Categories for My story

I woke up last night around four. I felt this hurt inside. The feeling i have failed in what i had set out to do.

What was that? To get out in the world. To become known. To meet people, talk to people. Like i do now, in Rotterdam, on a smaller scale. The woman i met on my walk to the Rottemeren. The woman i met when i ate a chip with mayo sitting on the side of the market. The woman i met today in the pharmacy. The man i met on the beach while i was walking from Scheveningen to Hoek van Holland. The man i talked while he was brushing sand into the joint on the Binnenrotte. Simple everyday meetings, everyday talks.

I enjoy that. Lots. I try to smile to people i walk by. Not all the time, no. But usually i do. Some people smile back, some say goodday. Some look angry, or surprised, or scared. I am careful.

I feel it does matter. It is important.

I do not know this world. I do follow the news, but i do not trust it. It has a tendency to focus on the bad stuff. It shows half the world. Or even less. Even here in Rotterdam the place is not like it is portrayed. In promotion video’s you see the best places, from the best sides, in the best weather. It is not like that.

But i digress.

What did i set out to do? To become known, to get to know the world and the people living in it a little bit better. As i said two days ago, to save the world. Which is a big thing to say! I don’t mean as in the world is set out to fail and i’m the one person to set it right. But it is also not that whatever you do doesn’t matter. It does matter.

I was born in the 60s. The 50s seemed like a lifetime before. Seemed like it was an all together different time. Now i think of my niece, who is born in the 90s. The 80s must mean the same thing for her.

But the world is still the same. Moving through time in the same pace. We, the people, are simply staying here for a short time, trying to be happy, trying to live. Through the last century, the one before that. Before that. Before that.

For me, and i think for most people, the past is like a million years ago. A time you can not get to anymore. Vanished. Disappeared. The future is not here either. It is a definite unknown. Even though you know you read this in a time after 4 November 2015, the future is still not there. You travel with everybody else in this ever present now.

It is also easy to forget. It is easy to have a pension, to have an insurance, to say you will work until you are 65, 66, 67. It is easy to set boundaries around your life. This is the time you work. This is your free time. This is your time for sleep. This is your time to eat. This is your time for sex. Everything in its own box. To live your life as you think you should, as you think everybody else does.

This world is more and more set. Defined. Compartmentalized. The first world. The third world. The rich world. The poor world. The rising world. Countries are all defined and constricted. This is mine and that is yours. Language is a maze of different meanings. What do you say? What do you mean? What is this all about?

I don’t know what life i will be living. I don’t know how long this life in western Europe will stay like this. This rich. This scared. But also loving and caring. I don’t know for how long our money will be worth what it is now. For how long you can buy the food you eat in the supermarket. We assume it will stay like this. But i’m pretty sure it won’t. Things are changing every day.

I do long for a public life. But it might be different from what i imagine.

No, of course it will be different.

What i dream, what i imagine, is settled in myself and in my past. What is new, what is the future of me, is still unknown. And i want to get to know it. I want to get to live it. I truly do.

Please.

This morning i woke up around four. The cat was miaowing outside and scratching the door. I do close it the last weeks because litle Mieke does like to wake me up in the middle of the night with her little paw with those sharp nails. After a while i do go out, walk to the kitchen, stroke her and let her eat some dry cat food. This morning i got out too. And walked to the kitchen.

I went back to bed and put on the light and got my iPad and read a little. Then i got my book and read some more. Modesitt‘s Recluce series now, the books i have. Then i tried to fall back to sleep a bit more. I often fail! At nights i think. Sort of dream awake. No dream is ever the same as another. It is usually the same situation, but each time with a different scenario. Slightly different.

The last couple of days i do fall asleep again in the morning. This morning i had two dreams. Which i remember! This is new, because usually i don’t remember my dreams anymore. But today i did. I made drawings of them. Not terribly successful, but they are still images connected to those dreams. They were not pleasant dreams.

I don’t know what these dreams mean. But i do see i’m scared in both of them. The last one reminds me of a dream i had much earlier, when i was around 20 years old.

I’m in a building in the Shell swimming pool area close to my parent’s house. There are people lying on a sloping curve, their faces visible. There is a gel like substance flowing over them. Only the people at the top survive. They stand up and walk down over the dead people. It is really frightening me. A nightmare.

Another dream i remember is one i had the night i read The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. The book is so much better than the film. The dream is around 35 years old.

I’m running down a street. I do see the street building up as in run from a grey background. I keep on running into the greyness, but i never fall into it. I do remember walking into a house at one time, but that’s very vague.

The last days i’ve been very tired. I do think a lot too. Nothing fancy pancy, nothing dreamlike. I think i’m on the brink of making a decision. Soon.

These drawings i made in art school in the first and second year. Most in the first i guess, but it is a long time ago, so the memory is a bit faded. I got these drawings from the attic today and went through them. There are loads more, but these are the ones which i liked best.

It starts with a series of drawings i made with pastel crayons. I do remember working on these, sitting at home in the front room and being completely focused on making these drawings. It wasn’t like i knew what i was making, it was just the excitement i felt at the time and the pressure i felt of making these drawings. I can still see it in the drawings themselves.

The one photo with three drawings on them next, most likely made with gouache paint. A dark with a little blue in the top one. These were made with gestures and making a solid mass with paper on top of the paper so you would get those cut-out shapes.

The next series is one made with gouache paint as well. I made these at school. I folded the paper and painted different colours on the different sides of the folded paper. I don’t remember how i made the ones with a rounded interior shape. These were made with colours all painted all over each other. I remember the class i got this assignment in. I went in a completely different way than the other students. I remember the paint dripping of the table, as i was working with all these layers.

A drawings of a mountain and a lake with a swan in it. There is also a moon or a sun in the sky. I always thought of this swan as being me. I know, fairy tales!

A drawing of a large quadrilateral shape filled with pencil. Still love making these shapes. I made several of these on lfs in flash. I played around with different random generated fillings and fillings made by the people watching. Still enjoying this. I should check how to make this in html and/or canvas.

The last drawings i used much earlier in homebase. They are the the Girl with a Pearl Earring from Johannes Vermeer. I should make a separate post on Vermeer, i still love his work. The middle drawing is a selfportrait. The last one is a drawing of Whitney Houston.

Since last year i’ve been thinking about what direction i want my life to take, what i want to do with my life, how i want to live. I was lucky i could take that time out. I was lucky i had the money to do so.

I don’t have definitive answers. Nothing clear cut. I do know what i do not want. But i’m not sure i can live like that.

I do know i want to keep on working on ellenpronk.com. It is not always my best work, but it is still a steady stream of work, thoughts, memories. Sometimes very little stories. Sometimes big stories. I still make five updates a week, published at six AM in the morning, CET.

I’ve been through my history. Through my old work from art school. Through my old work from lfs.nl. It is a special sort of work, doing this each day.

I love the walks. I love taking photos. I love going out there and being all alone in the Dutch landscape or the Dutch city. I love going out at the beach, at the polder, at the water, at the harbour, at the river, the grasslands. Looking out and taking it all in.

I love the singing! I know, i need to learn so much! But i’m so happy i’m finally doing it. I’ve been singing for so long, but never for other people. And now i finally am able to sing. It’s sort of difficult to sing a cappella, there is no escape, nothing to hide behind. But i still love it. Even though i find it hard to listen to.

I do hope i will keep up, i do hope my best work is still to come. I do hope people will find me.

I do hope i will bring a bit of joy, for you.