Author Archives for Ellen

An empty life

I started this post with looking through all the images i uploaded to see if i could find a good one. I ended up with a text drawing i made while i was at work, my old work.

Hey I’m Ellen
Sometimes i’m on Top of the World
Other times i’m Down the Dumps
This Time i’m gonna Save The World!!!
JIPPIE

A completely different tone than i had in mind when i started to think about writing this post, earlier today. A good one.

The title of this post, An empty life, feels a bit more resigned. It is the reality of my life. Over the past thirty years, since i’m living on my own, emptiness is what i experienced. Not in a terribly unhappy way. I wasn’t crying all the time, no. But i was looking for friends. Looking for someone special. Many times i thought i had found this person. But no. Still not. Friends came and went. Sometimes i left, other times my friends left. Now i’m alone.

My silent period, 2006 – 2014, is the time i had given up. I stopped trying to make it all work. I left everybody. Or everybody left me. There was no argument, no fight. There was hurt. But i don’t think anybody noticed that. There was one moment with a friend. She got angry. I left it at that. I talked about it before. Such a small thing, looking back at it.

I played World of Warcraft. I do need some form of human contact. Some of them are still on my friends list in facebook. One is even the only subscriber to my newsletter. Yay!

The past two and a half years i did feel happier than ever before. Working again! Yay! And yes, i did get back in contact with my old friends once again. But it was different. Eight years of silence works inside of you. I don’t think i can call them friends. I like them, sure. When we meet we talk. It is pleasant. Nice. Sometimes even more. But that is it.

Some kindred spirits become friends in the fullest sense — people with whom we are willing to share, not without embarrassment but without fear of judgment, our gravest imperfections and the most anguishing instances of falling short of our own ideals and values. The concentrating and consecrating force that transmutes a kinship of spirit into a friendship is emotional and psychological intimacy. A friend is a person before whom we can strip our ideal self in order to reveal the real self, vulnerable and imperfect, and yet trust that it wouldn’t diminish the friend’s admiration and sincere affection for the whole self, comprising both the ideal and the real.

Source: Reclaiming Friendship: A Visual Taxonomy of Platonic Relationships to Counter the Commodification of the Word “Friend”

A talk in the garden, two or three months ago. I said it there. I have no friends. A surprised look. Of course. But i insisted. Not anyone to reveal my real self to, vulnerable and imperfect.

Well, apart from this place.

I know, there are not that many visitors. I sometimes feel like i’m talking into a deep darkness. Nothing comes back. But i keep going on. Because i do feel there is still a need inside me. There are still stories to be told. There are still stories to be discovered. In me. Out there.

I have many wishes. Like my wants list i published last week. That list is not even complete. But i do want to achieve most of those wants. My life is nowhere near complete. Nowhere near done.

And yes, money. Sigh. Next week my bank account will be frozen because i’m in the red for too long. I’m still not sure what i will do then. I still don’t know where my life will be at that time.

My biggest wish. To continue working here. Making five posts a week. Some of them long prepared. Some thought of that day. In a glimpse of inspiration. I’d love to keep on working here. That is my biggest wish. Or want.

My life is empty. I have some things i do. Going to the garden. Talk with the people there. Smile. Make jokes. Make photos. Learn new things.

But yes, on the whole, empty. Not barren, no. Not infertile.

An empty life, ready to be filled up. Some things will stay, other things will fade away. Hopefully i will meet people i can call friends. Another wish. Want.

But in my empty life i am.

Whispering. Talking. Smiling. Looking.

At you.

Published on May 18, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Station Hofplein

Today it was the first day of working at the fruit garden at the old Station Hofplein. Going to the market earlier than usual, around 10.30 this morning. I only needed vegetables for a new soup, milk for my oatmeal porridge, butter and cottage cheese.

First, it was warm. It still is. Tomorrow it’ll be even warmer. Not sure how i will cope with that.

It was also busy. People who read about the opening in the newspaper came by, people from a municipal area commission were present, a photographer, someone making a GoPro time-lapse movie. There was lentil soup, a vegan herbal butter, a normal herbal butter, turkish bread. Coffee, tea, water and syrup. Cookies!

I did some thistle pulling. I worked on the herbal butters. I wandered around a bit. Sat beneath Wijnand who was singing songs in the middle of the garden and danced along. Talked with Ronald while we were having the lentil soup. Put my shoes off, walking with bare feet. Filled watering-cans with water for Daniël and Jeroen planting grapes at the fence. Made photos. Sat below the roof of the old station, in the shade. It was warm. Helped at the end getting all the stuff together and bring it back to the Peace Garden, at the other side of the train rails.

I did talk. About this website. About my money situation. Talking about my dreams, about the stuff in my mind is the most important thing for me, right now.

My dreams.

