Reading Shakespeare and drinking tea are pleasant occupations. And drinking whiskey and reading Shakespeare are also pleasant occupations. A friend of mine and I meet up every so often and read a play together. We switch the parts freely. She’s a health care professional and during the break between transitioning from the tea to the whiskey part of the evening she said to me, “You know, living with a narcissist ages a person.” She meant literally ages a person physically, mentally and spiritually. I remembered  myself at the age of seventeen when I couldn’t recall what I had done an hour previously. I wasn’t taking medication, I wasn’t under the influence of any substances. In despair I dyed my hair grey for a period of time in highschool. Outwardly, I’m now guessing, I seemed to be managing to put one foot in front of the other back then, but inwardly I was drowning. I got away from the narcissist dominating my childhood home, pulling myself hundreds of miles across the globe, and I became hyper aware these past few years that in doing so I saved my own life.

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Before meeting up to read Shakespeare I spent the week editing my father’s short story that he wrote on the time he introduced Ken Kesey at a reading. The draft that I had received, by the grace of whatever universal energy was present via the nephew of a friend of my father, was twenty-eight pages long. The print out date was July 12, 2012. That would be six years before Keith’s death. Considering that I have edited Racer for publication (TBA publication date) and put together a retelling of Mordecai of Monterey (both novels were written in the early 1980’s), the difference in the writing is evident. My parents spent fifty odd years together, so the question arises: Whose language and use of words belonged to whom? Pausing frequently as I edited my father’s story about Ken Kesey, I could tell where a certain idea had been supported or reinforced by my mother because of the words my father was selecting. I downplayed those ideas as I edited or I removed the toxicity entirely. At times it was heartbreakingly obvious that in 2012 my father’s impeccable logic was already failing him, but in all fairness this was a draft that I was reviewing. I freely rearranged the paragraphs to sort out his ideas. “It’s living with chronic stress and trauma,” my friend reminded me. Yes, and living in a “land” where time evaporates into thin air.

I finished the final blog posting (the short story is now a five part series of postings on my father’s website) on Saturday night just in time to pull on some layers and head out the door. I had heard about the Stille Omgang when I recently took part in an architectural tour and remembered the date. March 15th. Glancing at the websites that were promoting the event, I couldn’t quite figure out what exactly was expected from the participants. I knew there would be a procession, and it would be a Catholic procession in a Protestant country.

*

The temperature outside was just above freezing as I made my way to the place where the procession would start. We entered the church. “Of course,” I said to myself, “first thing on the agenda: a church service.” By the end of the mass I felt myself uplifted by the final hymn which I recognized from my experiences in the Protestant Church. It was as if a gloom had been lifted from the brow of every person present. 

Now ready to venerate the miracle (for which the priest had instructed the congregation, “Our faith is in the mystery. It never makes sense and that is the radicality of Catholicism,” and right then, duly noting that silently deliberating the miracle while sitting in my pew would be a waste of my energy, I decided not to think too deeply about the matter and go wih the flow), we gathered outside to begin the re-enactment of the medieval tradition. The manifestation of the miracle was witnessed in the year 1345 and the gist is that as a man lay dying the sacrament had not burned. Okay, so the moribund was given the final sacrament whereupon he vomited the Body of Christ which was then thrown into the fireplace and later, upon inspection, the Host was found intact and without any traces of incineration. 

Catholic processions were officially banned after the Reformation in the Netherlands. Therefore, the ones that did manage to exist, supposedly after the ban was lifted, and the few that still remain are often called “Silent Processions”.  My curiosity was killing me. We exited the Begijnhof and started making our way up the Kalverstraat. Like most of the world, retail shops are falling under hard times and many of the stores on Amsterdam’s “high street” are stripped empty. Adding to this malaise is the fact that the apartments above the shops are mostly devoid of inhabitants. The entrances and stairways to the former homes of people were removed in the mid-late 20th century to make way for more shop space, enriching real estate transactions in the area. It’s a thorn in the side of the city now and there are various movements to reinstate citizens in the apartment spaces. 

We passed the site of the Miraculous Wafer, presently the location of the Dungeon Museum. I had hoped that we would be allowed in the chapel that still exists within the museum but, unfortunately, this was not the case. We continued along the narrow shopping street, passing more empty, boarded up shops and darkened buildings. Drunken tourists around us yelled and sang, “This girl is on FIYAH!” in the streets while participants of the Stille Omgang tried not to engage in conversations with each other. This was difficult. I was beginning to sense a whiff of Catholic martyrdom sincerely floating in the air. We crossed the Dam and continued up the Nieuwedijk where, again, many shops were closed and above the shops hung the unlit windows in the building facades.

*

Amsterdam’s Central Station was now in our sights. We turned right. “Are we heading into the red light district?” I wondered. After all, by this time, it was almost 11 p.m., and the place was jumping on a Saturday night. The red light district was once the heart of the medieval city with multiple convents and monasteries but that all ended roundabout 1585. That was quite a while ago. We wandered down the Warmoesstraat. I could feel the mood in the group plummet a bit. The street scene was a complete reversal of the serious business of the church service. Despite the rosaries dangling from fingers, it was proving hard work to keep up with the appearance of a holy pilgrimage without having the option to make any noise. 

“Is the Gooi still a very Catholic place?” someone inquired softly behind me to their friend as we exited the Warmoesstraat. “No? Maybe Bunnik?” It sounded more like a hopeful proposal. 

Returning to the site of the Miracle, we circled the Dungeon Museum and then we stopped at the corner. The group I had joined at the beginning of the evening was coordinating the liaison with their tour bus. They had come in from Den Bosch to take part in the commemoration of the Miracle. 

I walked back to my apartment. Oddly enough as the procession had made its way down the Nes, I had a strange feeling of retracing someone else’s steps.