"When I was 4, you threw my favourite underpants away."
I could pretend I had no idea what he was talking about. But I did know. Sure I knew. I could, for example, have said, "oh really? oh well. Haha, that must have been funny..." Cough.
Instead, I chose to sit down in front of my little boy, who was on the floor taking off his pants to go to bed. Something, no idea what, had triggered a memory.
He had been 3, actually. And like many toddler boys, he was simply too lazy to go to the toilet. We were about to board an airplane. I had said, "I want you to pee before we go." He refused. "But don't pee in your pants then, okay?" Of course not mummy. Five minutes later, he wet his pants. I was out of spare undies. Goddammit. So then take the bloody thing off and well I'll just uhm throw the goddamn thing away because at least your trousers are still somewhat dry and why the hell and I told you and for chrissake... and so on.
It was worse than he remembered. I had pulled his pants down in front of everyone. So learn then the hard way then, if you must. And now, I hated myself all over again.
"I remember that yes. I remember being angry and I remember it wasn't your fault. I was tired and toddlers can be really tough to deal with sometimes. But that's no excuse. It was wrong of me. How about we buy new favourite underpants tomorrow? Would you like that?"
He nodded.
"So we're all right then?"
He nodded again and went on with his business of doing the things 5-year olds generally do.
Later, I asked him as casually as possible, "is there anything else you remember me doing that was mean?" He didn't react. But after I told him his bedtime story, he put his little arm around me the way he always does while he and I wait for him to fall asleep.
Motherhood means holding your breath and crossing your fingers. For years on end
New years go by with increased speed. As does the moment it comes, that new year. Gone in a flash. Happy new year, my friend! Let it be a better year than last. Let it be cancer-free. Let it be opportunity-filled. Let it be worriless, fearless, endless in time.
Happiness.
We used to have time. Now we have pain.
She is always busy. A friend once asked why she fidgets so much.
"Well," she said, "as soon as I sit still, I fall asleep."
She is doing perfectly fine this Christmas. There is so much to do. Buy a tree, decorate it, lights, candles, food, cards, Christmas dinners to prepare for herself, for her kids. School can always use a hand, she is good at making herself feel useful. She is good at her work too. Meetings, there are so many meetings. So many new and exciting plans. And then there's all the invitations for drinks. The gift-shopping for family. She likes that it gets dark early, it's perfectly logical she opens a bottle of wine at 4.30pm.
Christmas isn't so bad, she thinks, it isn't so bad at all. She is even able to listen to Christmas carols without feeling teary.
Two days before Christmas she wakes up alone and she can't get herself to do anything. Not even to take a shower, nor to buy presents or call a friend. So she sits still. First she falls asleep. The nightmares last about two hours. After which she sits again. She listens to music. And she knows she shouldn't but she can't help herself: she looks at pictures.
Then, she cries.
How typical of me to show up at the wrong address. Here's this meeting I've mentally been preparing for. It's an important meeting and not even because it's about money. There will be four people listening to me because I asked them to. I wrote them a letter saying, "dear sirs and madams, keep your money if you must, but I do not agree with your opinion of my novels."This pushed a button that started a formal procedure. They organized a hearing for me.
I am on time, I truly am. But at the wrong fucking place. Somehow, my brain hasn't registered the address. It wasn't "Prinsengracht 89", it was "Nieuwe Prinsengracht 89." These addresses are about two miles apart. It's pissing down by the way. So much for the bronzing powder. Why on earth do I need bronzing powder anyway? I know why: because I will not succumb to the wrongful idea that writers need to look pale for them to be viewed as literary writers. I am me. I have a fake tan.
So I enter the building, fifteen minutes late. I have never biked so fast in my entire life.
By now snot is dripping down my nose, my shirt is drenched from sweat and most likely I smell too. I am purple and slime has collected in the corners of my mouth, has formed a lining on my teeth.
I barge into the meeting room and know I must look like a wet feverish fury. They, the officials, are not amused. I try, really I do, to crack a joke about how I had a lovely coffee with this woman on the Prinsengracht 89 and kept wondering when the hearing was going to start.. Thank god they smile. Only briefly though as there is no time to waste. The hearing starts immediately. The chairman says what he is meant to say and then it is my turn to say what I want to say. "All right then," is what I think. "I will do this while sniffing and panting and smelling and sliming."
And so I do. I read to them the piece I wrote which states why I feel my writing is worthwhile. I make sure not to be angry, not to be insulted, not to attack other writers or them. Simply to explain what my personal view is on writing, and what my purpose is with it. Sweat drips from my face, I keep wiping it away with my sleeve. I hear my own voice. It is calm, I am actually making my point. It is happening.
When I leave the hearing I feel like something magnificent has happened. I have said exactly what I needed to say and in a way that is true to me. It's still pouring down, and that's fine too.
