Amsterdam my Beloved
Chapter from my book ‘Love in Vain’ My Rock & Rollercoaster Marriage with a Musical Genius
Oh beautiful Amsterdam! Especially when the sunny days are arriving in the spring together with all the colorful people filling up the cobblestone streets and the terraces next to the canals. Yes, Amsterdam my beloved, fondling my eyes with your ancient history and caressing my delicate senses with your mundane variety of tastes and smells. It feels like a rightfully earned privilege to be a part of this multicultural blend of Artists, Musicians, Hookers, Gays, Drag queens, Vegans, Vegetarians, Flexitarians, Students, Children, Tourists, Catholics, Jehova’s, Krishna’s, Hindu’s, Moslims, Buddhists, Bohemians, Junkies, Beggars and Suicidal bikers racing through the streets, like they own them.
People from all over the world gather on the famous squares to look and be looked at and some visit the countless coffee shops, where they even sell coffee, besides other mind-altering-numbing-blowing-opening-tricking-expanding substances. Walking through the city can be a challenge with brutal trams driving right through you, if you don’t look out. Or a King of the road, bicyclist hits you in the face, if you don’t give him enough space.
Had to go to the dentist today, after a year and a half of wandering around the globe. My dentist resides in Amsterdam, my favorite city in the whole wide world. One I always love to come back to from wherever I have been.
And here I sit with cleaned teeth, watching it all from behind the enormously tall windows of the CafĂ© Americain at the Leidse square, opposite our most famous coffee shop, The Bulldog and the International Theatre Amsterdam. Listening to the sweet voice of Maria Callas, singing ‘Casta Diva’, of one of my favorite operas ‘Norma’, through my earphones. Blocking out all distracting conversations, Job Interviews and over attentive Waiters, I take out my pen and cahier and open it to the first blank page I can find. At last, I can put my long held viciously circled thoughts on paper, where they belong. To put my mind at rest. And so, that they may live on forever, or at least as long as people care to read books.
Many bridges to cross
Love For sale in the red district
humanity expressed in multifarious ways
I wander in awe and wonder
My heart on a platter
absorbing life in all it’s glory
Open Heart, Closed Mind
My heart is always open. Sometimes it seems even too much when I feel the excruciating pain in my entire body by a word said or deed done by another or even by myself when repeating it over and over in my mind, like a schizophrenic Master & Slave sadomasochist. But when one feels hurt it’s never because of an open heart but rather of a closed mind. It is always our thoughts about things that are able to hurt us when we believe them.
Our beliefs are the main culprit for all suffering in the world. But never the heart, which is way more intelligent than the three dimensional mind can ever be, because it is connected to our inter dimensional inner Love source. Of course I cannot prove this, as I cannot prove Love or God. And yet, eighty five percent of earth’s population believe in a God. And everybody believes in Love or lack of Love.
We give it different meanings and invent all kinds of labels for every type of Love like, baby Love, Brother or Sister Love, Parental Love, Just a Friend kind of love, Puppy Love, Animal Love, Gods Love, Unconditional Love, Conditional Love, Loving, Unloving, Real Love and True Love. We are all One kind of Love, unless you are different and weird. No one can truly grasp it, but we all think we do. And that is the problem isn’t it? That is the reason why so many of us are losing in the game of Love. Because we don’t understand it. Me neither. And that is probably because we want to understand it with our mind. Which is limited.
Our mind keeps us from understanding Love. When all of our thoughts, believes, assumptions and judgements could be quieted somehow, then maybe we will experience a glimpse of Love from our source via our heart. And then, when the mind aligns with the heart, without it’s filtering thoughts, then nothing will stand in my way to a life full of Love, bliss, peace and happiness, in awe and wonder to be experienced without judgments. True unconditional love. Life as it comes your way is the most beautiful Love story you could ever imagine with your limited mind. If only I could take it in, without trying to see it differently then it is.
Who would you be without your story?
Reality is all that matters. It is the concrete fundament of our relationship with life, with nature, with fellow human beings and especially with your loved ones.
Or so I think, whén I think. Without it my Life will be led by my uncontrollable emotions going everywhere, uncertain, unstable, unable to cope with the daily business in an efficient effective way. All my energy will be wasted on my recycling thoughts. But when I stick to reality instead of my story about reality, told by my conditioned mind, pre-programmed and judgmental, confused and never right, my life seems so much lighter and brighter and more loving and peaceful. But when I am living my stories and become the main flawed character in this Play of Life, then drama upon drama becomes my daily experience.
