IMPARAGRAPH

Impa and the desert (2)

2009-11-26T23:10:00.004+01:00

In which Impa thinks herself Sleeping Beauty and keeps the scorpions at bay

Sleeping underneath the stars rather appealed to me. I'd had a few incoherent thoughts on scorpions beforehand, but had dismissed them. We were to have faith in the cosmos. It would know just what to do with scorpions. And so I went looking for a place to sleep. How do you go about that in the desert? Let's see. Several thousand kilometres of space that way and several thousand the other way. That wasn't really a criterium, then. Were there other people near I didn't want to be sleeping next to? Because in the wide expanse of the desert you wouldn't want to end up next to a snorer. Typically. I saw the last rays of a torch reflect off the rocks in the distance, and then dissapear. There was no one near.

I looked up and looked down again immediately.

One billion countless four hunderd trillion stars were making my head spin slightly. I decided to lie down first, so I wouldn't be found in the sand next to my sleeping bag the next morning, suffering from hypothermia and grunting with happiness.

I chose a spot in a bowl worn away high up in the chalk rocks. The Bedouin camp stood on the sand plains at the foot of the hill. The fire had almost gone out, the camels were dark shapes quietly ruminating in the distance.

I spread my bed, fished my bright pink socks from my bag (there's no reason why we shouldn't make life in the desert as wonderful as possible) and got into my sleeping bag. It had a hood that left only my face bare, especially designed so you didn't have to miss a single breeze when sleeping underneath the stars in the dark. And just as I was ready to surrender to the starry sky I pictured those smooth, black venomous stings again. I felt cracks between my face and the hood of the sleeping bag that were positively gaping - from the perspective of scorpions, that is. (I'm very good at putting myself in their shoes.) Cracks scorpions would come dawdling through at leisure, looking for warm, dark holes and bright pink sleeping socks. (You can't fool a scorpion.)

I decided to take strict measures. If the cosmos had my best interest at heart, they would certainly understand if I handled the limitations of nature and science somewhat casually. I decided to install a forcefield. If they did it in Sci Fi films, I could do it too. I imagined lying there on my hill with a gigantic, glass dome over me. If a scorpion came pattering along unsuspectingly, it would hit the glass dome head on. All scorpions would then clear off happily to look for pink sleeping socks in warm sleeping bags elsewhere. In exchange, I promised the cosmos I wouldn't kill any animals in a panic. It would make me extra peaceful, loved by man and animal alike. Knowing the cosmos, they would rather take to my proposal.

It was done accordingly. I slept a deep sleep, completely scorpionfree, and emerged from my sleeping bag the next morning with two pink socks and a deep sense of happiness.

During the meditation at sunrise, a bird came to sit on my knee.

(image not by Impa but by Disney, obviously)

Impa and the desert (1)

2009-11-25T00:10:00.004+01:00

In which Impa says goodbye to the dust but keeps the desert with her

I lower my body into the tub. My skin wears the desert dust; there's sand in my hair. As the water encloses me, I hesitate. My hair is stiff as string, twined by the desert wind for a week. 'A threefold cord is not quickly broken.' I'm reluctant to wash out the dust and the sand, to let go of the last tangible bit of desert. As I sink into the water deeper and deeper, I feel my hair starting to float and wave through the water. I feel my ears fill up and close my eyes.

As soon as my face is submerged and I return the desert dust to the elements, I feel I'm in a different place. The water encloses me the way the sun did. The whirl caresses me the way the wind did. The water carries the softness of the dust, the same mild caress as the endless light and space of the desert.

Taking a bath is different with the new senses the Sahara desert gave me. With my heart still so wide open and surrender still so close at hand. And then I realise that I can simply let the desert go, there, in that warm water, because it is all around me. Because my senses can drink in silence, space, movement, stream and light anywhere.

'Everything is just right the way it is. The people you will meet, will be the right ones, at the right time. The things that will happen, will be the right things, at the right moment. Things come and go as they do, and what's past, is past.'

The next morning my love and I walk along the river in Nijmegen. I feel the wind on my face and hear the sounds of the city waking up. The traffic, the ships. And underneath the noises I can hear, very clearly and very friendly; the silence.

Impa and the little man on the stairs

2009-11-24T09:39:00.001+01:00

Halfway up the stairs lives a little man. He sits there and giggles. I'm not sure if he's really sitting: he might be floating or being present or being spread out across the walls and the ceiling. I'm not exactely sure how that works with little men like him. But he lives on the stairs and he hurts you. And then giggles about it. With shiny little eyes.

When you walk up the stairs, he gives you a little push to make you bump your head into the low ceiling. When you walk down the stairs, he makes you slip on your socks so you bounce down a couple of steps on your heels. And when you are really careful walking up and down the stairs because you won't be had, he makes sure you scratch your own face while talking or stab yourself in the eye with something you're carrying.

He does those things because he thinks you take yourself too seriously. Because you work so hard and try to make life as pleasant as possible for yourself and others. Because you worry about the environment, great suffering and the energy system of all things in general. He also considers those things very important but he also knows you have to take a step back once in a while. Or maybe he thinks there's another perspective inside of you that needs to be shaken loose. That's when he hurts you and then laughs about it.

And when you look around, outraged, you see him sitting on the stairs, chuckling. With gleaming little eyes. It distracts you from the greater scheme of things for a while and brings you firmly back into your body. And then you can continue. Upstairs, where the moon shines through the window, or downstairs, where the dishwasher purrs.

You rub the sore spot, shake your head, feel the pain and laugh at yourself. As you walk on, you also laugh at the little man on the stairs.

And then you kick his behind.

Impa says tweet

2009-11-03T17:12:00.004+01:00

Were you tired of Impa's garden yet? You weren't? Would you mind if I shared this bluetit with you, then? I have many more of those, and with great tits and red breasts too. It's a coming and going like nothing else.

My sweetheart took the photograph. He's the undisputed master of tits, photography-wise.

Impa and the beautiful things

2009-10-27T18:07:00.001+01:00

Impa Googled "beautiful things are good for the soul" and got only seven hits. Which is simply not on. Beautiful things ARE good for the soul, and it would be nice if our fellow Googlers could be reminded of it more often.

Tomorrow I'll be hanging precious photo frames and paintings on the walls of my new home with a borrowed drill that comes with two pairs of strong arms and good company, also to be put to good use in the garden. The photos get their own piece of wall back in my new living space after years of storage in a box. I'll be able to sit down between the walls and smile - for that's what I just keep doing in this house - and feel that beautiful things really are good for the soul.

It works the other way around, too. Things that are good for the soul are beautiful too. Take holding a tiny little boy for hours. Let's say it's a boy of about two weeks old, wearing a green hat, who sleeps, yawns, frowns, grabs my finger in his sleep and smells wonderful. (My sweetheart says that smell is especially designed to intoxicate women: well, it works.) Holding that little boy helps the whole energy system ground, straight into the earth with those roots until the whole thing is firmly back in place. If that isn't good for the soul, I don't know what is, and I'll be damned if that little boy today wasn't the most beautiful creature I've ever seen.

PS. Cats that glance around whistling a tune, meanwhile pulling your cake from your plate with one little paw because you can't do anything what with two arms full of sleeping newborn, are not good for the soul.

PS. PS. Although I can see the beauty in that too, really. The whiskerfaced bastard.

Sleep, Impa, sleep

2009-10-25T09:43:00.002+01:00

Impa wants to write about the small, white room with the big, white bed. The room a white lamp has been picked out for and where a dark brown shelf will be put up over the white blanket chest. The room where the most treasured stones and the most beautiful flowers will be laid on the shelf and where pink branches will be painted on the walls that will stretch out at night, in the slumber that makes everything possible, waving quietly to the woman sleeping underneath and rustling to her in her dreams; ever on, safely, go on, go ahead, go. Dream.

Where, outside the window, the branches of the vine come curling over the edge of the windowsill, high above the garden, opposite the butterfly tree, right where the birds first start singing in the morning.

For there, in the little white room with the big white bed, someone wakes up every morning with a smile on her face.

But maybe the little room can't be written about. Maybe it can only be captured in that smile.

So soft.

So bright.

So calm.

Impa likes a laugh

2009-10-21T12:43:00.002+02:00

(found at 1meter98)

How Impa met Tobi

2009-10-19T12:01:00.003+02:00

The first time Tobi gave someone a brilliant idea, he wasn't even a week old. He didn't think it had taken him a lot of effort, which was true. Giving people good ideas came naturally to him, slumbering in his little bed. But after all, that is often how it works with owners of a great talent: they themselves find it all rather obvious. They can see things changing in the lives of people around them who find new points of view, but they don't feel the sense of inner inspiration it plants in people's hearts.

After meeting Tobi-who-wasn't-even-a-week-old, Impa went home and thought: Why, little Tobi. What a brilliant idea. What a solution, what a shining light on a lingering problem. And yet so simple.

A hot water bottle in bed.

Ingenious.

Impa in Paris (2)

2009-10-14T01:14:00.001+02:00

Impa just asked a question

2009-10-13T00:08:00.003+02:00

'When you walk into the Blokker shop in Groningen, they hold the door open for you. First, they give you a little tour so you know where to find everything, and then they ask you if you'd like a cup of tea or coffee and if you have any questions.'
'Seriously?' Friend M. and Friend A. asked, all surprised.
'No', I said. Ofcourse not. 'But I did ask a question in the Blokker store the other day.'

Friend M. and Friend A. looked up from their breakfast in shock.

I'd walked up to a member of the Blokker staff as you do, slightly huddled, arms shielding your face. I asked the lady where I could find rolls of shelf paper, but before I could apologise for coming to buy something, she suddenly put down what she was doing. She looked at me thoughtfully and then pointed her finger. I didn't dare look at what she pointed at and made sure I kept her face in full view. 'There,' she said. 'Turn right after the shelf with bathroom items and you'll walk straight up to them.' She looked at me expectingly. I didn't know what to do. What was going on here? Was this a diversionary tactic? Had she warned the manager by pushing an invisible button? Or had she just ruthlessly sent me the wrong way with a smile on her face? Why didn't she look tired, bored or indignant? After all, she worked in the Blokker store and I'd just asked her a question.

Friend A. and Friend M. looked at me breathlessly. I had stepped into the Blokker store in my new city on my own. I was even braver than they thought.

It turns out it's not the Blokker. In the end, there's also Blokker staff who don't think you're pulling a foul trick by asking then something. Who are prepared to talk to you and offer help. Who are friendly. Yes, that's right. Friendly.

But then... Could it have been Utrecht? The city I've loved living in for so long, where you only shop at Blokker when you have an extremely low sense of self esteem and a sickly urge to have it confirmed? To be snapped at or simply ignored?

