"Yes!" Minh's been coming for weeks now, and now she's finally here, in the city we should of course be destined to rendezvous in. Lovely Amsterdam on a summer afternoon. By the canals. Minh's with her cousins, and we all come prepared. Prepared to sit in the grass and smoke, that is, with fresh tall cans and snacks as well. We lock our red rental bikes to some fancy cast-iron fencing on a bridge when we run into them.
It's a collision of stoned, high love friends. She's been to Switzerland and she's been to London, and we'd been to everywhere too and now she's here with us again and we're here with her. It's a day back in Santa Cruz. Back at the King Street house, lounging around in the grass. We talk and laugh, as always, travail-telling, and it's always funny and smiling's the routine and the happiest disposition, so we smile. We're all prettier when we smile, even when one's pretty to begin with. And pretty girls are just the prettiest things when their smiles are pretty. Minh's is the prettiest. With her cute bowl-cut bangs cut long and her straight black hair, and her striped, Dutch sailor shirt. She went with black stripes. Not because she's evil, but because she values inner beauty. She believes in the smile inside. She's so bubbly and refreshing, but sometimes you'd never know it with her straight-lipped pensive expressions. They're poetic though, like a Robert Frost slew of words about the cold winter. She's loves everybody and everybody loves her. She's our favorite little Asian stoner, and the prettiest one too. She know all our secrets. "So how's it been?!" she asks us. "You know, the whole thing. You guys've been out here for two months now! That's nuts!"
"Tell me about it," I say. "It's been a bumpy fuckin' ride."
"Yeah, in the best way though," says Grant. "It's been crazy and awesome. Crazy awesome."
"Yes, yes it has. In varying degrees of both." We tell her all about it. And she sits and listens and the weed's kicking in now so our hands and our faces become more animated and the whole thing, in my head, sounds like a knight's quest for that holy unattainable. Whether we've actually attained anything is up to question sure, but Minh's being here now, her presence and that reminder of the coast we left back in July, it's comforting. But also, it gives the feeling to me that we've done something over here. Or maybe that's wishful thinking and I'm just really high. It's not necessarily a bad thing. We all are.
The clouds hang low and gray for the most part, but occasionally, every so often, sunshine finds that part in the clouds and punches on through for those precious moments sprawling, Santa Cruz high by the Dutch canals of Amsterdam. It's all coming together, I feel like. We've made it full circle. Back in the Dam, plus two. And the place seems so familiar now. We all grab bikes and coast towards the harbor, musing at the parade. There's hundreds of little skiffs of all fashions clugging down the way, and tall stately ones too, clogging the wide canals. It's the boat festival today. It comes around only every five years and we've skipped and silly-ed our ways right into it. On a serene Saturday. A something special. Minh fits right in.