There was once a man who felt it was time for a change. He wasn't sure what exactly, just change. Any change. He changed his hair. He grew a beard. He changed newspapers. He changed jobs. He changed the way he spoke.
Next he changed wives. With that came a change in friends. He changed where he lived.
One day he walked his new dog through the park. He saw another man he knew from the past, that past which was no longer a part of his present.
"You look great!" he said to that man of the past.
"Really? I could hardly feel any worse."
"That's annoying isn't it? When you feel bad but everyone tells you how good you look."
The man of the past doesn't seem to register this comment. He states, "it's the disappointment. It eats away at me."
"Ehm. I'm not entirely sure what you mean?"
"Oh. I thought you must have heard." He kicks a stone. "She left."
"Ouch, really? That sucks."
"It really hurts. And the kids aren't taking it well either. The eldest is absorbing my grief."
He grinds his teeth and then gives the changed man a steely look.
"I could have accepted she had an affaire and all. But she should have told me and addressed the problems. This way it came as a complete surprise. She dumped it on me, then got up and left."
The man of the past is still looking at the changed man. His gaze cuts right through the changed man's expression of sympathy that now feels inappropriate.
"It's the disappointment," the man of the past repeats. Finally the muscles under his jaw soften. His eyes are damp when he says, "I am just so incredibly disappointed."
The amount of people we see but immediately forget. Then remember all over again the next day as we pay for our groceries. We're thinking about whether to buy sour dough bread or whole grain and looking at the texture of all those loafs on all those shelves, not at the person handing them to us. We smile and say thank-you but as we leave the store, we leave that person behind.
A man stands outside the grocery store, every single day. He sells a magazine that only homeless people are allowed to sell. A lot of people give him money and tell him to keep the magazine. It's fine by him. Or maybe it's not. Who's to know, when nobody asks. One day, a young lady in a white lammy coat speaks to him. She has jet-black hair which she wears in a tight ponytail. Clearly she has just come from work. She asks him why he is doing this. And shouldn't he be considering a proper job. And this is too easy, she says, isn't it? Who could expect to make anything out of life by taking the easy way out? She, for one, has worked so hard at becoming who she is. What does he do with the money he earns anyway? She hopes he isn't going to spend it on drugs or alcohol. He says it's for a bed at the shelter. She says she doesn't believe him. Housing for the homeless is free.
The man falls silent in confusion. He is holding her umbrella for her.
Two weeks later he is noticeably thinner. He looks more like how he was a few years ago. Worn, torn by life, hollow-eyed and high. He had fattened up over time, cut his hair, learned to make conversation, or at least tried to. He always says 'hello how are you?' and he even smiles. He never remembers a face.
Two months later he is dead.
We get so wrapped up, don't we? In contemplations about the next step, or is it too late? Am I good enough? How do I stay true to myself in a world that's full of lies? And suddenly there's a chance to do this or that, and so we get up and go. Just do it, is what we think. Kick some serious ass. No guts no glory. Yes I can.
Can I really? Maybe not. Sure I can!
Yet we also talk of ego and being too eager and wanting too much and therefore learning to let go and flow and the glorious path of least resistance. Then why is everything so difficult, dammit? In comes the no-guts-no-glory thing all over again. And oh yes: it gets harder before it gets easier, doesn't it?
In fact, none of it makes any sense.
What does make sense is this: to have a 5-yr-old boy tell you that his friend drew something for him. He takes out a small oval-shaped piece of yellow paper. On it: two dots for eyes, one dot for a nose and a stripe as a smile. He says, "my friend made this for me so I can look at it and think of you and dad and then feel happy."
An hour later I hear that another friend of his has broken a finger. He takes immediate action and draws the biggest "most beautiful drawing ever" for that friend. He has only barely learned to write his own name. With admirable concentration he tries to write his friend's name. The other way around. He instructs me to add "how terrible that you broke your finger." And he signs it with grave earnesty and care.
Consider for a moment the last time you did something similar for a friend.
Don't dwell on this too long though. On with it: no pain no gain, remember?
There once was a little boy who turned into a man. It wasn't an effort, it wasn't a plan. It happened one day, just like that. He looked in the mirror and cried: who is that? His eyes told the story of who he is now, while the child he was remained hidden somehow.
Nervous and tense, afraid of the dark, he had roamed his way through life's park. Groping at help, his mother's hand; affection and peace, a holy command. And oh those nights, alone in his room, the realm of demons, the presence of doom.
Mother, dear mother, may I sleep with you? In the arms of your safety and your love so true?
No my son, you cannot I say. Nights are for rest, a salvage for day.