After breakfast, Friend M. came tripping through the kitchen dressed in a big towel and jumped into the shower. Friend A. cleared the breakfast table. I did the dishes. In the shower, we heard Friend M. coo she was having such a good time (because that's what she does, when she's having a good time). All three of us sang along to Bishop Allen while thinking of the Blokker and how wonders will never cease.

Impa loves being at home

2009-10-12T22:00:00.002+02:00

Home Is Where the Magic Is from Impa on Vimeo.

Impa and the apple turnovers

2009-10-11T21:19:00.005+02:00

Maz left Impa's new garden with her arms full of apples. She held up the hem of her tunic like an oldfashioned little housekeeper, put the large, green apples in there and supported the heavy bulge in the fabric with one arm. Someone held the door open for her and as she walked away, I could hear her say something about apple sauce and apple turnovers.

And behold: Impapple turnovers!

Taraaaaa!

Impa in Paris

2009-10-07T02:11:00.001+02:00

Inside, though, you are

2009-10-02T08:28:00.005+02:00

Impa heard a man on local radio. His voice croaked with old age. 'Lonely, lonely... I find that a very difficult word. I would never say that. I might say' - he continued in the Groningen dialect - 'It don't work so well. As a Groninger, you don't do that, you don't want that. But inside, though, you do. Inside you are. But you'll never say it out loud. And that's that.'

Ten years ago, a drug dealer used to live in Impa's new house. Neighbour P. told me people were coming to the door all night long and tramps slept in the garden shed. In the end, the house was vacated by the police and the drug dealer was evicted. All his possesions ended up on a heap in the garden. Among them were handwritten poems. 'After that, one of the sisters moved in,' Neighbour P. said. 'One of the sisters?' I asked. We were in his garden, watching his chickens. 'Yes,' he said, 'the other sister moved in on my other side. They were calling to each other that the coffee was ready across my garden all day.' Neighbour P. had never spoken to the drug dealer when he still lived there until one night, when he was playing cards with a friend, the doorbell rang at midnight. It was the drug dealer from nextdoor. He said: 'Today is my 50th birthday. Will you have a beer with me?'

There are no tramps in the garden house now. There are a lot of spiders there, but I'm not sure if they sleep there too. I wouln't get a second sleep with all those little legs.

Impa's garden

2009-10-01T23:05:00.001+02:00

Impa's stuff and the van

2009-09-30T17:22:00.002+02:00

(part two of Impa and her stuff)

On the day of the move, we needed nothing short of a miracle and it presented itself in the shape of Friend M. She made her way through the boxes and furniture on the pavement and passed the moving troops who were looking from the van to the things and from the things to Impa with sweaty brows and questioning eyes. She got in the back of the van and spoke the liberating words: 'Here, let me. I'm good at this.' She took a good look at the furniture and the boxes, rolled up her sleeves, pointed at the big book cases and said: 'Those first.' The moving friends stirred. Hope glistened in their eyes. The book cases were lifted into the van. Friend M. stood in the back of the van like a general eyeing the battlefield. The moving troops dragged and lifted according to her precise instructions. She had them turn and shift furniture until every piece fit and for every hole an crack found a box or board to fill it. She didn't leave a single centimeter unused. And that is how the army of Impa's things was beaten under the command of Friend M. and the big, yellow doors of the van eventually fell shut.

I said goodbye to my friends at the old home in the old town. I started the motor of the big yellow van. The diesel engine roared and I rolled down the window. Friend A. stuck his head inside and said: 'I only realise just now. Just a few more minutes and you won't be living in Utrecht any more.' I nodded and swallowed. My sweetheart was sitting next to me in the van and put on a CD. I started to drive. The friends of the moving team started walking along with the driving van. They waved. I can't be absolutely sure, but I'd swear they were walking in slow motion.

I drove to the end of the street.

I rounded the corner.

I went.

Impa and her stuff

2009-09-29T10:56:00.006+02:00

The cupboards opened and an army of things came rolling out. It spread across the floor, in between my legs and around my feet and filed up in rows of a hundred. If you saw the things standing there, legs wide apart, immovable, you would've never believed they'd actually come out of the cupboards and drawers of my small flat. That once the cupboard doors had been able to close; door handles down; keys turned in their locks. The things looked determined. I'd never be able to get them back behind closed doors, that much was clear.

If you're good at putting things away, you can afford to live in a small place. Not a centimetre of the shelves and drawers of my small one-room flat had remained unused and I'd made use of the shed with man-sized piles of things with deviating shapes precariously balancing on top of each other. I pulled my bicycle from in between the piles every day without them collapsing.

Before my stuff had come out of my cupboards in files, I'd already subjected them to a strict selection that was to put an end to the worst excess. For every item, I asked The Three Questions 'Do I use it?', 'Do I think it's beautiful?' and 'Does it have sentimental value?'. Anything not living up to any of those three criteria got sent to friends, the charity shop or the tip, without mercy. The trip to that last one was a joint attempt with Friend M. who helped me load up the small red car as full as possible without it collapsing on its small black tyres.

And the rest?

The rest of the stuff got to come with me and on the day of the move was put outside by the team of friends that helped me move house. There it stood, spread out along the wall of the hallway and out the door of the building onto the street where the big yellow moving van was parked. We looked at the things and we looked at the van. We looked at the things again. Someone raised an eyebrow. Someone else shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Someone else sat down to have a sigaret and a cup of coffee first and I saw someone pull his moustache and spit on the pavement. We slowly got the feeling something might not be right with how the dimensions of the bus compared to those of the things. Or rather - no one dared say it out loud but let's be fair - that the things just might not fit in the van.

[...]

Impa and Blog-Art

2009-09-22T10:03:00.003+02:00

Impa was asked to take part in Blog-Art with the short videos on Impalinea. Blog-Art is an on-line podium for creative webloggers that'll see the first edition of an off-line event on 9 October 2009: a festival in theatre Theater aan het Spui in The Hague. Here, creative bloggers get the chance to show their work, meet each other and others and work together live. It'll all be about blogs as a podium for art and the role of new media; there'll be presentations, lectures and forum discussions and you'll get the chance to see video art, photography, music, cabaret and poetry.

Curious? Visit the Blog-Art site for the programme or order your tickets at Theater aan het Spui. Organisation: Karin Ramaker and Marco Raaphorst.

Impa and the police

2009-09-11T08:56:00.013+02:00

I was walking on the hard shoulder along the A27 when the police stopped me. Several black cases and bulletproof vests were shifted in the back so I could take a seat. On a small screen in the front of the car I read my name, address and date of birth. For a moment I wondered if I was wanted, but then decided that if that were the case, I'd probably know what for.

'Your car is parked on the verge down the road', one of the policemen said. He kept his cool sunglasses on for the time being, even though there was no sun. Ah, I thought. Of course. They checked my number plates. Too bad, really. This way I don't have to wonder if they're going to take one of those mug shots where I'll be holding a numbered sign beneath my chin and there'll be a striped background and I'll look into the camera defiantly because there's no way they'll ever break me.

'That's right,' I said. 'I've got a flat tyre.'

'Then why are you walking along the verge here?' the other policeman asked.

'My phone was dead. I walked to the petrol station to call the Dutch AA.'

The policeman wearing the sunglasses said: 'Can't you put on a new tyre yourself?' I felt a surge of indignation, because I'm a young woman with a good pair of brains and a healthy body. Of course I can put on a tyre. But then I realised it's not his fault for not realising that straight away, about the good brains and the healthy body. Divine, okay, but you can never be sure about healthy.

'I've gladly been paying the Dutch AA about 80 Euro's a year for 10 years now, and for those 800 Euro's all together I'd be happy for them to come and change my tyre for me. Besides, it's a little dangerous out there, constable. What with all that traffic rushing by and those cars hooting. Because if those hooting cars get distracted by me just walking there, I wouldn't want to see them getting off course if I start changing flat tyres in high heels here as well.'

The policeman took off his sunglasses. Maybe he really liked high heels. Or maybe he thought I was saying very sensible things.

They drove me to my car. With a big detour, because you're not allowed to drive backwards on motorways. On the way there, we talked about the new Dutch police motto 'Waakzaam en Dienstbaar', after the American 'to Protect and Serve'. After all, even the police need to be mediagenic and you just can't go without a catchy motto.

'You're the first person to bring it up', the policeman without sunglasses said. He looked at me in his rearview mirror.

I said: That's just because I think you serve me so well, what with taking me to my car', and I smiled my sweetest possible smile. The policeman reached over to the glove compartment and took out a pair of sunglasses.

There was a big, yellow AA breakdown truck parked near my car. The man who stepped out, said there was no need to tow it. He would change the tyre on the spot. He asked where the spare tyre was. The AA man and both policemen looked at me questioningly. I looked over to my little, red car. It was crammed to the roof with stuff.

'Underneath the floor covering in the boot', I said. Both policemen took a step towards my car.

The policemen with the sunglasses asked: 'Do you mean underneath those stools, buckets, cleaning things, brooms, painting materials, tool box, bag with clothes, two laptops and all that garden furniture?'

I nodded. I thought he was saying very sensible things.

The policemen looked at each other, put their sunglasses in their breast pockets, and rolled up their sleeves. One by one, all my things were put on the verge along the A27. Bucket. Holdall. Table. Chair. Another chair. And another one. Laptops. Cleaning materials. Broom. Tool box. Painting things. When the car was empty, one of them sat down on a small, red stool on the hard shoulder. The other one stood at a suitable distance and played with his sunglasses. The AA man changed the tyre. (He had a magic inflatable jack.) When he was done, the first policeman got up and the second put away his sunglasses. One by one, they put all my things back in my car. I was starting to find it so enjoyable I was almost sorry they had to leave. Fortunately, the policeman who'd sat on the little red stool put everything in the right proportions again just in time by telling me if I didn't have a rear view mirror on the passenger's side, I was legally bound to have a free view through the rear window. So that actually I was liable to punishment. 'Obviously protecting too, then' I said, smiling.

The AA man got back in his truck. He'd lead the way to the nearest garage, where I'd get my tyre fixed and call off the meeting where I was suppose to be that evening and I'd never make it to in time now.

The policemen got in their car.

'Thanks, lads.'

They waved, smiled and drove off.

At my mum's, where I'd be staying that very last night before I got the key to my new house, there was spaghetti and beer.

And that's how my move to the city Groningen started.

And then the pizza was in the freezer

2009-08-21T15:23:00.002+02:00

Turn on the oven. Take pizza out of box and out of plastic. Open door, put pizza in, close door.

