I'm Not There

Easter is coming. Instead of painted red eggs let me send some words for those who don't possess the power of sophisticated Hungarian language in which word 'bycycle' - the main character of my stories - has numerous equivalents like: kerékpár, bicikli, bicaj, canga, bike etc. The other main character of my stories is the typical windy, moisty, capricious, grey-but-sometimes-the-lights-look-great weather that Amsterdam has and makes biking a real experience every time I take a ride. You can never know.

To live in Amsterdam is a real multicultural event. This is another characteristic of the city I must face up everyday. In the morning you have English breakfast, for lunch you take Indonesian meal, for dinner the good old friend, Turkish pizza is served on your plate, just to mention eating.

There was a time when I could get enthusiastic simply because someone came from an exotic country I had hardly heard about before. Or when someone told me about all the places he or she had been before, I got amazed by this list of unkown cities and promised myself that I would go to some of them. Things change, just like me. Now when I'm listening to someone telling the story of his or her life and keeps mentioning places, dates and events I just get bored and I'm asking inside what are the things you are running away from.

Well, my plan to come here wasn't really planned. I rather took it as an experience and an experiment to see what a foreign and strange place can add to my life, after I spent enough time far away to learn that the perfect beauty of places lies in distance. But pleasant things can still happen, wherever you are. The perfect beauty of being alive. For example, it might turn out that József Attila's name is not completely meaningless in some other parts of the world.

I'm wondering if he ever listened to jazz or swing in his life. Are there any sources what kind of music he was listening to? In my world, he would have liked jazz. If he were a contemporary artist I'm sure I would add him on myspace, I would write something nice to him that he would never read. Maybe I would invite him here to Amsterdam just to hang out some days together, although I know that most of the time we would be just sitting in silence. We would sit in a café or a bar, we would just look out of the window sipping our coffee, staring at soaking passers-by. Once in a while he would take notes in his book, and me I would just enjoy those perfect, silent moments. Definitely, we would listen to some jazz, too.

It's good to know that he is a part of so many lives. Like an imaginary buddy who always stands beside you whispering the rightest words all the time... I have to tell you that after many times travelling with his words in my bag, this is the very first time I broke the rule and decided to travel without the volume my mum bought and my brother used in high school. I mustn't be attached to objects. Well, here I am. I miss my book and probably I'll ask someone to bring it after me. I'll keep it on my shelf which is almost empty. (Since November I'm suffering from acute anti-reading period... )

Anyway, shelf is a good place for a book. I won't risk taking it outside where severe storms could tear apart the pages in a second. Climate change really sucks - I'm telling you that as a victim -, but there is one thing I know for sure about it. When water starts to overwhelm the earth, I won't be the person running to the hills. I think the perfect place to live is where the perfect place to die is: beside my family and my friends. I miss you all.