I lived in Amsterdam for about eight months with my best friend Phoebe Faircloth. We went on what was originally supposed to be a three week vacation. One week in Amsterdam, one in Berlin, and one in Italy. This experienced changed my life. Meeting a boy, staying for much too long, and basically being broke the entire time. However, I made friends along the way that will remain sisters forever.
Sara Van Rij and Roos Van Rij became my Dutch sisters.
Joris Engel and his Blizkreig Art Collective.
My charming home that I shared with Phoebe.
And the beauty that no one tells you exists until you arrive.
I wrote a few short stories about my time spent there. This one is called LOUSE....
I had discovered that I had a new love for brushing my hair. Each stroke, hard on the scalp and a rush through the rest, just to reach the top again, was like a tickle along the belly of a cat. The rhythm of a spinal massage, and I could do it for hours.
My American friend had visited me weeks ago, and was still reaping the benefits of how I had “lucked out”. However, at this point, my biggest dilemma was whether I should spend my under the sofa coins on a pack of smokes, or a sandwich from down the street.
She flew in from France, where she had gone to the Cannes festival, with a musician who had scored a film that was playing. She had also spent time in Paris. It was her first time in Europe. Instead of paying for a hotel, she decided to stay with me.
Isabel Marant, La Perla brassieres, and 300 Euro vintage dresses flooded out of her suitcase. She wore cat-eyed eyeliner, and she curled her perfectly dyed hair, all of which embodied a type of aesthetic and sense of care that I had ignored for months. The enumerated sense of appearance, along with the wide eyes of someone on vacation was now foreign to me. The idea of money. Money to spend on things. Things that she didn’t need. This was all a luxury I gave up. So I brushed my hair, the one thing she didn’t have.
Despite my invidious feelings, I listened to her tell stories of famous actresses writing down fancy places for her to eat and shop at in Paris. Something about listening made me feel closer to home. The irony being that I had never been to Cannes. Her perfect little body seemed smaller then I remembered. I took bets in my head over whether or not she got in shape specifically for this vacation.
As my insecurities mounted, I relied on my knowledge of Amsterdam to serve me in still knowing more then she did. I chose to ignore my emulous nature and to humbly stick with what I knew. So she watched and walked with me through the life I had created. Meeting the people that I called my friends, and attending the local bar that became my stomping ground. Filling her in with the details of my relationships, and the drama that surrounded them. Such a fast paced town, with such a quick turn around, seemed previously impossible compared to Los Angeles.
I thought that my feelings would dissipate. But they didn’t. It wasn’t until a week after she left, after staying weeks longer then she had planned, that I finally received a letter. I grew calm in knowing that the selfishness she evoked had finally dwindled and she was ready to acknowledge the hospitality I had showed her while she paraded through my excuse of a home, with her costly lifestyle being shoved in my face.
But what I got instead of a letter of gratitude was even better. It was something that in return for her blind judgment, and dismissal for my struggling, I was able to give her. Something that reminded her of my lifestyle that she thumb nosed at while still taking advantage of. Instead of a thank you for staying in my place she wrote, “Dear Ruby, remember when you said that brushing your hair never felt so good. Well when I got home, my head was itchy, so I had someone come over and check it out. I think you should do the same, because I have lice. So, Thank you.”
