Blood on my hands: a Shakespearean marital drama.

Ned and I have never made a big deal about our wedding anniversaries. Actually, the fact that we had a wedding at all had quite a lot to do with UK visa requirements, and not so much to do with romantic expression of enduring love and passion. A faceless civil servant, with the terribly English name of Derek Bottomley, signed my visa and triggered a three-year adventure in London and points beyond. For a time I loved Mr Bottomley almost as much as I loved my new husband, such was the impact his signature had on my life.

An ancient visa securement ceremony and the precious visa

To the surprise of many, Ned and my romantic expression of love and passion has proved more enduring than my UK visa. In fact, last week marked the twentieth anniversary of our visa securement ceremony. Ned and I remain staunchly committed to our marriage, even though we have both moved on to second visas (courtesy of a Dutch civil servant who I believe is named Derk van Botomlij).

We agreed that our twentieth anniversary was worthy of a little more fuss than the other nineteen. That was an easy decision for Ned to reach, because we follow a system whereby he organises the odd year celebrations and I organise the even year celebrations. For “celebration” read “last minute restaurant booking” at best. This being an even year, Ned was free of last minute restaurant booking responsibilities and so swanned off to work in the US for the week leading up to our anniversary. He arrived back in the Lowlands around midday on our actual anniversary, eager to participate in whatever constituted a “little more fuss”.

We cycled through parts of Amsterdam we didn’t know existed to the restaurant I had booked (admittedly, only thirty minutes earlier). Ned and I relish our travels through unknown territory, and we have certainly arrived together at some dodgy-looking places over the years.

Another pretty dodgy, but ultimately
fabulous, destination. Bolivia, 1996

However, on this occasion I was surprised to find us in front of a dingy warehouse slouched against a dusty parking lot, pretty much on the corner of nowhere. There, on the wall of the dingy warehouse on the corner of nowhere, was the name of the restaurant I had booked. It seemed that this year’s organising committee might have made a big mistake.

Turns out that the warehouse enclosed a bustling restaurant, marked promisingly by blazing sunshine, waterfront tables, champagne buckets and a lot of hip young things with big lips and even bigger sunglasses. A well-appointed cruiser, possibly featured in a recent James Bond movie, docked in front of the restaurant as we arrived. A camera crew alighted. Several passengers tossed their coiffed heads haughtily as they were filmed striding onto the wharf. There they took turns to shake hands and exchange a few words with a man with a big smile and an even bigger microphone. They all looked very pleased with themselves.

As we locked our bikes, I admitted that this lunch could turn out to be either a comedy or a tragedy. Ned picked up a stick that was lying on the ground. He pointed it at me and shook it from side to side.

“I shake spear,” Ned announced, pausing to allow his wit to settle on me. “This, like our marriage, is both comedy AND tragedy. Or at least drama. Which means that it is a true romance.”

Shakespeare and I sat poetically at a table in the sun, where we revelled in our true romance for a couple of hours, reciting sonnets to one another. Okay, we didn’t recite sonnets. But before leaving we went inside the “dingy warehouse” – turns out it is not so dingy after all – and took a photo that encapsulates the secret of our marital success.

We then passed the remainder of the afternoon rolling through bucolic scenes on a romantic-dramatic-comedic-historic bike ride, worthy of our own personal Shakespearean masterpiece. In total we rode 55 kilometres, no mean feat after oysters, sushi, duck pancakes, prosecco and pinot grigio in the sun. This gave us plenty of time to ponder the remarkable linkages between a Dutch bike path, Shakespeare and our own marriage.

There were a few long, flat, boring sections on our route. This, I recall, is also a feature of many of Shakespeare’s plays. I’ll be honest and say the same can be said of parts of our marriage. Oh come on, you feel the same about your own marriage; you’ve just never written it down quite so bluntly.

Ned Nederlander, his bike and a dyke

There were some disconcerting parts where we teetered along a narrow dike, battling a headwind, with cold, murky water lapping at either side. This is clearly a parenting analogy. Of course there are loads of Shakespearean references to water, wind, waves and possibly dykes, although neither Ned nor I could recall a reliable passage linking these themes to children. We subsequently found a cracker in Act IV of A Winter’s Tale, where Camillo speaks of “a wild dedication of yourselves to unpathed waters, undreamed shores”. For us, this is a clear reference to the uncharted parenting journey, specifically for those of us raising our offspring in the vicinity of the shores of the IJselmeer. Of course more esteemed scholars of the Bard may dispute that connection.

While on the subject of Shakespeare and parenting, it is worth commenting on Ned’s tendency to use King Lear as a model for his paternal wisdom. For the past 17 years and to the extreme annoyance of De Jongens, every time one of them answered a question with “nothing” (which happens on average 100 billion times a year), Ned simply says “Nothing can come from nothing. Speak again” The eye rolls in response are legendary and worth the price of admission.

But back to our anniversary tour.

There were some exhilarating parts of the route, where we rolled along side by side, enjoying the feeling of sunshine on our shoulders. It seemed effortless and laughter came easily, even when we hit occasional potholes. On and on through green pastures, over quaint bridges and around wide curves. Terrific. Love those bits, in Shakespeare, in cycling and in marriage.

"What need the bridge much broader than the flood?"

Much Ado About Nothing (aka the story of our lives)

Our journey last week was also marked by the first cycling accident I have had since we have lived in the Lowlands. We stood in the beautiful village of Uitdam, holding our bikes, looking at a map of the surrounding area. We were – imagine this - in perfect agreement on the path we would follow. I took a single step backward as I turned my handlebars to face the required direction. My heel caught a small unseen bollard, I overbalanced and landed on my back on the side of the road with my bike on top of me. A bicycle accident … while not cycling. How marvellously dramatic.

Uitdam, the small Dutch hamlet that some believe inspired Shakespeare

Shakespeare sprang to mind as I bit my lip and tried not to cry. “Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall” (Romeo and Juliet … how fitting on our romantic sojourn). Friar Lawrence was advising Romeo not to rush headlong into marriage (for a visa, say), but he could equally have been referring to the need to use caution when mounting a bicycle.

Grazed elbows, bruised pride, swollen humiliation, blood on my hands. Pure tragedy.

The damned spot, after
a few days of healing

In the midst of the (melo)drama, I looked at my wounded palm. I looked at my lovely husband of twenty years, my co-conspirator in nuptial visas. Then, with quite some dramatic inspiration I stood in the hamlet (yes!) of Uitdam and in my best Lady Macbeth voice, I exclaimed:

“Uitdam spot!”

With that single comment I managed to prove Ned's earlier point that drama, when combined with comedy, creates true romance.

Back in Amsterdam later that evening, we stopped at the Vondelpark Open Air Theatre. Free performances run all through summer. The scheduled act, on the day of our twentieth anniversary, was a dance called Woke up Blind by the Nederlands Dance Theater. It featured  two Jeff Buckley songs, "You and I" and "The Way Young Lovers Do". Jeff Buckley happens to be one of Ned's favourite singer-songwriters. The dance explored the changing nature of love over time. We know this because the program told us. Otherwise we would not have had a clue. But seriously, how could we not watch and participate in such powerful anniversarial symbolism?  

Symbolic movement by the NDC

It turns out that dance is an art form not yet within Ned's or my orbit of cultural appreciation. For now we will stick to drama. And comedy. Which, as we all now know, are the very essence of our true romance.