Impa is starting to know this conversation really well

2009-08-18T17:14:00.004+02:00

...Are you serious?

- Yeah.
Have you got a boyfriend you're moving in with over there?

- No, I haven't. Why?
Were you offered a job there?

- No.
But why are you moving, then?

- Why not? I've lived in Utrecht for 16 years. I want to move on, now. And over there, the air is clean. Less noise. More light.

More light?
- Yeah, that's something I feel inside.
I see.

-Yeah.
Right.

- Yeah.
(...)
- Its a very cool city. I came from there originally, that undoubtedly has something to do with it.
But where are you going to live?

- I'm buying a house there, at the moment.
And what kind of work are you going to do?
- What I've been doing for years, now. Working for myself. Making translations, text. Illustrations.
Yes, ofcourse.
- Yes.
I say. Thats pretty cool, that you're doing that.

- Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it.
And brave, too.
- I think so too, actually.
Wow.

-Yeah.

Blimey.

- Yeah.
Well, good luck, then.

-Thank you.
We'll miss you.

- Thanks to all of you, too. It's been great.

Wow.

-Yeah.

I say.

-Yeah.

Impa goes vroom

2009-08-16T19:53:00.003+02:00

I was on the back of the bike wearing a helmet and thick leathers. It vibrated through my hands and in between my legs straight into my body. The wind from riding drove the day's heat away and I could imagine how he must be feeling, right in front of me, his hands on the handlebars and his head empty. I waved at sheep, for that is what I do. I saw donkeys and birds of prey. The landscape rolled by and I was slap bang in the middle of it.

It's hard, strong and hot and yet a motorbike makes your hart light and your head quiet. I looked at the land and in my helmet heard someone sigh happily.

On the dike along the Waal river I got an icelolly.

Vroom.

What Impa wanted to ask Him

2009-08-13T06:28:00.005+02:00

Dear God. Moving house is really expensive. I'm glad I just heard the financing for my new house has been approved, so at least that's been taken care of. House hunting itself took quite a lot of time and time is money, as You know, and then I haven't even mentioned the added costs for moving, decorating and furnishing. Not that I'll totally splash out or anything, just wallpaint and curtains and stuff. Not that that's a problem because I'm very good at taking care of myself and I'm really looking forward to it, but I still wanted to ask for something. It's the Iittala Satumetsä mug. I held it in the shop yesterday and it's perfect. I'm totally smitten by it. (If you click on the image you get to see it a little better.) Dear God, I'm glad I asked. I hope it works out. I have to run now, because I have to be at the notary's. Thank you ever so much, Impa.

Impa says goodbye (1)

2009-08-12T00:18:00.003+02:00

How do you say goodbye to a city? Maybe by realising that you don't choose your local pub but that one day it suddenly earns the lable because of all the time you've been spending there all those years. By being aware that every street, every corner, every park and every tree houses a memory. By knowing which spots can hardly be replaced. By remembering well what living there was like.

Someone said they felt anonymous among people, but recognised by the city. 'I know these streets and they know me. I'm allowed to walk them.'

But I'm not saying goodbye, really. I gratefully leave those 16 years in Utrecht for what they are. Me leaving to breathe, eat, live, sleep, work and love somewhere else doesn't change anything about the city or my time here and all the memories attached. For even if I'd stay, that past would remain unchanged. And the city itself will still be at hand. Arms remain spread for me here and beds made.

If I'll actually miss the city remains to be seen. That I love it is a fact.

It was good.

Splendid.

Impa drives her sweetheart to the horizon

2009-08-09T23:47:00.002+02:00

... and he takes pictures that she loves.

Impa tweaks lying down

2009-08-07T15:24:00.003+02:00

Three glorious, long, sunny, slow, contented days. That's how long this year's summer holiday lasted. Last year, I adopted the holy resolution-and-mending-of-my-ways not to abstain from the sweet balm to the soul of Vlieland for more than three months in a row, which turned out to be a good combination with this year's Glorious Three-day Holiday.

It was rather crowded on Vlieland, but you can't blame all those other people. It's a comforting thought that at least in October or February I have the Wadden Sea wind all to myself. And crowded though it was, it was also blue, blue, blue, with a daily plunge into the North Sea. Sea gulls turn out to be able to coo, jellyfish swarm. The bottles of beer were cool. We had mussel meals. A packet of holiday cigarettes. A picknick at sunset. There were Vlieland friends. A brisk bit of cycling. Live music.

But most of all: lying down. I've really tweaked the art of lying down on Vlieland this time. I haven't reached pure perfection yet, but I'll just keep coming back to practice. For the time being, especially lying on air beds came along by leaps and bounds. Lying on the grass, on the beach and in the dunes have improved considerably too, but lying in tents especially is much to my satisfaction.

I took my new love on my Glorious Three-day Holiday and can proudly assure you that he passed the test. He loves vlieland, it loves him and he's welcome back.

So we can work on lying in tents some more.

Impa had a nice wednesday

2009-07-30T07:25:00.001+02:00

If they ever ask me: 'Grandmother, do you remember when you decided you wanted to marry granddad some day?' I'll nod and say: 'When he was standing at the stove stripped to the waist and said: 'Why don't I make you a chocolate pancake?'

Of a son and his father

2009-07-24T14:43:00.002+02:00

Days with my Father. Beautiful and moving, by Philip Toledano.

There's more Toledano magic. (Seen at Maz' blog)

Impa and the proportions

2009-07-15T14:40:00.004+02:00

In the centre of my storm of much work, irregular hours, an unexpected love that tempts me with all its softness, house hunting, an entrance exam, gathering documents, signing papers, many kilometres on the motorway, it slowly dawning on me that journeys do not only go somewhere but depart from somewhere too, sleep deficit and many small dances of joy, I was suddenly hit by the indomitability of the greater perspective. It walked in with a round belly and big breasts and her smile didn't just come from her face but radiated from every fibre in her body. Now I understood, now, for the first time, I saw for myself the glowing that pregnant women are said to do. It comes from deep within and gives them the kind of beauty that can't be cosmetic and must be some kind of divine secret. Friend H. was always made of light, but seemed to walk on it too, now. Friend K. has just given birth to her daughter. Friend M. carries a healthy son and Friend C. just heard they won't be able to have children. It turns every life around passionately or heartbreakingly and yet in the bigger perspective is still the most normal thing in the world. Loving, giving birth, dying.
Caring, feeding, letting go.

Breasts, belly, taut skin.

She sat next to me with the heaviness and calm of a pregnant woman and let me put my hand on her belly. All my energy so close to that new being. I tried to give my hand a softness, to keep it clean, but I didn't get the chance. Something inside that belly moved and in a quick shift of reality, the whole world and everything around it concentrated underneath my hand for a brief moment. And expanded again, first to its original proportions and then far beyond it.

The oldest truth lies in the belly of a pregnant woman.

Impa dreams

2009-07-06T22:00:00.001+02:00

'Do you know what I dreamt?' I ask him at five in the morning. As if he's been lying there for hours, waiting to hear it. Between sitting up straight between the white sheets and stumbling through the bedroom door to go to the toilet, across his body in the bed and three steps towards the door, I pour out a flood of dreams, one story seamlessly merging into the other. With a little violence, a little confusion, a few strange people, burst water pipes and tomatoe soup. And did it have a rabbit too? He doesn't move a muscle. 'Good story', he mumbles.

After I have long gone back to sleep (galloping more chaos, always on, ever more), he lies awake for hours.

His bed is too restless.

I know.

I'm sorry.

Just hold me. After all: you never know.

Impa's knapsack

2009-07-06T21:57:00.003+02:00

Moving house to far away feels very cinematic. I see myself laying a bundle of things on a large cloth in a small, old house. I look around me. My eyes travel across all the things I leave behind. I'll only bring what is part of me now. I nod, tie the four corners of the cloth together and hang the bundle from a long stick. I put the stick on my left shoulder. I close my hand around the end of it tightly. I walk to door of the little house and stop at the threshold. I look back, smile, and raise my hand. 'Bye, house.' Then I pull the door closed behind me, straighten my back, smile and step onto the path. It runs away from the viewer, to the front and the right. It's flanked by tall, waving grass. The horizon lies far off, the backlight is strong. I walk. Before long, I see myself getting smaller in the distance.

Suddenly, I wonder why I have the perspective of those who stay behind. The answer is exactly the reason why I leave with a knapsack and not with large suitcases containing everything I own. Luxurious cases on wheels, with combination locks and soft lining full of pockets that store everything orderly and safely. With labels indicating my personal data and the exact time of planned departure and arrival. Suitcases transported by a specialised company guaranteeing that all will go according to schedule.

I have the perspective of those who stay behind because I can't see what is behind the horizon yet. The steps across that threshold and onto that path will be taken in the next few months. The build-up has already started, of course, goodbyes have been said, the anticipation is already bubbling inside. But I will only see the view from the path as I'm walking it. When with every step the next bit of perspective unfolds. When I feel the knapsack resting on my shoulder. Feel the grass on either side of the path brush my legs. See the little house behind me get smaller in the distance.

Impa and the river Waal

2009-07-06T21:53:00.004+02:00

The river Waal flows to the North Sea, to the left, so to say, and I'm flowing to the north, so that would be more like the Wadden Sea. But still. That flowing of the Waal opens up a little door in my heart. It's so much water all at once. And on the quay in Nijmegen, when my feet are dangling high above it, a huge bridge on either side and the water far below me, I flow along with it. Quietly and steadily but unstoppably. And then I want further, bigger, more, to run, to dance, drink wine, play hide-and-seek and have a large, yellow, real excavator for my birthday.

I was standing on the Waal beach on the other side of the river, with my feet in the water. There were rocks I wanted to pick up everywhere en and the water just kept lapping, all around me, in my head, over my feet, along all my senses, on and on and on. Cool rocks, cold water.

I took off my clothes, sat in the cold water in the warm sunset in my underwear and thought: if I really feel now and stop thinking, if I let this moment run its course, I'll stay here forever. I'll become a rock or a wave and all I will have to do is shine and lap.

My love got up, walked towards me with his feet in the water and kissed my neck. The river Waal smiled its broadest smile.

Listen.

Impa in the rain

2009-07-06T21:51:00.002+02:00

The raindrops were so big I could see them fall from the sky individually. When they hit the deep pools in the streets, they formed big, round bubbles that burst before I had the chance to really look at them. The bubbles were everywhere I looked. They were like little, jumping, round frogs in the water.

Running from my car to the front door didn't work. Someone jumped in front of me laughing and kissed me until my hair streamed along my face and my clothes were drenched.

PS: It wasn't the man who stepped in front of me in the previous blog post.

