Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
A Troubled Tulip
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
There are seven million tulips in Amsterdam’s Keukenhof Park. Each one in perfect bloom, simultaneously calming and exhilarating. An interplay of Nature’s colorful cosmetics arranged, shaped and sculpted by human hands.
For as far as my eyes choose to see, tulips in every direction. Like a first sip of jenever gin, each petal blooms in intoxicating technicolor.
En masse, they are a memorial to Holland’s ruinous 17th Century tulip mania—a cautionary history lesson I want to teach my students about crowd sourcing and over-trusting the wisdom of the crowd. And a chance to make them yelp and groan when I mention that I always travel with my own two lips.
Resting my feet at a weathered, wood picnic table, I am joined unexpectedly by two women—maybe in their early twenties—who seat themselves across from each other at the other end of the table. My curiosity is pricked by their intense, animated conversation.
The first woman is cosplaying a tulip. She is costumed in a showy, canary yellow shirt, faded blue jeans, crimson red belt, bright white sneakers.
Her friend is dressed less stylishly, less brightly. Tortoise shell glasses, brown sweater. Shiny black hair in a ponytail.
“The train leaves soon. If we grab a taxi, we’ll just make it,” the yellow blouse says. Her voice is barely audible above the rustling of the leaves on the trees. “Next week is going to be hell. All my classes are early morning. And, I have to move out of the dorms. And, we gotta remember to vote.”
“All my friends are voting for Cornel West. Either him or Robert Kennedy,” she volunteers. “We’re pissed at the Democrats. Biden’s backing genocide in Gaza,” she spits out. Her voice resonates with the confidence of a person planted in the soil of her tribe’s conventional wisdom, her crowd-sourced politics, her tulip bubble.
The bucolic breathing of the flower beds fades away. The petals lose their color. I am eavesdropping on a temper tantrum.
The second woman reacts, unfazed and unflapped, “I voted by mail. For Biden. I didn’t want to risk a third-party vote.”
“Trump means a genocide of women. In my women’s studies class, I learned every Republican president bans nonprofits that take any US foreign aid money from even talking about abortion. So every fucking year of a Republican presidency 22,000 women around the world die in childbirth.”
“Those women can’t vote in our elections. But you can,” she blurts out, a challenging edge in her voice. “Anyway, aren’t you freaked out about government controlling your body?”
I stand and slip away. The specter of Trump again in the White House grinds my stomach. I need Amsterdam to distract me with more than just tulips.
Rembrandts and Van Goghs. Rijsttafel dinners. Anne Frank’s house. Edam and gouda. Concertgebouw concerts. Canals. The red-light district. Fries with mayonnaise. 18th century mansions. 17th century almhouses. The clean, salty scent of the North Sea.
I glance back. The canary yellow woman is still there, seated alone, rooted in place.
