Moment

I am not quite sure I understand how it works but I signed up for an initiative 'reverb10'. It seemed like an interesting idea to help me reflect on the year passed and the year ahead of me rather than just feeling sad, gloomy and helpless.

A friend yesterday asked me to be an active agent for change in my life rather than playing the victim. Here is my first step towards that new found agency in my life.

So today I am suppose to describe a moment when I felt completely alive in the year 2010. It is hard task. I can write atleast 10 moments in the year with all the details of smells, textures and sounds of feeling like a complete looser and hopeless, selfish creature but really cant think of one moment when I felt alive. But why am I insisting that feeling alive only has to be understood when you feel positively alive? Why it cant be a moment when you felt most alive thanks to feeling intensely miserable, in pain and helpless? Is this not equally important dimension of feeling alive? Something to reflect on but let me think about a moment of positively feeling alive.

It has to be that solo bike ride at night from Bijltjespad along Prins Hendrikade to Rambrantpleine on 25th November. I was in Amsterdam visiting friends. Just the fact that I was surrounded by my friends gave me so much relief in those 4 magical days. The Christmas lights went up that evening at Dam square and there was a small music concert. My friend, Nuria had made sure that I will have my old bike to move around in Amsterdam during those 4 days. This bike, named 'Sally' has become my metonymic connection with Amsterdam. This was the bike that made me feel independent, free and autonomous in that one year. I had multiple falls but she always protected me and soon my bike became my means to feel light like a bird and to glide through those biking lanes in the city, the commonest commute was from meer en vaart (my apartment) to school which was near the city center. We preferred the path which goes through Vondel park and I started my day taking the same route. The park was beautiful as usual, very familiar and hence comforting, soothing and healing. I never had a fall in this park. Thanks to broad lanes for bikers and pedestrians. I have seen this park change its form from autumn, to winter to spring. I think right now this park must be covered in snow. That was the first moment I felt alive after many many months and the entire day ahead brought out more such moments.

Though I had biked in Amsterdam for a year, I think it was always restricted to certain paths. For example, I never biked from my school to station or from Dam square to beyond Amstel towards Hermitage. Amsterdam in my mind came to an abrupt end along the same lines. The city ended where I stopped biking. Strange, isnt it? But I realized it during this trip. Suddenly I understood how close Hermitage museum is from the waterloopliene and how easy and fast it is to bike to centraal station from my school. So from Dam square, I biked to Bijltjespad without having ever done it before and without having looked at biking directions on google map. All I had was an sms describing how to get there from the bus stop along the way. From the station, I started along Prins Hendrikade, I crossed the path that I once took with my ghost to go to the central library, then came my old student apartment where I stayed for a month in the summer of 2008, further on my left was the Chinese restaurant almost floating on the water, many old ships lined up (I had found a ship that had gone to India), then was NEMO the science museum with its characteristic architecture. That is where my previous familiarity ended. I had never ventured beyond that big folding bridge on the amstel. I remembered having read about the fears of the sailors when they believed that the earth is flat and not round and hence the ship would fall into nothingness at the edge of this flat earth. I cant get all the right details of this discovery of round earth and the sailors, a figure I used to draw of a little ship and the globe of earth when i was 6 years old for a school assignment. It was funny to stretch beyond my 'flat' idea of Amsterdam coming to an abrupt end. On that absolutely traffic less path, I biked further, turned to the left and crossed the Amstel that was flowing peacefully giving me company. I did make it to my friend's apartment, someone whom I saw after 4 years. We are very close friends and we remained in touch through these four years via internet but seeing her again was indeed a beautiful moment. First thing I noticed while giving her a hug was that she was wearing my old brown sweater, the same sweater that i wore almost every day at home in Amsterdam last year. We girls have been literally carrying bits and pieces of each other in our current life. Nid's belongings are all around us. Me and Nuria have so many things of each other and that of Nid's. Just holding Nid's back pack in my hand, I felt I was actually feeling her presence. Now I saw Nasima carrying my life in Amsterdam through that brown sweater. I hope that this sweater will keep her warm and give her happiness and energy which i got all across the year in this city. I had never noticed that I am taller than her. she surprised me with the fact that she cooked dinner for us. I never saw her as someone who would take interest in cooking. We had so much to talk about that we could not understand where to start. So at some point, we decided to remain silent and just feel the presence of each other. A lot has changed in our lives both personally and professionally but being in love and having lost it is one common theme that connects us strongly. We both are at different levels on our path to recovery and healing. We both are again at a crucial point in our life projects and we have to soon make very pertinent decisions. Through her window, I could see the Amstel and there she sat by the window smoking cigarette and I instantly went back to that huge football ground in Sawar, Bangladesh where the two of us used to walk and discuss and share our hearts out to each other.