Impa's men

2009-07-06T21:50:00.004+02:00

His trousers reached way up over his waist. His chequered shirt was tucked in and his grey hair meticulously cut. He was old and he greeted me. I smiled at him and said hello back. He stopped. I took another step. He took a step to the side so he stood half in front of me. I stopped. Oh well, a little chat is the least of all the things people want from you.

'How do you do?' he asked. I saw two old teeth in the corners of his mouth. 'Very well, thank you', I said. 'And you? Are you going to do your shopping?' 'No, I'm going to get a box. My pendulum is broken. Do you know what that is, a pendulum?' 'A clock', I nodded. 'It'll probably be very expensive to have it repaired', he said. His voice was clear but kind and he looked at me piercingly. 'Do you have a boyfriend? Or are you married?' he asked. 'I have a boyfriend', I said. He looked very seriously. 'Because I'm looking for a girlfriend, you see.' I thought about how best to put this. 'But you're not really my age', I said, carefully. For a few moments, he looked at me as if he was trying to find out what I meant. Then his face relaxed. 'That's what they all say', he said. He laughed. I started to walk away. 'I'm going to take my groceries home, sir. Good luck with your pendulum.' He turned as I passed him and took a step after me. Then he raised his hand, turned around and trudged to the supermarket.

So there, I'd said it. The boyfriend thing. Just like that, on a friday afternoon outside the supermarket. Because after all: making dates with someone you like so much you want to do a little dance every time you think of him, how long do you keep calling that 'making dates'?

Impa rounds a corner

2009-06-26T05:35:00.001+02:00

The road block men had blocked the road this morning. Understandably so, because it's their job. But somehow, it has a different effect on me when the road they block is the one I want to take to work. The work that was waiting for me alone, this glorious morning. But try and explain that to the road block men. Open window, hair flapping in the wind, arm waving frantically, hardly audible with 100 kilometres an hour because you are forced to take an exit you don't want to take way before you actually get to the road block men. And because they're at work imperturbably in huge floodlights with very large, yellow road block men machines.

So I kept driving and hoped everything would end well. Which it did. Not straight away, but eventually.

Eventually, things always end well.

...and there's a rabbit on the table

2009-06-15T08:48:00.002+02:00

The men in my life circle me. They're always there but dissapear into the corner of my eye sometimes. I get to touch some of them and can only look at others. I love them all. The Rabbit Man is travelling. The Swallow Man called to say he's be travelling later and that he'd come to see me. At work, we were sitting at a picknick table. High above the steep courtyard walls a single white cloud floated in the blue sky. Someone said it had the shape of a huge lop-eared rabbit. A few hours later, someone came up to me with a plastic rabbit for my birthday. That same night I dreamt of the Man Who Always Looks At the Creatures In the Clouds. He came, embraced me and left. When I woke up, he called me. He said he was going to travel and that he'd come to see me. On the same day as the Swallow Man. The Rabbit Man called and sang me a birthday song.

The plastic rabbit sits on the table and smiles.

Everything is one. It's making me dizzy.

Impa swerves her eyes

2009-06-15T08:45:00.002+02:00

I'm reading an old blog. It's about pain. When I move my fingers to scroll to the end of how it rains, there's a loud tick in in the kitchen and my eyes suddenly swerve a little. A reality ripple. A dizziness of some kind but then locally, only in my eyes, a tiny fragment of rollercoaster simulation behind my brow.

It's raining outside and on my table - honestly - there's a rabbit. It came hopping along at work the previous day. It had heard it was my birthday.

Immediately, a message comes in from someone who knows exactly where my light switches are. The rain keeps ticking, the kitchen doesn't, the gravity evaporates.

Impa silences herself

2009-06-15T08:44:00.006+02:00

Don't complain about politics if you don't vote.

I think it's a pretty good system; democracy. Agreeing that the majority decides. If you think it's no use voting, you don't have to take part. But then don't complain if you think the others don't get it right. What's more: there's nothing wrong with a few obligations coming with benefits like peace and security (relative concepts, I know, but in the Netherlands they're not so bad) and a system of healthcare and education we organise as best we can. Paying tax is one of those obligations, to make sure we can provide for that peace and security and that system of care and education together. Voting is another. Because we all agreed that we want to take all decisions together. You don't have to participate, but then don't moan about it either. Keep thinking along constructively but don't just sit there criticising others if you don't want to take part yourself.

Anyway: I no longer have the right to talk. I didn't vote last week, for the first time since I am of voting age. And it was my own stupid fault. I forgot *she flinches*. I had to do something that made me so nervous that, for the first time in my life, even voting completely slipped my mind. And with these European elections of all things, with their depressing outcome! I may only have a tiny vote in Europe, it's still one vote. And I would've loved to cast it.

I'm deeply embarrassed.

Deeply.

Whelk

2009-06-14T00:18:00.005+02:00

Someone held up a shell and said: "This is you. See?"
I looked.
"It's beautiful. Can you see? It gleams in the light. But it's not entirely smooth. It has some edges."
He looked thoughtful.
"I did some thinking while I was away", he said. "I took it with me from the beach for you."
He put the shell into my hand.

I closed my fingers around it.

So this is me.

And that's all right.

What a beautiful thing.

He hopes she'll leave him

2009-06-09T19:42:00.002+02:00

he hopes she'll leave him so he needs

no longer be scared he'll lose her

(click on the photograph to get the bigger picture)

What is it with you and Vlieland?

2009-06-08T07:47:00.005+02:00

One moment, then. Because every time I try to explain the whole thing, I get stuck. I start a story that keeps getting longer because I want to make sure you get it, a story about the wind mainly, the smells and the light, the drinking in the pubs and the falling asleep to the sound of the sea. Something about sand between your toes and salt on your skin. The simplicity of the days. Living according to your needs. Senses. About the Wadden Sea reflecting the light and how I'm absolutely sure I saw the dark fog smile at me in October. Walking a dog and driving across the sand plains in the west. Being alone until a warm light glows inside, grasping what I cannot reach in the real world with the white noise of daily life and the way things go. It would be a story that had cycle paths and village streets in it, long beaches, ice cream, beautiful conversations, curious people and beautiful men.

But that would be too long a story. Very incoherent. My gestures would keep getting broader, my eyes would glisten, I'd call out: 'Do you understand? Can't you feel it?'

One moment, rather. Yesterday morning.

I step out of the tent, my body all warm, and I don't strip off my sleeping bag. In the dunes near the beach there's always the rustling of the wind, the grass and the sea. That layering make the rustling flow, makes it fine somehow. And once you hear that, dimensions appear in the other sounds too. Cuckoo in the edge of the forest to the right. Sea gull above. Pheasant in the dunes to the left. Jackdaw ahead, on my bicycle.

Outside the tent I sleep in, a chair is dug into the sand, storm-proof. It's still early. Most tents are closed yet. The sun is still low (last night's wine glasses cast long shadows) but the promising blue already colours the sky.

On the island the salty, damp air always turns my hair into ropy strings. It doesn't matter. People have never seen me wear high heels and make-up here. They've never seen me at work, on the train, on the motorway, in the world of making things look better and go higher. Here, they grew to love me because of my laughter, my glances and our conversations. Here, the days are reduced to simplicity and I, through the eyes of others, to myself.

A woman is standing nex to a tent in the distance. She waves at me and holds up a coffee cup. She's my mother. I wave to tell her I'll sit here a little while longer, in this sleeping bag on this little chair. Vlieland is the nicest place for being silent.

Next to me, a snail crawls deeper into the tall grass. The damp dissapears from the air while the sun climbs higher.

I close my eyes. Monday. Chocolate roll, mountain bike, lying on the grass.

Where would you like me to touch you first?

2009-06-05T00:55:00.002+02:00

If I'd get up and walk towards you now
where would you like me to touch you first?

If you'd get up and walk towards me now, where would you like to touch me first?

Impa, the tomatoes and the sun

2009-05-28T17:36:00.005+02:00

The mailman brought Impa tomato seeds, once. The seeds have - and this remains a miracle - sprouted and the sprouts have grown. They've become plants: small ones at first, then big ones. The first bunches of flowers have already appeared on their stems. They sit in big pots with long bamboo poles and have singlehandedly been tied to the poles with small bits of green garden string. After having given away some of the plants when they were still small (Something you should always be careful doing. Before you know it, you become one of those ladies always trying to force homemade craft on people. 'No thank you, aunty Beatrice, I don't want any knitted whatshammacallits. Yes, I know everyone says they're special.'), five plants remained to be sunbathed on the balcony.

And yet, even only five big plants in five pots appeared to be a ~~problem~~ challenge. Before long, the balcony bench felt shoved aside. The roses sulked over having been moved to a spot in the shade. Not to mention the 1.73 metres my body needs to be able to stretch out in the same sunshine as the tomatoes from top to toe for 15 minutes every once in a while.

More space had to be made, then.

And so I put two plant pots on the floor of the car in front of the passenger seat this morning. The bamboo poles stuck out diagonally and hit the roof, the plant's leaves and stems were folded over and across the seat, running the danger of snapping. I've never driven more carefully.

I handed the plants over to a colleague from another department this morning. He smelt the fragrant leaves, spread his arms, gave me three big kisses, picked up the plants and carried them out of my room and into the corridor, where people turned and stared as he passed.

I've got three left now. And as far as I'm concerned they can have a ball, tomatowise, on my balcony. As long as I can still fit next to them somewhere, with my 1.73 metre sun wish.

Dreams Can Come True

2009-05-26T12:31:00.001+02:00

Dreams Can Come True from Impa on Vimeo.

Impa and the girl at the hairdresser's

2009-05-26T10:53:00.002+02:00

Impa's blog is no diary but today I just want to tell you how the girl at the hairdresser's really made my day this morning. When I was waiting, she offered me a cup of coffee that actually tasted good. She reminded me of my ex ex sister-in-law A., who is sweet. And when she washed my hair, at the local hairdresser's on a weekday morning I suddenly remembered how good it feels when someone massages your head with soft, strong fingers. And felt my whole body relax.

Too little sleep, being chased out of the house way too early by the workmen who have been renovating our building for months now, with no make-up on and a long, late day's work ahead of me. But she made the world seem a lot softer. And my hair too.

Meanwhile, at Impa's...

2009-05-22T00:48:00.001+02:00

Staring at the Wall from Impa on Vimeo.

Impa got an e-mail

2009-05-21T09:45:00.002+02:00

'Right, I'm ready. I put on my holiday clothes and H. is coming to pick me up at 3.30 PM. An hour early so we'll have time to have some chips and a beer in the harbour. Oh, yes!!

