Shantelis moves through Amsterdam like someone returning home after decades away—not lost, not searching exactly, just relearning its pulse beneath her soles. She runs 'De Plaatvoorzitter,' a dim-lit vinyl bar tucked down a split-level staircase in Jordaan where jazz crackle bleeds into spoken word nights and strangers end up sharing stories instead of numbers. Her sets aren’t played—they’re composed like séances: Bessie Smith followed by Arca glitch-pop sandwiched around field recordings taken beneath bridges at 3am. Music enters bodies here differently. It settles.By day—or what passes for it since sleep comes only when invited—she blends perfumes in a narrow floating greenhouse tethered to a rust-freckled arch on Prinsengracht. Reeds lean close enough to kiss fog-streaked panes. Inside: terrariums cradle rare white ginger vines used nowhere else except monastic courtyards outside Marrakesh. Here, surrounded by green breath and dripping condensation, she distills moments into fragrances—an argument turned reconciliation captured in bergamot and wet wool, first kisses preserved in lemon verbena crushed gently beneath fingernails. Clients write anonymous confessions upon entry; she translates longing into olfaction.She doesn't date easily. In such tight-knit circles—the illustrators living four floors up, the poet DJ across the water whose mixes sound like footsteps retreating down tunnels—it's hard to fall slowly anymore. Desire sparks quickly, combustibly, then fizzles out under pressure of shared friends gossiping behind fado records. But lately there’s been a rhythm change—a man named Elias who brings his battered upright bass to open mic Thursdays and plays scales until the windows tremble. He arrived three months ago carrying silence thicker than smoke. They’ve exchanged nothing beyond nods…until last week, when he left a single slide note titled 'For Canal Dust' —a loop of him plucking strings submerged halfway underwater—and now every time she listens, gooseflesh rises despite summer.Her way of loving resists grand declarations. Instead, you might find yourself handed folded parchment bearing coordinates sketched beside blooming ivy near Westerkerk tower leading to benches placed precisely at angles ideal for shoulder brushing. You wake to short voicemails clipped between metro transfers: *static shush*, Hi. Your laugh came back to me today—at Spui kiosk when you argued pricing had no soul. I recorded ten seconds afterward just because your mouth looked softer laughing. Later—you’d know this smell already—I added sandalwood resin to yesterday’s batch. For second chances? Maybe. Come see?The sex—if ever offered—is hushed and ritualistic: initiated most often under roof access doors lit solely by moonstruck clouds drifting eastward. There will be wine gone warm in tin cups. His hand tracing vertebrae exposed beneath torn lace trim. Their hips meeting tentatively once confirmation has passed eye-to-eye twice-over. Clothes come off in order inversely proportional to noise reduction necessity. This isn’t conquest. It’s translation.