There’s an arch in central Amsterdam, just around the corner from the Internationaal Theater, that is carved with good advice. “HOMO SAPIENS NON URNIAT IN VENTUM”, it reads, above pillars that back near-directly onto another building. “A wise man doesn't piss into the wind,” in Latin. The facade looks old - it has Roman Doric columns - but it was built in my lifetime by an architect named Kees Spanjers. A subversive joke that Spanjers snuck into the plans after becoming frustrated with the bureaucratic demands of Amsterdam’s city planners, it went as unnoticed by the authorities as it does by millions of passers-by every year.
One person who did notice it was my father. We visited the city when I was on the cusp of adolescence; I remember it being cold. We ate pancakes several times a day, went to Anne Frank’s house and learned about diamonds. I fell in love with the place, even if it took me decades to get back there. I remember my dad stopping and laughing at the sign, then explaining what it translated to. I remember using up a precious film exposure on a crappy little photo of it.
When we made plans to go to Amsterdam - hastily, in the end, we’ve spent more time doing an online grocery order - I didn’t think about the comedy arch. I thought about how the mist settles and blurs the lamplight above the canals. I thought about the pace and rattle of the bikes that dominate the roads, and the cobbles, and whether the baby would be walking by then. We’ve been a few times since that first December weekend away, M and I, when he learned about how my temper flares when I am hungry and I watched people carry Christmas trees on the back of their bicycles.