Categories for My story

Crunch time

Eight years ago i started this blog. I update it five updates a week. A maximum of five weeks of holiday a year. I have sold my house and lived on the proceeds for the remainder of the time. The last two years i moved from room to room. The last half year i lived in the house i live in now. For one more week. My money is running out. I have enough only for the next two months.

I am not crazy. I hope so anyway! I acted like this for a specific reason. Truth be told, this process is lasting longer than i expected. Now it is coming to a crunch time. The moment of truth. The point of no return.

I feel i need to pick a public life or a solitary life. That is not true of course, i could pick from a multitude of lives. A life in which i work, a life in which i protest against the current working climate. I could pick anything i want.

But what do i want? I could fall in love. I can sing songs. I will keep on working here. Photographs, dances, write columns, drawings. Or i stay in the hidden depths. Keep on working on myself. Until the day i die.

I just want to mean something to the world. But all i seem to do is loosing everything.

Am i fooling myself with these thoughts?

But what is the alternative? Do we all come in this world with no reason behind it, no story to tell. All a part of the same machinery. The capitalistic neoliberal hyper machine which is fragmenting the stories away from us. Is that it?

I don’t believe that.

What do i really really want? I would love to fall in love with somebody. Somebody who reminds me of me, but also entirely different. Somebody who leads his life as i do, with respect and attention to everything surrounding him.

But this post is not about him, it is about me. I am still waiting for someone to pick me up from this life. And that is not happening. It is as simple as that. I need to get out myself. It is no option anymore to live silently.

Published on April 25, 2022 at 6:00 by

So happy

It is strange i feel as happy as i do. There are so many things wrong in my life, but yes, this happy is how i feel. It is intermixed with occasionally feelings of dread, but that is getting less.

Maybe i am crazy! Maybe i am confused. In two weeks time i will be without a house, with only around 1400 euros in my bank account. But i am not thinking about that at all. I am thinking about what to write or make here, on my website, my personal place.

This feeling is not new to me. I’ve had it before. And of course i know it could fail. I could be wrong. Of course. But it doesn’t seem to interfere anymore, as it did a couple of weeks ago. When i felt bad at times. Not the whole time, but still, especially at night, i worried. About my place to stay, about my money, about my future.

So here i am. Happy. I only half understand it. But it is fine. I am curious to see what the future will bring.

By the way, i am also really nervous. Exited. A huge amount of emotions are going through me. Damn!

Published on April 20, 2022 at 6:00 by

Physical

I lie in the dark, naked, covered by the duvet. I move my body slightly. I move my hands over my body. I touch my nipples. I move my hands over my back.

I hadn’t masturbated for quite a while. I could feel my body responding to my own movements. I love this feeling of exhilaration and mounting desire for an upcoming release.

I am lying on my side. I love the feeling of the fullness of my body, the fullness of my breasts. My nipples stand stiff upwards. I slowly turn my body so i am lying on my back. My hand moves towards my pussy. I slowly begin to push and release. I spread my legs. My other hand is on my breast, massaging the nipple. My breath comes louder.

I spread my legs wider. A surge is building up. Wider even. I start to moan, softly. The duvet is shoved down. I can feel it coming.

The release is lovely.

I lie awake for several hours after. Sometimes i move my body, but i don’t feel like anything right now. I get out of bed around one. I play a bit of turtle wow. I go back to bed. I do fall asleep. Not sure what time.

In the morning i thought about what to write for tomorrow.

Ooh, i know!

Published on April 18, 2022 at 6:00 by

The future i can not see

This Tuesday i lost all fear i had felt about the future. It was the day i let the cat from upstairs in the house. Her boss is away until Friday. I will let both front doors open. I love it. Joep is the name of the cat (Yup ?). Right now Joep is lying on the chair behind me.

I am thinking. About me, what i wish for, what i want. I know that wanting something will not help me get it. I am trying to clear my mind of all the things people fill their lives with. A new car. A new home. A new husband or wife. Something new to pass the time with. Something new to forget that it is not what you want. Those are not things i want. But i have other things i want. Friends. Enough money. An active life, filled with meetings and talks. I do not have those things right now.

Sometimes i am thinking of the world, the universe, politics, philosophy, art. But most often i find myself watching television or youtube, reading twitter. Keeping up with the news. I am not sitting in a little cabin in the woods. I am living in a large city in the Netherlands.

