Amsterdam Seven: Shrooming

The next week passed much the same way as that first full day in Amsterdam. I’d wake up, shower—how I loved that shower—dress, and head over to Eik en Linde with my MacBook in tow. I’d get set up (they had WiFi), order an espresso and uitsmijter, bullshit with Kasper, Peter, and some of the other regulars. There were always interesting discussions and they seemed to find it fascinating and odd that an American would choose to frequent their particular roost in such an out-of-the-way area of Amsterdam. There were questions about American politics and the like and I tried to learn little bits of Dutch along with the culture. I felt more and more at home with each passing day and Eik en Linde in particular gave me a sense of grounding that I otherwise lacked.

I didn’t like being there after 2:00 PM. I didn’t even have to check the backward running clock on the wall next to the curly Q. I could tell because a different class of regulars came in, younger, hipper, exclusively Dutch-speaking, and it only got worse (for me) as the afternoon moved on into evening. So I mostly hung out in the mornings and left around noon.

Eik en Linde kept me sane and whenever I felt anxiety creeping up I’d remind myself that it was there and that the following morning I would be able to return to my home-away-from-home. Kasper, in particular, was the root. His presence, relaxed and confident yet humble and friendly, provided the place with just the right feel. I discovered during a conversation with him that his parents owned the place and that he managed it. I asked him if Eike en Linde had been in his family for generations and he replied no. It had been a brown café for a very long time, though. His mother sometimes worked the bar either with Kasper or alone. She was sweet but also tough. She took no guff from the regulars and if she was in a feisty mood she gave it right back. Phillip, he of the long red hair, sometimes worked the bar but usually in the afternoons and I usually left before that so I rarely had a chance to talk with him.

While at my apartment I worked on indexing assignments, listened to music, read books and magazines, cooked, and occasionally smoked herb in addition to more mundane activities like brushing my teeth and doing laundry—there was a washer and dryer in the large bathroom, snuck out of the way from view by cabinet doors. I would include showering as a mundane activity but it was too luxurious to be considered ordinary.

During the second week I finished an index and I was well on my way to finishing a second. I’d gotten an offer for another index from a publisher via email. It needed to be completed by mid-December. I emailed the editor and informed her I would be happy to do the job. One of the best aspects of indexing for me by 2007 was that I had been working in the field for twelve years. I had plenty of contacts with publishers so I rarely had to market myself for work. I typically received another offer—if not three—while still working on one.

I also went out to explore the city center that week, but I still felt a lot of anxiety when doing so. I didn’t understand why and I usually got high when I returned home to alleviate the tension. I reminded myself now and then that I had been in a severe depression with tremendous social anxiety less than two weeks earlier. I sometimes forgot that since I was in such a different environment. Of course, that was the point, to forget my old life and start a new one. This new life was becoming routine, though. The highlights of my day consisted of my mornings at Eik en Linde and my afternoons or evenings smoking pot. I thought about smoking and then wandering around, but the few times I puffed and went out I went right back inside before even leaving the neighborhood. The marijuana alleviated stress in my apartment but somehow exacerbated my apprehension outdoors. I wondered if it was a remnant of living in a police state back in the U.S., that I’d get busted by the cops. I also worried about being negatively judged while walking around stoned since my tolerance was still so low. My apprehension turned to panic rather quickly.

The sheen of my apartment was also wearing off. I knew it well by now and even my indulgent showers and state of the art sound system had lost their luster. I felt a nagging sense that time was passing, that this brilliant escape might not break me out of my funk. I certainly felt better than I did and I enjoyed most of my days, but I suspected that when this adventure ended and I returned to Wisconsin I would come face to face with all of my old problems. I couldn’t let that happen.

One late afternoon into my third week I realized I needed to make a more drastic change. On my few ventures out I’d passed by a coffeeshop on Kerkstraat I’d first encountered in 1998. It was called Global Chillage and its décor had been surreal with every wall painted as an interconnected psychedlic mural. The seats were wood, but not cut wood; they were trunks of trees sans bark and the tables were the same. The place was under construction so it wasn’t open to the public. That saddened me because I really enjoyed the staff—beautiful and friendly young women. The trance music also made for a wonderfully trippy smoking experience.

Down the street from the boarded-up Chillage, though, was a smart shop. Smart shops have all manner of items for sale from oxygen pills to healing tinctures. However, the most striking products they sold were psychedelic mushrooms. I’d shroomed in college many, many times and did so again on a trip to Amsterdam in the early 2000s. The experience I had during that visit to Amsterdam was good and bad. Well, I shroomed in Haarlem because that’s where our hotel was. S. and I wandered the streets one evening looking at the lit-up stores with their eerie but beautiful glow. She hadn’t shroomed with me, but she enjoyed watching me have a good time. I was also in a fantastically romantic mood. When we returned to our hotel, though, the trip went bad and I had a horrible panic attack, the type that made me think I might never come out of it. S. did not enjoy that any more than I did. It freaked her. I decided at the time that I was done with shrooms for good.