I'll be back sunday evening but I'll get in touch as soon as possible. I'll text you or call you when the wind's blowing and you can hear the seagulls too. '

Good God, she sure knows how to put it.

*sigh...*

Ageing and moving (2)

2009-05-20T18:19:00.005+02:00

When we get back home - there were wardrobes to be bought for the new guest room - my grandmother is still asleep. She always lies down for an hour or two in the afternoon but usually only takes a short nap or dozes a little. This time, she's deeply asleep, exhausted from moving house. When people sleep, you see them in their relaxed form, in the softest possible way. That alone is very intimate. My grandmother is of small stature and seems even smaller now. So soft and far away in her sleep, so very human and right in the middle of an endlessly big single bed. My dad and his wife slip in quietly and stand at her bed. They smile. When I see them standing over the small figure in that bed, somethings opens up inside of me. I step back out of the bedroom backwards. My small grandmother in that bed is too great too look at.

When we left that afternoon, nan had just gone down to the central hall where music was being played. She'd heard you could sing along and was looking forward to that. She was sitting at a table, looking at the menu. Straight up, wearing lipstick. She's the oldest lady in the home and when I stood there, secretly watching her from the other side of the hall, my arms full of things I had to take with me and my car keys at the ready and saw her sitting at that table, she seemed ageless. She sat straight up and she was beautiful. She wasn't an old lady, she wasn't a former teacher or nurse or someone's mother or neighbour or wife.

She was a woman and I saw her.

Ageing and moving

2009-05-16T16:19:00.005+02:00

There's a birthday calendar in the toilet at my grandmother's. It features images of the village she used to live in, one for each month of the year. She was a teacher there. This was after the war, when she could finally marry my grandfather. Before the war, she was a trained psychiatric nurse. She raised three children. During all those years of work and care, she kept record of who was born and who celebrated their birthdays on her birthday calendars.

Over the past years, deaths have appeared on the calendar too. Many names have small crosses behind them, many dates a mention of deaths. That's what happens when you reach the age of 94. Everyone around you slowly dissapears until you're the last one and you've seen them all come and go.

My nan's moved house this week. She left the house where she came to live with my granddad 18 years ago. Where she nursed him the last few years of his life, like she did with her mother when she was only a girl. Where granddad passed away and his portrait stood on top of the television, in between a small figure of an angel and a burning candle. Where I used to visit my nan.

She didn't want to move. We think she'll have a nicer social life now she's got more neighbours. She's got a very nice appartment: large, new, and with wonderful people working there in care. It's a comforting thought she'll be looked after because she is starting to be very forgetful.

But what do we know? She was proud of still living on her own. It's a huge thing to have to uproot towards the end of your life and move to a new place. It's also hard to look forward to something if you don't have a clear picture of what it's going to be like. Besides, she herself doesn't always realise how forgetful she's starting to be. Eventually, she surrendered to our care. We moved her to her new home. She's on her way to her last bit of future, vulnerable and brave. I love her more than ever.

Granddad's portrait is back on the television in her new home, the angel figure next to it. When I hang her birthday calendar on the wall in her new toilet, among the birthdays and deaths I read with 17 May: 'Boer zoekt vrouw'.* Underlined.

*Farmer Wants a Wife

Impa and the sand

2009-05-15T00:01:00.001+02:00

Impa has been lying on the grass

2009-05-14T22:51:00.003+02:00

I have a new goal. I'm going to lie on the grass more often. It's not the only goal in my life, obviously, because I'd come to a bad end pretty soon if it were, but it is an important goal. It's one of those things That Never Get Done. While, really, things never either do or don't 'get done'. You simply choose differently. Strange really, when you think of how rewarding it is compared to how much effort it takes. A new world opens up to those who REALLY lie down in the grass with all their senses and no hurry. Tall grass waves and wiggles and short, green grass smells of football and childhood summers. Small flowers become big, the body relaxes, the mind becomes quiet and the whole world seems to come to a standstill. And perhaps the best thing about lying in the grass is the point of view. From a spot on the grass, one can only look up. Air and light come to meet you naturally.

Moving house

2009-05-07T19:34:00.003+02:00

Things happen to people when you tell them you're moving away. That you're packing your things, bringing your business in your laptop and leaving your well known surroundings to go and do something new somewhere else. Because you like change and it's time to move on, time for a new road. Because there's nothing here that can't be done somewhere else and because you'll carry with you what you don't want to lose anyway.

When people hear about how you change course and follow your heart, your inspiration, your needs, you can see them taking stock for themselves. For some, that taking stock adds up to some kind of "I may be a little jealous, but I'm proud of you too. And I'm happy for you. If I think about whether I'd want to change course now, the answer is 'No', for the time being. But it's inspiring to see it can be done, no matter how old you are, what kind of work you do, where you live, who your friends are".

That way, as a bonus, my new energy, my newly found air, my courage and inner peace contribute to their lives too.

For others, prematurely taking stock adds up to a completely different conclusion. They hear your story, see your joy, see how things are flowing again and feel, as the sum of their own inner balance sheet, that they're stuck. Or think they're stuck. Or maybe they know they're not actually stuck but can't act accordingly. Or maybe a departure was never the solution for where their shoe pinches but they can't find a fitting solution because they don't really dare to look at the pinch. And so everything stays the same. They see me leave on the horizon. Soft sparks of sunlight bounce off my knapsack. They sigh. Turn around. Sit down.

Impa would like you to listen to something beautiful

2009-05-07T13:19:00.003+02:00

They played Paradiso, Amsterdam last night: Beirut. How happy live music can make me! That venue, a beer, a few friends. All my senses drinking in music. Into my eyes and ears, pounding in my chest, vibrating through my feet, round and round in my body untill it bubbles like a fountain and my muscles sway on their own, my mouth smiles on its own. And smiles.

In Utrecht there's no end to the heaven that is the jumble sale

2009-05-06T20:50:00.003+02:00

Impa to a nice man at the Lombok jumble sale on liberation day: "Do you have a tin opener?"
Nice man: "No, but I do have a scanner." -Points at a box full of cuddly toys- "Do you want a cuddle with that?" (Cuddle meaning both 'cuddly toy' and 'hug' in Dutch)
Impa to nice man: "A cuddle from you?"

Nice man looks confused. "You want a cuddle from me?"

Impa smiles her cutest smile. "Yes, please."

The nice man blushes and gives Impa a lovely, long hug with both arms and a smile.

And if it hadn't rained, Impa would've still been standing there.

Impa's new mornings

2009-05-02T21:00:00.004+02:00

It's decorated with small roses and it's oldfasioned Villeroy & Boch breakfast china. Sweet, sweet, sweet. I'm immediately transported by jubilant visions of myself at a long, wooden table in a kitchen bathed in light where early in the morning I boil an egg, poor black coffee and spread orange marmelade on a piece of toast. To make the dream complete, I add two purring cats and a rustling morning paper containing only good news. Although these are all things I don't usually get in the morning I'm absolutely sure: my new (old) breakfast china is the start of a whole new life. The morning sun will never set again, the blackbirds will never be silent.

I haggled over it ruthlessly at the jumble sale on Queen's Day. The lady who sold it to me let it go with a heavy heart. It had belonged to her grandmother. Only when the price was set, the sale made and I'd tucked my change away safely, did I dare show how pleased I was. I hoped it was at least of some comfort to her.

At home, it turned out grandmother's sugar was still in the pot.

Now, then: please do come for a rose cup of tea some morning. Let me know in advance if you'd like me to boil you an egg too. And could you bring two purring cats?

Young starlings and a dog (2)

2009-05-01T07:33:00.001+02:00

I'd like to link to an older piece about the tranquility of Martin Bril.

Ever zo quiet.

Loose

2009-04-20T14:55:00.005+02:00

Letting go can't just be releasing the old; that which dissapears, changes, passes by. It's also receiving the new. After all, letting go implies movement. If things around you didn't move, letting go wouldn't be relevant. With continuous movement, the space created by things flowing away can only be filled with something new as a matter of course.

Can we, then, turn this around and make receiving the key to letting go? Can letting go be: embracing the new, in stead of releasing the old? In this flow, dissapearing and appearing can't exist without the other, but maybe this shift of perspective can make it inviting in stead of frightening.

Could letting go be: taking a deep breath, rooting firmly, lifting your chin, opening your eyes, spreading your arms wide - wide! wide! - and... receiving?

I wanted it to be you

2009-04-19T21:58:00.001+02:00

Ik wilde dat jij het was from Impa on Vimeo.

The excellent upbringing of Impa and her oldest friends

2009-04-17T09:04:00.003+02:00

Maz looks at Impa during the concert, takes her fingers from her mouth and shouts: "You can whistle through your fingers really loudly too."

Impa screams in Maz' ear: "My mother taught me how to do that."

Maz shouts back: "Your mother taught me how to do it, too."

The concert was of Bishop Allen, in Paradiso, Amsterdam. We should never have gone, because on 17 April they perform in Ekko, Utrecht again, just like last year. Do go and check them out!

Hip, hip, Impalinea

2009-04-17T09:01:00.004+02:00

On 14 April, Impalinea, the original, Dutch version of this blog, celebrated its second anniversary. You got air in Impa's first blog entry ever and love on Impalinea's first anniversary. The story now continues with the images of a whirl - a little dance to celebrate the blog - and water to quench your thirst. Or, even better: a dance to celebrate life and water to go with the flow.

Dear readers, thank you for coming by to look, read, and nose around. Thank you for all the comments. Thanks to you, blogging has been great, the past two years. Hip, hip!

Green is the new pink

2009-04-17T08:59:00.006+02:00

I sat at a long table this past weekend. It stood under a tree full of pink blossom. The blossom is really just too good to be true, it's too poetical. Too convenient in a piece on being touched by beautiful things. And yet there it was, over that table. In the course of the four days I sat at that table, all the flowers came drifting down. And with the blossom conversations fluttered down; laughter, listening, questions, nods, looks, humour and gentleness. On to my bread, into my ears and - whoosh - straight into my heart. I sat at that table with people I hadn't met before, different people each day. We got toghether those four days to work hard, and in between working we sat at the table with bread, juice, strong coffee, bottles of beer, chocolate. With children. Little bubbles of energy and gentle streams of life bubbled up and whirled back down again with the blossom around us. I laughed until my belly ached and my eyes filled with tears for the love stories of others. I heard new music, found new points of view, and got a glimpse into the life of all those people. I saw and felt how easy it is to make a smile and a friendly gesture matter to others. For four days, I worked, ate, talked, laughed, listened and wondered at so much beauty at one table, in one corner of one garden in this beautiful world.

