My First Month Back

On curiosity, canals, and contact solution I never asked for

Hi there learn-it-alls,

It’s been ten days since I last wrote you about being overprikkeld. Ever since, my writing has been falling out onto my morning pages like the Niagara, and yet choosing what to share has felt like its own project. Too much and not enough at once.

This feeling isn’t anything all that new. I wrote in December 2025 from The month I almost skipped that:

“I do these recaps every month, and they’ve become a cage of my own creation. When something starts as a ritual and then slides into a routine, on an off-day, it can turn into a chore. An obligation you forgot why the heck your past self signed up for.”

So I’m getting off my high horse and writing about what’s simply alive for me right now.

hi it’s me and a molen in March in Delft, the city Omi used to work in

I’ve been trying out what it’s like to risk getting a little lost by leaving my phone at home. What’s that look like?

Last night, I wrote my directions down to a salsa party on a sticky note I stuck into the pocket of my leather jacket.

Then this morning, I cycled 19 minutes to church. I took a left at the light, a right down the Singelgracht. My go-to canal. Then another right, then left at the second bridge across the Amstel River, and then a left after I cycled past the bloemenmarkt (flower market), and rang my bell at two touristic women that I almost hit. Once there, the only seats available were in the front, so everyone witnessed my sweaty six-minute tardy arrival. I sang some songs. Thought about Jesus and what love means. Voiced some prayers for the happiness and health and love of my mother on this holiday today.

captured this image of the church on my first 2nd sunday on sept 14, 2025

And then after the service, I exchanged pleasantries with Carl, a tall Canadian historian, the dad of two daughters from Winnipeg, Canada.

Carl asked me, “What brought you here to Amsterdam from Michigan?”

I told him, “It was just a mere idea from a spiritual stirring and curiosity about where my family is from that turned into a dream.”

I underplayed it. I took that mere idea super duper seriously. I didn’t want it to float by like a cloud in the sky only to swoosh back seventy years later on my deathbed as an idea I never acted on.

Most of my blood relatives live outside Detroit, Michigan. But then the majority of my paternal family lives in the Netherlands, but they weren’t present in my upbringing, living on the other side of the pond. So instead, I grew up with my maternal Polish family eating pierogies at parties and singing “Happy Birthday” in Polish. The Dutch side of my family that I carry in my last name is largely unexplored, except for the decor in my parents’ home with Dutch tins that I ate Honeynut Cheerios out of every morning, and all the stories my dad shared of Opa drawing him goats. And especially my Omi, who idolized cows, cycling, flowers, and cheese. Since her passing, coming back to the Netherlands feels like I’m continuing a conversation I wish I'd had with her.

Carl didn’t ask me, but we were standing in the Mennonite church, and I felt safe in this spiritual space sharing the somethings that are usually nothings. So, I went on to share how I felt more curious about the world and how much of this journey of my life has been a path driven by curiosity to experience life and connect with it in ways I never could if I stayed where I was comfortably born in Michigan.

Before we parted ways, Carl told me that he admired my curiosity and wished more of the world would be curious.

And I am lucky enough to live in a time in the world like today, where this type of path is accessible. Where such an imaginative idea can actually walk on legs when rubbed against reality. Where I can go and send videos of my face talking to people to land a job to make money remotely and to then befriend people through the Internet on a platform that calls itself a book of friends to find an abode to live in. And finally, that I can get a piece of plastic with what looks like a mugshot on it that deems me legal as an immigrant to live on their lands as long as I follow the laws and wire money to their Belastingdienst (tax authorities) every three months.

My lifetime of a mere ninety or so years is a small spec in comparison to the size of the universe. It is significantly insignificant. But if any of it makes someone a little more curious, a little more warm, a little less alone, I’ll take that as worth my while.

So without further ado, here's what that curiosity has been up to in its first month back in Amsterdam…

Becoming a fietser (biker)

It feels like the ultimate slap in the face to the modern technology world to live within a society that moves around their days with an invention from over two hundred years ago.

When I bike on my black 100 euro rusty-wheeled single-speed back-break machine, I actually feel like I’m going places. It forces me to get to know the city quicker and to enjoy getting lost. I feel like my quads have gotten much stronger these past few weeks as well. When I have a meetup that’s far away, like a friend making me panenkoeken (pancakes) that’s 10 kilometers away, I see the to-and-from as my form of sports for the day.

Sure, I show up a bit damp where my appendages meet and with fly-aways fully living their best life. And of course the grass I’m allergic to is blooming, and the wind hits my face in just the right way to provide contact solution I never asked for. But that’s all part of the experience.

I feel a sense of belonging in this society when I sit at a red light among the hordes of Dutchies. From boys biking to field hockey practice to the dad who encourages his daughter to put her hands out like a soaring eagle and the fellow cradling a carton of eggs and loaf of bread without a bag.

There’s something about being on a bike here, moving over the centuries-old cobblestones that makes me feel like I belong. Like I’m fluent in a city before speaking a word of its language. For a moment, I’m not a newcomer, not a “buitenlander” (foreigner) on a visa, just someone moving alongside everyone else.

Learning the Dutch Language

Thanks to nudges from my dad asking me constantly how my Dutch is going, I’ve signed up for an intro course, despite balling on a budget with this sticker shock, city-life transition, and euros.

Since I took a beginner class nine years ago in university, I’ve signed up for level A1.2. and feel in over my head. Every time I start raising my hand to tell docent Johannes “ik heb een vraag” (I have a question), I then usually have an instinct to say “Qu’est-ce que” + French numbers since I still know more French than Dutch after about twelve years of French lessons.