I feel lost. I am here at the end of time, or so it feels to me. And it is not even a true feeling. It is all simply inside of me. All these emotions are nothing but a distraction.

I am waiting for some insight into my life. It is growing inside me with small steps. But is this the best way to make it grow? I simply do not know.

Published on April 1, 2022 at 6:00 by

Towards the end

I need to quiet myself down, find some rest within myself. The past few days i have been thinking about this post. I didn’t write anything down. Today i feel a bit empty. But what i want to write is on the edge of my mind. I just need to get there.

Last Saturday at the market we had a talk about my situation. I said i didn’t want to get money from the Dutch government. But as one person said, it is impossible to live in the Netherlands without any money. Sharing money is bound by many rules. One example: someone helped another person out by giving her weekly groceries. Once this was discovered the person had to pay back around 10.000 euros. This was finally lowered to 2800 euros by a judge.

I did try and get social security, around four and a half years ago. They wanted to get me to work, so i said no. Around six months after i went to the municipality i sold my house.

So here i am. Almost out of money. Filled with despair some of the time. But not always. This past week i felt really good. Happy. Nervous. I have given myself one more week to see if i can make this website work for me. This is the last post of this week. And i don’t know if i can make it!

Earlier this week i felt so sure about what i was going to write. The bit above about the system in the Netherlands was part of it. But the rest i simply have forgotten. Of course this means it wasn’t a important part. I need to learn to wait until it is clear to me what i want to say.

In the end i want to have peace with all the outcomes. If i need to get a job, if i need to get social security, if i do become world famous. Whatever. Have peace.

I want to stick to the way i live my life right now. Calm. Peaceful. Thinking. Sometimes an upheaval, like last weeks thinking about the Ukrainian – Russian war. About which i am still not sure. I don’t like either party, the West or the East. But this post is not about this war – it is about me. I still hope i will find a place for myself here on this earth. I haven’t found it yet.

Published on March 11, 2022 at 6:00 by

What do i do?

My life lately has been difficult. I am scared. My future lack of money, my future descent into nothingness. So it seems. But i am also elated, joyful, happy. I trust myself and my work. They will save me.

I hope.

Today, Thursday, i got out of bed around a quarter to five in the morning. Yesterday evening i felt so happy. It was hard to contain.

I’m tired. But it will get better. Over the past few weeks.

Salute!

Published on February 4, 2022 at 6:00 by

The future

I live in this world which is already made up: houses which are build a hundred years ago, streets which are made a hundred years ago. I live in this little piece of land, the Netherlands, the Low Countries. In this world, with those mighty big cities: New York, Shanghai, Delhi, Mexico City, Tokyo. With these suburbs, ghettos, slums in them and around them. People fleeing into the cities, trying to find a way to survive this world. This complacent world going ahead on its course not aware of anything that goes wrong. The insects and fish and animals which are becoming extinct each and every day: 150 species each day. Each single day.

And i am sitting here on this piece of the world, the Netherlands. It is icy cold. You need to work work work to get some money money money to live your life life life as good as you can imagine wish dream. People are happy happy happy here, or so they say.

I try to manage my life here. But my money money money is slowly running out. I still live officially in my old house, i get my post there. There still isn’t anyone else living there, strangely enough. But this will not last forever.

I have these scary thoughts and feelings, but i don’t let them take over me. I want a life worth living. Scary thoughts are part of the life i want. It can all go wrong. Of course!

Stand tall.

Be proud.

Be confident.

I will make mistakes. Of course. But it is not the end of my life. Not there yet.

Published on January 14, 2022 at 6:00 by

The Academy

Today, Sunday 2 January 2022, i walked to the library. On my way over there i met Mr. Renault, an old neighbour from my home at the Lombardkade. We talked a little. He told me there still didn’t live anyone in my old house, which really surprised me. I asked him if i could come by and check my post one time in the next few weeks. The mailbox doesn’t have a key, so i only need to get into the porch. That was fine with him. I also met some people i didn’t know who i wished best wishes to. One woman who was looking up at the houses at the beginning of the Nieuwe Binnenweg. What are you looking at, i asked. At the houses she replied. I said i liked the houses further up the road better. She said she was looking at the decorations before the windows. I said i didn’t much like those decorations. And i wished her best wishes. We laughed. Lovely.

At the library i got the four final books of the Dark Tower series written by Stephen King, in English. The first three i had read in Dutch. The fourth one was lend out. Yesterday i checked the library website to see if it was available in English. Yes!