He wandered the corridors, night after night, fleeing the dreams, the weight of his fright. And still he wanders, every night, in thoughts of wisdom and visions of light. One day, is what he thinks, he'll have time to rest, life itself is simply a test. He tells his own son now to be strong! nights are short and never take long. Shorter still as years go by, enjoy them now, for your time will fly. Your fears will fade, as do the monsters you create. You will forget then forgive, believe me you will; so blossom and bloom, dance and fulfill!
But his son still cries and will not give up. Please, dear god, shut him up!
I need my sleep, don't you see? You foolish boy stop bothering me! Go back to your room, leave me alone, just build yourself a heart of stone.
An elderly lady opens the door to the house a younger lady once lived in. It is a big and stately house. The younger lady apologizes, she just wanted to pick something up.
"Do come in," says the older lady, "please?"
And so the young lady stands there, absorbing the memories of what once was and no longer is. Is she doing all right for herself? She doubts it, the very moment she steps into her past, she seriously doubts it.
The elderly lady looks even older than before. Her hair needs a cut and a colour, grey roots are visible. It needs a conditioner too. She has withered, it seems. Every part of her body turns inwards, towards her heart.
"So how are you?" She asks the younger lady.
"I'm doing okay," says the younger lady, "much better now thank you." She has no right to speak of loss. And when she asks after the older lady's well-being, she knows she is to take off her coat for a moment.
The older lady's son died recently. And she hasn't seen her grandchildren since the funeral.
"And it's best not to hope that I ever will, do I? What can one do?" Then she says, "nobody knows how it really is. We all understand it's awful to lose a son. But it's a million times worse, it really is. The same goes for divorce. Who knows? Who really knows what it's like? Everyone looks for who's to blame while there's only one truth: it's equally as painful for both inidviduals. Both suffer the same disillusions. When I divorced I felt failure. How was I not able to get this right?"
The younger woman plants a kiss on the older woman's cheek. She has to get to work. But she stays close to her for a moment, holds on to her briefly, before she leaves.
"Just a second!" hollers the baker's assistant from the back.
"Take your time," says the client.
The assistant emerges, she is fixing her apron.
"It's so bloody cold in here, I needed an extra sweater."
The client says, "you're right. It is cold in here," and "how are you otherwise?"
The assistant's cheeks are flushed.
"Fine," she says and doesn't seem to believe herself. "Fine. So what can I do for you this morning?"
"Two blueberry muffins please."
"All right then, two muffins."
There's a short silence after which the assistant asks, "and how are you?"
"Fine."
"It's easier that way isn't it?"
"It certainly is."
"So it's been a bad year for you too then?"
"Yes, yes it has been."
"Well I'm happy a new year is coming up soon, we can finally close off on this one."
"You'd hope so. But you know the saying, don't you? Things get worse before they get better."
"At least it's insightful."
"It is."
In the brief moment of silence after the assistant has put the muffins in a bag and on the counter, they finally look at each other and smile.
"Not anything related to health, I hope?" asks the client as she reaches out for the bag and therefore has an excuse to look away.
"Oh no, thank god no. A lot of friends have had health-issues though. We're at that age when things get serious."
"So it's true then, things could always be worse."
"Yes, count those blessings, right? Anything else for you today?"
"A carton of milk please.
"At least I have a job, these days you're lucky to have a job."
"At least you have a job. Well then, have a nice day."
"You too."
"You better not be lying," says a mother to her six-year-old who claims to have had only one cookie, "because if there's one thing I detest, and I mean absolutely hate, it's when people lie."
The six-year-old has already left the room. And so it's not the boy she's talking to, is it? It's the friend, who stands there feeling crucified. Granted, yes, maybe the friend did once claim she hated it when people were unfaithful. And truth be said, the friend hadn't been all too faithful. She had gone to Paris for a weekend with a different friend, but said she had gone with her brother. She didn't want to hurt any feelings. These things never remain secret though.
So all right, the friend thinks, I'll be truthful then.
"You're not telling him you hate lies are you? You're telling me," she asks.
The mother turns to her, abruptly and wide-eyed, "what? Oh no, no, no, don't be silly, not at all. Ha ha. You're funny. Always imagining things aren't you?"
The six-year-old returns. He is now really excited. He says "mummy, mummy come see! Santa bought me a skateboard. How did he know I wanted a skateboard?"
"I told you! Santa is a very wise man," says the mother, "he knows everything, he knows exactly who's been naughty. And you know what? Last night I heard Rudolph on our roof! Didn't you hear?"
"Wow," says the friend, "so Rudolph landed on your roof. You must have been very, very good."
The two girls run around the opera house on high heeled shoes that are too big for them. They wear black velvety and satin dresses, they fiddle with their hair, they put on pink lip-gloss.
As the dark engulfs us and the red curtain opens - the one the girls marveled at - I fell into the pitfalls of time.
There I sat, a little girl who watched men in blue leotards jump across the stage, studied the costumes and maidens in pastel colored dresses. I gasped when suddenly thousands of white tutus swirled across a misty stage and they looked like swans.
