Author Archives for Ellen

Corona

A few weeks ago we made jokes about it. A friend was a bit careful and didn’t shake our hands, four or five weeks ago. We laughed. We didn’t take it seriously. It would pass over us. We didn’t think.

Earlier this week i had a talk with friends. Two of them worked/works in healthcare. We talked about the amount of deaths needed for people to start panicking. Ten thousand, one person said. That means two hundred and fifty thousand people affected by the corona virus. We are not there yet, but things move really fast. Exponentially.

In an old middle eastern story someone asked for a reward. One piece of rice on the first square on a chessboard. Two pieces on the second square. Four pieces on the third. Eight on the fourth. Sixteen on the fifth. Easy, the king thought. But on the twenty first square over a million grains were requested, a trillion on the 41st. For the final squares there wasn’t enough rice in the world.

I went out for lunch. I met Vincent along the way. We talked a bit about the threat. We bumped our elbows. After lunch i walked past the Pompenburg Park and said hi to the people working there. When i got home i walked into a live broadcast of the government announcing more rues and regulations.

  • events with over a hundred people are canceled
  • where ever possible people need to work from home
  • people with a fever and complains of aches in the lungs need to stay at home
  • schools stay open in the meantime

The Rotterdam Marathon on 5 April is canceled. Going through the liveblog on nu.nl many sport events are postponed or canceled.

On Twitter Jason Van Schoor said the following things:

Please follow the link above to twitter to see the subsequent tweets.

A post on medium tells us the following:

The coronavirus is coming to you.
It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.

Right now i feel worried. I don’t worry that much about myself. If i get ill, there is still a chance it will be the mild version. If i die, i die. I think it will be a shame, as my life is still full of possibilities and options. But if it happens, there is nothing i can do about this.

We will get through this. For sure.

Published on March 13, 2020 at 6:00 by

Dreaming

It feels like i don’t have much time. Which is false, of course. I have all the time in the world. To live my own life. To prepare for what is to come. To do the things i love to do. To speak up. To fall in love.

I’m still not in love. I do meet men who i like, who i find attractive. But who tell me they are terrible. Who do not fall in love with me. Who do not give me a chance. While this is the only thing i really really want. Apart from saving the world. I think in one way i’m too young. Too inexperienced. Almost.

I am falling in and out of love faster. It doesn’t affect me as much as it used to. This is experience. This is a stronger sense of self. A better feeling, i’m happy to say. In the end we all do live our lives alone. It is the meeting of someone else which can lighten up your life, when you can feel each other and look each in the eyes and be there for one another. Loose each other and see each other once again.

So i am still dreaming. And thinking. And learning. Each and every day.

Published on March 11, 2020 at 6:00 by

Reading

I finished the book written by Margaret Atwood De Testamenten today. I enjoyed it. I did watch the series The Handmaid’s Tale for the first two seasons. I especially loved the first season.

I loved sitting on the couch and read the time away. I did have a tentative plan to go out and bring the compost away and do some shopping, but tomorrow will do for that as well.

Published on March 10, 2020 at 6:00 by

LoveSick: The Question of Love

LoveSick: The Question of Love from NOWNESS on Vimeo.

In a world rife with consumerism, where online dating promises risk-free romance and love is all too often seen as a variant of desire and hedonism, France’s greatest living philosopher Alain Badiou believes that love urgently needs reinventing and defending.

I saw this video through aeon.co.

For the French philosopher Alain Badiou, romantic love is ‘the most powerful way known to humanity to have an intimate relationship with another’. Love, he believes, creates a state of dependence that is an important counterweight to modernity’s emphasis on individuality. In this short film from the UK director William Williamson, Badiou argues that today’s approach to relationships, with its consumerist tendency to focus on choice and compatibility, and the ingrained refrain to move on when things aren’t easy, means that we need a philosophical reckoning with how we think about love. To make his point very specific, Badiou points to the ever-growing prevalence of online dating services that claim to offer algorithmic matching of partners, a way of seeking love that, he thinks, drains love of one of its most vital qualities – chance.

Published on March 9, 2020 at 6:00 by

Peace of mind

Yesterday in the garden i looked up and saw two birds eating and twittering and hopping from branch to branch. They looked like great tits from afar. They sounded like great tits.

I’m thinking about my life, the past years. I still feel the drive, the sense of purpose. I want to get there. This moment of solution. This feeling of wonder. Then i realize it will not happen like that. Not with wanting. I need to give up. This is so hard. I can only touch it in tiny moments. If ever.

Peace of mind. If ever.

Published on March 6, 2020 at 6:00 by

YouTube channel: Bernadette Banner

This weekend i subscribed to the YouTube channel of Bernadette Banner. As she says: her historical sewing adventures. I love the way she talks, what she is talking about and watching her work. She also has an active instagram account at @bernadettebanner.

Generally the garments I study (and thus, the content I produce) range from early Medieval through Edwardian: anything and everything before the widespread use of the electric sewing machine. My goal is to investigate the practices and materials used throughout history in order to better understand the clothes themselves, as well as the people who wore them. I do also make most of my everyday clothes myself–reflecting historical details, of course–so there’s a bit of that round here as well.

So whether you’re here here for the history–or instead wish to learn a bit of the historical origins behind these garments before adapting them to your modern needs, I bid you warmest welcomes!

