The nannies all meet up at the various playgrounds in Amsterdam and speak Tagalog with eachother, while the children play. They’re body language is bolder, more slack, cooler when they are together than when they are with the parents they work for. They smoke cigarettes or engage in celphone conversations that last at least twenty […]
moreDuring flamenco class the other day, I found myself comparing flamenco to writing again. You can’t expect to get it right if you don’t practice until your feet bleed and your knees hurt. But there’s also this: if you stand there thinking, “I can’t do this, I’m bad, I look like crap,” then I guarantee […]
moreA woman behind the bar. Her eyelid droops. It is almost closed. I study her while waiting for my turn to order beers. Is it a paralysis or an over-contraction? It could go both ways. I study the rest of her face, her mouth hardly moves on the droopy-eye side. Her cheek seems lifeless. Paralysis. […]
moreMy son's last day at the daycare center. I try to soak up the details in order not to forget. The smell of apples, bananas and diapers. The loud clang of the bell. The covers to put over our shoes and how hardly any of us can be bothered to put them over our children's […]
more“Mom, wait!” I hear this a lot after having kissed my son goodnight. I pause for a second, know what’s coming: an excuse to keep me there for a little while longer. Any excuse.“Your work, mom,” he blurts out, “uhm tell me about your work?”A perfectly normal question, but when it comes out of the […]
moreRemember The Fountainhead? No? Doesn’t matter, neither do I. Not the details, that is to say. What I do recall is this somewhat abstract notion of an ideal man. A virtuous man, entirely rid of ego while having been blessed with a great talent. His name was Rourke. There was also Keating who was the […]
moreIt all makes perfect sense. One singular hour bridges the gap of thirty years and quite elegantly connects then to now.Back then, she and I were eight years old. We were best-friends. We went to an all girl’s school and wore purple uniforms. Shoulder length hair or longer was to be tied up in a […]
moreA mood ring. We noticed it in a local shop here, in this beach village I’m at with my son and niece. It had little butterflies on it. My niece immediately fell for it, even though it was too big. “A mood ring?” she asked. I explained – “it changes colour according to your mood.” […]
moreI am in a ‘house by the sea’ with my son and niece. An hour ago, she announced she is homesick. She did so in a goofy, 7-yr-old-girly way. Shy and smiling, yet her voice quaky. What is homesickness, exactly? It is still light outside so it can’t have been fear.I think back to when […]
moreCommunity workers were testing the playground pool and temporarily filled it with water. As none of the parents had expected this, the best option was to let the kids shed all their clothes. They splashed around naked, ecstatic. This is Amsterdam, as it was. We used to be groovy, we used to be wild, we […]
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