Fogged up
As October approached, the days here began to get shorter. The sun, which used to rise right in front of our window, began its south-easterly journey. Within a few days it had moved past the window’s frame. It was all very welcome. Dawns became a protracted, festive affair. At first you’d only sense the approach of dawn by the glowing contrails of airplanes that looked like tails of comets.
And then the sun would rise with a lot of theatrics.
Sure, on cloudy days the sunrises would be a vapid affair — like a dimmer gradually being dialed up. But there was always a chance that the clouds would clear up in time for a glorious sunrise.
From the past few days, Amsterdam has been enveloped in a thick, impenetrable layer of fog. I am no stranger to fog. Having grown up in Delhi I am used to fog, smog and other flight-disrupting variants thereof. In fact there is a certain charm about a foggy morning. The old becomes a shade newer, the familiar becomes a touch mysterious.
And a city like Amsterdam with its numerous canals, bridges and old houses, becomes all too fairy-tale like.
But the fog of the last few days has been in a different league. It swallows everything in its wake. The view from our window in the morning is no longer a river but an opaque, white wall in which we only see our living room reflected. Despite this virtual doubling of the floor space, it feels a bit claustrophobic. Like being hemmed in by walls contracting inwards.
I stepped out yesterday to take a few pictures and it was like stepping into a post-apocalyptic world of a Philip K. Dick novel.
Thankfully for us, we invested in a big, bright lamp a few days ago. It’s going to be our private little sun in the coming days. That and Haydn’s Sunrise and Sun quartets will see us through.