Sitting in my apartment the beginning of that third week, though, I seriously contemplated going to the smart shop to purchase mushrooms. I went back and forth in my mind and felt like I had an angel whispering in my left ear, “Don’t do it! Remember how bad it was?” and another angel in my other ear saying, “Go ahead, I’m here for you and you need to take risks in life. That’s why you came here, remember? If you want to break out of the funk then you need to push past your self-imposed boundaries. What do you have to lose?!”

The angel telling me to do it won. I decided I would at least visit a smart shop and see what they had on offer. I looked up the location online; this was not a walkabout. This was a mission and I wanted to make sure I found the place easily. If I wandered and couldn’t find anything I was likely to start feeling anxiety again. I was tense as it was. I had plenty of cannabis, a potential antidote if I had a freak out while shrooming.

Once I found the place closest to my apartment I left. I was nervous but also excited. Instead of feeling apprehension in the face of newness I felt more like I had that first full day in Amsterdam. I could hardly wait to get there. When I arrived at Conscious Dreams and stepped inside the brightly lit establishment—filled with youngish hipsters and hippies—I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I thought to myself, “I’m 38 and I’m acting like I’m going to a rave with a bunch of 19 year olds.” Some part of me rose up and yelled “Fuck you!” to that inner doubt.

I walked to the counter and, as always in such places, there was a glass top for peering at the wares below. The shop had a menu with descriptions. The staff was helping other individuals and I listened a little as I perused the menu. Just as in the finer coffeeshops, the staff spoke of the shrooms as a wine connoisseur speaks of fine cabernets. I listened as a staff member with long black dreadlocks explained how the Hawaiian variety provided a powerful cerebral trip without many visuals or auditory hallucinations. The Hawaiian was the thinker’s shroom.

I read the menu and the paragraph-long descriptions of the common effects and how long they lasted. I decided on the McKennaii which was advertised as providing a loose body-oriented, sensuous experience without much of a head trip or hallucinations. The length of the trip was estimated between four to six hours. Each dose was fresh and measured at 35 grams. That was quite a difference from the U.S. where two dried grams were usually enough to trip pretty hard. Drinking plenty of liquids was suggested and a product called After-M was advertised as a wonderful antidote for the morning after shrooming.

I told the man with the dreads that I’d like a dose of McKennaii. I asked him about the quantity and told him 35 grams seemed like a huge dose. He was friendly and professional in his explanation that fresh shrooms contain water and that the dosage effects were more reliable than that of dried mushrooms. He told me he received that concern from many coming from out of country, especially those from the United States. I laughed and nodded. “Yeah, we’re still a little backwards overseas.” He said, “No worries,” and explained the quality control involved with the growing and distribution of the various strains and I just looked at him dumbfounded. As with the cannabis, the operation was professional on all counts.

I thought about purchasing the After-M product but decided smoking would do the trick if necessary. I put the purchase on my credit card and he put the plastic container into a brown paper bag with the store’s name and logo on it. I walked out of the store and into the day smiling. I felt none of the anxiety I had earlier at my apartment nor any of the stress from the walk over. I felt free.

I returned to my apartment in the early evening after strolling around the canals. Doing so set the mood for peace, relaxation, and a feeling of inner romance. I made spaghetti and opened a bottle of red wine I’d purchased from Albert Heijn, a grocery store. I ate the shrooms with the pasta. I figured eating them together might mitigate the effects. I didn’t want to go bouncing off the walls running from angry goblins that weren’t there.

Half an hour after my meal I felt the first effects. I loaded a bowl of Northern Lights No. 5 and had it handy on the coffee table just in case. In the CD player was Phish. I had some more mellow CDs on hand in case Phish didn’t fit the bill. I figured Phish would be perfect, though, because their music is upbeat and tailor-made for psychedelics. I was wearing comfortable sweats and the blinds were closed in case I had the urge to get naked for any reason. I had purchased a phone a week earlier and placed it next to my pipe. I turned on the lamps in the living room, one of which had a dimmer switch that I turned down.

As I looked around the apartment I felt the “whoosh-whoosh” of my heartbeat and saw the place anew. I yelled “This place is beautiful!” I laughed at the sound of my voice and then cupped both hands over my mouth as if I’d done something wrong. This caused me to start giggling. I laughed harder and then let out a loud “HA!” that stopped me in my tracks. “Wow,” I said aloud to myself. “It’s like someone else is here with us, don’t you think?” I responded to myself, “You know, it really does. I like having company. I wish I’d invited all these people to hang out with me sooner.”

