Categories for My story

I’m not sure why i feel the way i do right now. I have said it the past days, a couple of times. I had this sledgehammer moment three years ago. Since then i feel i need to work. Work hard. On this website. Here.

I don’t earn any money through it. Not right now. Does this justify me selling my house? Wouldn’t it be much better to stay on living here, in the center of Rotterdam. Have a job besides it? For two or three days a week? What is so bad about that? Nothing. Right?

Still, i refuse. I keep on going. I did give in a week and a half ago. But i’m back. Why? Why am i not giving up? Why am i prepared to go all the way?

I am intelligent. My school reports are an early proof. I have also made countless stupid mistakes. It took me years to find a proper education after high school. And even art school wasn’t all i imagined. But, one of the best things i ever did was making things online. I enjoy the technology. I enjoyed the immediacy. One update and it is online. Great! Other than that, i was careful. But still, many mistakes.

I am honest. After the chess game i played this Monday, my opponent, who had won – of course – told me he liked my way of playing. An honest game, he told me. A true compliment. If i don’t feel any space to talk, i am usually quiet. Here on ellenpronk.com i can be blatantly honest. Sex being one of the examples of that. I do enjoy talking with people. People i don’t know, people i do know, friends, acquaintances. Most people talk about themselves. I don’t mind that. Everybody has a story to tell. And sometimes i do talk about myself. Of course.

I have perseverance. I don’t give up easily. Not when something really matters. Not that i know beforehand what i’m gonna do. Right now, fifty three years old, when i look back on my life, i can see it. I’m like a dog biting something it doesn’t want to let go. Grrrr. I can leave something aside for a while. For years. But to this day, i found a possibility to get back to it. When i gave my drawings to Green Gartside two years ago. I was so nervous. But prepared. The right dress. I had written about it a year before here in The world and the people. The one thing i did in my life which makes me so happy. It took me thirty years to get ready to do it. I don’t even know why this makes me so happy. I don’t know if he appreciates the drawings. I hope so. I truly do.

When i got back home after that, there was nobody asking me about it. I did feel a bit sad about that. It made me realize that i am still alone. I didn’t cry over it. But it was sobering. Only half a year after it i talked about it with a friend. I had posted the story to the scritti facebook group, people responded there. But it wasn’t the same as talking with friends about it.

I am single. Everyone is single. We try to forget. We work, eat, sleep. We talk, shop, look at facebook, smile at silly jokes. But we remain single. Always. Even in sex, the ultimate togetherness, we still stay single. If you are lucky, there is love. Tenderness. Whispered thoughts. Gazing in each other eyes. But we still remain single.

Together we have made this world. With all the people who have lived and left a footprint. This world as it is now. With fugitives, hunger, poverty, war, hurricanes. I am lucky. I live in western Europe, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The Netherlands.

I know many people trying to do good. Thinking about their lives, the stuff they use, they buy. Working in the garden, eating the veggies they let grow themselves. People playing chess, talking, thinking. Together.

I want to keep things simple. That is not a thought from me. I read that in the 80s in an interview with Scritti Politti. I thought about it then, it struck a chord. But i didn’t really get it. It is different now. When i look at the switch i made between lfs.nl and ellenpronk.com, i can see it. There was more freedom in lfs.nl, i cold pick any time of posting i wanted. Days of not posting, followed by days of posting. I am happy i found a proper ending for it. Even after eight years of silence. And the thrill of starting ellenpronk.com. A proper schedule, a wider set of content. The walks, looking back on my past, the cooking. It all fitted in there.

Simplicity. Trying to talk about my life, what drives me, what i see around me. As best as i can. As some people around me say, a diary. Sure.

To me it is far more than a diary. Some posts i write here are created here. I wouldn’t have these thoughts if i didn’t write my posts. This website creates me, as i do create this website.

My mum calls me up once or twice a week. The last months i always say the same thing to her. I’m good. Fine. Excellent even. It is true. I do feel good. Happy. Smiling. I don’t sleep very good, sure. But it is not because i’m worrying that much at night. No, i think about sex. Not sure where that is coming from, but hey, it is not a bad thing.

My life right now feels a lot more windy than before. Before, when i had regular work, when i didn’t need to worry about money, where i was having fun playing World of Warcraft, my life was quiet. Silent. Now it is a lot noisier.

This is my choice. It is dangerous. More things can go wrong. But with all the risks there are also chances things can go right.

The last months i fell down a couple of times. In the Tuin op de Hofbogen, on a wet day, the wooden board was so slippery i fell down. I was lying still for a short time. I had to gather my thoughts. But there was no blood, nothing too severe was hurt. The second time was when we were building the compost bin. The boards were set up, but not yet fixed. I bent over to get a waste bag. And a pallet fell over straight on my head. I felt a bit dizzy. I was a bit mixed up. No blood. Lucky. Yesterday i fell again. I was so careful, but at the end, walking home, i slipped. Still no major hurt. I don’t feel anything wrong with my body today. Lucky.

