We build relationships with the strangest things in the city. In December, it was a teal cap hanging in the bare branches next to the Christmas tree pop-up store in Oud Zuid, Amsterdam. The streets breathe old money; you can’t really tell, but look through a window, and you’ll see pressed curtains, art, and warm lights. Brick facades watch over patches of well-kept green. Every plant seems to know its place.

The cap hung there like some postmodern fruit, bright against the clouds. Dirty brim, Nike swoosh dirty and worn. A small rebellion against the neighbourhood's careful composition. The kind of thing you'd normally scroll past online, except you can't scroll past real life. It caught my eye, I think it was a Saturday, made me look up from my phone.

I found myself thinking about it during meetings. Not in any profound way—just wondering if it was still there, turning in the wind. I started taking that route on purpose and remember feeling a tiny bit of relief when I saw it again. And then thinking how stupid I must be for even allowing it any real estate in my brain. Funny how quickly something so random becomes a personal landmark.

Friday, it was gone. Just winter branches now. No tragedy, no mystery or lesson. The city breathes like that, things appear, disappear, and move around. But I caught myself glancing up anyway, several days after, at the exact spot where it had been. Some muscle memory or weird longing that hadn't faded yet.

It makes me think about all the dumb things other people notice on their daily routes, pieces (as in art pieces) the city offers that they secretly track, the small changes that only they would recognise.

For me, other instances have been a sticker of a perfectly cropped human butthole on a tram station wall, a pristine beige couch that stood on a sidewalk for two weeks and became an impromptu outdoor living room for the local teenage stoners, or the fluffy baby shoe someone set on a low wall, in case the owner walked past by again, I was worried for that baby, it was cold.

Maybe someone else had their own relationship with that teal Nike cap, their own private MoMA in the bare trees. Or maybe I was the only one who ever looked up.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​