Gezellig is a Dutch word for which there is no real English equivalent. The Dutch use it to mean comfort, coziness, warmth, togetherness. Often gezellig is experienced in social settings, for instance at a gathering of friends or on a visit to your grandparents, but it’s not only amongst others that one experiences gezellig.
The word is derived from gezel, meaning “companion” or “friend.” Upon researching more about this new word in my vocabulary, I found that the original meaning for gezel is “journeyman.” During the Dutch guild system, a gezel was a group around a single master craftsman, which is part of how the word has come to mean “belonging.”
I reflect now on the similar feelings I’ve had at home. It’s that something that happens between four and five o’clock in the UK, and you pop the kettle on and shout up the stairs, “Anyone want a tea?!” It’s when, after waiting in the biting cold, you see your friend coming out of the train station, and, spotting each other, you both do that awkward smile and walk to close the distance. It’s when you haven’t seen your person in a long time, the fumbling to put away their passport at the arrivals gate so they can swap hands to give you a hug. It’s when a person you haven’t spoken to in a long time calls you out of the blue and you both stumble over each other’s words, saying “How are you?” and laughing to let the other person answer first.
I play a lot of eye tag here. This is the new name I’ve given to the game when you see someone nearby, probably sharing the same feeling of uncertainty and desire to open a conversation.
Gezellig captures all those convivial feelings I’m having now. Finding my way through the streets of Rotterdam and still doing the classic English smile and nod at people coming past me on the tram. Despite the Dutch being far more blunt than I expected, I detect a warmth in these passing encounters.
Gezellig is about a sense of well-being that is enhanced when shared with others. Sharing has been a theme this semester. I don’t get a lot of time to myself; occasionally in the morning, I sit outside my accommodation, sipping my coffee, watching the cars go by, as I decide who I want to share my day with. In the laundry room, there are small moments of conviviality. For instance, when the woman next to me was a bit freaked about the lint trap, which she didn’t want to clean with her hands, and I giggled and did it for her in two swipes. There is the wall of “lost socks,” a place we go to hang the lost, lonely, mateless little socks we’ve come across, hoping that soon they will be reunited with their better half.
I play a lot of eye tag here. This is the new name I’ve given to the game when you see someone nearby, probably sharing the same feeling of uncertainty and desire to open a conversation. So you make eye contact a few times, lift the corner of your mouth in mutual understanding and then see who is first to pat the empty spot on the bench — you or them. Eye tag is how I’ve made most of my friends here. In life in general. It’s very gezellig. Conversation, connection, and to share that feeling of belonging that arises in good company.
I did say I would quit smoking while I was in the Netherlands, but it’s far too much of a social sport to opt out now. Much too gezellig. Sorry, Dad.
I have included some photos I have taken so far here. Two girls I’m getting to be friends with are front and center in one of the pictures, chatting away about where we should go next. Gezellig was when one friend took me on a bike ride to see the windmills on the lake. I was absolutely terrified to ride on my own. There are bike lanes everywhere, until you look down and it’s disappeared because the small cobble road is only wide enough to fit you, her, and the car rolling by on this one-way street. “You’re doing fine! Just keep to the right,” she shouts from up ahead as we round the bend toward the sunset gilded lake.
Gezellig also was the first blooms of spring, yellow daffodils that remind me of the heath back home. The excitement that Easter is near and I will call my mom soon because it is one of her favorite holidays. Despite not being able to share it with her, or to receive that cup of tea from my dad at half-past four in the afternoon, I can still pick my own flowers and brew my own mug.
Somewhere, hidden in the corners, where we cannot see them, are the writer’s new friends.
Two girls the writer has gotten to know through the game of eye tag.