After four days, all the flowers had drifted down from the tree. We put away our tools and paint brushes, shook the garden weed from our hair and cleared the table. We went back to daily life. The tree is no longer pink, but green. And new, new, new. Full of promise.

Impa loves them. De Kift.

2009-04-07T15:19:00.003+02:00

For more irresistible melancholy, check out the Take-Away Shows of De Kift in Paris at La Blogotheque. Don't skip this. Pour another glass of wine and pull the dog on to your lap. This is wonderful stuff.

Kitchen sink drama

2009-04-07T15:17:00.005+02:00

7 PM. Impa receives a text message:

Hi Loretta! The (good) cutlery is in the drawer underneath the fridge. See you, AK.

7.05 PM. Impa receives another text message:

Sorry, wrong number.

AK needs to text Loretta where his fancy cutlery is. Maybe she's at his place while he's stuck in traffic on his way home. I imagine he's going to introduce her to his parents today, hence the good cutlery. Loretta doesn't know where he keeps it yet - after their first loved-up days of feeding each other small bites with their fingers they started using the 'ordinary' cutlery - so he lets her know in a text on his way home.

But why does AK type her entire number by hand when he sends her a message? I suppose he's so bad at working his phone he doesn't know how to enter names into the address book. Or does he even know Loretta at all? Could this be some kind of perverse-blind-date-at-his-place-where-she-has-to-se-the-table-for-him-in-advance?

Gosh. What way for an unsuspecting Impa to get a glimpse.

Pretty kinky.

Impa's Daewoo 14V1TS

2009-04-07T15:15:00.002+02:00

I'd counted my money and made my way to the store. I wanted a silver-coloured television, nice and small. I wanted the speakers not to be to the left and back of it, like with the old one, because then the sound would only dissapear out through the balcony doors and on to the neighbours across the street instead of reaching me on the sofa in front of it. It didn't have to have an in-built video recorder (I know, I know, but we're talking totally 2002, here) and I also asked the guy in the television store a couple of intelligent questions about mono and stereo.

Eventually, I picked the Daewoo 14V1TS. It was exactly what I wanted for the money I'd put aside for it. I wrote down name and number on a little piece of paper and put it in my diary. I'd Google the set after I'd come home, just to make sure, and buy it later.

I went to see my dad. He said: "We bought a new sofa and got a television set with it."

I looked up. "Did you?"

"We don't need it", he said. "Are you interested?"

I laughed. "You're joking. I actually need a new telly. I've already been out shopping for one ealier this week. Shall I buy it off you?"

My dad dissapeared to the hallway. "That won't be neccesary. After all, we got it for free too."

He came back with a big box. "There you go, this is for you."

My jaw dropped.

I grabbed my bag and fumbled for the note in my diary.

Someone hand Impa the tissues, please?

2009-04-07T15:10:00.003+02:00

First seen on eddiefromohio

1 April: Sweet Little Boy's Day

2009-04-02T19:58:00.005+02:00

Three little friends were standing outside the shops with their bicycles. One of the boys said: "They're separated, aren't they?" A friend asked: "Who?" The boy said: "Your buttocks." All three of them laughed.

The sun was shining and it was the first mild afternoon of the year.

I came home to an e-mail from Friend N. He's a postman. He wrote: 'I saw a little boy standing on the pavement holding an ice lolly. He looked at the world around him the way only little boys can. When I pushed my mail cart past him, he spoke the most beautiful words of this spring: "Yummy ice lolly." My spring isn't going to get any better than this.'

Girlfriend H. had also spotted sweet little boys in their natural environment. She answered his mail: 'My little boys of today were drawing on the pavement with chalk, doing pretty cool things in happy colours. I told them I liked it and they said thank you.'

This is why I hereby propose to rename 1 April: Sweet Little Boy's Day. It'll also liberate us from the unfortunate custom of April Fool's jokes. Little boys who still try to mislead people will obviously be disqualified immediately. You can't have it all, however sweet you are.

Home is where...

2009-04-01T13:36:00.004+02:00

There were two barmen behind the bar when I walked into my Lovely Local. Handsome barmen, nice ones. One of them smiled, said hello, and came over to give me three gentle kisses on the cheeks. The other one doesn't know my name but when I couldn't decide what to order, he asked: " You usually drink Westmalle Dubbel, don't you?" He drew a small glass of a new draught beer and let me taste it.

Outside, on the terrace, my friends started arriving. It was going to be our first afternoon in the sun after a long, dark winter.

HOW! I ask you. How do you say goodbye to something like that? A new home, new clients, a new education, a new jogging round, new neighbours, new air to breathe and a new distance to everything familiar: my imagination can tackle it.

But a new Lovely Local, after 15 years in this one?

Ouch.

Traffic lights and rain

2009-04-01T11:48:00.003+02:00

Foto © Anita van Vliet

Impa gets a stolen hour

2009-04-01T11:47:00.005+02:00

*Phone rings*

"Helloooooo", girlfriend P. coos into my ear. "Are you on summer time or winter time?"

I'm on the platform of a small railway station, early in the morning, on my way to an appointment with 5 other people. On summer time.

"We are all on winter time", girlfriend P. says happily.

"Do you mean..." I pauze to think about the best way to respond. "You're all one hour late?" "Yes!" girlfriend P. calls out cheerfully.

I buy music magazine OOR and make my way to the station buffet. Closed. I check out the time table on the door. Open. I try the door again. Closed. Through the glass shopfront I see a man and a woman at work. When he sees me waiting there, the man unlocks the door and lets me in. Coffee can't be ordered until fifteen minutes later and the point-of-sale terminal isn't online yet. They're busily wiping everything down and arranging the buffet. They tell me to sit down. The woman assures me they'll put their uniforms on later. It looks like the station buffet has been caught unawares by summer time too.

Half an hour later, my coffee arrives. I'ts free. Girlfriend H. has been keeping me company in text messages. She says it could have been worse. Her husband had accidentally set the alarm an hour early the previous night so he was ahead of summer time by two hours that morning.

It's not all bad anyway, being here with a stolen hour of reading OOR. And if someone would still annoy me, I'd simply follow girlfriend H.'s tip of the day and imagine a pancake on their face.

Impa likes

2009-04-01T11:46:00.001+02:00

Photographs © by Jean Arbrue on Woophy

Impa visits a museum

2009-03-27T13:49:00.001+01:00

I wanted to Do that More Often; going to museums. Because of being inspired, touched and excited. And having beers together. Oh, and having lunch in the nifty little museum cafe! Buying books in the museum shop, bumming around on the train and... and... and...

Art. Art and taking a deep breath of fresh art air outside one's familiar, old art box.

But ofcourse I never get down to it. Like I never get down to going to the theatre more often, to the cinema, the opera, pop concerts, taking forest walks more often, going to the sauna more often and visiting my grandmother more often. Because once I get back from whatever it was I was going to do more often and find my dangerously long Do More Often list, it gives me such a fright I sit down in front of the television for a couple of days and never get down to it. Again. Which is a shame. (Except maybe in the case of going to the sauna more often, because you have to look at strange willies there, which I don't really want to do. But I'll save that topic for another time.)

After my visit to Muesum Boijmans van Beuningen in January there were still 50,400,8,0021.4 other Dutch museums eligible for Going To a Museum More Often in 2009. Preferably museums I hadn't already visited last year, because look at the other 50,400,8,0011.4 Dutch museums waving at me happily, wondering if I'll be coming their way this year.

But when I took a deep breath and rolled up my sleeves all the way up to my armpits to take a plunge in the pool of 50,400,8,0011.4 other Dutch museums to be visited this year, Museum Boijmans grabbed me from behind.

Grinning broadly, it held up two really nice exhibitions.

Impa thinks a tree

2009-03-26T18:39:00.000+01:00

Impa says beep

2009-03-26T07:16:00.002+01:00

Boy, what a dissapointment. It turns out I'm not an adult, even though I've been working on that for over 35 years now.

There's such a thing as silent ringtones. They only emit a high-pitched beep in a frequency adults can't hear. They're used by teenagers who want to send texts in class or receive phonecalls without mum and dad knowing. Well, kids: dream on. As it turned out his morning, on the bus, there's 35-year-olds who can hear them too. In busy rush-hour traffic. On a rainy morning. Before they've had their first cup of coffee. Our minister Ten Horst says the so called 'mosquito's'; electronic devices chasing kids away from their favorite hang-outs with irritating high-pitched tones only they can hear, are against their basic rights. Well, it's against my basic rights that I should have to listen to silent ringtones on the bus, early in the morning. Pick up your phones! Stop those bloody beeps of I'll chuck your damned mobile mosquito's out of the window. I've got nothing to lose, because I wasn't an adult anyway.

I get this a lot

2009-03-25T13:01:00.003+01:00

She's my dad's wife.

- So your mother...

No, my dad's wife.

- ...

She's the woman who married my dad.

- ...

She's not my mother.

- Ah.

If she were my mother, I wouldn't have called her 'my dad's wife'. Call me me weird, if you like. I know I'm just such a funny bunny. This may sound really off my rocker: if she were my mum, I would've said 'mum'. Boy, am I something else. Living on the edge.

WHAT IS SO COMPLICATED ABOUT THAT, PEOPLE? This isn't the fifties, you know. People get married, have children, divorce, get married again, have more children... What does it take? Do you want me to call her 'stepmother' because 'my dad's wife' doesn't fit into your frame of reference? Who am I, Snowwhite?

Impa's image

2009-03-17T08:53:00.009+01:00

I've suffered damage. To my little, red, square, old, car. The classic kind of damage, no less, of grating against a concrete corner in a parking garage, leaving behind sad, red paint that would much rather have stayed on my car.

There were, however, mitigating circumstances. An oncoming car forced me off the ramp at a funny angle. The ramp was waaaaay too steep. Halfway through the corner, nose facing downward, I almost hit a post which some idiot had planted on a kind of ledge along the middle of the ramp. Something should probably have dawned on me then about the angle at which I was rounding the corner, but then there's also such a thing as a hill-start in reverse. Something to be avoided in life as long as you possibly can. So I turned the wheel a little more and made the angle even tighter.

In the backseat of my car, girlfriend A. squeaked "This doesn't look good." I could see fear in her eyes. Next to me, friend A. started growling. He clenched his teeth and hissed he would've walked if we weren't parked against the concrete corner and he could've opened his car door. Our outing was completely down the drain. I could hear our friendships squeal softly and then quietly lay down to die.

I'm really quite upset, you know. Never mind the damage to my car. Do you think the mitigating circumstances - insane posts in the middle of appallingly steep ramps (if you want to get downstairs that fast, why don't you just jump?) and smart-ass oncoming traffic - could at least keep any damage to my image to a minimum?