To save the world. For people to notice me. Even though that is really hard to achieve. Because the noise of all the people talking and showing and being in the world is deafening. And i’m not a good shouter. So i’m still not sure. I can see it though. Across. I can feel it. In my bones.

I’m simple me. Lonely. Yes. There is a thought, a dream inside of me, which is pressing on me. Pushing me. Which i cannot let go of.

This world. It is painful to watch. Sometimes. Politics, science, business. All people talking and chatting and mumbling and shouting, watching each other, eyeing each other, making money, living their lives. Kissing and loving and hating and fighting and killing.

This dream. Of me meeting someone else, in public. Falling in love. In public. Getting known. Becoming famous. Living my life on, each day a new day. Changing the world. As we live on. Changing how people feel. About this world. About themselves. Fighting. To make this world a better place. As some of us already do, right now.

I don’t know. I really don’t know. I have no idea if there is anything true in what i feel. It is like completely dark around me. A place to feel my way forward.

And yes, sometimes it scares me. But not all the time. Because in the end, i feel, i should live my life courageously.

Courageously.

Not going the expected route.

Living my life for myself. Dangerously. What i want to do.

So yes, it was a full day. Warm. Good.

Salute!

Many many many thistles!
A lovely dog who enjoyed being petted
Ernst, Jorinde and Jeroen
Carlijn filming
Wijnand singing songs
One side of the station
... and the other side of the station
Published on May 17, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Meditation

Making this video was on my mind for the past few weeks. I’m happy i made it. Twice. The first one failed, it was longer and my iPhone blocked. This one is a bit shorter. Muis the cat comes by too.

I do remember the experience of sitting there. Listening to all the little sounds. Outside. The clock ticking. Bird whistles. The darkness, while my eyes are closed. The light when i open my eyes. The memory to the first time i sat there, only a few minutes before. Not being able to repeat what i did then. Lifting up my hands. Touching my face. The weightlessness of my arms.

Different each time.

Published on May 16, 2017 at 6:00 by
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A champion’s day

An update on my own plants on the one square meter balcony. Bonus: Mouse the cat!
Nasturtium
The rocket growing fast and wide
Another smaller nasturtium
The bay leaf is growing since it got new compost
Bay leaf
Clover at the laurel pot
Coots in the Rotte and two young ones, their nest made with anything they found, including throwaway plastic
Feijenoord won!
In the fountain on the Hofplein, only a hundred yards away from the garden. The noise was a bit deafening.
A swan couple and their six young ones
Working late in the garden
Daniel caught between the leaves 🙂
Published on May 15, 2017 at 6:00 by
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The Handmaid’s Tale

The name Margaret Atwood i am familiar with. I’m pretty sure i read some of her books in the 80s. Borrowing them from the library. I don’t think i have read The Handmaid’s Tale though. I am reading it right now. It is written in a clean language. Not many adjectives. Words describing the world, the people, their acts. A dystopian novel, about a future land called Gilead. Not smashed to pieces, not dirty. Clean, bright. The biggest problem? Babies. Getting them. It is difficult.

So a new world. A strict world. A delineated world. All people are put in a specific cast and are dressed the same. The handmaids wear red dresses. The wives wear blue dresses. Handmaids are raped once a month in their fertile moment by their owner in the company of his barren wife, grabbing their hands while the owner thrusts his cock inside the maid.

CHAPTER ONE

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in mini-skirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light.

There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning, for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh.

The television series The Handmaid’s Tale started showing 26 April 2017. Three episodes were released the first day. Yesterday, Wednesday, was the fifth episode. It is absolutely exquisite. Scary. Horrific. Familiar. Strange.

Elisabeth Moss plays the main character of Offred/June. You hear her voice, her thoughts spoken out through all the scenes. Alexis Bledel plays another handmaid. Joseph Fiennes and Yvonne Strahovski play the Commander and his Wife, the owners of Offred.

The five episodes i have seen so far are highly recommended. Reading the reviews is a favorite pasttime. I mostly go to the A.V. Club and check their Handsmaid’s Tale page.

Hulu, The Handmaid’s Tale, Wednesday stream

This series is renewed for a second season in 2018.

Reviews

Book review

Published on May 12, 2017 at 6:00 by
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In between

Today i felt exhausted. I hardly slept last night. My mind is racing, thoughts jumping over each other. So i’m skipping today.

See you tomorrow!

