End Credits

There is something very compelling in the combination of cruelty and vulnerability coming together in one character. Can a person be cruel and vulnerable at the same time? When you watch this musicvideo from Chase & Status feat. Plan B, you can see it in the boy's eyes as he hovers above the ground towards his death.

Necklace

This is a story about a necklace (btw.: as you can see, once I overcame my fear of drawing, I found joy in it, and now I want to do it again and again!).

Yesterday I had a really bad day. I had a talk at work earlier this week, explaining my problems and it was really good because I was as honest as I could be and I can be really scared of doing that when it could lead to confrontation. So I was being brave and I said it all and they listened. They recognized and acknowledged the problems and the share they had in things that went wrong. They promised to make things better and easier on me. I felt so proud of myself and relieved.

And then yesterday, after this talk, things went on in the same old fashion. I didn't feel protected at all, it was like the talk had never taken place, again blames were cast in my direction for a project that went wrong and I was so disappointed and upset by it. At the end of the day I rushed home trying to hold back my tears. And then when I got home, I got into a big fight with my boyfriend. It was so bad, that I did something I hadn't done since I was a child. Whenever I got so upset and powerless and frustrated that words could not express it anymore, I would grab the nearest thing and throw it across the room. Then I walked away, slamming the door behind me without saying a word and I just left and my parents would be really worried.

This is what I did now. I was eating a bowl of lemon quark during the fight. We were screaming and then I threw the bowl, still containing the lemon quark, across the table to the floor. Then I went into the bedroom, but I felt like I couldn't breathe and I had to leave. I went downstairs, put on my boots and my coat and I saw him cleaning the quark from the floor as he asked me: "Where the hell are you going?" I didn't answer. I just left, slamming the door behind me.

The only thing I knew would calm me down, was doing one of my favourite things: going to the cinema by myself, escaping inside a movie. But when I arrived at the cinema, the movie I wanted to see wouldn't show in another 1,5 hours. I decided to go somewhere quiet in the mean time. But I live in a small city, which makes it hard to find a quiet, private, anonymous place. I thought of a church first, but the one I saw that was opened was setting up some exhibition with workers walking in and out. Then I thought of the university library, because it was opened in the evenings when I studied, and I'd been wanting to see the renovations they had made over the past few years. I walked in and felt directly nauseous by the extreme nostalgia hitting me because the odour there was the same as it had been during my happy student days. But there were two guards sitting at the desk and they told me in the evenings I couldn't enter any further unless I was a student.

So then I was lost...I didn't know where to go anymore.

I just cycled and cycled. The scenery started to become more and more green, I was leaving the city behind. And at some point I found myself in an area I had never seen before. This was good, it distracted me, calmed me. I pretended to be somewhere else entirely. I entered fields filled with high grass and spring flowers of yellow, white and red. It became more quiet, leaving the noise of the city behind. I saw creeks with swans slowly drifting, old men fishing between lush green trees, little cycling paths with benches on the side. For a while now I hadn't seen anyone near. Through the trees framing the path I could see a tiny hidden open spot. I wriggled myself and my bicycle inside, and there I sat against a tree, hiding from the world underneath a roof of leaves. I felt grief and headache and tiredness overwhelm me. But I could finally let go. I had space to do that now.

And after going through all the anxious thoughts in my mind and crying warm tears, it became more quiet in my head. I slowly became more aware of where I was sitting. Cold, damp earth beneath my fingers. Tiny bugs crawling between fallen twigs. Fluorescent green leaves through which I could only see little cracks of blue sky. Suddenly my eye caught something that didn't belong in this natural space. Across from the tiny open space, something was hanging from the branch of a tree. I held my breath in excitement, forgetting all about my worries. It was a necklace. What was it doing here? Did someone leave it on purpose or by accident? It didn't look like it was an accident, because when I came closer I saw it was winded across the branch several times, like someone had really tried to attach it. Why would they have done that? Was there someone else here before me grieving and leaving the necklace as a symbol for what had happened to them? As I drew near I saw the necklace was made out of red twirling rope and it had two wooden beads. I held the hanger in my hand. It was heavy. A tooth-shaped stone with horizontal carvings. Who had worn this? It was like I became part of a new story. A fantasy story and this necklace was my clue. Or my passage to another world. The start of a journey or adventure.