If anything, when I meet another Dutch person out in the wild, speaking a bit of Dutch is a nice way to start up a conversation even if just for a few exchanges. The dynamic is then usually more about what I’m learning instead of what I do or how cloudy the weather is that day.

Diving into City Life + Openness of People + Meetups

Five days into living here and then saw there was a Generalists meetup on Luma. I was too intrigued not to go. That meetup led to the referral by a Romanian woman of the Dutch school I’m studying at, and a feeling of being less alone in all the hobbies that I want to collect.

Honestly, I thought the ship sailed on my desire for city-life since living in Chicago after COVID, but I couldn’t be wronger. I’ve dusted off my extraverted social skills and feel like a golden retriever with her tongue hanging out excited to connect with anyone my path crosses.

There have definitely been lonely nights. And then I think back to what my dad, raised me by the expression of, “to have a friend you need to be a friend. Who were you friends to? Who did you invite to play with you?” If the answer was no one, then he’d usher my way to the cabinet above the oven to get the phonebook out and start dialing up classmates to see whose house I could bike over to and play with.

I don’t have any trips planned and my future being like blank slate feels so exhilarating. The last time I lived here I was gone every weekend and this time around I’m so pumped to soak in the life here. I am so grateful that I get to be here every day and travel through the people I meet and the stories they speak.

Joining the Offline Club

I use Google Maps to get to the door and then my phone goes on flight mode and into the phone hotel for the rest of the night. That’s the deal. The Offline Club is exactly what it sounds like: events around the city for people who have made a quiet decision about their relationship to their screens. Dinners, potlucks, reading evenings. The room filters through the city to the types of people I want to connect with and the conversations I want to be a part of.

Phones permeate everything now. Places, conversations, even pillow talk. It’s rare to find a space that screens haven’t crept into. I noticed it especially after Thailand, where I experience temples and meditation retreats and watched phones follow people even there too. Something about choosing to have intention time away together creates a different kind of presence.

I love being in that room.

Blooming Beauties all around me

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here we are:

Better Boundaries with Claude and Technology

It’s been two months settline into my new role leading customer success and community at Forte Labs and the AI Second Brain live cohort just closed out. I’ve had to get honest about my relationship with these tools. Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, I’ve been using AI on and off in its free versions, but this past month I officially committed to Claude for the year. And I’m genuinely excited about what’s possible when AI is used with intention.

But I’m also paying attention to the edges. I want guardrails so my first brain doesn’t quietly disintegrate into a marshmallow. What’s helped is noticing that when I’m out in Amsterdam, people aren’t on their phones the way I expected. They’re just out. Moving through the city. I’m trying to do the same. Not reaching for Claude when I’m away from my desk. Not filling every walk with a playlist. Letting there be some silence between me and the city while I’m still getting to know it. Setting a time to start screens in the morning and a time to stop at night, and trying to mean it.

I’m learning that “I don’t know” is a complete sentence — which, for someone facilitating workshops on tools she learned about a month prior, is a necessary one. And I’m noticing the impatience that creeps in after a conversation with something that answers everything instantly. That feeling is worth paying attention to. Not all of life needs that kind of speed.

What’s next in May?

I’ve joined salsa classes and perhaps I’ll learn how to be a follower and loosen my grip on life just a little bit more. I’m tracking some small things in my journal: moving my body, learning Dutch words, eating vegetables like they aren’t an afterthought. Maybe I make a new friend.

Carl asked me what brought me here. A mere idea, I told him. May feels like the month I stop being a tourist in that idea and start actually settling into it with kindness and with care.

In case you missed it in April, here were my other letters:

The Marvels of March

An Ode to the Comparatief

On six years of showing up

I paid €39 for this

Some micro-moments of joy from April:

• My golden lepeltjes (small spoons) that I stir my coffee with

• Putting my eye mask on at night + passing out

• Gifting letters

• Runs along the river

• Kringloopwinkel (flea market) treasure finds

• Jumping into 14 degrees Celsius and then submerging all the way under in a hot bath after and nudling about it

• Creating my Smiling as community service :-) playlist

• My pillows on my bed feeling cozy

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❓Question to think about

What are you excited about for May?

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Greetings from Amsterdam, Netherlands! If what you’ve read could be useful to someone you know, I invite to share this letter 313 with a friend. :)

🎧Listening

🌟Quotes to Inspire

“An essential part of creativity is not being afraid to fail.”
— Edwin H. Land (1909 - 1991), an American scientist and inventor, was best known as the co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation

And this one too, found via Polina here because it’s too good not to share:

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER

I’d like to make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.

—Nadine Stair, 85 years old, Louisville, Kentucky

📸Photos of the month

🙏Shoutouts

• To Ana V. Martins for inviting me to her Amsterdive open mic a few nights ago. It’s sparked some poetry I can share in the upcoming weeks

• to Nathalie Cohen for her encouragement to get this out

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I am grateful you chose to fill part of your day here.

If something in this letter resonated, press the ❤️ , leave a comment, reply to this email, or reach me at vermetJL@gmail.com. I love hearing from you.

Keep on learning 😁

Tot snel 🌺 🌺

Toodles :)

Jen

P.S. #1 - I wrote a book. Letters to My Life is my favorite way to share my writing with you (and it keeps your screen-time stats down). Grab your copy here.

P.S. #2 - Some notes I shared this week: