My first kiss i had on a beach in the moonlight on Tenerife. I was sixteen years old. He visited me once i was back home. I remember him asking my mum why i went to the gymnasium. He thought i didn’t need that. Bye bye!
I have been in love many times. The way a person looks, the way he dresses, the way he looks at me, all those things can spark my interest in a person. Someone may be beautiful. I fell for that a couple of times. I remember a young gorgeous man when i studied in Delft. I looked at him while sitting in a lecture hall. Nothing happened.
I remember sitting in my room with a young man i was in love with. I touched his penis. I remember it being soft and squishy. It rose up a bit when i touched it. Nothing further happened. I remember one night we tried to do it, have proper sex, close to my home. It didn’t work out.
My first proper sex experience was years later, when i was twenty-eight years old. We kissed on a New Years Eve party. I knew him, but not very well. I ended up in bed with him. First it didn’t work out. But i do remember lying awake after a failed sex attempt and waking him up and kissing him. And yes… we did it.
I wasn’t very much in love with him. We broke up after a month or two. It sounds easier than it was. I felt let down by some of my best friends, who didn’t ask me anything about my experience with sex. I broke up with them. That hurt me even more.
After that i fell in love with another man. He didn’t fall in love with me. It lasted for years. Nothing came of it.
The last couple of years i had some fleeting loves, but nothing too serious. Some men i found attractive, but i knew quickly it was no use.
This is part of my life story. I have grown up over the years. Bit by bit. With trial and error. Making the same mistakes over and over, sure.
I hope i have learned enough. Enough to make some good decisions. Do i pick a quiet and silent life or an active and public life. My heart goes to the latter life. In the midst of people, fighting for what we believe in. With all our might.
On Tuesday i went to the Rooftop Walk on the Coolsingel. I spoke with some people who sat down next to me while i was waiting for my time slot to enter, a quarter past eleven. Walking up into the sky i came across them a couple of more times. We talked about the dryness of the plants. Only some planters had a water sprayer, with more moist soil. The whole exhibit was a mixed bag for me. The roof garden idea is good, but in my opinion it can not replace a garden on the ground with good soil and compost and trees and veggies and flowers and comfrey and other plants. More green in cities is something to strive for, but roof gardens is not enough. The other things shown: solar panels and small wind turbines is all fine with me.
Halfway i started a talk with a lady who was part of the Pickwick club, a British social meeting place for women. She was the one who pointed my attention to the little plants in their little pots standing on the roof. It really was a bit off. Not sure they will be standing there in two months time.
I was up there for an hour at least. A lovely day.
Today, Sunday, i am making a dinner for my neighbour from the apartment above. A Spanish kind of chicken thigh stew with rice (for him) and a salad with radicchio and rocket and avocado and walnuts and tarragon and mint.
PS. It is after ten, my neighbour just left. It was a lovely evening in which we had something good to eat, a nice glass of wine, some green tea for him and a coffee for me together with some chocolate. Lovely!
THE Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, and the beech-tree was in the middle of the forest, and the Piglet lived in the middle of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had: “TRESPASSERS W” on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather’s name, and had been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you couldn’t be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one—Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers.
“I’ve got two names,” said Christopher Robin carelessly.
“Well, there you are, that proves it,” said Piglet.
One fine winter’s day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called to him, he just went on walking.
“Hallo!” said Piglet, “what are you doing?”
“Hunting,” said Pooh.
“Hunting what?”
“Tracking something,” said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously.
“Tracking what?” said Piglet, coming closer
“That’s just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?”
“What do you think you’ll answer?”
“I shall have to wait until I catch up with it,” said Winnie-the-Pooh. “Now, look there.” He pointed to the ground in front of him. “What do you see there?”
“Tracks,” said Piglet. “Paw-marks.” He gave a little squeak of excitement. “Oh, Pooh! Do you think it’s a—a—a Woozle?”
“It may be,” said Pooh. “Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn’t. You never can tell with paw-marks.”
With these few words he went on tracking, and Piglet, after watching him for a minute or two, ran after him. Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden stop, and was bending over the tracks in a puzzled sort of way.
“What’s the matter?” asked Piglet.
“It’s a very funny thing,” said Bear, “but there seem to be two animals now. This—whatever-it-was—has been joined by another—whatever-it-is—
and the two of them are now proceeding in company. Would you mind coming with me, Piglet, in case they turn out to be Hostile Animals?”
Piglet scratched his ear in a nice sort of way, and said that he had nothing to do until Friday, and would be delighted to come, in case it really was a Woozle.
“You mean, in case it really is two Woozles,” said Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet said that anyhow he had nothing to do until Friday. So off they went together.
There was a small spinney of larch trees just here, and it seemed as if the two Woozles, if that is what they were, had been going round this spinney; so round this spinney went Pooh and Piglet after them; Piglet passing the time by telling Pooh what his Grandfather Trespassers W had done to Remove Stiffness after Tracking, and how his Grandfather Trespassers W had suffered in his later years from Shortness of Breath, and other matters of interest, and Pooh wondering what a Grandfather was like, and if perhaps this was Two Grandfathers they were after now, and, if so, whether he would be allowed to take one home and keep it, and what Christopher Robin would say. And still the tracks went on in front of them….
Suddenly Winnie-the-Pooh stopped, and pointed excitedly in front of him. “Look!”
“What?” said Piglet, with a jump. And then, to show that he hadn’t been frightened, he jumped up and down once or twice more in an exercising sort of way.
“The tracks!” said Pooh. “A third animal has joined the other two!” “Pooh!” cried Piglet “Do you think it is another Woozle?”
“No,” said Pooh, “because it makes different marks. It is either Two Woozles and one, as it might be, Wizzle, or Two, as it might be, Wizzles and one, if so it is, Woozle. Let us continue to follow them.”
So they went on, feeling just a little anxious now, in case the three animals in front of them were of Hostile Intent. And Piglet wished very much that his Grandfather T. W. were there, instead of elsewhere, and Pooh thought how nice it would be if they met Christopher Robin suddenly but quite accidentally, and only because he liked Christopher Robin so much. And then, all of a sudden, Winnie-the-Pooh stopped again, and licked the tip of his nose in a cooling manner, for he was feeling more hot and anxious than ever in his life before. There were four animals in front of them!
“Do you see, Piglet? Look at their tracks! Three, as it were, Woozles, and one, as it was, Wizzle. Another Woozle has joined them!”
And so it seemed to be. There were the tracks; crossing over each other here, getting muddled up with each other there; but, quite plainly every now and then, the tracks of four sets of paws.
“I think,” said Piglet, when he had licked the tip of his nose too, and found that it brought very little comfort, “I think that I have just remembered something. I have just remembered something that I forgot to do yesterday and sha’n’t be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose I really ought to go back and do it now.”
“We’ll do it this afternoon, and I’ll come with you,” said Pooh.
“It isn’t the sort of thing you can do in the afternoon,” said Piglet quickly. “It’s a very particular morning thing, that has to be done in the morning, and, if possible, between the hours of What would you say the time was?”
“About twelve,” said Winnie-the-Pooh, looking at the sun.
“Between, as I was saying, the hours of twelve and twelve five. So, really, dear old Pooh, if you’ll excuse me—What’s that.”
Pooh looked up at the sky, and then, as he heard the whistle again, he looked up into the branches of a big oak-tree, and then he saw a friend of his.
“It’s Christopher Robin,” he said.
“Ah, then you’ll be all right,” said Piglet.
“You’ll be quite safe with him. Good-bye,” and he trotted off home as quickly as he could, very glad to be Out of All Danger again.
Christopher Robin came slowly down his tree.
“Silly old Bear,” he said, “what were you doing? First you went round the spinney twice by yourself, and then Piglet ran after you and you went round again together, and then you were just going round a fourth time”
“Wait a moment,” said Winnie-the-Pooh, holding up his paw.
He sat down and thought, in the most thoughtful way he could think. Then he fitted his paw into one of the Tracks …and then he scratched his nose twice, and stood up.
“Yes,” said Winnie-the-Pooh.
“I see now,” said Winnie-the-Pooh.
“I have been Foolish and Deluded,” said he, “and I am a Bear of no Brain at All.”
“You’re the Best Bear in All the World,” said Christopher Robin soothingly.
“Am I?” said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up suddenly.
This morning i walked out of the house i live in, i took a few steps and was called by a good friend who was on his way to work. He asked me how i was. I started to cry. I couldn’t help myself. A woman was standing in her window below where he lived and asked what was wrong. She said she was going on a holiday today (= Monday) and that i could live in her house for three to four weeks.
I will move in today, after three o’clock. It is a short term solution of course. I do need to think about a long term one. But it does buy me a bit more time. So still, yay!
The past few weeks i’ve been having mixed and elevated emotions. Saturday morning i went for a walk. I sat outside of a coffee bar, drank a cappuccino and read the newspaper. After i finished i walked into the center of town. I was looking at the people and the shops with a distant and observing feeling. I enjoy walking into the center, not to buy anything but to look at the people.
At the market i talked with a friend. I confessed i collapsed during a phone talk with my mother the day before. Stupid filthy money. Stupid filthy world. Nothing goes as i want. The past eight years i have given up everything i have. My house. My work. I’m sitting here with nothing to show for it. I have let everything come to nothing.
That is what i keep saying to myself. This is not true of course. I have learned so much. About myself. About the world. About other people. Yes i was scared. Yes i kept it as low risk as possible. I sold my house with the provision i could keep living in it for two more years. I paid for my livelihood from the money i made with selling my house. Now i’m here, no where left to turn to.
Why? Why did i do this? Why did i let it all fall out of my hands? Why?
I can not disguise this hopeless feeling i have with feeling in love, doing the best i can, fighting for my life the only way i think possible. That all means nothing in the face of my going broke. Being against war, against the weapon industry, the oil industry, the agricultural industry, that is all fine sure. But it leads me nowhere.
What made me decide to go this way? What drove me? It is all gone. I wish i could run back to my old home, hide away and live my life safely away from prying eyes.
I have nothing left to go back to. Here i am, alone, no money, no home. I have some friends, but i can not live off them. Where do i go from here?
I would like to say i wish i knew, but i do not know. Time will tell. Until the time things will be a bit clearer, i can only try to stay calm. It will not be the end of the world.
