#if you want to look up the Haarlemse resustance fighters I suggest looking up 'Kenau Simmonsdochter Hasselaer'

[tinygenderfluid]

I remember seeing kids ice skate on the gracht (basically just a small river) in our backyard and every year I'd be so exited to go out and join them, but couldn't because I didn't have ice skates.

One year my dad finally got me beginner skates, I must've been around 4 or 5 and I had such a blast skating with the other kids, I got to borrow a lot of chairs because none we had were really skate-worthy and at the end of the day I could skate without one.

That was the last year you could skate. We haven't had thick enough natural ice to safely go out and stand on, so parents just keep their kids inside. In fact, there's been barely any ice at all.

I miss good snow.

I miss good ice.

All that winter does now is make you wish it's like the old winters. I've seen the paintings you know, i've heard the stories, seen the videos, and listened to old new story clippings from the nineties about the elfstedentocht, ice skating spans centuries of history. When the Spanish sieged the city of Haarlem in the 80-year-war there was this group of resistance fighters that would skate on the ice when it was foggy to rob and kill them, descending like 'revengeful witte wieven'; there's paintings in the Rijksmuseum depicting people from all social classes socialising on the ice, skating on lakes and just having fun; there was this one guy in the last elfstedentocht who got on the news for skating it multiple times in the same year, I remember that so specifically because I saw it in class as a little kid and despite looking so cold he seemed so happy.

The world warming up isn't just a looming danger (droughts impacting drinking water, heatwaves negatively affecting elders, increased risk of floods due to rising sea level), it is also a profound loss of culture.

Climate denialism in the netherlands is so fucking funny like. Bro the floods. They’re coming