Impa and the blue sky

2009-03-13T19:56:00.000+01:00

People Stopped Using the Busses from Impa on Vimeo.

Impa driving

2009-03-12T13:11:00.003+01:00

I've been to Kolham. You'll look up from what you were doing and ask: "Where?" Kolham. You'll say: "I had no idea there was such a place". I'll smile and say: "Neither did I". "Where is it?" you'll ask.

Kolham is 12 kilometres east of the city of Groningen. I passed it on my way from point A in the city to point B in the city. I usually end up on a motorway when I am going from any point A to any point B in any city. I never quite know how that works, but I've gotten used to it. I simply take the first exit off the motorway, drive a small circle in a place I've never been to before and go back.

"Get one of those navigation systems", you'll say. But why would I? If I had, I'd never have known of Kolham. Along the motorway, there's all kinds of things invisible to man inside his box. I'm happy to let providence lure me off the asphalt. I simply leave home half an hour early.

I just saw on my map I should have kept driving. Then I could have told you I'd been to the village Woudbloem.

Woudbloem. Forest Flower.

Impa's amazement

2009-03-09T09:12:00.002+01:00

I prayed for faith.
True faith.
It was what I needed to be able to surrender.

I found myself utterly surprised

amazed

touched

when faith turned out to follow
surrender.

Impa wants to lie in a hammock under a tree

2009-03-08T22:34:00.001+01:00

Dream of Summer from Impa on Vimeo.

The sound of playing or laughter

2009-03-04T14:14:00.003+01:00

...so I asked the lady at the AMK Advisory Board and Hotline Child Abuse "But what if you look at it from the perspective of that child, whatever it may be? That its life apparently takes place in a home with closed curtains, where the only signs of life passers by ever get are screams, for whatever reason? Never a glimpse through the window, never the sound of laughter, playing, running or even crying? That this child is only noticed because it screams?"

I know it isn't much to go by. I understand how that works. I don't know who live in that house, I don't know how old the child is or if it's a boy or a girl. I've never seen it. I never see people walking in or out, the curtains are always closed, I know no one who lives in that street and their garden is just a wasteland. But on my way to the shops I often hear a child scream in that house. Just screams, nothing else. And yesterday there was that angry man's voice in betweeen screams. "Will you stop? Will you stop?" Dear lady at the AMK, let my reporting this at least be noted. If a problem situation with this child or these parents ever surfaces in some other way; via school, neighbours, family, whatever; at least let it be noted there was a lady who passed by there regularly and heard a child scream in that house. Who wanted to do something. Not to make the stomage ache it gave her go away, but because life from the the perspective of a child that is only heard through its screams is unbearable.

Impa wants to lie at the foot of a tree

2009-03-03T12:12:00.002+01:00

Everyone knows what it feels like to lie beneath the swaying branches of a rustling tree in summer, sunlight shimmering throught its leaves. I made you a short film to have a quick taste of that on these grey late winter's days that just don't seem to come to an end. Hang in there just a little while longer!

Rustle and Shine from Impa on Vimeo.

You can't do this to me

2009-03-02T19:33:00.005+01:00

To my lovely girlfriends.

I consider it an honour to have you confide in me. Really. That you want to share with me what's making you so happy. Very loving, and wonderful, and everything. I also understand that some things have to wait a while before they can be shouted off rooftops. But you KNOW how some things make me go all bouncy. How I'm not exactly one of patience's virtues. I mean, you've known me for quite a few years now. Do you have any idea how much a secret tickles? How it wriggles underneath my skin, trying to pop out wherever it can? Cause I can be trusted, no worries. My lips are sealed. But good God, does it ITCH!

Victory

2009-02-25T00:17:00.005+01:00

A meditation of one hour and fifteen minutes to the background sound of the downstairs neighbour's beating base and barking dog. A fine piece of personal pioneering, I can assure you.

And as a reward I treat everyone to a taste of Groningen medicine. If this doesn't make you crack up, I don't know what will.

(I realise the effects of a regional dialect of Dutch may not be as overwhelming on this English version of my blog... Sorry about that.)

Share your happiness!

2009-02-23T13:22:00.001+01:00

Fridge poetry

2009-02-23T11:33:00.002+01:00

The girl with the most beautiful eyes in the Netherlands stuck a poem on to Maz' fridge. There are Swedish words on the fridge in my kitchen. When I gather the scattered traces of fun and melancholy I came up with in between cooking and doing the dishes, a poem appears. The literary elite would reprimand me for it and the Swedish grammar leaves much to be desired, but hey. It's true Kylskåpspoesie. Read and weep.

Don't you understand life?

I am tired of loving

my old idiot

A crazy dream means an important winter

To love rain and be brave

Kiss me until love is summer

Take care of beautiful feelings

Go and have

a great adventure.

Two plus two

2009-02-21T12:28:00.003+01:00

Ane Brun will be playing at Tivoli in Utrecht on Friday 8 May.
Ah, the sweet tugging at heart strings. Do I dare?
(You bet I do.)

Impa plays a game

2009-02-20T12:05:00.001+01:00

Impa found a nice little game at the Flip Flop Flying blog.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Put your MP3 player or music library on shuffle.

2. With each question push 'next' for the answer.

3. Write down the title of the song under the subsequent question.

The answers can obviously be interpreted in many ways and you can take them as seriously as you like. Some of mine were remarkable or touching in a way, others just really made me laugh. Who would have thought, for instance, that my biggest secret is a fast car? I wonder if the outcome changes with your stage of life or state of mind. Fortune-telling or not: it's an amusing game. Give it a go and let me know the outcome in the comment box or send me a link.

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?

Cruel - Calexico

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?

Shiva - Fields of the Nephilim

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?

If God Will Send his Angels - U2

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?

Useless - Depeche Mode

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?

Just One Kiss - the Cure

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?

Fuck U - Archive

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OFTEN?

Meu fado meu (My Own Fado) - Mariza

WHAT IS 2+2?

Rubber & Soul - Ane Brun

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?

Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa (Sad Song) - Otis Redding

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?

Dissolved Girl - Massive Attack

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

First Day of my Life - Bright Eyes

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?

Herr Olof - Gjallarhorn

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?

Come Wander With Me - Agua de Annique

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?

Sunday Morning - Maroon 5

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?

Geef mien dien blues - Ede Staal

('Give me your blues' in Gronings, the regional dialect where I grew up)

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?

Always - Bon Jovi

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?

Fast Car - Tracy Chapman

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?

(Antichrist Television Blues) - The Arcade Fire

WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?

Mein Teil - Rammstein

HOW WILL YOU DIE?

Bella Donna - Doe Maar

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?

A Prayer for England - Massive Attack

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?

Corsair - Boards of Canada

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?

Exsultate, Jubilate KV 165: Allegro - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?

Stand - R.E.M.

WHAT SCARES YOU MOST?

Berlin - Lou Reed

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?

Le compteur - Yann Tiersen

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?

I Feel For You - Prince

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?

Comme Toujours - Les Negresses Vertes

Do you know this man?

2009-02-19T15:26:00.004+01:00

We found a passport photo lying on a table, all by itself, in My Favourite Pub. No one came running back in breathlessly to see if they left it there. Friend M. and I studied the face on the photograph. “I think his name is Koen”, I said. “Or Jeroen.” ”No way”, Friend M said. “Look at that scarf. This is more of a Leander.” We nodded in agreement and took a drink of our Westmalle Dubbel beers. Friend M. suggested the man’s mother had dropped the photograph from her purse. “No, wait. I know.“ She studied the picture closer. “It was left here by his ex girlfriend. After having been sad for a long time, she decided it was time to let him go. She quietly left his picture in the pub where they met a lifetime ago. She let go of him there, along with the sadness she knew so well and that had become such a familiar friend.” Friend M. and I looked at each other with tears in our eyes. We took a large draught of our Westmalle Dubbels.

There was a compulsive liar at the table next to us. He was waiting for his ‘girlfriend’ who inexplicably ‘didn’t pick up her phone’. While he was ‘waiting’ for her, he talked to us. We, however, were on to him. The existence of the ‘girlfriend’ –yeah, right- was to make sure we didn’t feel threatened. We would’ve tutted otherwise, rolled our eyes, sighed and whispered: “Not one of those again. Please.” Instead, we asked questions interestedly and laughed very loudly at our own jokes and a little at his. But when he said he ‘played the trumpet’ professionally and proved it by pointing at his lips that had funny spots on them, just as we could hear trumpet music from the pub’s loudspeakers, we got suspicious. Didn’t compulsive liars take cues from their environment to feed their endless stream of fabrications?

As a retreat strategy, Friend M. and I started work on the plan with the codename Westmalle Dubbel. (We can take cues from our environment too, you know.) It’s a plan for More Love in the World and * Impa crosses her fingers behind her back * it’s nothing to do with bringing together friends who aren’t in love yet but could very well be.

There’s a fighter jet on the toilet in My Favourite Pub. It’s called eXtreme and it’s meant to dry your hands with. Apparently, most hand driers leave your hands slightly wet and rather warm, which causes tens of billions of bacteria on your hands to wake up, stretch out comfortably and get down to unbridled multiplying. So My Favourite Pub has a drier that expels hard air instead of warm air. It’s so hard it makes your hands rattle. You can only keep them in the flow of air if you wedge your hip between the sink and the wall and brace yourself. The noise is deafening and it's alltogether so exciting and dangerous I go to the toilet extra often just to get that little shot of adrenaline.

When I got back all bouncy and with a wild look in my eyes for the fifth time that evening, the imaginary girlfriend appeared to have arrived. One of the first things I heard her say to the compulsive liar was something about him playing the trumpet later that night. Impressive, we thought. He’d gotten that total stranger to go along with his lies. We emptied our glasses, picked up Leander Koen Jeroen and left. We had Important Plans With a Code Name to carry out. We’d better get some sleep.

Young starlings and a dog

2009-02-18T11:21:00.004+01:00

As I like to sigh: Why can't we spend a lifetime watching young starlings?

Martin Bril makes a start. He lets the dog walk him. Bril's tranquility grows quieter all the time. I can hear it ever louder.

So beautiful.

Impa's double personality

2009-02-16T13:18:00.006+01:00

My colleague R. is funny. He wrote me a note to transfer some work and tell me about his trip to Africa and signed it:

~~Lou Reed~~
~~Salvador Dali~~
R.

What does an -undoubtedly casually made- joke like that say about someone? You could dedicate a complete scientific research report to what two celebrity names tell you about the character of the person who picks them. It has undoubtedly been done, somewhere in the academic world.