"We aren't supposed to have binoculars here so don't drop them," my father said. Which is exactly what I did. A woman far beneath me screamed and for a moment the commotion disturbed the ballet. She thought the ceiling was coming down. It lasted only a minute or so. During the break my father said I was to apologize to the traumatized lady. I didn't want to. But he made me tell her it slipped out of my hands, which wasn't true. He laughed, she laughed with him, and all was fine. For them.
The girls play with the bottle of apple juice they are sharing. They drop it. The bottle breaks on the floor and juice splashes all over suede shoes. "I'm so sorry," I tell the lady who's shoes are ruined, "it slipped out of my hands." And yet again all was fine. For them.
A sunny autumn day. A bench in the park. People squeeze together to sit on it.
A woman decides she may as well use this moment to read a book. Another woman already sits there, she uses the same moment to eat a bagel and to study the meadow.
"We speak the same language," she says to the book-woman, who sighs and closes her book. She may as well give in to it, she may as well socialize.
The bagel-woman is somewhat taken aback by the other woman's sudden interest, her questions, her intensity. What city in their country is she from? Is she on holiday? Work she says? So how long has she been there? And oh really! She has four kids!? She must miss her kids! Yes, she does, says the bagel-woman. But at the same time she enjoys having the opportunity to do this, and to be alone.
"To wake up and to own your own thoughts," says the book-woman nodding.
The bagel-woman is now excited, "yes, yes! Exactly that."
The book-woman explains how she used to feel the same about being alone for a couple of days, without her kids. But it's different now. Her divorce changed that. She is to wave her kids goodbye every weekend. Not seeing them for a few days is a must-do as opposed to can-do now.
The bagel-woman listens to how the book-woman separated and why. And that there's a new man in her life, and that she dares tell her but nobody else how she loves him more than she dared believe existed. But it wasn't him that caused it. She knows she hurt her ex-husband by doing this. He had hurt her too. The hurts were of a different nature maybe, but of equal value, weren't they? The world didn't view it that way though. She was to blame, she was to carry that blame.
The bagel-woman's face lights up. She has been in exactly the same situation, but with a different outcome. It almost ruined her marriage. Almost. Her husband is a very calm and collected man, a rational kind of guy. She has no idea how it happened, and looking back she wonders what insanity had taken a hold of her. How could she have fallen in love with her Kroatian colleague, who is so passionate yet entirely unpredictable? She had gone to a retreat and tortured herself over the question what she was to do. What if this, and that, and if she were to such and so then maybe, and so on. Eventually she decided to stop all of it. Deep down she knew the affair with the Kroatian guy wouldn't last, she simply knew.
There's a silence between the two ladies.
The book-lady says, "You knew for sure. Whereas I didn't know anything really."
"You followed your feelings then."
"Not even, I simply went with what was happening."
The bagel-woman doesn't ask the book-woman whether she is happier now. Neither does the book-woman ask the bagel-woman whether she is happier now.
The sun slips behind a tal building, They get up, shake hands and go their separate ways.
She always consults her pendulum. The stone is a roze quartz. She knows it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course she does. And so it's best not to ask questions that are important. Will she have a child? No, it says. It swings left to right.
Ten years later, she is still single. Her 45th birthday came as a relief. At least that issue was now settled: no children.
She was pregnant once. She aborted the child. She was sure it would otherwise die during labor.
Another time, she thought she might be having a heart-attack. Instead of calling the doctor she asked the pendulum. Is this a heart-attack?
No.
She puked her brains out that night. That burning sensation between her ribs? It must have been her gut.
Again, she has a question for the pendulum. She feels she has finally met her match. He loves her, she loves him. She has never been happier. She doesn't want to lose him. And so she asks the pendulum whether she will. She can't help herself.
Yes, it says. She cries because she knows it is true.
In bed that night she tries to calm herself. "I asked 'will I lose him'. You can lose someone in various ways can't you? He could die, I mean we all die. If I were to ask the pendulum if I was going to die, of course it would say yes." It could well take over thirty years before she loses him.
When she next sees her new love she asks him, "what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he says, "why do you ask?"
"Just," she says.
A few minutes later she asks, "are you sure everything's all right?"
"Yes, why?"
"Dunno, you seem kind of," she looks for the word, "different."
If only you'd known this morning, dear woman. If only.
You didn't. You simply decided it was time to get your act together. No more tears. You have an entire future ahead of you. Life begins at fourty, is what they say. So begin then. Right now!
You actually sit down to have breakfast with your kids. One is two years old. The other is three. Sure, there were times you questioned what you had gotten yourself into. You wanted to pursue your career, why not? So many women do after all. You could do this.
