Taken August 2010, my adventure in Brussels. I took pictures of this couple being cute together on their bikes before walking past them later being street musicians near Manneken Pis. See that little rack on which the pack of water bottles sit? That is where I would perch when riding on Annina's bike.That was last year. Sometime in the fall. In Amsterdam. With my dearest au pair friend. Only recently has a certain nostalgia for aspects of my life in the Netherlands begun to make an appearance. It usually materializes in my thoughts when I'm not really thinking. When I feel mindless. Going through the motions of something I could probably do with my eyes shut if I could. (But I wouldn't because most of those occasions are when I'm driving home from somewhere.)
My list-making self should probably start making a list of the things I realize I miss. But I probably won't and instead I have a trick that works much better than that. I save playlists. If I don't blog about something, take a picture, or make allusions in my journal, there isn't really a place for certain moments, experiences, or emotions to exist except in my memory. And memories fade, change, and sometimes disappear all together. I still remember learning about an earworm and in that memory lies the exposition of this post.
I make and save playlists for nearly everything. I have a playlist from when I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the first time. One song per chapter. If I run out of ideas for titles I'll just date it. So, the one titled "4-20" really refers to the fact that I happened to compile it on the 20th day of April and, despite what you might think, has no other association to the number arrangement. I have a playlist of songs I like listening to from back in the day when I was obsessed with playing The Sims. I have one that would be the soundtrack if I was a character in Skins. But mostly it goes by seasons, or months, and years. Here is collection of songs from the playlists I created in Holland. These are not all the songs that hold memories or were frequently blaring from my Macbook speakers or iPod headphones. These are just the ones that when I listen to now still have a overpowering orange flavor. Or an orange after taste. Or an orange spice, if even for just an instant. Orange for Holland, of course.
"Black River" by Amos Lee
When I visited Västerås I made it a point not to listen to music while I was there. (The train ride to/from Stockholm being the exception) so that the memories would seep into me and my soul in a different (and hopefully deeper) way. But when the week was over I found songs that somehow corresponded to my trips. The river that runs through Västerås, which I walked by a few times on Kulturnatt and after yoga in the castle, is called the Black River.
"Where Do My Bluebirds Fly" by The Tallest Man on Earth
The Tallest Man on Earth, aka: Kristian Matsson, is from Dalarna, Sweden. (Which is where the branches from my mother's side of the family and my father's side of the family originated at some point.) I downloaded all of his albums and EPs literally as soon as I got back to Holland from Sweden. And I listened to him every chance I got for something like two weeks straight. I don't want to say I was obsessed because that makes it seem like I'm crazy but maybe I am. I'm still pretty crazy about him. Have you ever discovered a musician and just felt so deeply connected to them and what they were singing that it was like you've known them and been listening to them your entire life? Yeah, that is how I feel about him in a nutshell. Like we were meant to be. Him, my headphones, and my heart. I listened to this particular song on repeat for hours one night while journaling about the transformation I felt happening in my soul.
"Cocaine Lights" by Phosphorescent
I listened to this song as the train back to Purmerend pulled away from Centraal Station at 12:09am on October 17th. The first two stanzas seemed perfectly timed for how I felt then. I was thinking of how much I missed BFF Brandy. The line "to be less of meat and stone / And more of feather" especially because I will never forget the time she asked me when we were probably only 14 what it would be like if we had feathers instead of skin. And Pablo Neruda's (a poet we both fell in love with on the same day in a book store in Kansas when we were again probably about 14) "Love, We're Going Home Now" is one of our favorites because we often feel like two blind birds about two blind birds searching for our homes. That October night one of the fellow au pairs I had become friends with was going home to Spain and I realized then that I would eventually being saying good bye to all the girls I spent every weekend with and almost every day Facebooking. Somehow, that night was when it finally set-in that the places in my life were not the only factors that shaped me but the people as well. It made me realize that there are so many people who you encounter and befriend. They mean something to you at some point in your life. And then life goes on. People are constantly passing through our lives. Annina walked me to the train station that night, all the way up to my platform, because that is what we do. We always walked each other to our departure points. Leaving goodbye-until-next-time for the very last moment. That was also the night I rode my bike back to the village in the dark for the first time and the cocaine lights kept me warm.
"Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons
I had downloaded a free Tap Tap Revenge app on my iPod and played it to pass the time away while waiting for the train. This was the only free song on there that I liked. I think I played it at least 100 times and got all the way up to the most difficult level. I can't listen to this song now and not twitch my fingers to the guitar chords.
"Big Bird in a Small Cage" by Patrick Watson
This goes a long with the bird stuff in the explanation of "Cocaine Lights." I also feel like it belongs in the soundtrack to my entire life, not just my life in Holland. The meaning is fairly easy to grasp.