There are many different worlds. The world of sport. Of fashion. Of make-up. Of beauty. Of movies. Of music. Of literature. Of books. Of shopping. Of advertisement. Of politics. Of money.

Dreams are present everywhere. In songs. In books. Fantasy. Science fiction. Fiction. I am a good listener. I picked up many dreams in my life. They still are present. Not dreams i made up myself, dreams floating around in the world. Hard, impossible even to get rid of. Not that i really want to get rid of them. There is a huge amount of pleasure in dreaming away.

Still, i do need to go on with my life. Make some kind of decision. An action. I am not stupid.

Think think think Ellen. Turn and look. It is so close. Do not dream away now.

Initially now seems a simple concept. Most people understand what it means. Now. This very moment. The time you are reading this. This. Point. Here.

And it is gone. Part of the past. There is another now. So hard to grasp. Hard to keep a hold on. Impossible.

For children their experience of now comes easy. Their past is so small, their future out of their reach. So they live in this now. And time stretches out for this feeling of an everlasting present. When they play outside, with their friends. Building a treehouse, or running through a field filled with weeds and grasses, playing hide and seek. Running around trees with friends. Laughing.

This is something we forget when we grow older. The joy of now. The joy of being in this world. With all its details and hidden corners and pleasures.

This is something i forgot.

Most people grow up. Grow older, learn to behave, fall in love, fall out of love, fall in love again, make children, watch their children grow up. Enjoy life with them. Watch their children experience life as they had, when they were young.

Now seems to be in a different country. This country we live in, with its insurances, its pensions, its tight schedules, its working weeks and time-off weekends, this country is a firm advocate of the future. The past is behind it. A time long gone. Ten years ago. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred. A thousand years ago. Another world. This past is old. Old fashioned. Dated. Not belonging to our new world. With its smartphones, its self opening doors, its fast driving cars, trains, its high flying airplanes. With us. Here. In this now we live in. All the time.

I like making photographs. Many posts on this site show you my photos. Some good, some simply a document of a time gone past. This click. And it stands. This current now. This current constellation of things existing in this precise situation. Seen from one angle, one viewpoint.

My first memory ever is one in which i am photographed by my father. My mother pointing to something behind me, i turn around and click, a photo is made. I can still feel the warmth of the stones below my hands. One year and a couple of months old. A memory which came back to me in a dream. And yes, the photo exists. Somewhere. I lost it.

Many people make photos. On holidays. On festivities. With family. With children. Catching the now. Catching our world as it is now.

To remember what you saw. What you experienced. Lived through. To share with the people who are not there to live through the same moment. To show on facebook or instagram or snapchat or twitter. To show the world your life.

This week, on Tuesday, i was making photos of the harvest in the garden on the Hofbogen. Yorinde asked me to make a photo of her sitting behind the harvest. After that i asked her the same thing, to make a photo of me behind the harvest. Wednesday morning i posted this photo on facebook. There were 32 likes. Some even thought the photo was great. And yes, i enjoyed this. For me, this is quite a lot of people. It feels good to be seen by my friends and to be liked.

This now we all live on, this ever present top of the wave of time we can not fall down from, this encompasses each and everyone of us. We are all living in the same moment. Some young, some in the strength of their lives, some old, some sick, some demented. The past is gone. Whoosh. The future is not here yet. The future is what we dream about, what we think about, what we wish for, what we work at. But our present is here, to feel. With all our hands and feet and eyes and mouth and ears. To be here now. To feel we are here.

So easy to forget. So easy to live your life in this humdrum monotony of years passing by. To watch the seasons flowing by. To watch the weeks pass you by. To watch television and movies and read books and disappear in them. Of course.

Of course.

It is hard to live in the present.

I am not sure about my own life. About the things i do. I know i love the things i do. Working in the gardens. Posting here on this website. Cooking. Walking. Thinking. Living.

This is not art. Even though i did go to art school. Even though some posts here are about the work i made then, about the work i used to make on lfs.nl. This is part of my life. A part i desperately love.

The last three posts had the date as title. Wednesday 4 October 2017. Tuesday 3 October 2017. Monday 2 October 2017. I didn’t plan to do these three days like this. But halfway through the week i knew this was what i was going to do. Not a present. Not a now, but a looking back. One day in the past. And this post is the end of it. Not here with me, not here in my now. But with you. In your now. Wherever you are. At what time you’re in right now. Your time. Your now.

Hey you there