It made colleague I. laugh too. She asked: "What two persons would you like to be?" I looked up from the image of Barack Obama I was working on and said: "Obama." And, to pick another name without thinking about it for too long, I added: "Madonna is the second name that comes to mind."

Obama and Madonnna? Where on earth did that come from? And would this be how I see myself or rather what I want to be like? Is this about power? Minorities, inferiority issues, assertiveness? And does the fact that they are both American mean anything? Oh, dear. Let's not go there at all.

Let's say it's because they are both charismatic personalities. Two images of strength. Obama is a saviour, Madonna is emancipated. Obama is articulate and intellectual, Madonna is beautiful and creative. Not a bad team, come to think of it.

I asked colleague I. which two names she would pick to sign with. "Say the first thing that comes to mind." "Ramses Shaffy", said colleague I. "And the second?" "Whew, hard one." "Don't think about it." "Sven Kramer", she said. I snorted. My coffee almost came up through my nose. "But I think that's just because there was something about him on the radio earlier." Singer Ramses Shaffy and ice skater Sven Kramer. Quite a combination. And yet their themes suit colleague I. really well. Engagement, the French aspect, romance, creativity, music and voice combined with physical strength and endurance. Not a bad portrait at all, if you ask me.

And now for the bonus question. You're not allowed to think about the answer. Write down the first thing that pops up. Own up, dear reader, and have no fear.

- What two people would you like to be? And what do you think that says about you? -

Valentine's Day and love

2009-02-14T12:05:00.002+01:00

I won't write about love. How I feel about romantic love at the moment is a private matter. I don't want to write about the man I loved for two years and now respectfully but most definitely put behind me. I don't want to put him on the internet. But by writing this I already did, in a way.

Should you write about love on Valentine's Day? Or would that mean that even I have finally cracked under the pressure of the international commerce that wants to make me believe that my inner world has anything whatsoever to do with a date on the calender and buying red things of environmentally unfriendly plastic, shaped like the symbol for a human heart?

My love for him was a two year dance. Of fighting and loving, attraction and rejection. Full of fast rhythms, slow turns and sudden stops. The dance is over now. I will no longer dance along. But all the good moments it's brought are gently imprinted in my heart and I hold everything I learnt from it, about life, myself, and the others, in my hand. So I can draw from it if I need to on my path.

And as far as love today is concerned: When I look up from writing this, I see my soft sofa is bathed in sunlight. Over the tops of the bamboo on the balcony, the February sun comes rustling straight into my room and into my heart. I'll lie down in that bath of light now. With my eyes closed. And if I take a look inside of me and find peace and a smile, I've got it. Love for all things and myself. And that's just what I want.

I won't wish you a happy Valentine's Day. I will, however, wish you a lovely saturday. A great weekend. A blessed life. And may you let in plenty of sunshine.

Sunday on Vlieland

2009-02-12T21:56:00.004+01:00

(Click to see the bigger picture)

* Today's booty *

A seagull's skull I found myself. Very beautiful.

Vlieland

Last day. One more foraging walk around Kroon's Polders and back along the North Sea beach.

Last night: One more beer with Vlieland local P.

My cheeks are rosy after hours of sunshine today, my body feels happy with having walked for hours.

* Beach, dunes, sea, light, air... *

Saturday on Vlieland

2009-02-12T21:54:00.005+01:00

(Click to see the bigger picture )

Shells are so unreliable

They break easily

The stones are coming home with me

Finally some sunshine after all those clouds and the fog!

I fell asleep on the Wadden Sea dike after a long walk. Beginning of February, in the sun and sheltered from the wind. The Wadden Sea stretched out, shimmering, from my feet to the sun in the sky. With the smell of sea and salt and the sound of wind and calling water birds fouraging in the mud. If you listen carefully, you can hear a continuous rustle and bubble from the Wadden Sea mud. Two teenage girls sat down next to me - on an otherwise empty dike - to smoke cigarettes and talk about boys. :-)

A. drove me across the Vliehors until the sunset behind us bathed the endless sand flats ahead of us in a pink light. You see it with the soul, not the eyes.

Friday on Vlieland

2009-02-12T21:53:00.008+01:00

(Click to see the bigger picture)

Vlieland local F. gave me 2 beautiful crow's skulls he found in the woods. All clean and still intact. It's great to take walks with him and his two dogs that are totally bonkers, overenthusiastic and wonderfully well-trained.

They released 5 seals from the seal rescue centre. They played around for a while in a channel between the beach and a sandbank, tumbling and splashing, before wobbling back towards us for one last time, turning around and dissapearing into the surf.

Thursday on Vlieland

2009-02-12T21:51:00.004+01:00

(Click to see the bigger picture)

Fog, wind and rain on the beach.

* Cold *

And, to my indignation, two other people. How dare they? In February, that stretch of 10 km beach is mine.

Vlieland local A. drove me around the island in his landrover, along the beach and across the Vliehors. People here are just so nice.

I have a treasure of rounded bits of wood, bones, shells, smooth pieces of glass and ceramics... Where am I going to leave all that at home?

Tuesday on Vlieland

2009-02-05T16:38:00.007+01:00

At the table by the window I wonder if I should go for a walk or go to the shops in the village first. I want to buy some food for the birds. The first visitor to the cabin was a robin and the second a calling male pheasant.

We found a harbour porpoise on the Wadden Sea side of the island. There were another 1.5 on the beach on the North Sea side. This one was too fresh to be able take the skull home.

(That animal is right where it belongs.)

I found my first bird's ring. Never mind keeping track of bird populations for nature preservation: this one is from a white rental dove.

(Click on the photographs to get the bigger picture.)

Impa was wondering

2009-02-01T13:24:00.000+01:00

Why don't I do this more often? If it's relatively so easy to get to a place where I feel so good, where everything becomes quiet, where all things fall into place for a while; why on earth don't I do it more often? I asked myself this three months ago, on the island Vlieland. So now you know where I'll be this week. With the seagulls, in the tall beach grass and the cold wind. Where life feels (even) better.

Internet safety confuses Impa

2009-01-29T06:34:00.003+01:00

'Log in to webmail by entering your username and password.'

'Internet service provider KPN will never ask for your password. Should you be asked for your password, don't comply.'

Dear KPN. I want to log in to read my mail, but you say I shouldn't. What do I do now?

Impa and the mysterious sock

2009-01-27T09:30:00.000+01:00

You know that thing with socks dissapearing in the washing machine? That's something that drives a lot of people nuts. Rightfully so. Because you don't get it and it's impossible and still it happens. Those socks simply dissapear. Which is hard to accept, which in turn feels horrible. And so we bite our nails and peer around frightened over our washing machines without ever living to see an end to our existential despair.

Those were the socks that dissapear. Now I'd like to have a little word about socks that... Appear. That's right. From nowhere, without an owner, trace, or explanation. If dissapearing socks make you crazy, neurotic and paranoid, how does the human mind with all its shortcomings deal with a sock appearing? After the neccessary questioning of male friends staying over and every other man person in my life who could possibly have anything to do with it but all swear they have never seen the thing and have no socks gone missing anyway. I ask you. How does one deal with that?

Well?

I rest my case.

Impa in Museum Boijmans van Beuningen

2009-01-25T17:55:00.008+01:00

The building of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam is simply beautiful. The light is white and soft and all the shapes are just right. Two floors around a courtyard make for wonderful wandering.

Impa comes to a grinding halt next to an informative piece of text on the wall. It says the artist has 'enlarged a remnant of polyurethane foam with mathematical precision and transformed it into an intriguing sculpture'. But I'm absolutely sure no one's ever asked my opinion on this. And unless everyone in the whole, wide world finds this sculpture intriguing, it's a rather subjective description. Which makes me ever so slightly rebellious. As it happens, I might find the work tedious. It might make me fall asleep with boredom. It might intrigue me so little I almost fall over when I pass it by. (Although that could be the Orval from the museum cafe too.) Or could this text be instructive? Should I take a long, hard look at myself if I pass it by without being intrigued? The interesting thing, in that case, is that the sculpture should be percieved as 'intriguing' by English readers and 'stimulating' (prikkelend) by Dutch readers. Would that only be native speakers of Dutch? Or does it also go for non-natives who -perhaps secretly- read the Dutch bit anyway?

O yeah: they had art in the Boijmans museum too. Beautiful things. Such as an exhibition on the work of Charley Toorop. Life can be such a treat.

At the end of the day, we took the train back home to Utrecht with heavy museum feet and all lightheaded with new impressions. Home to sauerkraut.

Bye, Rotterdam.

IMPARAGRAPH

Impa and the desert (2)

Impa and the desert (1)

Impa and the little man on the stairs

Impa says tweet

Impa and the beautiful things

Sleep, Impa, sleep

Impa likes a laugh

How Impa met Tobi

Impa in Paris (2)

Impa just asked a question

Impa loves being at home

Impa and the apple turnovers

Impa in Paris

Inside, though, you are

Impa's garden

Impa's stuff and the van

Impa and her stuff

Impa and Blog-Art

Impa and the police

And then the pizza was in the freezer

Impa is starting to know this conversation really well

Impa goes vroom

What Impa wanted to ask Him

Impa says goodbye (1)

Impa drives her sweetheart to the horizon

Impa tweaks lying down

Impa had a nice wednesday

Of a son and his father

Impa and the proportions

Impa dreams

Impa's knapsack

Impa and the river Waal

Impa in the rain

Impa's men

Impa rounds a corner

...and there's a rabbit on the table

Impa swerves her eyes

Impa silences herself

Whelk

He hopes she'll leave him

What is it with you and Vlieland?

Where would you like me to touch you first?

Impa, the tomatoes and the sun

Dreams Can Come True

Impa and the girl at the hairdresser's

Meanwhile, at Impa's...

Impa got an e-mail

Ageing and moving (2)

Ageing and moving

Impa and the sand

Impa has been lying on the grass

Moving house

Impa would like you to listen to something beautiful

In Utrecht there's no end to the heaven that is the jumble sale

Impa's new mornings

Young starlings and a dog (2)

Loose

I wanted it to be you

The excellent upbringing of Impa and her oldest friends

Hip, hip, Impalinea

Green is the new pink

Impa loves them. De Kift.

Kitchen sink drama

Impa's Daewoo 14V1TS

Someone hand Impa the tissues, please?

1 April: Sweet Little Boy's Day

Home is where...

Traffic lights and rain

Impa gets a stolen hour

Impa likes

Impa visits a museum

Impa thinks a tree

Impa says *beep*

I get this a lot

Impa's image

Impa and the blue sky

Impa driving

Impa's amazement

Impa wants to lie in a hammock under a tree

Impa says beep