Falling leaves, farewell to Maastricht

Autumn is, quite possibly, my favorite season of the year. Come September the trees of the city take an accelerated approach towards ageing that catches me off guard every time. Fazing and dazzling me. The crumpling, shrinking, shriveling leaves progress delicately through wide ranges of colors right in front of watchful eyes.

Chipper sounds of rustling leaves emerge from underneath my feet as I shuffle my way through the tree-lined streets. A chocolate-colored dog speeds fluidly through piles of earthbound reds-and-yellows, chasing after a bare branch swirling through the air.

The Indian-summer light slants in through a crumbling roof of vegetation, drawing faded dots across its fur that flicker rapidly from head to tail. I’m absorbed by the unique one-of-a-kind beauty captured by an everyday scene. Simple treats of autumn, a mesmerizing time.

Inescapably I find myself musing about how the trees shed their green over and over, year after year.

In fact they’re only acting out, at a slightly higher pace, a process to which we all fall prey in the end. They are caught up in an unrelenting cycle of life, of constant transformation. With unwavering determination a tree will decide, every single year, to systematically annihilate all of its foliage in order to sustain itself through winter.

As I stroll around, soaking up green-red-orange-yellow-brown, I wonder whether other people also wonder. Whether there are more folks around who will stop mid-step on the pavement to notice in amazement that it’s always the two outer-trees in a lineup that grow bald first as harsher autumn weather arrives. I wonder if the trivial and silly particularities of the season bring many smiles to faces as the days shorten.

 

I feel privileged to experience my second autumn in Maastricht. Contentedly wrapped up in hat and mittens I pick up my camera and go for vibrant walks through the city. As I take a snapshot of the river I am suddenly delighted at the thought that I always see the same river, whereas the river only sees me standing there once before travelling north towards the ocean.

But it’s not all cheerfulness and happy thoughts that accompany me and my camera, because this year, contrarily to last year, it is an autumn of endings instead of beginnings. Whereas September 2007 had marked for me the start of a new student life in Holland, the falling of leaves in 2008 are half-coincidentally intertwined with my much dreaded departure from Maastricht. No longer strange and new, the city has maneuvered its way into becoming my home, my city.

From day one I was defenseless against the charms of Maastricht. I was unable to resist the blatant flirting of medieval towers and cobblestone alleyways, the beauty of the town inadvertedly roping me in during long walks on city-walls.

 

A lazy Sunday coffee at a sun-drenched terrace by the sparkling river was all it took to wrap a perfect bowtie around my heart, and I was good to go. I have a soft spot for beautiful things, and this ensured that I didn’t stand a chance, as Maastricht is undeniably one of the most gorgeous cities I know. Flawlessly a web was spun, and a background was set, against which I started a brand new life in the company of equally brand new friends.

In total I’ve spent about 12 months in Maastricht. My neighborhood, Wittevrouwenveld, is notorious for being one of the more ‘adventurous’ parts of town. The small joys of living here include dealing with juvenile delinquents who will occasionally throw fire-crackers through your mailbox.

Only last week three kids of barely 14 years of age set fire to a garbage-bag that I had temporarily parked outside on my doorstep by virtue of its not-so-pleasant smell. After whacking the bag with one of my shoes to extinguish the flames, the smell turned considerably worse. The bag-on-doorstep was a strikingly poor decision, by now I really ought to know better. For example, the wicker basket on my bicycle was incinerated only 6 months ago, splitting large cracks all the way down the front window against which it was parked. And that’s not the only cruelty brought upon my bike, as it also suffered from four consecutive stab wounds to its back tires over the course of two months. Until I finally saw the light and took up walking.

Yet, despite the sporadic torching of bike/window/doormat/garbage-bag, my apartment was my home. And so was this ancient city. Under the cloak of this at-home feeling strange situations emerge, the most fascinating of which I think are the encounters between different faiths. For example, a convinced atheist can feel comfortable enough to walk into the Onze Lieve Vrouwe-church, chin up and back straight under the heavy silence, with squinting eyes piercing though the damp darkness upon entering. A small candle can be purchased and left to dance a flame-sized dance amidst an ocean of other solitary prayers and wishes.

Or the imposing Selexyz Dominicanen bookstore, hosted in the old converted church, where endless pondering can go into the apparent clash of science and religion over a steaming hot coffee. The ultimate bestseller of all books, the Bible, making all the modern words filling up the shelves in the house of God look bland in comparison…

Maastricht is the sort of home where I find myself exchanging friendly smiles with a group of nuns on a cobblestone bridge on my way to the library. The fact that my visits to the library consist in unraveling the mysteries of the human mind in a deterministic search that should ultimately abolish god seems to carry no weight in such encounters.

 

 

Emigrating then, like autumn, holds two equally crazily captivating aspects to it. On the one hand there’s the promise of something new and unknown, a fresh start on some other side yet to be explored… For me this will happen in the United States.

On the other hand there are the things to be sacrificed, the perishing of a life during a vibrant struggle of which the devastating aftermath will emerge a little later, on a different continent.

Not yielding to clutter I let my friends ransack the house, eloquently solving the eternal question of ‘where to leave your stuff’. Some banana-boxes from the Albert Hein supermarket are stashed with the bulk of things I can’t throw away just yet (mostly books).

And in this manner the uprooting of my life plays out against a background of falling leaves. Soon I will be torn away from Maastricht, away from what appeared safe and sheltered. A disastrous love as it turns out, because leaving Maastricht is heartbreaking. Moving is, and will always remain, a double edged sword.

By Rosanne Rademaker

 
Born in The Hague, Rosanne Rademaker is studying at Maastricht University for a research master in Neuropsychology. She is currently doing a research internship in Neuroscience at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Rosanne also writes (in Dutch) for youth magazine Code Maastricht.< br />