When i walked up there, in around forty-five minutes, i thought i would walk back again. But with my bag full of books, i decided to take the bus.

I took a photograph on the square in front of the library. Then when i arrived at the bus stop close by, i took a photograph of art school across the street. Or as i call it in Dutch, the Academy (Academie). I went to art school between 1986 and 1991.

This drawing shown above i made in my first favourite year, 26 October 1986. All the different subjects i loved. Drawing, conceptual, art history, 3D. My second year i had chosen painting and graphic, but my painting was hopeless to the tutor, so i had to pick another direction. Monumental and photography it was the next year. I enjoyed photography. Monumental was harder. I stuck with those two directions. I ended up making self portraits and combining them with texts. So many self portraits. Only two contact sheets i show here below. There are two photos on these sheets which i did use for my exams.

Feel me - Free me - Fuck me, 1991
Published on January 3, 2022 at 6:00 by

My life looking back

I am born on 26 February 1964 in Vlaardingen, a small town close to Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

My first memory is a funny one. It was a remembrance dream i had when i was around twenty of a moment way back in time, when i was around one and a half. There was a photograph taken of me by my father. While i was turned towards my mother she pointed to somebody behind me and i turned back. Click. That photograph is real. That i lost it doesn’t matter, i know it is really taken on that warm day in 1965.

That is my first real memory, in which i felt alive, feeling the stones beneath my hands, the warmth of them, the happiness i felt at the time, even though in the photo i look kinda grumpy.

On my way walking to kindergarten school there was a transformation house with a skull on the door. I always walked meters around that door, or i walked to the other side of the road. I also remember walking to the house my mother worked at between kindergarten and the park.

I grew up.

I learned to control my inner feelings. I did go to Technical University and studied Industrial Design, but halfway i decided i was gonna go to art school. I enjoyed that. After school i organized an exhibition together with a friend. I learned a lot, but it wasn’t my thing. After a couple of years i decided i wanted to go and work. For five years i worked at a printer. I learned so much there. About work, about people. The mistakes i made there are a lifelong lesson. Then i was finished there, i walked away. To another job. Which lasted around 10 years, well, with a job in London in between. That was fun, to be asked to work somewhere based on what was seen on my website. Not that it was any good, but still.

In 2010 the work stopped and i went freelance for around five years.

In 2014 i stopped working freelance. I got an epiphany. I had to go back to my website and work on it. I felt it in my heart and soul. There was no way i could turn my back on this. For eight years i had stopped working on it, but now i had to go back and work work work!

And now i’m here. So many years older. Fifty seven years. And i still can not let go of it. I am still living of the money i got from selling my house, which will last me a couple of months more. And against all odds, i’m still not giving up.

This is my final written post for this year. Tomorrow i will post a drawing, however finished it is.

The first post of 2022 will be 3 January.

Enjoy your time.

Salute!

Published on December 23, 2021 at 6:00 by

Friendship

Around 2006, 2007, i stopped seeing my old friends. It was not an anti move, more a too tired to continue to see them one. Some had moved out of town, some others had gotten children, some had gotten a relationship. I felt tired of continuing to try to connect with anyone. I huddled inside and played world of warcraft. Once around 2010, 2011 i met an old friend in the center of town. I almost cried then while we talked. It had gotten to me.

Over the next four or five years me and my old friends met a couple of times. I ate with someone, i came on their allotment, i visited their studio, i stayed over for a weekend. But it didn’t continue. It wasn’t the same, not anymore. We had drifted apart.

I was on the other side of wanting to have friends. I had crossed over. I was feeling good on my own now. Which i didn’t do while i was younger, before 2006, at least not all the time. I felt happier on my own, cheerful even.

Now i have some friends connected to certain environments. Some are friends from the garden. I enjoy seeing them, talking with them. Others are friends from the market. Each Saturday i visit the market around 11 and stay there for two to three hours. We chat about all sorts of things. I usually eat something there, mussels or haring or – eek! – some chips.

But they are not best friends. I am not sure i will ever get a best friend. Maybe that time is past, maybe i have grown up too much to be able to get a new best friend. Even though i do meet new people enough. I am open enough to talk to people i meet and chat about all sorts of things.

I don’t know where and with whom my future lies. I do hope it is somewhere in a nice place.

I wish! 🙂

Published on November 22, 2021 at 6:00 by