On New Year's Day this year, I went for a lovely bike ride on a sunny afternoon to the north. I decided to ride along a road that I had not taken between Purmerend and Monnickendam. It had the looks of a quiet road that should have no traffic. Surrounded by fields and connecting virtually nothing, it should be peaceful. Of course, in the Netherlands, this is rarely the case, and many people lined the narrow bike path making the route more frustrating to navigate.
Over the past three years, I have come to a greater appreciation of the space-time continuum. The same road would surely have been mystically lonely if ridden when the sun is down. In general, there is no place in the Netherlands where one can feel alone or have the heavenly peace of the deep forest, but there are times of the day where peace presents itself. My bikes rides have shifted ever later to try to capture a perfect balance of being home at a reasonable time, and capturing as much of the peaceful world as possible. Generally, this means getting home by 20:00, but occasionally this extends a bit later.
The discussion of a curfew in the Netherlands causes quite some anxiety for me, as it cuts in on the winter nights. Now that we are already past the solstice, the peaceful evenings are fewer until next fall, and the implementation of a curfew cuts in on the opportunity to find those peaceful moments. Soon, summer will bear down with its endless days, but hopefully by then we can travel again.