I laughed again and ran the length of the apartment to the back of the kitchen. There was a window there that looked out on a tiny courtyard. “There’s a tiny courtyard,” I said to myself and the other “me’s” who had gathered to play. “How did I not notice that before? I need to be more observant.” I straightened up, crossed my left arm across my stomach, propped up my right elbow on it, and tapped the end of my nose with my index finger. “You’re absolutely right,” I said in a very serious and stern voice. “What would the professor think of such negligence?” I laughed again and raced back to the living room.

“Moving is fun! How could I have not known that?!” I looked down at my body, saw the pudginess of my belly. I felt at my chin and squeezed the little bit of fat below it. Not a double chin but a bit saggy. “Well, this is no good. Clearly we need a change.” I stood there and thought for a minute, but none of the thoughts seemed coherent. “I guess I need to move more. I can go for more walks, certainly. I can eat healthier foods.” I thought again. “This won’t change overnight.” I paused and thought, “It doesn’t have to change at all.” I smiled and started moving. I grabbed the remote for the stereo and Phish played. It was a bootleg concert CD. I hopped about while listening to “Bouncing Around the Room.” I almost fell into the coffee table and snapped out of my movement trance. “Whew. Okay, that’s enough for now.” I felt a slight bit of anxiety and noticed I was sweating. “I think I need a shower.”

I disrobed in the living room and walked to the bathroom naked. My body felt gooooood. I turned on the lights in the bathroom and gasped. “My God! The shower is enormous!” I was extremely excited, hysterically excited. I opened the shower door and felt like I was entering a glass time machine. I closed it behind me and turned on the water. I found a warm temperature and my body melted. I moaned like a woman having an orgasm; I was a woman having an orgasm. “This is what it feels like to be a woman, isn’t it?” Despite my earlier dissatisfactions with the fat on my body I now loved it because it was making me feel soooooo gooooood. I put my face and the front of my body against the glass and let the water cascade down my back and off my buttocks. I could feel the water slithering around my crotch and sliding down my legs in spirals. The water was alive and it was as sensuous as any woman I’d ever met. I moaned, “My God … why would I ever want to be with a woman when I can just go into the shower and be with water!” I loved water and water loved me. The water touched me everywhere I wanted to be touched. I moved back a little and the water responded exactly the way I desired. “You know me so well, water. You’re the best lover in the world. Thank you, thank you for loving me, for giving yourself over to me, for covering my body, and for endlessly pouring from the angel’s head above me.”

I showered for at least an hour. I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want to leave. Eventually, though, the sensation felt less potent. I became more alert, more cerebral. I turned off the water but still felt warm. I opened the door and steam poured out. “Ah, dragon’s breath.” I shivered from the cold. I grabbed a big soft fluffy white towel and snuggled myself dry. I said to the towel, “Thank you for snuggling me. You’re so kind and soft. I love you so much. You’re so snuggly.”

I walked out of the bathroom, looked into the living room at my clothes, and considered for a moment. Am I hot or cold? I couldn’t tell. I figured I must be “just right” so I walked into the kitchen naked. “What should I do now?” I asked myself. I felt less sensual. I didn’t know if it was because I was out of the shower and away from snuggly or because I was on the downward slope of the shrooms. I saw my MacBook on the dining room table. I thought it looked sleek and cool. It was all black and the screen was black, too, idling for three hours now at least. I decided to tap the space button and instantly the computer screen came to life. I uttered a soft “wow.” I was no longer in a state that made me feel like the computer must be magic, but I wondered a little about technology and electricity. “Hello machine I don’t understand but are easy to use.” No verbal response. “You are under my power completely, aren’t you? Without my help you just go to sleep.”

I sat down on the seat, but it was cold. I got up, walked into the living room, and put on my sweats. I returned to the dining room and sat in front of the computer. I opened the browser and then changed my mind. I felt slightly drowsy so I went back to the living room, changed from Phish to a jazz station, and lied down on the couch. For the next hour I enjoyed the sensations of music.

I picked up my wooden bowl and the lighter beside it. I fired up and inhaled. I followed the procedure again thirty seconds later. Within minutes I was high and the shrooms kicked in again. I was too tired to move, though. I didn’t have a thought in my head. I sat there, breathing and relaxing. In time, I got up and made my way to the bedroom. I saw the big comfy comforter and pulled it back along with the sheet and blanket. I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I walked back into the bedroom and crawled into bed, sighing as my head sunk into the pillow.