And yes, you could. But you woke up one day looking at the state of your skin and hair. Had you brushed your teeth today? You simply couldn't remember. Something overcame you, you still aren't quite sure what exactly. You felt -quite strongly- that you'd had enough. You stepped into your boss' office, perhaps you had stayed on so long simply because you liked him. All the women liked him. All the women worked hard.
He wasn't very nice now. He sighed and said, "they all do that don't they?"
"What?"
"Give up. Every woman I know does, sooner or later a woman who has children gives up."
It affects you, sure it does. You even tell yourself, "o I'll be back, just you wait and see." But as you walked out of the office you realized you hadn't felt better in your life.
So today, you're heading there with a smile on your face. You're going to pack your things and say cheery goodbyes to your colleagues. You should have done this a long time ago, is what you feel.
You put your two children in their car seats and make sure they're buckled up properly. They're more fun to be with than you can remember. Maybe you could go to the beach with them?
You park your car as close to the office building as you can, adjacent to the canal. You step out and take a moment to look up at the building where you wasted fifteen years of your life. You sigh of relief. But then, as you turn back to your car, you notice it is moving.
Fuck, you think in an instant, no hand-brake!
The car rolls and rolls, backwards, towards the canal. It seems slow and so you pull the door open and try to get your children out of the car.
Too fast. It's going to fast.
You slam the door shut and try to push the car back. But it has gained momentum. It is too heavy for you. The car plunges into the water.
You scream, "Help! My babies!" and dive into the canal after the car. Other people jump in too. You try to open the doors, break the windows with your fists. This isn't happening. Yes it is. It most certainly is.
How long did you try? Did you look at your children's faces as the water slowly filled their lungs? Did you make contact with them when you knew, because at one stage you knew didn't you? Or did you keep trying and trying to open that bloody door?
And by the time the medics came -which was fifteen minutes later- you no longer dared to look. But you made yourself look, didn't you? You made yourself look at your two dead children.
Because this is it, this has now become the first day of the rest of your life.
*Based on a true story in today's newspaper.
The woman he was born from speaks without waiting for a cue.
I can't tell you how amazing the trip was and special and all these wonderful people we met like this one lady who was sick but maybe not really sick and anyway we took her to the hospital there but they didn't find anything and so we drove her to Paris where she took a plane out, which she now regrets. And Paris is of course lovely and Marseille, well really
- he works in Marseille sometimes, he is a painter en he adores the vibrant edges that city has -
I mean Marseille in no way compares to Avignon, not at all. Avignon is, well Avignon is special. And then of course because I fell ill the first few days we stayed in one place for a while and I saw the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, it was as if the sun was rising on the wrong side of the world. You should paint that, you really should, you might actually sell something
- maybe you should paint it if it inspires you so much? -
So anyway and anyway and this and that and all sorts of things including famous artists she met and who told her all about how art is these days and she could therefore inform him that...
- I know all about art, I myself can tell you all about how art is these days if you like? -
And so on.
He tries hard to listen and to think only positive thoughts. But the painting bit, he can't help himself. It makes him angry.
Meanwhile, inside, he truly doubts whether the past few weeks of his life were even worth asking after? Maybe simply the fact that he had a lovely weekend could be interesting? And how he saw the most beautiful opera he had ever seen? The opera was about a mother and her daughters. Mother, you really should see it. Speaking of daughters, I did see my own daughter this weekend and we had so much fun. She understands why her mother and I have separated. Her mother and I had a few drinks, we laughed the way we used to laugh. And neither mother nor daughter mind that I am going away for the weekend with my new girlfriend. In fact, my ex-wife helped me book the ticket. And maybe he could explain that he realizes now how unhappy he has been. And isn't his own mother happy that he is happy?
Instead, he asks whether his mother could take care of is daughter this weekend.
- Oh, so you're going away then, and not alone I presume? -
No, not alone, mother.
She nods her head in rejection and then turns away. How could you, says her body-language. I detest you.
- I'm going to catch some fresh air, he says. -
And he sits on the sand overlooking the sea for a while, studying the birds and the waves and feeling the chill. He imagines a mother that would come out and sit next to him. Or his father maybe. He would like that.
They don't.
And maybe he could take them to Marseille one day and he could show them the studio where he paints?
- Don't be angry, says the wind. They are afraid.
A man feels a negative force is holding him back. His marriage recently ended. His career has reached a dead-end. He feels he is getting older than his age would merit. His son is suddenly asthmatic. In a dream it comes to him: it is the wood carving from Kenya on his wall. The one with white eyes, a mouth, a penis. He bought it in a tourist shop. He bought many other things there too, last-minute souvenir shopping. It is this particular item he is to get rid of. But how?
He can't throw it away as this would surely release even angrier powers. He can't give it to anyone as he would then be giving that person hatred. He reads online what one is to do: wrap the object up in aluminium foil, that way it won't be able to radiate it's powers. Then put it away, in a box or cupboard.
