After doing exactly what I did for the past 100 hours. You can't step into your home and expect that everything is going to be the way you left it, or that things will feel the way they felt - maybe ever again. I'm not saying that my life changed in the last 100 hours of my life - that would be absurd...but I'm not saying it didn't. Last night - and technically it was last night even if it felt like 50 hours ago, because I didn't sleep and gained 9 hours, Sunday night - I was walking through Amsterdam at 3 in the morning after seeing 3 seperate bars give last calls. I had another 2 hours to burn and my spine hurt and body needed rest and I was tired, so fucking tired. It was the red light district and I walked into an arcade because I was going to pay 2 Euros to see a sex show - 2 people fucking behind glass so that I could just sit down and later write about something so poetic with full authenticity. Behind me, a band of fools walked in, drunk...high, took away the flavor of my moment. In the booths, rag dispensers were drilled into the walls and I suddenly realized even I couldn't have turned what I would have seen into something romantic or like I said...poetic. Even my words. It made me want to weep. So I left and found this steps from the exit, took a picture...
Swans, beautiful swans lining the rivers amongst the savages - fucking savages. It's exactly what brought me back to Amsterdam. I could have stayed in the airport and slept and waited for my flight but instead I committed to something else - something costly and opening. And it was still beautiful, and at times ugly, but wholly inspiring - fucking swans bathing in the scum of red lights...undaunted, unaffected - and because of them so was I. I think I bought an ice cream cone, soft serve, butter pecan and walked the streets before getting on a bus that would take me all over town before dropping me at the airport at 6 in the morning. I saw the sun come up and then I don't remember much else besides landing in Los Angeles and trying to hold my hand out without watching my fingers shake.
Hello Los Angeles. I'll find you again, just be patient with me. Be accepting. That is all.
