I Must Swing

Some fairly big news in my life, and what better night to announce it than a sunday when you’re all off doing more important things. I’m fairly certain that as of early October, I will no longer be employed by the university. That is… at my current job, my contract is up and won’t be extended in any way. I’ve got many other jobs, mind you, but they are all freelance. Which means more free time to work on my real passion, citizen journalism. The money part I will figure out, with help from my fantasic network around the world.
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I was thinking about how life will change, while boat riding around town with Brooke the other day. Yup, the Brooke is back as a resident of Amsterdam… amazing how life works in circles, sometimes in a good way. And as we boated around, we came upon these children hanging from a rope off a very tall bridge:
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Watching this somehow put things into perspective for me. As the children swang back and forth, hanging on as long as possible, before letting go of the rope and jumping in the canal. Then came the next group, again swinging back and forth.. almost as if they didn’t want to make the jump too soon; a familiar feeling.
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One thing I decided right then and there: especially considering that I’ll have more freetime this year, I’m climbing up that bridge and swinging on that rope. Because it looked dam fun to jump in.

Sometimes You Just Miss Family

My family members are pretty avid readers of blog. At least as far as I know. I try never assume that they are or aren’t reading. But I can tell you it’s been a world of help in keeping in touch.. for a boy that has lived across the ocean for the past 5 years. 5 years!

Years and numbers and family came to mind today as I had lunch with BlondeButBright. Truth is, BBB and I don’t see each other that much, but I’m one of her biggest fans in this life. Over some good soup we talked about how time passes here in Amsterdam, and we meet people who remind us of ourselves when we arrived. Sometimes thats a good thing, other times there’s just nothing more annoying then seeing yourself.. again and again. I think it has taken a toll on both of us. But we’re still hanging in, and we agreed that we still love this town and what we’ve done with our years here… it’s a work-in-progress.

She spoke of going home for much of the summer and I admit to yee the blog readers that I’m jealous. It seems like it would be great to be able to be back in New Jersey for a spell, with my parents and my bro and little A-Ren who now says “stop” when he thinks something is too much. Come to think of it, it would be great to be able to be in Portugal for a while and be with my grandparents, as grandpa goes for some important yet routine eye surgery. Is anything routine when you’re in your 80’s?

But back to my point, I wish I could be in these three places right now, and ultimately that is not possible and therefore, somewhat saddening. Time passes. Families grow and get older. I start to wonder if I’ve spent my time correctly; made the right choices, or if I’ve missed some of the most important moments with some of the most important people in my life… my family.

Then again, like BBB and I spoke about today, lots of things are happening and the way things are now is not how they will always be.

In the meantime, I pick up the cross word puzzle out of the newspaper every morning at work. I find time to try and do the puzzle.. not because I like crosswords, but because it is what my father does, and we always do together when I’m home. We’re connected you see… it’s a direct line through the crossword puzzle on a six hour time difference.

postscript thingy: happy birthday to my compadre the mindcaster, few hours late, but it’s the blog-thought that counts.

Back Like Old Times

“So who’s still around?” Brooke asked me, fresh off the plane from Berlin. Who is still around. Tricky question in most beloved European cities these days. I tried to name names, stumbling when I’d realize she never knew this person or that person. Sometimes I’d name someone I knew from 4 years ago, other times I’d mention someone I’d only met in the last year… in both cases it reminded me of how tricky time is, resulting in this pseudo-expat-amsterdamer-alzheimers. Where you forget the year, mix up the name, or just go blank.

Photo Hosted at Buzznet.comStill having one of the allstars of my Amsterdam past back in town after a year in Berlin is a great thing. She looks at the city with great excitement, with a certain giddyness that in the daily routine, I sometimes forget. It is, as they say, a breath of fresh air.

Funny thing, as I look up at my first two paragraphs, I think I’ve said similar before when someone returns. It is the way, after all, around these parts. People come and go. They often come back, though it’s not the same. Sometimes they fall right back into things, sometimes they cherish the little things more than the last time. However you go about it, it is a tradition.

Oh.. and as a bonus today, a captivating video of my first mate and I navigating the ruthless sea.