This is called escapism. And I'm very good at it. This is why I think, when I finally get over myself, I should be a writer. When I was a little girl I wrote in another girl's "get to know your friends better book" my deepest wish: I wished that life was a fairy tale. She laughed at me and mocked me for writing that. This is what often happens when you tell people your deepest wishes. It's just how people are and how the world is. It hurts. People who say they don't care are liars or they have hearts made of stone. But I know could provide the world with the best escapes they could wish for. And that if I did that, life would become more like the fairy tale I imagine it to be. I would lose and indulge myself in my fantasy stories. I just lack the courage to do so. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all the people who told me I'm talented that I disappoint them. I'm sorry for disappointing myself. I'm sorry. I hope I'll be ready someday.

I unwound the necklace from the branch and I put it in my backpack. I dragged my bicycle out through the trees and headed back to the city. I was on time for the movie: Prince of Persia. The best escape movie I could wish for at that moment. I know and see that it's not a good movie. But I enjoyed it very much. It contains a lot of elements I love and would use if I would make such a story myself. I think I have to collect those elements, and then maybe can I put them together and create the story finally. It did start already actually, but I'm afraid it will be no good. I have such high standards. Oh well...

At the end of the movie I returned home. My boyfriend was already sleeping. I lay beside him, quietly. He asked me where I had been. I said it didn't matter and that I was sorry for leaving like that. He said he had been worried. And then we slept.

Learning to love you more

"The best art and writing is almost like an assignment; it is so vibrant that you feel compelled to make something in response. Suddenly it is clear what you have to do. For a brief moment it seems wonderfully easy to live and love and create breathtaking things. In this section we have archived some of the work that has commanded us in this way. In a sense, these are assignments -- in the same way that the ocean gives the assignment of breathing deeply, and kissing instructs us to stop thinking."

I stumbled across this website while browsing the old pages on Keri Smith's blog: www.learningtoloveyoumore.com. It's a public art project with everyday simple assignments that everyone can do like: "record the sound that's keeping you awake". People who did the assignments could send the results to the website and were posted there. It's brilliant, but unfortunately they stopped because the grant got cut off. But it's worth taking a look and this quote is so familiar and lovely and it reminded me of my own post a while ago.

Overcoming my fear of drawing

I'm so proud of myself!

Tip

This website contains a lot of nice-looking books!
http://www.book-by-its-cover.com/

Max Richter

I just discovered a new composer by watching "Waltz with Bashir". His name is Max Richter. The music is just....haaaa....dreamy, melancholy. Please listen: http://www.myspace.com/maxrichtermusic

List of things I already know

Today has been the most beautiful day. All that rests now is the sunset to be watched from the couch where I'm sitting now and typing while listening to Bon Iver. I've helped some friends move in together. They are going to live in a beautiful house in the middle of the city. Happiness was shining from their faces, knowing they would live under the same roof from now on. The air was clear and everyone who helped out sat on the couches and the chairs afterwards, looking fulfilled.

I'm home alone now. I ate some stuff from the fridge and watched some music video's. I felt something, something I hadn't felt in a long time. It's the feeling I used to have before summer vacation when I was still in school. It's a feeling that anything is possible, anything, anything could happen. So many new people to meet, so many new experiences to be had, new places to be discovered, sunlight to be enjoyed. It's a very powerful feeling and I miss it, it doesn't visit me very often anymore. Maybe because life has become routinely. I'm not sure though. Because life's also routinely when you're in school. Why has it stayed away for so long? Is it because I'm getting older and my life is more mapped out than it used to be? Maybe, that should be it. But it's not really. Anything could still happen. I could run off and start a whole new life. I could live in a warm country in a house on the beach. Making a living by cooking lunch for surfers and writing in the evenings. Life could be like that, it can still be like that.

The highpoint of this feeling was during my travel. And in the light of all things I'm stuck with, struggling with today, sometimes the best you can do is go back. You go back to the moment when you were extremely happy, because then you knew. You knew about life and love and happiness. I took my journal from Brazil out from the drawer and started reading. Life is like that also. It's not just fighting with my boss and fighting with my relatives. It also the feeling I had during this journey. It lasts forever, time's not really linear, I am there forever because I was there once. No new bad stuff that happens to me could ever undo that.

