Weirdness Heaven

Autumn came and most trees around the big lake in Gaasperplas were covered in bright yellow leaves while others were as red as wine in the sun.

My sister Branca and I had started school in Amsterdam already, and we were about to finally move to the huge house in the canals my stepfather had bought.

The big truck came along one early Saturday morning to take all the furniture and packages away, and by Sunday evening we were quite settled and functional in our new home.

My mother and Jan had decided that I would need some independence soon, so they prepared the whole attic as a separate apartment for me, if you can believe it. This was the most amazing present I had ever gotten, after my typewriter.

We now lived in a building with four floors, and my attic apartment had wooden enforces all over the ceiling, and windows that were as tall as a person. There was a huge amount of light coming in, however, the light itself wasn’t too bright, since the days started to be mostly gray and rainy.

In my huge attic studio, I had my own small kitchen, and the toilet and shower were outside, in the hall above the last flight of stairs. My mom and stepdad’s apartment was on the third floor, Branca had her own room, and facing the canal they had a large dining space connected to the living room.

Branca was going to a school just over the bridge, in another canal, but my high school was actually quite far from home, at least for me, who decidedly didn’t know my way around in Amsterdam yet.

I had to cycle for over half an hour every morning on my way to class. All the streets and bridges looked the same, not to mention the canals, and for a while, I always had to follow the same route, because if I didn’t I would get lost.

My high school was in an old building with a tunnel for bikes crossing it through. I came to find out that there were quite a few buildings like this in Amsterdam, including the very museum of the kingdom, where I soon went to see the wonderful paintings of Rembrandt, with my sister Branca, who didn’t think much of them.

By this time, I was in weirdness heaven. The city of Amsterdam seemed to have a soul, a will, and a friendly personality. I could swear the city wanted me around, and was welcoming me in all the possible ways a city can welcome a person.

People were looking and smiling at me everywhere, without judgment, only with healthy and undisguised curiosity. They weren’t afraid to look and smile at me or anyone else, nor to talk loud and freely about whatever they had to talk about.

There was no shame nor embarrassment on the streets, just people dressed freely, wearing many colors and plenty of imagination, dressed crazy, dressed hippie, dressed different, and absolutely everyone was wearing or doing something outstanding.

Policemen had earrings, nuns rode bikes, men in suits had dreadlocks. Cafes and restaurants had cats, the streets smelled of joints, the windows of the houses had no curtains.

In my high school there were Gothic girls with long dark red dresses and astonishing make ups, dirty punks wearing black clothes and shaved heads, clean punks wearing red tartan pants and very high blond crests, hippies with dreadlocks, all kinds of hair colors, skaters wearing pants far below the waste line with interesting underwear shown for appreciation, pierced ears, tongues, eyebrows, belly buttons, noses and mouths, Muslim girls with covered heads and long skirts, rappers, hip-hoppers, fairies and witches.

Suddenly, in the midst of all variety, I was normal. Just like my mom had told me... I fit.