Personal essays
Things you can depend on remaining where they are
Statues
Maggie and I spent the last two weeks together.
Her Spring Break began as AppDevCon ended so after her Saturday Rugby game she took the train to Newark and flew on the red-eye to Amsterdam.
We had some loose plans for a week that was split between Amsterdam and Berlin.
I had a list of things we could do in Amsterdam and Maggie added things she wanted to do as well. It combined for a great visit.
My list included a visit to the Van Gogh museum and a walk though Rembrandtplein to see the statues that make up the 3d rendering of Rembrandt’s famous painting the Night Watch.
Kim loved Vermeer and Rembrandt but they never did much for me. I tend to like the Impressionists and modern art more so I figured we could walk around the statues and go to the Rijksmuseum to see the original painting if Maggie wanted to.
I guess it’s been a while since I’ve been to Rembrandtplein - the statues are gone.
They used to be right there - right next to the statue of Rembrandt in the center of the square. They’re gone.
Aren’t statues supposed to stay still? You know, like statues?
Still as a statue
Actually, the statues were designed to travel. You can see that they are on little platforms and not sunk into the ground.
They were installed in 2006 for the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth and remained there for three years before traveling to Russia and the United States (the artists were both Russian).
The statues were back in Rembrandtplein in 2012 and I’d kind of gotten used to them.
I probably visited Amsterdam two to three times a year for conferences and private classes and the statues were just part of the landscape.
They were a permanent fixture.
The artists wanted to be paid for their work and when they weren’t, they removed the statues four years ago.
I guess I haven’t been in Rembrandtplein since then. When Maggie and I returned from a day trip to Haarlem, we took a trolley that passed through the square and I was just about to point out the statues when I saw they weren’t there.
Where they used to be was a statue of an astronaut in the pose of Rodin’s Thinker.
I was disoriented.
How do statues just up and leave.
This wasn’t just one statue it was a bunch of them. It’s like they came to life in some silly movie and walked away.
The next night we walked through the square and walked up to the statue of Rembrandt and it was like the Night Watch statues had never been there.
It shook my notion of permanence.
On to Berlin
Wednesday morning we got up early to take the train to Berlin. That train was cancelled and we ended up taking three trains and getting in a couple hours later than we planned.
We had a great time in Berlin walking around, visiting museums and historic sights, and enjoying a variety of restaurants.
Thursday morning I wanted to take Maggie to the Pergamon museum. I’d visited years earlier on my mother’s suggestion. The permanent exhibit includes some amazing large scale displays including the Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate.
It turns out that the museum is closed for renovations until 2027.
Once again permanent doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.
As an aside, I have to tell you that it turns out they’ll sell you a ticket to the museum even though it’s closed.
A friend of mine was in Berlin at the same time we were there and he was visiting a museum that offered a special deal where you could also buy tickets to the Pergamon. He bought the joint ticket only to find out later that he’d bought a ticket to a museum that wasn’t open.
In a way, Berlin is a monument to the fallacy of permanence. It’s an old city with a long history but most of what you see there is less than one hundred years old.
You are surrounded by history and the fragility of the things we think are solid and long lasting.
That’s a different sort of permanence. I’ll talk about that next week.
For now, I want to stay with physical permanence.
The Prodigal Book
Maggie and I returned to Cleveland. Wednesday she had a dentist appointment so I decided to take my bike in for a tuneup and ride back with her afterwards.
I tucked a book into my windbreaker pocket and headed off on the seven mile ride to the bike shop.
It was so cold.
I arrived and my fingers were numb. And then they weren’t. There was that sharp pain as they warmed back up.
I left my bike at the shop and reached for my book. I was going to read it and have a cup of coffee while I waited for Maggie.
The book wasn’t in my pocket.
I checked my pocket several times like it would suddenly be there.
It was gone.
As gone as the Night Watch statues from Rembrandtplein.
It had fallen out of my pocket on my ride.
When Maggie picked me up I asked if we could drive back the way I’d biked.
About a half mile from our house I saw the blue cover and said, “there.”
Maggie turned around and pulled up along side the book. I opened the door and retrieved it.
Things I thought were portable and fleeting can remain where they are.
Things I thought were permanent can be moved, destroyed, or there but inaccessible.
Permanence.
We keep using that word. I don’t think it means what we think it means.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 210. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe