NEW MEMORIES // I DON'T KNOW WHY

Two stories, together and apart; working it both ways.


Pt. I

From the juvenile, coffee-tinted pages of the past & present; today he plays another part, back then he was a soldier. Never forget why you are young only for a certain amount of time. These days are always remembered. But sometimes you purposefully forget things. Because you've been burned. J. says that she is a teenager in her late twenties, I think perhaps I am just a pensioner with freshly colored red hair. So then I go and rummage through these pages I just told you about, and I find treasures and feelings that I've kept hidden for the longest time. I purposefully forgot. I decided it was time to face the demons. So I met the people who could help me remember.
Here I walk through the city alone and careful, there I slip, because my new boots are not made for all the ice on Berlin streets. A week full of new memories. I meet you. We just lie around and talk about the past. We just lie around and feel the comfort in knowing one another. We just lie around and know that these are the better days. We just lie around and have no regrets. Even after eight long years. Then alone on the streets again. My friends have grown up too. It didn't seem possible, but it's happening to everybody. I helped them remember too. I did. And we made new memories, my old friends and me. And then there are also new memories with new friends. There is not much to remember. But they must have been young once too. I wonder how they managed ten years ago, when I was just setting foot into the big city. Hello. I am a teenager and I want to belong. Do I belong now that I am 26? And maybe J. is right, and I am a teenager in my late twenties, still. Life is this cycle in which we keep acquiring memories, just so we can suppress them again afterwards. And then, years down the road, when we have made enough new memories and have forgotten all the old ones, purposefully, because of all the pain they caused, we meet with them again and remember that the fire that scarred us, when we were young, was a friend and helper.

Pt. II

I like your touch, I like it, but I don't know why. I like to grab your hand while it's in your pocket, and hold on to it when walking with you and I don't know why. We pass by places we've been before and I remember, but you don't and I don't know why. We go my way and not yours, because I know the way much better, and you kiss me in the snow, and I don't know why. I tell you my story and my secrets and about all the things I like and you are listening and I don't know why. I feel like you understand but then again I feel like you don't, and I don't know why. When we sit next to each other, I feel moths blindly and wildly roaming through my belly. There is no space for butterflies, and I don't know why. Your hair is soft and I don't know why. I wish I didn't know your name, and I don't know why. I want to disappear under the sheets and I don't know why. A five minute walk is no coincidence and most certainly not fate. I don't know why. You have a lot of secrets, and I don't know why. I started to listen to music again, and I don't know why, but likely it's because of you.

// TO LEARN FROM HAL HARTLEY

Life lessons to be learned from Hal Hartley's film 'TRUST' (1990), which is being re-released right now. 

The world needs to see this. Because Hal is a genius and nobody does it better.

LITTLE GIRL LOST, LITTLE GIRL FOUND

Sometimes, when jetlagged, lying in bed at 5 am on a sunday morning, reading William Blake under the blankets, cause that's what I do, I start to wonder about how to make songs out of all his poems...

 In the Age of Gold, 
 Free from winter's cold, 
 Youth and maiden bright 
 To the holy light, 
 Naked in the sunny beams delight. 

 Once a youthful pair, 
 Filled with softest care, 
 Met in the garden bright 
 Where the holy light 
 Had just removed the curtains of the night. 

 Tired with kisses sweet, 
 They agree to meet 
 When the silent sleep 
 Waves over heaven's deep, 
 And the weary tired wanderers weep."

(A Little Girl Lost) 

It's a song, indeed.

Back home, back where I started my journey a very long time ago, eight or nine years ago, I try to remember certain days where I made decisions that eventually changed my life. A very long time ago, for some strange reason, I walked into this book store and bought a book, and for probably the same reason, I am reading it right now.

Oh, this green little book, I've been carrying it around with me for 7 years, wherever I would go. I bought it at a tiny book store in Greenwich in London when I was 19. London was my home then. I didn't dare to touch the book. It stayed in my brown leather bag for a good while. From there it went with me to Berlin. The first time I opened the book, I ended up reading it in one whole session. I do prefer to read in the bathtub. It's a safe place. I poured some red wine and opened the first page. I was smoking rolled cigarettes while the water got cold, added some hot drops, had my foot open the faucet, ash kept landing on my shoulder. I was all wrinkly after. The world was circling above me - T. had installed an old globe we found at the flea market as our bathroom lamp on the ceiling. It didn't give much light to the room, so I had put up tea lights on the edges of the tub. I never wanted to leave this place. The book is wrinkly now too. It moved with me from Berlin to New York in 2009. It was the only book I brought. It was there for me when I endured loneliness, homelessness, heartbreak... It was there when I tried to come up with lyrics, but couldn't. It was there when I needed a friend.

I do feel like I need a friend. The little girl lost, she is still creeping under the sheets. But I remember she was found, too. London is on the opposite page. Maybe this is a sign. Perhaps I need to return. Perhaps I need to return the book. Maybe I will take a walk to Primrose Hill on a Monday morning in May, and will read my favorite poem while watching over the city, then accidentally leave the book in the grass. And whoever finds it will have a similar journey. Maybe I will meet this person, and they will tell me their story. I want to hear more stories. People don't tell enough stories anymore. They meet to talk about trivialities. The don't look each other in the eyes anymore. They don't take the time to feel a stare, to catch a story this way. I love stories more than anything. Tell me your story. How did you get here?

And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.

26 // CHANGES // LOST // FOUND?

26. It happened. And it is probably the most radical change that I have ever felt in my entire life. I can feel it everywhere and it's in constant movement. I look in the mirror and I see a grown woman, who's just now realizing who she really is. This is a woman who struggled for years with her own identity, with her own demons. There are a few. They are still there, but they don't bother her much anymore.

Her is me. I guess if I talk about myself in third person that would show some signs of detachment from my own personality. And maybe I am feeling detached from everything right now, I feel this emptiness that I haven't felt in a whole year. 25 was a strange birthday. One year ago, I met the most wonderful person. He was everything I ever looked for and we knew that we were supposed to be together and be there for each other. It was a sign, it was something that needed to happen. I was in a bad place and he took me to a better place. I found love again, I found real love and understanding for the first time in my life. It all made sense. And then a year goes by and I look back and I'm detached, and I realize: This was the best chance I've ever had, this was the greatest opportunity to make things right, to work on myself and become somebody who could love somebody right... this was as close as I would ever get to true love. And I got pretty damn close. But there were too many obstacles, too many things to overcome. When you are young and in love, these things can hurt you and make things fall apart. Or what if you really don't know the other person as well as you thought you did? What if they had it coming? And I watched him fall down and didn't do anything, because I wasn't aware. I was in denial, I thought I could fix him. I couldn't. Nobody could fix anyone, ever. You can only fix yourself.

The love is still there. All of it. And for all I know, it won't go away for a very long time. But the trust is gone. The sadness is so strong and the disappointment and anger are two things that keep hurting me with every second that goes by. I get him now. I get his fears now and I am angry at myself for not having understood earlier, for having been in denial. I want to hold his head and tell him it will be alright. That he deserves all of me and that he will have all of me, but that he needs to be happy first, and that he will find happiness if he truly believes in himself and that he deserves all of this.

I always thought he was the stronger one. But he wasn't. He carried my sadness on his shoulders for too long and it became him. And I was selfish. And now is he. For all I know, he truly believes he needs to do this, and the decision, as cowardly as it is, might make him the man I truly want.

There are so many profound thoughts, so many tears. They all say they don't matter. But these tears will always matter. I have always given my everything for love, and I wont stop now. I am stronger than I think. And so are you. Don't forget... YOLO, bitch.

NEW YORK ISN'T REALLY NEW YORK. // GETTING OLDER.

Tomorrow is Valentines Day. What does that mean to me? Do I give myself a gift? Do I wait until next year to acknowledge this capitalist holiday? Perhaps it only means more red and pink in New York City. It means more heart shaped objects wherever I go, dangling from ceilings, staring at me from the backs of newspapers that people read on the subway. It means glitter, smiles, PDA and stressed out guys in suits walking to the subway with a bouquet of flowers in their hand while checking their watches. No flowers for me. That's okay. I don't really like flowers anyway. I see no beauty in watching beauty decay.

Oh, good old grey and cold Brooklyn. I am in a new neighborhood. Bay Ridge. It's not that much better than Bed-Stuy, except I haven't been mugged or harassed yet. I guess that is better. These last few cold winter days surprise with a bit of sun, but I keep wondering why it is not making me happy. I am not enjoying it, but don't hate it either. Perhaps it's just me getting used to the madness, used to the stress, the bad air, the noises. The hectic. The smell of pizza and laundry detergent on busy street corners. The car alarm that goes off at 5am. The old Italian guy and the Chinese lady next door yelling and complaining about the car alarm. The police sirens. Everyday. I missed all that, in those six months of Amsterdam. Now that I am back in New York I am empty once again. The refreshing feeling I get when I breathe Western European air is gone. It's all grey now.

I spend my weekends taking trains upstate. Escape. Grand Central and the New York Public Library have become my second home. I discovered secret corners between bookshelves, where I hide and wait for the last train to take me to the snowed-in North. New Rochelle. Pelham. Yonkers. The Raceway Diner. America. I might miss this somewhat. The people. Genuine, kind, smart. Rare. We play music until 3am and have pancakes for dinner. Heaven.

Seven more days until I turn 26. Thinking about it gives me goosebumps. It makes me wonder who I have become. Honestly, I am starting to like myself. Perhaps I am going to be an amazing 26-year-old, and it is a convincing thought that I will become even more amazing with every year going by.

When I was twelve, one of my Dad's friends came to visit and brought his new girlfriend, who was 24 at the time (their age difference was a touchy subject). Suzy was her name. Of course, to me she was so old, and her peroxide blonde hair made her look even older. After all, a grown up like everyone else. And she wore vests a lot (something grown ups do?).  Suzy always smoked cigarettes in our kitchen. Sometimes I would sit with her and listen to her exhaling smoke. One day she complained: "I'm 24 now. That's almost 30. What am I gonna do with my life?!"

What am I going to do with my life? 26 in one week. It can only get better from here on. A plane will take me back to Europe in two weeks. A new life. Stress. A lot of it. Wrinkles. They suit me. No complaints. No grey hair yet. Ok.

My cat is sleeping on the laptop cable.

I FEEL THE YEAR ENDING

The last few days of October make me think a lot about productivity. This seems to happen a lot whenever a year is about to end. Sometimes I wish I had a better way of organizing my thoughts. S. is gone all day and I am trying to organize the paragraphs and index cards with first drafts and unfinished characters for my first novel. Today is the day of fives. 5 new books to read on my desk. 5 big glasses of juice. Day 5 of my 8-day juice cleanse. 5 days until I will try to make my first efforts for NaNoWriMo...

Not a bad thing, a very good thing perhaps, is that I am trying to prepare for an intensive few November weeks. Because November is National Novel Writing Month. Positive thinking and discipline are going to be my two best friends now. Hittin' the gym hard.

The past few days I've shown great fortitude, given that my stomach keeps growling, wanting food, wanting CRUMBS cupcakes, favorably red velvet in maxi size. But sometimes you have to make sacrifices for a better outcome. I've been thinking a lot about my own will power and my abilities to get what I want if I keep my mind set on all the good things. Good things like: finish writing a book, knitting a scarf, graduating college, getting an apartment in Leiden or Den Haag, save up more money for a new computer and preferably go on a vacation within Europe within the next 12 months. These are some good goals and they seem achievable. What keeps me from being successful? The past? The present? Certainly not the future. Insecurities? Missed chances? Irrelevant thoughts and irrational decision-making? All of them, I presume. Here we go again. Do you feel that too, or is it just me? I look up to my role models. I look up to myself at times, something I should do more often. Now I am craving some mousse au chocolat. Early Wednesday morning pep talk to myself - dizzy dreams of the near future.

AUTUMN IN AMSTERDAM

When words seem adrift, during the sentimental and rainy days of autumn in Amsterdam, all that can help is a picture book of curiosities. I found myself wandering my neighborhood, the Spaarndammerbuurt, to find lost treasures on sidewalks, shadows in puddles and characters in other people's windows, which helped me get a bit closer with this still strange seeming city I live in. These changes that happen impulsively, I move from here to there without a plan, why is my life this way, why am I one of those people? But it's not all bad. I can make friends with things. Trees. Geese. Cats behind glass. No problem. What's your story?

Here I am, wearing my grandmother's black gardening shoes, disguised as rain boots, it works, but as it gets colder, I can feel my toes disagreeing with this sort of dress up. I ordered some cheap heels online. I keep reminding myself...40 Euros down the drain. What if they don't fit or look ugly? I guess I can always send them back. I think about money a lot. It is my only obstacle.

Window shopping.