So here's a list of things I wrote down at the end of my journey. It seems kind of ironic knowing now that life would become much harder afterwards, testing the things I told myself and not passing those tests. But it doesn't matter. That's why I'm going back now, because today I feel the same as I did back then. And just one moment like this is enough to erase everything bad in between.

1.: Open your mind. Don't refrain from having that conversation with that stranger. Be curious and open. Who knows what you might discover, it's an adventure. When a stranger asks for your help, drop everything to give him what he needs. You will be satisfied.
2.: Don't ever think you are worth less because someone tries to make you believe you are. Avoid such people. Stay true to yourself, love yourself en you will encounter the things in your life which are yours. You will live the life that fulfils you.
3.: Search for happiness. Work on it, it doesn't just happen. You need time and practice, but you have to start. I have to start. Playing the guitar, writing. I don't want to live in my head anymore, but for real. Let the energy flow to my body and let me be physically tired instead of mentally tired. I can do it.
4.: Don't be afraid of the things that are coming your way. Everything will truly be all right. Be open to the future. Don't plan your life too tightly, you will miss out on things.
5.: Stay in the company of good people, generous loving people who will be there for you and for whom you are there. People who love you for who you are, who grant you your freedom. Share with them all you have.
6: Enjoy good food, good people, good music. Turn off the TV. Go outside. Be cheerful. Look up the sun.

My heart

Lately I have become very aware of my heart. When I go to sleep at night, I lie down one hand on my belly, to follow my breathing and one on my heart, to feel it beat. It's strange, to feel something move inside your body underneath the surface. This organ that's working so hard. Sometimes it feels as though my heart is surrounded by some sort of space. When my boss walks into the room and I'm thinking of all the things I did wrong, the space shrinks. The organ is pounding, struggling inside a tight room, banging on the walls.
And then the other night I watched this horrible romantic film (Leap Year). It reminded me of falling in love. And as I lay in bed nestling in the warmth of the feeling the film had left me, it felt as though the space around my heart was almost as big as my entire chest, my heart could glow and expand and pound firmly, full of confidence.

Problems

I'm finally ready to admit it: I'm having problems at work. This is a topic I really don't like to talk about, because it happens to me all the time. And then I have to talk about it a lot. It helps to do that, and I'm grateful people are even willing to listen. But it's also such a negative thing and it fills me with shame and regret and guilt and anger just to think about it.

I just can't seem to find a job that I can hold for a long time. Bad stuff happens, or I get bored, or I can't get along with the people, I lose my confidence, there's no challenge, I make a crazy amount of extra hours without anyone noticing etc. etc. until I just can't stand it any longer and then I leave. It's making me crazy and it's happening again, for the third time in only 3 years of working. I'm starting to think again in terms of: "if I only get through this week, things will get better then". Until now things hadn't gotten better after that week. Some people say I'm really unlucky when it comes to work. I don't know. As you might understand I'm doubting myself a great deal. I'm thinking stuff like: "Every job has it's downside, so just get over it and finish what you start, like other people. My parents will be disappointed. If only I wouldn't make such a big deal out of my work, I could stay longer. It's just 'cause it's stressful right now, it will be over soon."

But the truth is: right now I'm very unhappy with my work and that it reason enough for me to quit.

A friend of mine gave me really good advice (she's the kind of friend to give you good motherly advice, but you never follow it. this time i did though, and i know i should listen to her more often!). She told me to write it all down. Of course I didn't want to do that, I got nicer things to do with my time. But it really helped. Because all those irritations were floating around in my mind all the time, sucking the life out of me. And once I put it on paper, I realized that my objections to my work are very realistic. They're not irrational at all, what I sometimes blame myself of. And on top of that it made me realize the kind of working environment I want. And that if they can't provide for that environment, I need to go. Of course that's the scary part. But luckily this time it's not so scary, because I have a back-up plan. The whole idea at the beginning was to find out if this job could work and if not I would go back to school again. But now that it's not working out, I still regret it a big deal, because at some point I really hoped and wished and believed that it would. And I greatly fear the future. Because what if the next thing I'm going to do isn't good enough either? What do I do then? Plus going back to school means I'll be making even less money in the next 2 years than I'm doing now. That's scary also. But I'll manage. I know I will, I always do.

Beauty

Beauty causes a chain reaction. It inspires to create more beauty. Although to some it causes the desire to destruct. This is interesting, because the destruction of beauty is a beautiful act in itself, deeply disturbing and moving.