He buys a pack of foil and uses all of it to wrap the thing up. Then he puts it in his basement, as far away as possible.
Still, he can feel it.
More research leads to sage. He opens all the windows, burns so much sage that he can hardly breathe and in every corner of the house. Out, he says to himself, out. Go now! Go!
Even still, he can feel it.
So he does something he hasn't done in a very long time. He kneels to pray. On the floor, in front of where the wooden carving was and now no longer is. He closes his eyes, breathes in and out a few times and repeats the words: It's okay. You can go now. You no longer need to be here.
The thing is very resistant, stronger than him maybe even. He doesn't want it to become a battle of wills, this he will surely lose. He envisions how the thing is fighting against the foil, enraged. Again he says: calm down, you have done your job. Now it's time to leave me alone.
It doesn't work.
So the he asks the carving that he clearly sees in his mind's eye: what is it you want me to do? And he bows his head to it. He waits for a while, in silence, his eyes closed. Suddenly he whispers aloud, "All right, if that's what you want. I will bring you back to Africa. I promise."
It scares him a little and so he adds, "maybe not in a week or a year, but eventually I will. So please, rest now. Grant me my peace and my fortune. I made a mistake and I'm sorry."
The carving isn't satisfied yet. The man now understands the following: he is not only to bring the carving back to Africa, he is to give back to Africa.
Give back? Give back what? A silence ensues. The carving is settling down, finally. All right then, the man says aloud, I promise you that too.
How does the thing know he means it?
A promise is a promise, says the man, is what I always tell my son.
Instantly he feels that a burden is lifted.
That same night, he runs into someone. That someone that helps him push his career forward.
He is now an established architect. He has forgotten all about his promise. And after he dies at old age, leaving his son a fortune, that same son finds an object in the basement. It is wrapped in foil. This must be precious, the son thinks. He gently unwraps it, strokes it, and hangs it up above his bed. There, he thinks, my father is now close.
I met a man. His wife has cancer. I knew this but we weren't friends so I never discussed it. One day, I told him about my divorce. It made him sad, the way his wife's cancer makes me sad.
We became friends.
Soon, I find myself in the waiting room of the hospital. My friend's wife is there too. "So you must have a lump?" she asks. Yes, but my lump is nowhere near as scary as your new lump, is what I want to say. She tells me that a biopsy doesn't hurt.
It did a little. But that was okay, because I was thinking of her. She's very strong.
In bath that evening some words came to mind. They are of a poem I love: "And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
No doubt, Mr. Ehrmann, no doubt at all.
Dear friend. What do we make of the passing of time? How do we survive the years in which we remain unchanged? Affected, yes. But unchanged.
You sent me a photo of you. I haven't see you for over eight years. We tried so hard to be in touch. You were in Nigeria, I was here. Once upon a time we lived the same dreams. We were going to change the world, weren't we? Yes that's right, we were going to make this world a better place.
These past years all you really wanted was a family. Were you hiding from me all that time? Now, you're expecting twins and suddenly there you are, on the picture you sent me. Back into my life.
You have a small beard now. I find it pretty distinguished. Your eyes look a little tired. You used to wear really cool glasses. Now it's just a simple frame, nothing special. I suppose we are getting old, my friend, aren't we? Remember how you used to have dreads? And you'd wear combat pants? You'd run around New York feeling as hip and happening as the city itself was? Until they beat you up, the African Americans did. You were on your way home from work and you were wearing a suit. They didn't understand who you were, why you had a British accent. And so they kicked the hell out of you.
Was it them, dear friend, that sent you home? Kicked you out of your dream and straight back to Nigeria?
You are more African than you were back then. And you're bald. Your smile is still the same. I can almost hear your laugh. You'd always laugh and laugh and laugh and everyone would hear you laugh. But you were never happy. Are you happy now?
There he is again. Not a man but his shadow. Fading by the passing of time. Winter or Summer, he always wears the same coat. It is a deep red and it must be wool as it hasn't worn down, not in twenty years.
His beard hasn't either. It is grey now, when it was brown once. His shoulders are skinnier, the coat fits him better than it did back then. Back then, he couldn't close the button around his belly and needed a belt. He no longer has that belt. He does still have the same brown woollen cap.
Back then, he played guitar in front of a young lady's home. She was a student. She would always give him a coin or two. Then one day, it was really cold and she asked, "what is your name?"
"Andrew," he said.
"Why don't you come inside to warm up?" she said. She pointed at the shop that was out of business, which is why he stood there. Nobody chased him away. She lived above that shop.
He didn't say anything but went inside because apparently this is what he was meant to do.
"Wait here," she said and ran upstairs.
It was hot in there. He took off his coat and the big, fat sweater he had one day found. And his woollen hat. His hair was stringy and stuck together in patches.