Published on May 11, 2017 at 6:00 by
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I want

  • to dance in the shops and the streets on the music played there
  • to sing out loud on the streets all over the world
  • to live!
  • to buy the land for the vegetable gardens so people don’t have to worry about it being build upon
  • to have all the schools have gardens for the children to learn how plants grow and how to cook them and how lovely they taste
  • to get more money for the Peace Garden for the new greenhouse
  • to not leave my own house because i can not pay the mortgage anymore
  • to fall in love with a man who loves me back and look him in the eye and see how vulnerable we both are
  • to fight for this world to be a better place with more hope for all the people
  • to be happy!
  • to slowly loose more weight so i can stop taking these stupid diabetes medicines and wear my old clothes once again!
  • to smile and twirl and hug and kiss and love and go yay yay yay!
  • to meet people and talk with them and ask questions and be there for them
  • to travel and visit places around the world and try to make them be better
  • to be filthy rich and use that money to try to do good
  • to be quiet and watch all the things around me
  • to be free!
  • to go AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Published on May 10, 2017 at 6:00 by
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A crowded Sunday

A week ago i was pulling out thistles. I was using a small spade, sticking it in the ground close to the root, using the palm of my hand to push it in deep. I got a blister. I found out when i removed my gardening gloves. It was already open. It was a bit hurtful the first few days. I can still feel it right now, but the hurt is gone. The first few days i was a bit more careful getting out weeds. Still, my first blister! Something to be proud of.
Halfway the gardening time we walked to the big market square. There were big screens up where people could watch the Excelsior-Feijenoord game. Feijenoord is hopefully going to win the KNVB Cup. Not today though, they lost: 3 - 0.
People climbed all the structures places on the market square.
Mostly young people. And lots of beer.

Stadslandbouwkas “De Oude Beer”
Through a link on facebook i saw a movie about a big city greenhouse “De Oude Beer” in Dordrecht last week. The greenhouse has 4000 square meters inside and a 100 square meters outside space. No chemical fertilizer and pesticides are used. A lovely movie, about building up the garden, weeding and seeding and planting. And peppers!

More informatie about this project on their website: stadslandbouwdordrecht.nl/plattegrond/stadslandbouwkas-oude-beer

Published on May 8, 2017 at 6:00 by
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A completed life

The Dutch party D66 is advocate of a law which will enable elderly to end their life when they believe their life is completed. The elderly are people of 75 years or older. This is different from the euthanasia law, which is build on a medical perspective.

In March 2017 in the Dutch program Nieuwsuur Alexander Pechtold was interviewed for almost an hour. There were also some people invited to ask a question. Martin Kock was one of those people. He has a death wish, but is still 18 years younger than 75. He wants to know why he can not make his own decision.

I saw this episode later on. For a couple of days this topic was trending in the news shows on Dutch television. I didn’t follow it at the time, but it did stick in my mind. Parts of me were puzzled by the question. It is also a strange topic for me. I don’t have any desire to make an end of my life. I enjoy it with all intensity.

I found another clip on youtube where Martin Kock talks to the camera and explains more about his wish.

Later on in the program De Wereld Draait Door there was a discussion between Pechtold and Segers, the list puller of the Christen Union.

The past few months this topic stayed with me. At one point i talked with my mother about it. Did she know anyone around her who felt her life was complete. No. This doesn’t mean all, of course. Most people will not talk about this. So you will not know it if someone does feel this desire.

An article in the Groene, Extra Bingo Is Geen Oplossing (1 June 2016 ). Decay, loneliness, loss. The ingredients of a completed life. A 2011 research of the VU University Medical Center Amsterdam showed that a hundred thousand elderly people in the Netherlands have a death wish or a diminished will to live.

What is a completed life? It seems to me a life full of accomplished wishes, full of life, work, friends. A moment in life where you look back upon it and feel happy with the work you have done. It can be big things or small things. It can be having had a family and enjoying your grand children or great grand children.

This is not the completed life which is meant here. Existential loneliness, is the term here. A feeling of uselessness, loneliness, a burden upon society, a burden upon your family, if you have any. Death seems the only way out. Death is more pleasing than the vision of being dependent on lowly payed young people leaving you sitting in your own shit for hours, if not days. Live is unlivable.

A major problem hinted at in this article and Voltooid leven vraagt ander antwoord dan dood is that older people feel themselves standing outside society. Not being included in, not being able to use your skills to help other people makes you feel unworthy. The distance between yourself and the working society grows with each year.

The articles i found today are very helpful and gives a lot more depth and background to my thinking.

Last Sunday i had a talk with Daniël about this very same subject. I was still a bit concerned about the question being asked. As if you need permission from the government to make an end to your life. I think there is a limit to the influence of government on the people. In the end, the life you lead is your own responsibility. Making an end to it is your own responsibility too. There are many ways to make an end to your life. Stop eating and drinking for one thing. To ask for a pill to make an end to your life is convenient, yes. But i don’t think politics goes into that area.

After reading the articles linked here, i am finding out there are many more issues involved here.

I am not able to give an answer here and now. I am seriously thinking about this. Weighing all the answers of other people, without getting to a definite yes or no. Balancing.

So i will leave this post here.

To be continued.

Published on May 5, 2017 at 6:00 by
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