Yesterday, I had one: A perfect moment. There are obviously many perfect moments, some perhaps shared, and they take place all over the world in the most bizarre ways, either amidst fathomless turmoil, or by those blissfully unaware of how precious their predicament is. My precious moment of yesterday I experienced alone, in the company of hundreds of others.

I went to college in down town Rotterdam, in the evening, as always. Rotterdam -  A city which has a hypermodern skyline and is in state of constant change; conjured and realised by some the world’s most ambitious architects. When you leave the sculpted skyscrapers of blue glass behind, and make a right, you will walk into old Chinatown, and the backstreets of the western quarter. Here is where I walk, though alleys sprayed with graffiti, listening to exclaiming black Surinamese mothers, watching the Rastafarians skulking swiftly, Chinese tradesmen in their jewellery shops, with empty eyes. The half-hour walk leads me from the central station, via ‘De Nieuwe Binnenweg’, to my school. The NAi – Het Nederlands Architectuurinstituut, and the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum are its neighbours.

In between two classes that evening I had a long wait and went off to a café on the intersection of the Mathenesserstraat and Nieuwe Binnenweg.  Already from the outside, the Wester Paviljoen has an intriguing atmosphere touching on an ancient Grand Café – well, it is one. It has luxurious seating areas, and a central table with individual lighting where you can peruse through quantities of today’s newspapers; waiters bustle through it like gentlemen, dressed in black with long white aprons. In the soft and yellowish 1920′s interior I found a nice table with a long leather bench and ordered a “latte macchiato”, and a “Spa Rood”, which is mineral water with bubbles.

I opened a book on Ethics in Professional Context, and was promptly served. The coffee was placed before me and its beauty could not be denied: in a high, glass cup, slightly tapered on both ends a drink was suspended, half coffee, half warm milk. The coffee portion was in the middle, below it clouds of milk gently stretched their fronds out to it; and above the coffee another section of milk, capped by a supreme mound of protuding milk froth. The whole thing was lit up by the setting sun, which was touching the tops of the pre-war skyline directly opposite. Around the sun were those clouds that Dutch painters are so famous for.

I let the impression of this immaculate drink sink in, and felt a simple and profound joy come up in me. I then raised my eyes, and, looked through the enormous bay windows at the crossing, and down the Nieuwe Binnenweg. The old buildings which curved along the busy road were nestling themselves into the evening twilight; the neon signs outside the Surinamese and Turkish cafés had begun flickering, sending jabs of colour through the scene. On the inside of the window, a woman was leaning across her table, writing an email address in a notepad held open by the gentleman with whom she had just had a drink. She was a silhouette, stretched across the table, giving me access to the cold night beyond, and the cars, which are not governed by a traffic light at that crossing, but must judge their right of way, and thus drive with visible intent.

And this is when I realized that I was having a Perfect Moment. As of that second, I noticed myself also doing everything in complete consciousness. For just a few minutes I was not plagued by my ghosts, was immune to the ugly hags of my mind who scratch my feet with that old bone, and impervious to all the little demons, now receding from the beautiful evening light and baring their teeth, whispering promises of ‘getting me back later’. But with any luck, I’ll be armed.