People like to put things and flowers in their windows around here. It's a nice thing to look at, something I didn't notice until I walked by a third, fourth, fifth time. Little kingdoms. Not much space here. You have to make it extra nice and cozy to get a home out of it.

Old people must live on the ground floor. They need their gear to get around.

I look up, I look down. I look to my left. I see things I didn't see before. The city is bigger than this. I feel comfortable in my neighborhood. Someone got beat up in broad daylight the other day, across from the supermarket. I haven't seen that since Brooklyn. It scared me a bit but then I saw people helping and the police investigating. It wasn't dismissed but taken seriously. Sacha said he never saw someone get beat up before around here. Maybe I do bring the misery with me wherever I go? How ridiculous does that sound? I am the root of all evil happening around me.

And then I miss my cat. Everybody has a cat around here. My street has geese.

One block north, two blocks West, not much, just a few houses, a few windows, a few people wet from the rain. But then again, all these small things I notice and take pictures of, why? For this blog? Maybe. Or maybe because I need a verification that this place isn't as bad as I think it is. Just because it rains all the time doesn't mean I am not welcome. This is not East London. This is just Amsterdam. Amsterdam would never do me any harm.

* * *

He sits there with his greasy hair, on the kitchen table. I like our life together. I like our life together here. Maybe it would be different somewhere. New York City, where we both hated our lives. Maybe that is why we didn't find each other back then, although we said 'Hi!' oh so many times. It's not always easy, and I remember that things happen for a reason. Zucchini soup for dinner, for example. New things. Mousse au chocolate in our fridge. I make things. Simple things. They make me happy. The future is brighter than I sometimes make it out to be. Fatalism is my weakness. I will get over it.

* * *

TO BE CONTINUED ...

SUPERHERO BUREAUCRACY

[DAY 15 IN AMSTERDAM] 

In an attempt to save the world, our common superhero usually catches a few scratches. I slipped off my bike pedal today, but no one saw it when I rolled off the bike path into a creek of duckweed. The ducks were too terrified of my human size to start nibbling at me, so they quacked for a bit and drifted into other directions. I was slightly wet. But to get registered in a new country you need to overcome these kind of obstacles. Nothing is easy and you do need to eat shit sometimes, because it is all that they give you, otherwise you would starve. But enough with the metaphors, the truth is that I am a stranger in a strange new land. What are my options?
I am a European citizen, that is something you know about me now. I enjoy the advantages my Europeanity Europeness Europeism Europpp  EU citizenship entails. I was an enemy of the state when I went to the United States a few years back. Not in a dangerous criminal kind of way. But if you go to the US as anything other than a tourist, you become THE ENEMY.

Compared to the duckweed incident earlier today, my first few weeks in New York City were an utter solitary nightmare. You are dependent on the system, yet the system is not dependent on you. It worked fine before you got there, and then when you leave it moves on as well. Your existence is a web of counterrevolutionary nonentities. You have no power. It's not the fact that I got mugged by a gang of underage crack addicts right in front of my house (where on other occasions I witnessed gang violence at its finest when somebody threw a bicycle at another person). It's also not the fact that I once got blackmailed by a flamboyant, unsuccessful actor with a bartending job who stole my identity. The citizens I encountered on my journey through New York are a different story. What kept me from becoming an accepted human being in the USA is the endless inane paperwork one needs to fill out and provide just to even walk one step on US soil. And I think that customer service employees yelling at me and connecting me to infinite loops of Old McDonald Had a Farm played their parts... There is a presumptuous emptiness to the bureaucratic hubris that this pseudo-democratic country exhibits to foreigners. I don't understand how I managed to survive those three years without ever biting the grass.

I walked into the tax office in Amsterdam today. I waited for about four minutes until I was called to the counter window, where I had to show my passport and fill out one (!) simple form. I had to wait three more minutes until my name was called to pick up my tax number. It took me 8 minutes total of being physically present in the building and it didn't cost me a penny. Now I can get a bank account, a gym membership, a phone contract, everything I need to start my life in the Netherlands. I never had any of those things in New York. I surely could have had those things, but to get there I would have had to jump through a bunch of burning hoops, and I am not that athletic. To have all these things, you must be rich, and a risk taker, and you must not care about being screwed over by government employees who speak worse English than you. One must think they do this for their own personal pleasure. There is no sense in it. US bureaucracy is the true enemy. Foolish games.