I had to leave her soon as few other friends were waiting for me at the Christmas Market in Rambrantpleine. Mayank the philosopher, an indian friend whom I met in Amsterdam and Nuria. We were the three buddies and we wanted to meet up again for a drink in Amsterdam. This was our only chance as Nuria was soon leaving Amsterdam. It was good to see him again and it was even better to listen to this composed man and his perspective from a man's point of view about recent disaster in my personal life. The gluhwein and the Bailey's. The place was warm but smelled a bit funny must be all that wine. Mayank was most bothered by it. The wine was so strong in its aroma that we had to struggle to drink it, the fumes would straight hit the brain through nose before the drink could make it to the mouth. We talked and we drank. We girls were faster than Mayank, I think he did not like it that much. Then came a round of Baileys and he refused to believe that it was a liquor. He kept saying that it was flavored cold coffee. Nuria kept insisting that it is alive as it grows. The sweet while liquid would appear to rise in its level as the ice melted. especially in the end when only thing that remained behind was the ice cubes with little baileys, we kept sipping to its last fraction laughing that the liquor keeps growing. For nuria, most food items are alive. The poories and rotis from India are alive because they puff and make a noise. The mustard and cumin seeds in hot oil are alive because they pop and try to jump out of the pan. So this 'its alive' syndrome is very peculiar to our trio and dates back to our adventures of cross-cultural cooking in the kitchen of Meer en Vaart. Mayank used to make lovely Indian tea with ginger (boiled with lot of milk and sugar) and fry some potato wedges to treat the two of us. He said he has stopped making those as he wants it to remain a treat between the three of us and not to relish it alone. I like that idea. If the three of us ever meet again, Mayank will make the tea and wedges for us again. What will we (myself and Nuria) make for that occasion? Mayank could make it to the last tram and we girls set out with our bikes to go home.

Was I drunk? No not really, i was in complete control but was feeling much relaxed, warm and happy. Nuria led the path. I was biking silently behind her, along the path that we often took back to home from school, hitting the Rijksmuseum, along the overtoom towards Surinaampleine. I fell silent but the silence was comforting. I kept looking around for all those familiar buildings and shops as if I had woken up from a long standing coma. I was back in my familiar world. Nuria asked if I was ok and I answered 'I am at perfect peace'. The cold did not bother us as our souls were warm with friendship, acceptance, care and concern for one another and trust that the future will be brighter even if it feels so gloomy right now. The Ethiopian restaurants, the marktplaas, the little rehabilitation medical center, the big gymnasium, the little cafe were I met Sally for the first time, the circle around surinaampleine where the trees got dressed in lovely pink flowers in the summer and there we were at home. It was almost 1am. We both were tired but we had immense satisfaction of having had a wonderful day together in our favorite city and having also accomplished most of the things in our list of things to do. The moon was shining bright and the night was beautiful. I was so content and relaxed, had not felt like that for long time. I knew at that very moment that Amsterdam is where I want to be. This is where I feel at home and this is the city which makes me feel comforted and protected.

So my moment of feeling alive is being in Amsterdam with my closest friends.