In a Bar, in Amsterdam

Thursday, June 28^th, 2012, around 11:30pm

            I am happy to be alone here. It is not as lonely as in America. The stench of foreign armpits and top 10 American Billboard songs cause people to love one another. That, or the green bushels they smoke in basements.

Dancing to jazz, I saw drunk—presumably—couples move according to the other’s body: Is you is or is you ain’t my baby? No, Glenn Miller, this was one of the times where the pop hits weren’t pop.

            The locals are kind, but there may be a hindrance in their step, and who could blame them with such a vibrant slash of tourists meandering their cities, expecting things differently, smelling of deodorant and Camel cigarettes.

            It all happens upon you. You meet Norwegians who make you feel like you’ve known them your whole life or a New Zealand mom and daughter at lunch who have already had four or so glasses of Pinot Noir. It is a nice thing to find.

            Perhaps people are the alleys of which don Juan spoke. Even Camus may have admitted through character that he could be having an intensely intellectual conversation with friends, but when a beautiful girl walks by, he would disregard everything that was said previously just to move his eyes along at her pace. It is a strange effect, the one these women have here.

            I feel kindred with a few spirits back home, those who know the look of an empty bar, at least judging by the seats next to oneself. However, there is a solidarity in knowing that one’s soul can stand to be alone.

All those with hundreds of friends and people they are meeting at nightclubs need other beings. But we, we few are much happier without banal conversation of who is dating whom and what is happening in the tabloids. Our lives are sufficient with our inner dialogues. A simple smile or laugh after overhearing a public—often too public—conversation are enough to carry us through this trudge of night.

We will go to sleep miles from anyone familiar, but those plants on the windowsill, those cooling low-balls of whiskey, those blank pages, canvases, stories: those are our good friends.

I understand why Camus wrote while here. I can see him in this bar, full of others just as much unlike himself, but he carries on, like all geniuses. He does not speak—only writes, smokes, drinks. I wish to be as dedicated. Perhaps I am. To be sure, I am, in fact, drinking whiskey, smelling of scents of all so many people. A god somewhere in the history of all the ones humanity has created has to see this attempt in us. We must be appreciated at some point in our lives.

It is my last night in the infamous Amsterdam and I feel a tinge of regret, but it is overcome by being so happy at seeing the world. I am alive and so happy to be so.

These conglomerations of skin, blood and muscle do not know what they are doing. Are these canals a concentric version of the circles of hell? There is too much to take down in words this night and my pen follows my scattered brain.

The loneliness in this barstool is only brought on by more whiskey, but it depends on the perspective you take, doesn’t it? If I were a more positive being I would be dancing in the masses attempting to find a woman, and yet, I am alone and yet, I am happy about that. Now it is time to go back home and keep what I have learned through somewhat drunken strolls and conversations deep inside myself because the night ends eventually, even in our minds.