Embassy of the Free Mind (and Feet)
October 14, 2023
If you find yourself in Amsterdam I recommend visiting the Embassy of the Free Mind, a museum experience based on the collection of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, located on the Keizersgracht in a grand, historic mansion built in 1622. James and I discovered the museum last summer during the Amsterdam Garden Tour and were most intrigued but were limited to visiting the garden that day, which is home to a 200-year-old chestnut tree, in addition to many other exotic and interesting (witchy) plants and flowers.
Yesterday I went back to explore the museum with my friend Jill and you will not be surprised to learn that I am certain everyone there possesses supernatural powers and there are likely several portals to other dimensions located within, and the visit reinforced the theory that I have long held which is that everything in the universe is connected and once I master my skills I’ll be able to commune easily with the ancients of the otherworld and realize my full powers here on this earthly plane, (which I will use for good, of course). It’s an intriguing place. Dan Brown is affiliated in some mysterious capacity. Do stop by if you get the chance.
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After exploring the museum, Jill and I stopped into the museum cafe for tea and cake. We sank into the velvet chairs and watched the rain fall against the diamond patterned lead glass windows that look onto the canal and I told Jill I was working on figuring out what to pack for my upcoming trip to NYC during which time I will be meeting various people for daytime coffees and at least one fancy nighttime excursion accompanied by stylish people. I’m having a hard time reconciling my insistence on being comfortable vs. my aversion to looking frumpy. I can’t remember what the weather feels like in November. My coat is the biggest quandary. How it is that I own such a preposterous number of coats but can’t think of one that’s going to be appropriate is a mystery even the wise heretic philosophers of the Free Mind museum could not solve.
Surely a portal to another world or dimension lies behind this curtain
The Library of Living Books
As if I don’t know
I told Jill I was puzzling out a wardrobe based entirely around sneakers and one pair of ankle boots and that I’d chosen a color palette of green and black, as everything I’ve read about packing for a trip suggests choosing a capsule with a limited color palette. I told Jill I had a pair of green satin pants that I believed would be versatile enough for several occasions but they are too long so I’d ordered some fabric tape, and I was telling her about my plan to tape them up myself when she stopped me and said I would need to have them professionally hemmed by a tailor, which I knew but I needed someone wise to say it out loud. Jill agreed with the sneakers and ankle boots though. I just can’t wear heels anymore, I told her. No way, she agreed. Then I told her the story about the last time I wore heels, which was in NYC when I was 8 months pregnant and I literally ran through the halls of Teen Vogue because the intern in the art department called to say Anna Wintour was standing in the dark by herself in the layout room and I needed to get down there immediately and figure out what was going on.
What was going on was that Anna had gotten wind of the fact that one of the photos we were planning on using for a feature had been flagged by legal so we couldn’t use it and she wanted to kill the entire story and swap in a feature on Hurricane Katrina, which had just happened. I stood in the art department in heels while 8 months pregnant furiously taking notes on my clipboard as I listened to Anna tell me that we needed to fly a team to New Orleans to interview and photograph some teens about what their experience was like. She envisioned a feature-length-first-person narrative, suitable for the Well of the magazine, and told me to read the feature the New York Times had just published, then suggested we infiltrate the Superdome. My mind frantically tried to put together an action plan — we were on press in two days and the New Orleans airport was closed, but these were not details to trifle Anna with and my boss was not there to run skilled interference as she usually did, so I nodded in composed agreement with Anna while I silently freaked out, and once Anna left I ran back to my office, still 8-months pregnant and in heels, and convened an emergency meeting to figure out how we were going to fly a team to New Orleans and produce a story on Hurricane Katrina and that would not be irrelevant when the magazine hit the newsstand in 2 months and we were on press in two days.
“That’s ridiculous,” Jill said, “No one should wear heels when they are pregnant.” “Oh, I loved wearing heels!” I insisted and meant it. I loved how glamorous everyone — including me — was during my NYC magazine days, but I had ruined my feet with heels and I simply can not wear them ever again. “No way,” Jill agreed.
Sneakers and one pair of ankle boots it would be.
Me arriving at my MFA program