I know her….

That corner in Antwerp, where you can see the last 100 years in one crossing of the street, just around pub time. Later afternoon, when people stop to have a beer before evening.
The crucifix in the shopping district as people eat their sandwiches at lunch, never looking up at Him. But feeling Him still there.
Sunday mornings, the only one’s out the Orthodox Jews who finally get a day off and want to look at the high stores.
In front of the opera, the few theater folks in the pub that only serves two beers and waits for Saturday market between the perfectly lined trees. The chickens and cheese at those open markets.
The rhythms of the week in Antwerp, as everyone stops at the eagle fountain to soak their feet and let their children jump in to what appears to be, the least of fountains ever, with a tourist waffle stand beside it. Still people sit and take their kids photos as the Meir walkers stream by.
The old folks pub near but not next to the cathedral, where they serve Orval at room temp, and rarely have Americans.
The writers pub down the street that still only hires artist and novelist gather daily, and serve yellow and green capped best beers in the world, and where you always end up talking art and life and the about the angels and angles of light that day which visited.
Even the old mall, where people gather earlier in the day, the upstairs cafe for the elderly and tech seekers.
The supermarket downstairs, with the best produce I’ve ever seen.
And then the tea garden and wealthy district where one can still hear Spanish spoken.
The coldness of the embassies with the warm of Jesuit square, mixed with a good French sandwich in winter, and that older pub that serves white Belgian ales, and caters to the old in evenings, and the Art academy students the rest of the day. Antwerp, my friend who I know.
To the smell of bookshops and the pleasure of long tables where everyone is welcomed. And to layering of fashion in gloomy rain.
Antwerp is my Jerusalem in my heart. And I know her by heart.
I know her past, I know her now, and who she may become! Curious friend and lover, Antwerp is to me. And a type of home while I am displaced in my own.
In know her, like I know my wife—all her moods and sunset and sunrises, and rest. And when she just rest in herself. I know her there.
I know her like a knew my grandmother’s hands. I traced them over and over, until I knew where she had come from, where she was in life, and where she might go next!