She came back with a flask and a cup.
"Coffee," she said and she also gave him some chocolates.
"Christmas chocolates, we hang them in the tree," she said, "do you celebrate Christmas?"
He didn't know what to say and so he stared at the chocolate for a while.
"I don't like chocolate," he said.
She told him it didn't matter, which he found strange. Why should it matter?
She looked at her watch and said she had to go or she'd be late for class.
"Stay here all day if you like," she said, "it's going to be minus 5 degrees today."
He put on his sweater, his jacket andwent back outside. He took the flask with him and looked for a different place to stand.
He no longer has the guitar, no longer stands in front of anyone's home. He just walks and walks and walks, while staring at the pavement, his arms folded on his back. The arch in his back is painful. He looks up only very sometimes.
One day a woman who seems to have been watching him waves at him.
"Andrew!" she says.
He has no idea who she is.
There's a benefit to moving house: you discover things you'd already long forgotten. An essay you had once written about bridal burnings in India. Wow, you think. Wow. Did I write that?
I also found a book. It's called: "About consolation and sadness." I remembered there was something special about that book. I opened it and there it was: "from Grandma for me" in my own handwriting. Perhaps I knew I'd forget. Clearly I wanted to make sure I wouldn't. I'd need it one day. I'd need her.
Grandma. She was divorced at age 32 which was rare in that time. She never remarried. She often talked of her fears, her pills, her pains, her loneliness. She really wanted me to learn stenography, and to learn to type.
"Become a secretary," she said, "everyone always needs secretaries."
I was 25 when she gave me that book, a book about grief. The book gives us a dry, almost mathematic analysis of grief. But it's not necessarily my sadness I'm thinking about while reading it. Rather, I'm thinking about other people's setbacks, including hers.
My Grandma died in a psychiatric institution. She preferred living there, that's how afraid she had become of being alone. Also, living amidst crazies made her feel more confident about herself. It confirmed she herself wasn't insane. At one stage, family members found her a new apartment. But Grandma had a heart-attack the night before she was to move.
Listen, she is now telling me. This time listen. And learn.
My son wanted to paint something, so I put a piece of paper on the table, squirted some blotches of paint onto a plate. My son changed his mind and played with something else instead. This blank page and paint just sat there on the table for a while. Somehow, it felt wrong to throw perfectly useable paint away. By the end of the day I thought: why not paint something myself?
Me?
Paint?
But why? And what for?
I picked up the paint-brush and it felt really strange. Next came the question what on earth I was going to paint? I felt embarrassed too, as if someone was watching me. I told myself to get over it and made myself think harder about what to paint. There was a wooden box on the table with a bird engraved on it. I dipped the brush into the blue paint and carefully placed a few strokes. Now I was painting a bird on paper. It wasn't at all like the one on the box. This was a different bird, my bird, and I didn't care whether it was good or bad. What mattered was: first there had been a blank page, now there was a bird.
Dramatically speaking, confronting your main character with a choice between "the lesser of two evils" is a powerful tool. We all remember Sophie's Choice.
The other day, I asked my haptonomist whether I'd made the right choice by separating from my husband. I had expected him to embark on some abstract theory about the concept of choice, and question whether or not choice truly exists. Yogis, for example, like to say such things when you ask them about choice.
Thankfully he didn't. He didn't even say, "there never are any real guarantees in life are there?" Instead he said something I hadn't realized myself. He said, "there wasn't a right choice. You were made to choose between two bad situations. One was to hold on to what you had at the cost of a part of yourself. The other was to follow your heart, and that too at the cost of a part of yourself. A different part, maybe, but also a part."
I instantly felt relieved, a feeling I haven't had in a long while. Just like that. There it was.
However, a new question immediately came to mind too. And this was it: "but how does one avoid entering into a situation that you are to choose between the lesser of two evils?"
My haptonomist fell silent. After a while he said, "that's a complicated question," and went on to say something a lot less convincing about life's ways and process and change.
I suppose this is when a character gains true insight. The moment a character understands what she should have done to avoid having had to choose between the lesser of two evils, she is on her way to catharsis.
Two drug addicts - a man and a woman, mid forties - hollered at me from across the street.
"Hey you!" said the woman. She was wearing a black cap, black bomber jacket, black jeans and various gold necklaces. Skinny legs, bright red lipstick, a super-sized beer.
How did I know they were drug addicts? Quite simple, they walked the way drug addicts walk (brisky and restless), they talked the way drug addicts talk (raspy and streetwise). And so here's what I love about this type of drug addict: there's no pretense. They are exactly what you expect them to be. Just your ordinary addicts on their way to the next hit. Consider the amount of substance abuse in your circle of friends which remains hidden behind social etiquette.
"You are SO beautiful!" yelled the female drug addict.
I stopped and considered how beautiful I objectively speaking was that moment.
