party dress.  Mary was playing in her room.  I don’t know where everyone else was.  But I was reading my book in the family room when I saw Frederick’s tiny paw jerk upward, as if he knew the answer to a classroom question.  I went over to his little bed in the corner of the room, to see what was happening, and the monkey’s tiny face was more shriveled and snarled than usual.  He looked uncomfortable.  But when he saw me, his features seemed to relax a little bit.  His eyes got kind of milky and his breathing became shallow.  And then the breathing just stopped.  It was sadder than I thought it would be.

The first door I knocked on was, of course, Mary’s.  “Hey Mary.  I think Frederick just died…”  I paused to catch my breath and brace myself for her reaction.  “I’m sorry.”

“Oh…” she trailed off, like she was only half-listening.  “OK.  Thanks.  I’ll take care of it.”

“What do you mean, you’ll ‘take care of it?’”  I was surprised by her cool, casual demeanor.

“I’ll bury him in the backyard or something.”

“’Or something?’  What does that mean?” I asked.  “Are you OK?  Your monkey just died, you know.”

“I know,” said Mary, kind of distant.  I was still expecting her to burst out in tears at any moment.  But the crying never came.  She came out to the family room, all right, and she scooped Frederick up in her arms and carried him back to her room, as if it were some kind of pink funeral home.  But there wasn’t much more to it than that.

“Do you think we should have a funeral service or a memorial service or something like that for him, Mary?” I asked after her, trying to be helpful.  But the only answer was a gentle clicking of the latch on her door as it closed behind her and the lifeless monkey.

Hours later I was horrified to see Mary playing in the family room with a small, heavy, doll-like figure wearing a pink party dress.  A closer look confirmed my worst suspicions:  It was Frederick.  But Mary was casual, even peaceful -- not at all deranged.  “How do you like my new baby-girl?” she asked.  “Her name is Wilhelmina.”

“What?!?!”  I exclaimed.  “Mary, that’s gross!  That’s not a baby-girl.  That’s Frederick!”

“No, it’s not,” replied Mary.  “It’s Wilhelmina.”

“Yes it is,” I countered.  “It’s Frederick.  But he’s dead, Mary.  You can’t play with a dead monkey.  You might get sick!”

“I won’t get sick,” said Mary.  “Me and Wilhelmina are just fine.”  And she just kept on playing.  A perfect little tea set was laid out in front of them.  Cream-colored ceramics, with pink roses painted on the sides.

I was freaking out.  I tried convincing Mary of the truth -- that her monkey was dead -- but she would hear nothing of it.  So in the end, I gave up trying.  The rest of the evening, Mary and her “baby-girl” enjoyed the time of their lives, playing marbles, reading storybooks, pretending to have high tea with the Queen of England.

By the end of that weekend, of course, the act was no longer just psychologically disturbing, but physically uncomfortable as well.  The smell of decay was wafting through the house.  The monkey’s fur was looking greasy and unkempt.  I started to worry about Frederick/Wilhelmina’s arm falling off, in the middle of a game of ring-around-the-rosy, maggots spilling out onto the carpet like some kind of horror movie.  I had to get out of the house.

On the street corner, I told my friend Malcom about everything that had happened, and he suggested that we had to just take the monkey corpse sometime, when Mary wasn’t looking, and bury him in an unmarked grave out in the woods.  I contemplated the possibilities for a moment, and as far as I could figure, it seemed like Malcom was right.  It was the only way.

So when Mary went through the motions of putting Wilhelmina to bed that night, just after brushing her own teeth and just before going to bed according to the usual routine, I humored her more than I normally would have.

“Say good-night to Wilhelmina,” Mary instructed.

“Good night, Wilhelmina,” I responded dutifully.

“Do you want to give her a good-night kiss?” asked Mary, seemingly stirred by my good-natured night-time farewells.

“No thanks,” I said.

Mary leaned over the ugly monkey corpse and delivered a gentle kiss on the nose.  “Good-night, Wilhelmina,” she said.  She carefully tucked in the blanket -- the green one with the embroidered flowers on it -- around the monkey’s tiny frame, and her fingers trailed off like silk strings carried off to her bedroom.  I kind of wonder if Mary secretly knew that it was the end.

After I was pretty sure that Mary had fallen asleep, I beeped Malcom on my old walkie-talkie -- our pre-arranged signal for “Operation Monkey Drop.”  And when Malcom appeared at the window, we jumped quickly into action.  Through the window, I handed Malcom the Nike shoebox, the best casket we could arrange, containing the unceremoniously folded remains of Frederick.  Then I slipped casually out the back door, and we ran to the woods:  Malcom carrying the flashlight and the shovel, and me carrying the shoebox.  Out in the woods, we were a bit nervous because of the whole scenario -- you know, moonlight, grave-digging, shadowy trees, strange sounds -- so it did not take us long to agree on a spot for Frederick’s final resting place.  We took turns with one holding the flashlight while the other pulled up chunks of brown, chalky earth with the spade-shovel.  And finally -- probably at a more shallow depth than what would normally be considered appropriate -- we said good enough.  I grabbed the shoebox with clumsy hands and told Malcom to steady the flashlight for a moment.

With a sense of ceremony and significance, I opened up the box and felt it necessary to rearrange the body before burial.  I bent the knees and hips and curled the long tail so that Frederick could lie fully on his back.  He was wearing the pink party dress, but I figured there wasn’t much to be done about that at this point.  I tugged on the hem of the dress so that it draped elegantly over his lower half.  The top half of the dress needed to be rotated about five degrees to my left, his right, and -- there -- he looked rested.  Ready.  And just as we had gotten started, the funeral was finished.  The covert operation was completed.  I thanked Malcom for his help and for the use of his Dad’s shovel.  He said no problem and melted off into the night.

As I re-entered the house, I was freshly confronted with the not-so-fresh smell of decomposition.  Sweet and sickening, the monkey’s presence had not yet been wiped out.  I found an old fondue burner in the kitchen drawer and set it up in the corner where the monkey’s bed had been.  I struck a match, and already I could feel the stink of death disappearing.  It was slow and solemn, like a cathedral.  Somehow I felt a presence in the room behind me, and I was not surprised when I heard Mary ask:  “She’s gone, isn’t she?”

“Yes.  He’s gone,” I said.  “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” was Mary’s only response.  “Me too.”