The move

Just like the first home I bought I´ve just suffered a sense of loss when moving into my new house. It is a happy loss, but still. I am yet to determine what I am losing, but it is a strange feeling that coincides with stepping over boxes and viewing all your earthly belongings fitting into a double bedroom or medium sized truck.

I have always been quick to get up and go, and also quick to settle down. In Taiwan I owned a kettle, oven, bed, tv, various books, bamboo plant, scooter etc, and left it all behind at a week's notice. Back in South Africa, it took a while, but I bought another house, wooden floor, car and Lulu, the cat.

I still have the cat.

Living on the Overtoom is challenging. It involves public transport, something which needs some getting used to. Sure, it is a great invention, and in a country like this it works well. But still. Personal space is not overrated.

Currently I am number 81 on the waiting list for a parking permit, and number 1 on the list applied in July 1999. It seems realistic that I will have a Dutch passport before I will have a parking permit for Amsterdam.
I have two huge windows overlooking an extremely busy street.

As a good Amsterdammer, I have a couple of options: 1) Place semi-transparent foil on eye-height on my window so people cannot look in. 2) Be completely exhibitionistic and leave it wide open. 3) Hang heavy velvet curtains and keep it closed at all times (frowned upon, and you'll probably have the police at your door very soon) and lastly, 4) Something in between. I chose for the sober option 4. I have semi-transparent white blinds (that I open when I'm home) that displays silhouettes when the lights are on inside. This makes for excellent entertainment when Pixel (the new Dutch kitty) is sitting in the window sill, and me on the couch. If only I could get that kind of attention sitting in a window sill! (Oh, I could, but that was not my choice of career!)

Integrating has become a hobby for me. Something like knitting, you do it when you have time and you get some therapeutic value from it. It also has a whiff of achievement to it, especially when you start to recognise the celebrities, understand the traffic report and can spot a bad neighbourhood. (The latter still requires some practice.) Other tasks like driving without navigation, memorising the train schedule and understanding bureaucracy are optional extras in my quest.

Getting back to losing things, I have a familiar feeling of "where is my stuff" that I recall from my move to the Netherlands. Waking up with sweaty palms thinking: "Did I leave the Alessi pan in the oven in Hilversum?" or even simpler "Where is the camera charger?" I am sure you are familiar with this thought pattern if you have moved house once in your life, but this feeling is enhanced when you are moving continents, or even a few kilometres in a strange country.

I must admit that I have grown immensely in my ability to accept these kind of things. They are mostly related to earthly possessions. A while ago I slipped on water that Lulu has spilled and grabbed for the nearest thing to break my fall. The drinks trolley. Stacked with all my breakables collected from my travels. I broke: a mug from Villeroy & Boch I bought with my mother in Vienna, a crystal sherry glass I bought in Budapest, two wineglasses that cannot be replaced and two super-cute wine glasses that my father loves. After being thankful that I did not have one cut, I sat on the floor between red, white and sandblasted glass thinking: I can cry or I can get up and watch TV. I chose a good ol´ reality show to cheer me up.

Thinking about it more clearly now, I have not lost anything moving to the Overtoom. I have gained a vibrant shopping street, a walk home from the train, and friendly neighbours that keep on ringing my bell by mistake. I am a city girl now, at last, and for real. A world city.

Even though I still feel a little bit of loss, I am, as they would say in Taiwan, "the happy".

And I still have the Lulu.