"Well thank you!" I said, "thank you very much."
Because I had stopped, she crossed the street and rushed over to me. I put my plastic bag down on the floor knowing what was going to happen next: she was going to ask me for money. She stuck her hand into her inside pocket. Perhaps she was even going to mug me. Which was fine by me.
"I need 7 euros," she said and mumbled something about owing someone. I had already opened my wallet. As she held our her hand, I turned my wallet upside down. Whatever coins were in it all fell into her hand. Approximately 7 euros.
"That's all I have," I said. She walked away, briskly (the man had already turned a corner) saying nothing in particular. She wasn't overtly grateful or anything, she simply accepted it as it was. Her next high was within reach, made possible by me.
As she walked away I hollered to her, "you're beautiful too!"
She turned around, walked backwards while confidently saying, "thank you! But you're even more beautiful than I am!"
She had meant it. And had I?
I was putting books in my cupboard and trying to organize them in some way. The problem being: my books are hard to organize. I read books the way I watch films, in no particular order and with no specific aim. I can enjoy Cunningham as much as Coetzee, and no that doesn't mean I've read all of their books, nor will I ever pretend to have.
There's a lot of books I'm supposed to have read, and this concerns mainly Dutch literature books. It's very typical of my culture to think in terms of "supposed to" as opposed to "want to." The million dollar question obviously being, how do I manage to write a "supposed to read" book? When I prefer to write like I read: want to.
Anyway. I scanned my cupboard looking for books I had read way before the thought even dawned on me that I might be a writer. There was only one book left: Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux. It was soft and tattered and smelling old and dust-like. Where had all my other books gone, I wondered? Vanished, thrown away with the passing of time and my moving from country to country. Did I remember any of them? Mosquito Coast for example, what is it about? Something about an island and savages. I decided I must reread it, because somehow I remember that being the best book I ever read.
I suppose that sums up middle-aged life really, doesn't it? Reliving things we already did but have forgotten about and then to do so consciously this time. Not necessarily because we want to, but because we feel we have to. Fall in love consciously. Party consciously. Eat consciously, hell even sleep consciously. And friendships, make friendships consciously.
My dear little boy. How you rant and rave, how you cry and scream. You say things like "stupid mum" and "I hate you mum" and "I don't want to be with you, I want to be with Dad." You punch my bottom, pinch my thighs, you bight my arm. And then you bury your head in that same bottom, hold my thighs, take my arm and put my hand in your lap.
"Mummy I want to be with you," you say and you plead and you are about to rant and rave, to cry and scream all over again. Dad and I look at each other. Here we stand, your Mum and Dad. We are to know. We are to do this right.
I bend my knees so that I am your height. And I hold you and I say, "it's okay. It'll be okay." I'm lying though, aren't I? I'm lying to you, my dear little boy. And next I say, "four nights with mummy. Three nights with daddy. That's how it is."
"But why?"
"Because."
I look at Dad again. Why? Because. That's all we know. Because.
A woman smokes on her balcony. I can see her and like to think she can't see me. I hardly ever sit, and now that I am sitting - simply for the mere act of sitting - I look out the window at her. God do I wish I was smoking that cigarette. Short drags, defiant puffs of smoke. She flicks the butt over the balcony. She is skilled at it.
After that she steps inside. She takes a framed black and white photo down from her wall, replaces it with a painting. Both pieces are equally grey. She walks away from the wall, then suddenly turns, as if wanting to catch herself off guard, understanding her own immediate thought. She bobs her head to the right, then left.
Will she leave the painting there, I wonder? Which memory is more important? The one that reminds her of a summer in Cuba with the husband she no longer has? Or the one she has inherited from her parents? She had so wanted that painting. She had ached from desiring it so much.
"I never do this," she had said to her brother, "you know that, don't you? So I feel weird doing this. But I'm going to tell you I really want that painting."
Her brother had put his hand on it, had brushed the dust off its frame.
"I remember looking at it," she said, "every day." Her voice had sounded whiny. "Or do you really want it?"
"Oh no," her brother had said. See, he was the one who never did that, that thing she just did. He lifted his hand and stepped away from the painting to make coffee. Now, she no longer wanted it.
"Actually," she said, "why don't you take it?"
"But I don't want it," he said.
"No, please. Really, I want you to have it," she pleaded. But he quickly picked up a different painting. "I like this one just as much," he said, while smiling at it.
By now, she had come to detest the thing. And still, she hung it against her wall.
Little boy.
You are too young to feel shame, too young to take blame; blame for the tears.
Too old to cry, too old to lie; lie about fears.
Little girl.
You are too young to be pretty, too young to feel pity; pity for this world.
Too old to shine, too old to whine; whine and feel hurt.
Little boy and little girl. That time will come; to feel, to see, to breathe, to flee.
Until then, just be.
