Spring and the water

There are many signs spring is on its way: longer days, warmer temperatures, blooming flowers and green leaves popping up on trees. 

But nothing beats leaving work on an afternoon and seeing boats upon boats of relaxed Dutchies in sunglasses, shirtsleeves, and smiles along canals and rivers alike. 

More often than not, there will be drinks involved: 

Wine is for the more elegant boats, those whose wood is polished, whose metals are burnished. Usually, there will be expats who're either in the process of, or have already completed, immersing themselves in the social traditions. Wine is also for the gastrotours, organised to bolster company identity, to promote staff gatherings. Every sip is an attempt at closeness, at letting guards down.

Beer, on the other hand, is for the scruffier vessels, owned by generations who've been in the city since before it became cool and desirable. They now hold between 5 and 6 people, often young men, raucous but not poisonous, not a jacket in sight. Beer is for the group, not the individual. The crate, in the centre, easy to reach for another little green bottle. Beer is for longstanding friendships, unconcerned about looking good.

The Dutch, when the weather lets up, turn to the water like flowers to the sun. Their souls crave it, it nourishes them. From the land they've been engineering since the 14th century (at least), where rules help things run smoothly, they escape to an environment of flow, of apparent chaos.

Yes, apparent, because even the water has rules. There are navigation rules, licenses to moor and to steer, places off limits. To the outsider, it would seem all those people in the water seek freedom, away from the roads. They obviate that rivers have been roads for longer than many highways; that canals, unlike channels, are wholy man-made; that, as anyone in the Netherlands knows well, water uncontrolled means devastation, ruin, death.

Spring is the arrival of future, the herald of birth. The Dutch go back on the water, to break free, while cruising the cords of flowing life.