I fell of my bike today,because it is wet in Amsterdam, especially in September. My ass got some duckweed stains, that's fine. I managed to take my first successful steps into becoming an accepted person in this country, as somebody who can't be fooled, somebody who takes bureaucracy for what it is... assumed the bureaucracy I am fighting does have its intended purpose...

SUGAR BABY

You can make a mistake over and over again and not learn from it. It happened to me, and it keeps on happening. I am aware of the things I do oh so wrong, but the damage I do seems inevitable, most likely I am doomed to be a sad old cat lady in a one bedroom apartment of a grey suburban town.
Aside from that, I am in love again, and this time everything makes sense. I am crossing the canal every other day. Mundane walks through wet grass. Never more than twenty degrees, too cold of a Summer. What did I do wrong this time? Maybe it is because I am home. Home was never a good place for me to be happy. I am 25 years old, and still waiting for my own home. A place that I made, not a place someone else made for me. I am not close to any of that. Give me another year, I'd say. Uncertainty is one of my true enemies. I started baking again.

25.

Making special memories.

We got it all.

DON'T STOP CREEPING IN MY DREAMS, MELANCHOLY

Melancholy is a good thing.

I woke up freezing. The heater didn't turn on last night and now I have this pain in my throat as if I had smoked a pack of cigarettes before I went to sleep. I was unsure of how much longer I could wake up like this, and wished for the late winter to faster turn into spring to turn into summer. I know that time is precious but how am I going to cherish time, if it's doing a bad job at giving me anything to work with?

Melancholy is a good thing.

Last night in my dream, a strange man came up to me at the corner of a small Via Italia, probably in Rome, and he asked me for some money so he could buy flowers for his girlfriend. I gave him 50 US Dollars. "Puttana!" he yelled, and ripped the $50 bill apart. I saw the little pieces of that bank note falling from the sky and it turned into rain. I was standing there for a few seconds, until I was soaking wet.

Melancholy is a good thing.

I need to keep dreaming. I sometimes feel disconnected from reality in the most peculiar ways. I recently built a whole treehouse somewhere in the southwest of Italy and moved all my things into it. I have flowers growing on the walls. And the bed sheets are so white, that when the sun shines through the little skylight above it, the whole room glows like glitter markers, and in the near distance I can hear cowbells.

Melancholy is a good thing.

I woke up in a movie theater. I had been staying there for a few nights, because I lost my apartment. I would wake up early, before the film projectionists would come in and set up the movies in their little cabin above the last row. I would creep around under the seats and eat stale popcorn. One day I didn't wake up in time, and people were storming inside the hall to see "La Boum". Someone kicked me off my seat and I watched the first five minutes of the movie standing by the door. Then I woke up again and I was in my bed.

Melancholy is a good thing.

LOST TREASURES

So at 1.03 AM on February 19th 2012 I decided to eat a whole pack of peanut butter M&Ms and contemplate about the things that surround me. Two days before your 25th birthday, a lot of things really stop to make sense, and other things start to make a lot of sense. For example, the fact that I write  a lot started to make great sense. It's the only way I can live. Whether it is a song or a story or a rather bad drawing with an awkward description, its very much all I am. There are a few other things that make sense. Like pistachio ice cream. Or fried bananas. 

Last week I saw somebody wash their MetroCard at the laundromat.

I thought that was sweet. That way they can re-use it without having to worry about Bed-Stuy germs in their jeans back pocket. But Brooklyn doesn't make sense. There is nothing beautiful about it during the Winter. It is just senseless. Hot ciders, heating blankets, a sketchbook, those things can make it better. You know what I'm talking about.

These strolls along the river make me think. I am silent. Sometimes I talk to the squirrels or the various birds that hang out under the Manhattan Bridge. They know me there. Some of them even call me by my name. "Anna, you seem out of it today", they wonder. "Don't worry", I say, "I am fine!"...

Sometimes I find angels on the street. I wonder where they come from. Who lost this angel? Who would purposefully lose an angel?

One must never stop wondering.

SO EMOTIONAL

HERBERT JAMES DRAPER

These are a few of my favorite paintings by Herbert James Draper (1863–1920).

MAD MEN DRAWINGS

I started making these drawings of Med Men characters.

RIVER PHOENIX WITH LONG HAIR

I decided that River Phoenix with long hair is better than River Phoenix with short hair. Back in the day I used to think the opposite. I also decided that River Phoenix with long hair is better than anything else.

WENT TO THE AQUARIUM