“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” writes Robert Frost at the start of “Mending Wall.” For people my age from America, the poem was standard issue schooling.
Amsterdam and Joburg could hardly be different. One is small and condensed, the other huge and sprawling. One easy to get around, the other a challenge. One not terribly divided by economics, the other divided indeed.
Yet as much as the magic of Amsterdam appeals to me, the diversity and sense of space offer magic here too. The warmth that comes from the people as well as from the best morning sun I have ever felt nearly enough to think of moving south.
What would keep me from taking up residence, though, is the walls behind which everyone lives. Compound after compound, “estate” after “estate.” If you live in one of these, you drive through security of some kind. If you live in a house, you have your own gate and a sign somewhere on you private wall that says “armed response.”
The first time I came here this was depressing and angering. Now, a few visits in, I am getting used to it. As I move with slightly more fluidity from place to place, I see the walls less and less.
I don’t want to adjust to that, let walls become a default setting in how I see the world.
Unlike cities I know in South America, unlike gated communities in the United States, and unlike Joburg, you can get through almost anywhere to anywhere else in Amsterdam without needing permission or a code. And this porousness turns out to be an exception.
Think of our cities and our mindsets and our former presidents. Frost is wrong. Something there is that loves a wall.
Amsterdam’s level of biking is awesome. Water in the streets is beautiful. But it is that porousnes I especially dig. The default setting of being able to get through, of being free, of knocking down what only gets in the way.
“The first time I came here [the walls and the threats that went with them were] depressing and angering. Now, a few visits in, I am getting used to it. As I move with slightly more fluidity from place to place, I see the walls less and less.” Yes. And probably worth considering the genus of which walls are but one variety, boundaries. Water can be a wall as well, no? But we learn to scale and to swim and sometimes to bring a hammer or a shovel or a boat. We also learn when boundaries are good and appropriate and kind… like vaccines and masks. Lots to consider here, Ted. Thank you.