For instance, say I lost my Job. When living in reality, I would just go straight to finding a solution. With all my stories running through my mind, I would detour and get lost into my own written and directed drama sounding like “Oh why does this always happen to me, I’m not good enough, I am a failure, Now I cannot pay my bills, I’m gonna loose my house, my car, I will be homeless begging for change.” We all do this sometimes! Why?
It is so inefficient and makes life so much harder than it should be. Shit happens all the time, don’t worry about it, just wipe your ass and enjoy the rest of the day. Worries have never, ever solved anything. They happen within your mind. And solutions come to you, when you “get out of your mind!” Didn’t Einstein say exactly this? If not, he should have!
Curiosity hurts
I wonder where my Love is at this moment. And with whom? Who is the lucky dame this time to be dwelled in his kisses and smothered in his embrace. The excitement and nervousness in her stomach, anticipating their encounter. Especially when it is the first time.
Will her knees turn into rubber when he walks up to her with his ravishing smile, no girl can withstand. And will her heart be pounding in her throat followed by the feeling of relieve and belonging, when he puts his arm around her or takes her hand. Would she ever for a second think about me and wonder where I am? Will it cross her mind even for a millisecond, that she is about to have sex with a married man? My man!
Will she feel guilty? Or will she laugh about me with her girlfriends and think I’m foolish, stupid and naive? Or think I am a loser and a poor lover. Not woman enough for him. Not sexy enough. Too old. Used ware. PassĂ©. Will she feel proud that she was able to seduce him with her lusty wanting eyes? That she was able to catch the bad boy? Does she know about all the others? Will she think she can tame him or even want to? Does she hate me and want to hurt me on purpose? Will she even care? Probably not. Why do I even care what she, a complete stranger, thinks about me, his wife? And it is none of my business anyway.
what we do for love
I agreed in the very beginning to let him have his freedom to see other women. He just came out of a Burn Out that lasted over a year and just got divorced. And so I understood why he needed this. To never loose himself again. But it is hard and I have to fight not to loose my own self just to accommodate him and his needs. I try to distract myself and think about other things. But my thoughts keep returning to him and her. who ever she might be. If only I could control and manipulate my thoughts like he does his women.
I am so curious. And have been all my life. For as long as I can remember anyway. Too many times I have been punished for it, as a little girl. Always asking questions and never satisfied with the answers. To my mothers great annoyance and my teachers as well. Always sent to my room, or out of class or just in a corner with my back to the rest of the class. To shut me up. I never understood what I did wrong and just wanted to understand, to learn.
To know or not to know?
I should have become a researcher or an investigator. But I became an analyst/programmer instead. And I got to solve corporate problems and build complicated IT systems and I was very good at it too. And it gave me some satisfaction. But still, I pondered about more important issues, like Life, Death, Love and relationships. And the more answers I found the more questions arose. One day my head would burst into a million trillion pieces. Only in my sleep my mind would take a rest. I never have trouble sleeping. I sleep like a baby. Especially in his arms where I feel safe and protected. How insane. When he is the one, that causes all the drama in my life, with a little help from yours truly and my never ending curiosity that killed much more than the cat.
I wish I wasn’t such a wanting to know it all, truth seeker. But I am. And I cannot help myself. And I know I shouldn’t be. But I just want to know what’s going on, right here, right now. I need to know and I probably will never know. Why do I have to know? I don’t know! It frustrates me not to know, but at the same time, it is such a blessing for me. I would be far better off not knowing anything. For knowing too much, won’t do me any good and doesn’t serve me at all.
It will hurt me, I know it will and I will feel even worse than before and a little bit more insecure about myself, for she is probably a lot younger than me and prettier. Less wrinkles and dimples and sagginess. But you never know with him. He has no particular taste or preference or so it seems. When I let the long list of all the women he shagged over the past years pass through my mind, I am not impressed. Maybe she is older than me and also fat, with crossed eyes behind thick glasses and dull dandruff hair and red snotty nose with crooked teeth and bad breath and a smelly pussy as well and then I will feel better or not. I can taste the vomit in my mouth just thinking about it.
Why oh why do I torture myself like this? And then I blame him for it. It will all be over tomorrow and as soon as he is finished with her, I know he cannot wait to see me again and hold me in his arms, never wanting to let me go. Not even to go to the toilet, dragging me along, putting me on his lap while he takes care of his business. Sounds corny, I know. We are just inseparable when we are together.
He is crazy or maybe I am the one that’s crazy. Or we both are. At least I am crazy about him. I am just telling how it is. Please don’t judge. We all have our own path to discover who we truly are. What a strange relationship we have indeed. But what does it matter? We are just different. Or so I keep telling myself. My friends say I am a fool. And maybe I am. Or am I?
to be continued..
Freedom —>