Kiss it Goodbye

Ten years ago I was living in Amsterdam, Holland.  I worked for EF Education and oversaw a high school exchange program.  During the week I worked hard, but on weekends and in my free time I played harder.  I lived alone on Westerstraat in a large apartment in a fashionable part of the city.  With no children, girlfriend, or other responsibilities, I lived the Life of Riley.  You can use your wild imagination as to how I entertained myself, but I am proud to say that I was never late to work (though I engaged in enough illicit activities to make that an impressive feat).

During the week preceding New Year's Eve, 1999, ten of my American friends (including the woman who would later become my wife) made their way to Amsterdam to celebrate the coming of the new millennium.  I recall a week of wandering the Red Light District, patronizing the numerous coffee shops, and eating some excellent meals.  On New Year's Eve itself the excitement in the streets was palpable.  The Dutch have a tradition of lighting off fireworks on NYE and by the early afternoon of December 31st, 1999 the sounds of popping firecrackers and flying Roman candles grew steadily by the hour.

By the time the 'pre-game' partying at my apartment finished up close to 10:30pm, the streets were filling with revelers.  We left in a group, the ten of us spread out in clusters of two or three.  As we wound our way toward Dam Square (our route in blue below), in the heart of the city, the crowds grew thicker, the buzz louder.  We crossed the first of four canals en route, Prinsengracht - just a few blocks from the Anne Frank House.  The throngs were building and our group closed ranks to stay together.  We crossed Keizersgracht, then Herrengracht, and lastly, Singel.  By now the crowds were as thick as molasses.  We held hands to keep from getting separated.  It was cold outside, but in the thick of the masses, body warmth was abundant.  By the time we mushed into Dam Square we were shoulder to shoulder with what must have been hundreds of thousands of people.  There was a stage with band and - what I am pretty sure wasn't a hallucination - a giant inflated chicken.

View To Dam Sq. in a larger map

Being tall, I could scan the wide breadth of the square and as far as I could see up and down Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal the street was absolutely teeming with people.  The only time any space opened up was when someone threw a brick of lit firecrackers in the air.  As they exploded above, a swath of space opened up below and we'd could see the flashes of light and hear the loud popping in a the circle that opened up around the sparks.  When the brick finished exploding, the opening would close right back up.  This happened, it seemed, every minute all around the square.  People sang, yelled, rode their friends' shoulders, and climbed the lampposts to dance upon them.

Because we were so tightly packed it was easy to hear the groups of people around us speaking.  I heard people speaking Dutch, Spanish, Russian and other Slavic tongues, French, and Portuguese.  And despite my altered state, I remember this clearly - everyone was as happy as could be.  It was crowded, cold, loud, and with the exploding fireworks, potentially dangerous.  No one that I could see was the slightest bit irked by the antics of the crowd.  As midnight neared, the crowed counted down the seconds, 3, 2, 1!  At the stroke of midnight, the square erupted in mighty glee.  Hugs, kisses, more fireworks, more music, more drinks, more smoke - and as much love as the city could emit.  We might have all been strangers - and strange - but to us it seemed that there was no where else on earth more elated to share that moment.

Our group spent the next four hours wandering the streets and the bars.  Many of us made calls back home to our families, where it was not yet the year 2000.  I remember trying and failing to stay awake until 6am to wish my family a happy new year at their midnight.  In the morning my living room resembled Jonestown with bodies strewn about the rug, under tables, and in corners.  Only the faint rise and fall of their chests told me they'd survived the evening.  My hangover lasted until February.

In the ten years that have followed, I've lived in Toronto (where I was on 9/11), Cambridge, Zurich, New York City, Long Beach, California, Salem, Massachusetts and now back in Connecticut.  I traveled thousands of miles - a hundred and fifty of them along the Appalachian Trail, got lasik surgery, married, bought our first home, adopted a son, lost another to still birth, declared bankruptcy, became a near vegetarian, ran a marathon, and turned 40 years-old.  As I pause now to look back on the blur that was the last decade there's much for which I am grateful and a few things that I could have most certainly done without. Mostly though,  I am proud of the life I've thus far lived. And as I look ahead to the as yet unknown trials and triumphs that the next decade will no doubt bring, I do so with the kind of humility that the past decade has taught me to always keep at the fore.

Happy New Year. Stay Gold.