Sandpaper Grindstone
Let me record a new song on your old tape
Make a new sound
Make some loud noise
If it breaks I will fix it
Rewind and sticky tape it
Remix it, remaster it
If it scratches I’ll smooth it out
Slowly Softly
Sandpaper, grindstone
It will hurt so good
No gain without pain
Image by Gantas Vaičiulėnas
Shadow Work
Dancing with my demons
They are behind me
Grind me
Sometimes inside me
When they go through me
Keeping my Head Dry
When I crossed the parking lot to the entrance this not good enoughness started creeping up on me. I was the only one there who didn’t come by car. There was no footpath. Clearly this place wasn’t meant for non- independents without a proper vehicle like me.
image by Pluus
How to be brave?
People use the word brave when I tell them about my move. At first it surprised me, but than many more people used the term when they heard of my move and it made me think about it.
Am I brave? And how do I be brave?
What does it actually mean to be brave?
The dictionary says brave describes a person willing to do things that are difficult, dangerous, or painful; not afraid.
Well I am prepared to do things that are difficult, that other people find dangerous and things that would be painful to another are not that painful to me. And afraid? Yes I am definitely afraid.
I moved to Bulgaria, but why?
I will tell you the three simple reasons why I chose to move from the West to the East and moved to Bulgaria after living in The Netherlands and Ireland.
In and Out of Love
So many people down there falling in and out of love.
Everyday someone meets someone special and every day at least one heart gets broken. So many people so much loneliness and for others the price they pay for company is too high.
There was a time I said: I have so much love to give, but nobody seems to want it. Then came a time I noticed I had given all I got and ran all out of love.
Wouldn’t it be great to find some balance?
image by Pluus
Am I too old / too bitchy/ too boring?
I am generally pretty happy with the way I look. I like my face, my skin color, the strength, length, shape of my body. But now that I am editing the footage that I took last year during our ten week road trip I am dealing with a bit of a reality check:
That I actually look exactly as old as I am. I look tired most of the time, like any other mother at the schoolyard. There is no denying it. And straight away I wonder if I should continue to make those videos. Who would want to watch a tired mother doing mother things just on a campsite instead of at home?
Am I a slut when I show the beauty of my body?
Ok this might sound like a stupid question, but for me it isn’t. This is the part where I am basically not that woke in the current feminism narrative, but I think I am getting there.
In today’s social media I see so many women ‘exploit’ their body for likes. Their sexuality is part of their business model. But apparently that is a feminist thing. As in ‘I own my sexuality’, I do with my body what I want and I get the theory of it but I still have trouble with letting go of what they used to tell me.
An Irishman in Paramaribo
The near reflective whiteness of his skin came as a shock to him now that he was suddenly surrounded by people of all colours. Many more variations in skintone then he could have ever imagined. Even the boeroes, the white descendents of Dutch farmers that lived in this city seem to be a non-white shade of white. Kind of like there were forty shades of green in his country, there must be at least forty shades of beautiful skin in this place. And his shade seemed to scream: 'Attention, attention! Totally out of place, vulnerable, delicate, farmwise but not streetwise and very very very white Irish skin passing through.'
Tikkel Bounty
The black people in the middle and the further away from the center of this get together the whiter and more socially distant.
“I am black and I am proud” shouts a man through a megaphone. The people in the middle shout it after him. On the white outskirts it’s quiet and a little awkward. As much as ‘we’ want to be part of something we can’t join in with this choir.
I am always a little jealous of real black people…
Photo by Annemieke Wijmer
I am a cloud
I am a cloud is an attempt to translate the beautiful use of language in this poem by Ted van Lieshout originally written in Dutch.