Yesterday, I took my writer’s residence out biking to Amsterdam-Noord, that part of Amsterdam that usually gets treated as if it is parted from the main city by an ocean rather than by that former bay that is now known as Amsterdam’s bustling waterfront. I was on my way to my friend Martin, trainer – advisor – actor, who promised to help me out finding a new presentation formula for my school visits. I missed the ferry by seconds and had some time to kill waiting for the next one, when I spotted Amsterdam’s finest on the quay. My writer’s mind revved right up. What was Amsterdam’s finest doing on the waterfront? Were they on the look-out? On the look-out for what? Pickpockets? It…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts from the “The Views” Category
Navigating the Amsterdam canals after the Dutch National Soccer team beat Brazil in the World Championships 2010.
Tagged: Amsterdam, Boating, canal, Football, Mina Witteman, Orange, Westerpark, WK 2010, World Championships
This was the first view at that magnificent monolith the Diné call Tsé Bit’Aí, or the Rock with Wings. Hiking high up in the Chuska Mountains I could see why legend tells these are the petrified remains of a giant bird. It is said that this is the bird that brought the Diné from the north to the Dinetah, their current homeland. It crashed here, in the middle of a rock desert in Four Corners and turned to stone. Getting closer to Tsé Bit’Aí I encountered some of the more gruesome sides of this beautiful land. Bones, bleached by the unrelenting sun, and left on red earth reminded me that life and death were ever so close to each other. The bones also reminded…
Tagged: Arizona, Diné, Dinetah, Herengracht, Mina Witteman, Navajo, New Mexico, Shiprock, The Sun Spirit, Tsé Bit'Aí, Warriors of the Sun
Some time ago I took my writer’s residence to the Dinetah. The Dinetah is the homeland of the Diné, the People, a.k.a. the Navajo. It lies between the four sacred mountains: Tsisnaasjini’ – Dawn or White Shell Mountain in the East (Blanca Peak, Colorado), Tsoodzil – Blue Bead or Turquoise Mountain in the South (Mount Taylor, New Mexico), Doko’oosliid – Abalone Shell Mountain in the West (San Francisco Peaks, Arizona) and Dibé Nitsaa – Big Mountain Sheep or Obsidian Mountain in the North (Hesperus Mountain, Colorado). At first sight the Dinetah seems a callous rock desert where the living is harsh, but if you look closely you will find myths and legends in every nook and cranny of this strikingly red land. One hot…
What would you do if you found yourself in Amsterdam on a beautiful summer’s day? You could go biking. Yes, by all means. Biking along the canals would be fun, navigate your way around herds of out-of-towners, run red lights on your way to the red lights, slalom the ‘Amsterdammertjes’ on the sidewalks to let those skillful but ever hasty taxi drivers pass by. Yes, you could go biking. Or you could go for a stroll in Vondelpark, find yourself a teeny-weeny spot in between what the dogs and the ducks left the park, stretch out and take a nap, let your thoughts trail away on thick clouds of weed smoke that drift through Vondelpark on a summer’s day like this. But if the…
Tagged: Amsterdam, Boating, canal, Herengracht, Mina Witteman, Seven Bridges, Superman, Vondelpark
For a writer of scary stories, such as myself, death inspires. It is the ultimate dark for us mortals, the ultimate terra incognita. Some of us try to hold on to life as long as possible, trying to extend life into death by pinning their faith on a hereafter. Truth is that we don’t know, we just don’t know. We can stare at a corpse for as long as we want, but we will never know where the person it once was went (if it went anywhere…). This spring I took my Writer’s Residence to Kutná Hora, deep into Bohemia and the Czech Republic. Kutná Hora’s story is a story of death. The discovery of silver in the twelfth century was a lucky windfall…
Tagged: Czech Republic, Death, Kutná Hora, Mina Witteman, Rint, Sedlec Ossuary
There they were again: the roofers. Early this morning Stripes arrived. He leisurely awaited the arrival of Orange. Sitting on the roof-beam Stripes divided his time between staring at the bright blue skies and the usual morning myriad of summery-dressed girls cycling by far below him. When Orange arrived they, again very leisurely, set to work. Yesterday they had a blast, up on that roof. The volume of their radio turned up, they were teaching each other the latest dance steps – Stripes’ got the rhythm, but Orange shows more creativity in his moves. After about an hour’s dancing under a scorching sun, they evidently earned a break and they sat down on the roof-beam, rolling what looked like a cigarette, but what turned…
Tagged: Amsterdam, canal, Herengracht, Mina Witteman, roof
Mina Witteman 