and today

stairwell accompaniment:over the rhine

today is a lowercase day. exhausted and not feeling well, i worked to conjure up my favorite memories to give me more life on demcember 16th. my findings:
this summer i was in amsterdam. after completing a week of missions work in ireland mattlevi and i took it upon ourselves to travel across europe in a week. wednesday we found ourselves in amsterdam. a city very much alive with culture and language and color and art and people. i ventured into a small shop in the bottom, outside corner of a large stone cathedral. a shop devoted to postcards of art classics. striking up a language-blocked conversation with the young dutch girl working the only register, we connected through dialogue over the stiffling-hot day, her cute shoes and the array of postcards I had chosen. my traveling companion, mattlevi, had left the store to find an atm or a restroom or to take a picture of the street performers outside- i don't rememeber. what i do remember is laughing, throwing my head back and smiling in the small store all alone with a girl who didn't speak my language and not knowing where or even how to reach the only person on the continent who knew me. freedom. almost the freedom i felt as i landed on my two day solo trip to colorado for a job interview (who knew?). And I hiked all around garden of the gods and no one knew me and i knew no one within 500 miles. freedom.