Home is Where the Heart is
Biking over the Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam (NL)
The streets are empty. Only the street lights illuminate the high rises as I bike past them this late hour at a break neck speed to make it home before the rain. The cadence of my afrobeats playlist has me in a rhythmic trance that makes it seems like I’m the one standing still, and the buildings hurry past me. In one glance to my right I view the iconic Erasmus bridge over the river Maas and it hits me: I feel at home here.
I never would’ve thought.
Ever since graduating, I’d lived in Amsterdam. I never thought of Rotterdam as an option to live for myself. Even when I did a two month internship at a law firm at Rotterdam Blaak (yes I have a Masters in Law, but that’s a story for another day), I would still travel back every evening to sleep at home in Utrecht, my cosy student city, instead of remaining in the concrete jungle of Rotterdam.
Then one morning this spring, I sat on our porch in Asheville, North Carolina, looking over the Blue Ridge Mountains across the valley, when I received a text from my younger sister.
She and her boyfriend were going to Spain for a month in the summer and she offered me their place to stay at when I returned.
A lovely apartment in Rotterdam North, in an upcoming neighborhood and generously they would let me stay for free, to help me find my next place from there.
As I listened to the birds sing, I I tuned in with my Greater Self to feel into this option. I closed my eyes to see the timeline roll out in front of me. I watched it ripple and curve until the visual turned into feeling.
My heart opened and a growing curiosity took hold of me. Glimpses of opportunities tickled at the edge of my awareness. I could not make out anything cognitively, but my inner senses hinted at alluring things. Pondering what wonders life might have in store for me this time, I texted her I would love to stay at their place.
It wasn’t until I dropped my bags on the living room floor, that I could feel the energy of the city. My heart warmed and I had the growing sense that I was right where I needed to be.
My sister had described the neighborhood jokingly as ‘Skit skit, bang bang’ as she would call it. It refers to how often young people do wheelies on scooters and the fact that once or twice a year you can hear a gun going off. Honestly, I thought she was exaggerating until I witnessed three people within 2 hours drive by on just their back wheel.
Rotterdam is known for its hodgepodge of cultures and on a warm summer day you could imagine yourself in the Middle East with spices wafting from curbside stalls or shiny gowns in the shop windows. It also isn’t as homogeneous as Amsterdam has become yet. Where Amsterdam has been taken over by import yuppies and expats; in Rotterdam the occasional young professional lives next door to the old local born-and-raised, down-to-earth ‘Rotterdammer’. To me, it is one of the things I love about this city.
The famous Hotel New York that housed the Holland-America line until the late 1800’s across from where I sat writing.
Hidden layers
Trying to get an idea of Rotterdam, I started researching.
In the west, the river Maas opens to the ocean at the Dutch beaches, inviting in humongous container ships to the biggest trade port of Europe, Rotterdam Port, and farther down, the river cleaves downtown Rotterdam in two.
After most of its city center was razed to the ground during World War II, Rotterdam’s skyline now proudly reaches up into the clouds as though well aware of its professional prowess.
At surface level these more masculine aspects are very present. Yet beneath it, I can feel a softer, more feminine layer that patiently awaits acknowledgment. It feels wholesome and innocent and brimming with magic. Like pure unshaped potential and fertile soil. Like anything is possible.
It makes me feel like anything I could imagine, I could manifest here.
When I was checking in on what I could do for Rotterdam to let the potential pathways open up, Tallulah suggested writing a love letter to Rotterdam. I was delighted about the idea, because I could tell this aspect of Rotterdam wasn’t praised much.
Relishing the sun on a terrace downtown, I raved about Rotterdam’s unsung qualities until my pen lost motivation. Already seated at the riverside, I climbed down until I could hang my feet in the cold water. Slowly I let the paper dissolve until the rushing waters of the Maas carried my words of praise towards the ocean.
‘Rotterdam to me you feel like freedom. Freedom to explore, play, experiment. You foster my dreams by believing in them. I am in awe of your ability to be all things at once. Let me embrace you in your truest form.’
Now, I’ve moved into my own place, not too far from my sister’s. Rotterdam welcomed me home with open arms. I audibly sighed turning of the highway with all my things in the back of the car. A lightness took hold of my heart and I could feel the excitement of endless possibilities again.
I never would’ve thought, that this would be the place I would call home for now. It just goes to show that the mind can never conceive the possibilities the heart knows to be true.
