The Taming Power of the Great

Today was a gardening day. I started a bit earlier than usual. I was on the garden around a quarter past one. I got some thistle out around the garden, put the parasol in the table. It was warm. *ish

It was a good day. Talking quite a lot with all the people working. Also talked about my personal situation. Something i hardly do. I enjoy keeping the garden as this free space. In which i learn so many new things, meet so many lovely people, have such a wonderful time.

I was back home around half past seven. Tired. So tired.

I still feel tired. I did make a salad for dinner. Some spring onions, radishes, lettuce from the garden, a bit of cottage cheese. Simple food. Also watched a bit of television. The mind of the universe. I did not agree with everything. But some things shown are special.

I knew i would throw the I Ching for tomorrow’s post. So.

26. The Abysmal, Water, with many changing lines.

Then The Taming Power of the Great. Hmm. Seems pretty good.

But really, i feel too tired to think about it thoroughly. Good night. Or rather, when you read it, have a good day.

*hugs*

Published on May 22, 2017 at 6:00 by
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An empty life

I started this post with looking through all the images i uploaded to see if i could find a good one. I ended up with a text drawing i made while i was at work, my old work.

Hey I’m Ellen
Sometimes i’m on Top of the World
Other times i’m Down the Dumps
This Time i’m gonna Save The World!!!
JIPPIE

A completely different tone than i had in mind when i started to think about writing this post, earlier today. A good one.

The title of this post, An empty life, feels a bit more resigned. It is the reality of my life. Over the past thirty years, since i’m living on my own, emptiness is what i experienced. Not in a terribly unhappy way. I wasn’t crying all the time, no. But i was looking for friends. Looking for someone special. Many times i thought i had found this person. But no. Still not. Friends came and went. Sometimes i left, other times my friends left. Now i’m alone.

My silent period, 2006 – 2014, is the time i had given up. I stopped trying to make it all work. I left everybody. Or everybody left me. There was no argument, no fight. There was hurt. But i don’t think anybody noticed that. There was one moment with a friend. She got angry. I left it at that. I talked about it before. Such a small thing, looking back at it.

I played World of Warcraft. I do need some form of human contact. Some of them are still on my friends list in facebook. One is even the only subscriber to my newsletter. Yay!

The past two and a half years i did feel happier than ever before. Working again! Yay! And yes, i did get back in contact with my old friends once again. But it was different. Eight years of silence works inside of you. I don’t think i can call them friends. I like them, sure. When we meet we talk. It is pleasant. Nice. Sometimes even more. But that is it.

Some kindred spirits become friends in the fullest sense — people with whom we are willing to share, not without embarrassment but without fear of judgment, our gravest imperfections and the most anguishing instances of falling short of our own ideals and values. The concentrating and consecrating force that transmutes a kinship of spirit into a friendship is emotional and psychological intimacy. A friend is a person before whom we can strip our ideal self in order to reveal the real self, vulnerable and imperfect, and yet trust that it wouldn’t diminish the friend’s admiration and sincere affection for the whole self, comprising both the ideal and the real.

Source: Reclaiming Friendship: A Visual Taxonomy of Platonic Relationships to Counter the Commodification of the Word “Friend”

A talk in the garden, two or three months ago. I said it there. I have no friends. A surprised look. Of course. But i insisted. Not anyone to reveal my real self to, vulnerable and imperfect.

Well, apart from this place.

I know, there are not that many visitors. I sometimes feel like i’m talking into a deep darkness. Nothing comes back. But i keep going on. Because i do feel there is still a need inside me. There are still stories to be told. There are still stories to be discovered. In me. Out there.

I have many wishes. Like my wants list i published last week. That list is not even complete. But i do want to achieve most of those wants. My life is nowhere near complete. Nowhere near done.

And yes, money. Sigh. Next week my bank account will be frozen because i’m in the red for too long. I’m still not sure what i will do then. I still don’t know where my life will be at that time.

My biggest wish. To continue working here. Making five posts a week. Some of them long prepared. Some thought of that day. In a glimpse of inspiration. I’d love to keep on working here. That is my biggest wish. Or want.

My life is empty. I have some things i do. Going to the garden. Talk with the people there. Smile. Make jokes. Make photos. Learn new things.

But yes, on the whole, empty. Not barren, no. Not infertile.

An empty life, ready to be filled up. Some things will stay, other things will fade away. Hopefully i will meet people i can call friends. Another wish. Want.

But in my empty life i am.

Whispering. Talking. Smiling. Looking.

At you.

Published on May 18, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Station Hofplein

Today it was the first day of working at the fruit garden at the old Station Hofplein. Going to the market earlier than usual, around 10.30 this morning. I only needed vegetables for a new soup, milk for my oatmeal porridge, butter and cottage cheese.

First, it was warm. It still is. Tomorrow it’ll be even warmer. Not sure how i will cope with that.

It was also busy. People who read about the opening in the newspaper came by, people from a municipal area commission were present, a photographer, someone making a GoPro time-lapse movie. There was lentil soup, a vegan herbal butter, a normal herbal butter, turkish bread. Coffee, tea, water and syrup. Cookies!

I did some thistle pulling. I worked on the herbal butters. I wandered around a bit. Sat beneath Wijnand who was singing songs in the middle of the garden and danced along. Talked with Ronald while we were having the lentil soup. Put my shoes off, walking with bare feet. Filled watering-cans with water for Daniël and Jeroen planting grapes at the fence. Made photos. Sat below the roof of the old station, in the shade. It was warm. Helped at the end getting all the stuff together and bring it back to the Peace Garden, at the other side of the train rails.

