A Single Orange Flower

by Daisy Rogozinsky (Israel)

Making a local connection Netherlands

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When I went to Europe after my college graduation, I did it to find myself. I spent most of my time alone, wandering around museums and reading on park benches, and that’s how I liked it. But then I got to Amsterdam, and it was Pride week, and there were lesbian bars in this city, something that I’d never gotten to experience back home in California. I wanted so badly to go out - it had been too long since I’d properly danced - but I was too scared to drink alone in a foreign country and too nervous to hang out at a bar sober. So I posted online to see if there happened to be any lesbians in Amsterdam who wanted to meet a stranger for a drink. To my surprise, a local responded. Provided with a safety net, I made plans to head out. The thought of a romantic connection didn’t even cross my mind. I was freshly out of a much-failed relationship, and I fancied myself a heartbreaker, somebody no girl in her right mind would risk getting involved with. Sanne saw through my bullshit. She bought me a beer and then I bought her one, and we made awkward small talk until we’d had enough drinks to get to the real point of the night: dancing. The bar was operating on my wavelength, playing a combination of Britney and boy bands that teleported me right back to the days when it didn’t take alcohol to dance like nobody was watching. Sanne taught me the dance moves to a Brazilian song and how to say “cheers” in Dutch. She kissed me and people on the dance floor told us what a cute couple we were, everybody flushed and carefree and proud. When that bar closed, I sat on the back of Sanne’s bike and we rode on to the next, with a stop by the coffee shop next door for a mostly-legal joint first. We ended up at a straight bar, late enough that we had no other options left, and made out there, too, daring the men to say something. Happily, they didn’t give a shit. The Dutch rarely do. By the time Sanne dropped me off at the metro station, the trains had long since stopped running. She asked if I’d be okay getting back to my hostel on my own and I insisted I’d be fine. A bus came. I got on it. I sat down and immediately fell asleep. When I woke up, we’d just passed the bus stop I needed. I scrambled to get off the bus, walking through quiet Amsterdam streets as the sun started to think about rising and miraculously managed to navigate my way to the right place. I managed a couple of hours of sleep before needing to get up and catch a train to my next destination. I woke up, hastily packing my things as quietly as I could so as to not wake my roommates. By yesterday’s purse, I found a single flower - orange, the national color of the Netherlands, and the memory of Sanne giving it to me flooded back. I snuck out of my room - moving onward, forward. I left behind a couple of paperbacks and the orange flower. I needed to get back to being alone.