I don’t have any desire to make any historical dresses by hand for myself. My taste is more current and more minimalist. But i do love the quality and craftmanship of the dresses made by miss Banner. At the moment i’m terribly bad mender of my own clothes. The sewing basics videos are interesting to me because they show me simple techniques for knotting a thread while you sow and different stitches which will work much better for me and my humble mending practices. Her video about a thimble has got me wanting one badly, whether self made or bought, a metal one or a leather one. I need this!

I do admit though, the idea i had last year of making the Japanese Cross-back apron has slowly come back to life. As i still do not have a sewing machine, i might be able to hand stitch this. A new idea! I’ll keep you informed. 🙂

Some outstanding video’s on youtube

Sewing basics

Published on March 4, 2020 at 6:00 by

No question asked

22. Pi / Grace

above KêN KEEPING STILL, MOUNTAIN
below LI THE CLINGING, FIRE

This hexagram shows a fire that breaks out of the secret depths of the earth and, blazing up, illuminates and beautifies the mountain, the heavenly heights. Grace-beauty of form-is necessary in any union if it is to be well ordered and pleasing rather than disordered and chaotic.

THE JUDGMENT

GRACE has success.
In small matters
It is favorable to undertake something.

Grace brings success. However, it is not the essential or fundamental thing; it is only the ornament and therefore be used sparingly and only in little things. In the lower trigram of fire a yielding line comes between two strong lines and makes them beautiful, but the strong lines are the essential content and the weak line is the beautifying form. In the upper trigram of the mountain, the strong line takes the lead, so that here again the strong element must be regarded as the decisive factor. In nature we see in the sky the strong light of the sun; the life of the world depends on it. But this strong, essential thing is changed and given pleasing variety by the moon and the stars. In human affairs, aesthetic form comes into being when traditions exist that, strong and abiding like mountains, are made pleasing by a lucid beauty. By contemplating the forms existing in the heavens we come to understand time and its changing demands. Through contemplation of the forms existing in human society it becomes possible to shape the world.

THE IMAGE

Fire at the foot of the mountain:
The image of GRACE.
Thus does the superior man proceed
When clearing up current affairs.
But he dare not decide controversial issues in this way.

The fire, whose light illuminates the mountain and makes it pleasing, does not shine far; in the same way, beautiful form suffices to brighten and to throw light upon matters of lesser moment, but important questions cannot be decided in this way. They require greater earnestness.

° Six in the second place means:
Lends grace to the beard on his chin.

The beard is not an independent thing; it moves only with the chin. The image therefore means that form is to be considered only as a result and attribute of content. The beard is a superfluous ornament. To devote care to it for its own sake, without regard for the inner content of which it is an ornament, would bespeak a certain vanity.

Six in the fourth place means:
Grace or simplicity?
A white horse comes as if on wings.
He is not a robber,
He will woo at the right time.

An individual is in a situation in which doubts arise as to which is better-to pursue the grace of external brilliance, or to return to simplicity. The doubt itself implies the answer. Confirmation comes from the outside; it comes like a white winged horse. The white color indicates simplicity. At first it may be disappointing to renounce the comforts that might have been obtained, yet one finds peace of mind in a true relationship with the friend who courts him. The winged horse is the symbol of the thoughts that transcend all limits of space and time.

14. Ta Yu / Possession in Great Measure

above LI THE CLINGING, FLAME
below CH’IEN THE CREATIVE, HEAVEN

The fire in heaven above shines far, and all things stand out in the light and become manifest. The weak fifth line occupies the place of honor and all the strong lines are in accord with it.All things come to the man who is modest and kind in a high position.

THE JUDGMENT

POSSESSION IN GREAT MEASURE.
Supreme success.

The two trigrams indicate that strength and clarity unite. Possessions great measure is determined by fate and accords with the time. How is it possible that the weak line has power to hold the strong lines fast and to possess them? It is done by virtue of unselfish modesty. The time is favorable–a time of strength within, clarity and culture without. Power is expressing itself in graceful and controlled way. This brings supreme success and wealth.

THE IMAGE

Fire in heaven above:
the image of POSSESSION IN GREAT MEASURE.
Thus the superior man curbs evil and furthers good,
And thereby obeys the benevolent will of heaven.

The sun in heaven above, shedding light over everything one earth, is the image of possession on a grand scale. But a possession of this sort must be administered properly. The sun brings both evil and good into the light of day. Man must combat and curb the evil, and must favor and promote the good. Only in this way does he fulfill the benevolent will of God, who desires only good and not evil.

Published on March 3, 2020 at 6:00 by

1 March 2020

This morning, Sunday 1 March, i got up around nine. I put on my onesie, went down and started making my breakfast. A baked egg sunny side up, some bacon, an almond flour pancake with butter and some coconut flower sugar. I watched some youtube clips while eating it, wearing my new headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM3. I love it, especially the noise cancelation. The sound is good too.

At eleven there was an interview with Thomas Piketty on television. Enjoyed it. Stuff to think about.

Something for lunch. Time to get ready for the garden. It was busy! I did some wood chips spreading, a bit of weeding, sat in the self warming wood chips pile, nice and warm, watered the seedlings in the greenhouse. Chatted a bit. Sat down and listened to all the sounds around me: the traffic, the tram, people’s voices, birds whistling. Never silent. In the midst of Rotterdam.

I bought a salad on my way back. A bit tired. Watched a bit of television. Went up. And now i’m writing this. A simple report of the day. Thinking, listening, watching, working.

Lovely 🙂

Published on March 2, 2020 at 6:00 by