I did talk. About this website. About my money situation. Talking about my dreams, about the stuff in my mind is the most important thing for me, right now.

My dreams.

To save the world. For people to notice me. Even though that is really hard to achieve. Because the noise of all the people talking and showing and being in the world is deafening. And i’m not a good shouter. So i’m still not sure. I can see it though. Across. I can feel it. In my bones.

I’m simple me. Lonely. Yes. There is a thought, a dream inside of me, which is pressing on me. Pushing me. Which i cannot let go of.

This world. It is painful to watch. Sometimes. Politics, science, business. All people talking and chatting and mumbling and shouting, watching each other, eyeing each other, making money, living their lives. Kissing and loving and hating and fighting and killing.

This dream. Of me meeting someone else, in public. Falling in love. In public. Getting known. Becoming famous. Living my life on, each day a new day. Changing the world. As we live on. Changing how people feel. About this world. About themselves. Fighting. To make this world a better place. As some of us already do, right now.

I don’t know. I really don’t know. I have no idea if there is anything true in what i feel. It is like completely dark around me. A place to feel my way forward.

And yes, sometimes it scares me. But not all the time. Because in the end, i feel, i should live my life courageously.

Courageously.

Not going the expected route.

Living my life for myself. Dangerously. What i want to do.

So yes, it was a full day. Warm. Good.

Salute!

Many many many thistles!
A lovely dog who enjoyed being petted
Ernst, Jorinde and Jeroen
Carlijn filming
Wijnand singing songs
One side of the station
... and the other side of the station
Published on May 17, 2017 at 6:00 by
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Meditation

Making this video was on my mind for the past few weeks. I’m happy i made it. Twice. The first one failed, it was longer and my iPhone blocked. This one is a bit shorter. Muis the cat comes by too.

I do remember the experience of sitting there. Listening to all the little sounds. Outside. The clock ticking. Bird whistles. The darkness, while my eyes are closed. The light when i open my eyes. The memory to the first time i sat there, only a few minutes before. Not being able to repeat what i did then. Lifting up my hands. Touching my face. The weightlessness of my arms.

Different each time.

Published on May 16, 2017 at 6:00 by
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A champion’s day

An update on my own plants on the one square meter balcony. Bonus: Mouse the cat!
Nasturtium
The rocket growing fast and wide
Another smaller nasturtium
The bay leaf is growing since it got new compost
Bay leaf
Clover at the laurel pot
Coots in the Rotte and two young ones, their nest made with anything they found, including throwaway plastic
Feijenoord won!
In the fountain on the Hofplein, only a hundred yards away from the garden. The noise was a bit deafening.
A swan couple and their six young ones
Working late in the garden
Daniel caught between the leaves 🙂
Published on May 15, 2017 at 6:00 by
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The Handmaid’s Tale

The name Margaret Atwood i am familiar with. I’m pretty sure i read some of her books in the 80s. Borrowing them from the library. I don’t think i have read The Handmaid’s Tale though. I am reading it right now. It is written in a clean language. Not many adjectives. Words describing the world, the people, their acts. A dystopian novel, about a future land called Gilead. Not smashed to pieces, not dirty. Clean, bright. The biggest problem? Babies. Getting them. It is difficult.

So a new world. A strict world. A delineated world. All people are put in a specific cast and are dressed the same. The handmaids wear red dresses. The wives wear blue dresses. Handmaids are raped once a month in their fertile moment by their owner in the company of his barren wife, grabbing their hands while the owner thrusts his cock inside the maid.

CHAPTER ONE

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in mini-skirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light.

There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning, for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh.

The television series The Handmaid’s Tale started showing 26 April 2017. Three episodes were released the first day. Yesterday, Wednesday, was the fifth episode. It is absolutely exquisite. Scary. Horrific. Familiar. Strange.

Elisabeth Moss plays the main character of Offred/June. You hear her voice, her thoughts spoken out through all the scenes. Alexis Bledel plays another handmaid. Joseph Fiennes and Yvonne Strahovski play the Commander and his Wife, the owners of Offred.

The five episodes i have seen so far are highly recommended. Reading the reviews is a favorite pasttime. I mostly go to the A.V. Club and check their Handsmaid’s Tale page.

Hulu, The Handmaid’s Tale, Wednesday stream

This series is renewed for a second season in 2018.

Reviews

Book review

Published on May 12, 2017 at 6:00 by
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In between

Today i felt exhausted. I hardly slept last night. My mind is racing, thoughts jumping over each other. So i’m skipping today.

See you tomorrow!

Published on May 11, 2017 at 6:00 by
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I want

  • to dance in the shops and the streets on the music played there
  • to sing out loud on the streets all over the world
  • to live!
  • to buy the land for the vegetable gardens so people don’t have to worry about it being build upon
  • to have all the schools have gardens for the children to learn how plants grow and how to cook them and how lovely they taste
  • to get more money for the Peace Garden for the new greenhouse
  • to not leave my own house because i can not pay the mortgage anymore
  • to fall in love with a man who loves me back and look him in the eye and see how vulnerable we both are
  • to fight for this world to be a better place with more hope for all the people
  • to be happy!
  • to slowly loose more weight so i can stop taking these stupid diabetes medicines and wear my old clothes once again!
  • to smile and twirl and hug and kiss and love and go yay yay yay!
  • to meet people and talk with them and ask questions and be there for them
  • to travel and visit places around the world and try to make them be better
  • to be filthy rich and use that money to try to do good
  • to be quiet and watch all the things around me
  • to be free!
  • to go AAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Published on May 10, 2017 at 6:00 by
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