My life as an amateur. Part 28.

 This is sunday. And all of a sudden I understood why a day of rest was invented, for people working six days a week. Sunday used to be a day of visiting my grandparents, to see my grandfather listening to football on the radio, and after that visiting other family members. This was important for my parents in order to drink the homebrew dutch gin in great amounts. And after that my father drove us unsteadily to the local chinese restaurant. It took some time before our food arrived. My mother went to rest under the table. My father paid the bill without us touching the food. My father drove us home. I do not recall the atmosphere in the evening.

I do prefer to work on sundays. I do not have to. I think about death these days. When I was a student, a very long time ago, I lived solitary in a small apartment overlooking de ‘Centrale markthallen’ in Amsterdam-West. For heating I had a woodstove and I used all the unpainted wood I found on the street. Of course some pieces were too big and needed to be sawed. The neighbor on the second floor, a very lonely man without teeth and bitter about life, complained about the noise. I could understand that. I also played piano because I had to practice for my lessons. Sometimes, I layed stretched out on my bed and tried to stop breathing. I was very quiet and never wanted to stop. Stop.

It is easier to live this way, when you think about it. It probably happened on sundays.

My life as an amateur. Part 27.

 This early morning I met this famous football player who is living in our street. He is a very friendly person. I think he thinks I do not know who he is, that I am just an older person jogging with her dog every morning without never ever getting any interest in football. We wish each other a very nice day, and so do our dogs. I like to keep it this way. I like friendly people without needing to know if they are successful in something. 

I have this strange relationship with food among a lot of other things. I think it is strange because I cannot fathom what is normal. Today I took a shower ( sorry for this ) and I was wondering if taking your time under the shower is a thing normal people do. And when you are not hungry, should you eat your luncheon sandwich without butter but with cheese sitting next to the tiny tomatoes in your ( my ) vintage luncheon box? It is a really nice box, the bottom part is yogurt-white and the upper part is tangerine-orange, coincidentally two of my favorite foods(?).

When I was a teenager I thought that candy was next to nothing, no sugar, no fat, no calories, because the candy didn’t fill me up. It was better and less scary than hachée.

Doing things while time is passing to live in. Doing passive things, like sitting and looking at a closed door, or a sansevieria, and at the same time building a house for one self. Tiny of course. Thank you. Have a nice day too.

.

My life as an amateur. Part 26.

 I don’t like boats. I don’t like being on boats. My father has been a sailor since the age of fifteen. After I was born ( my father was nineteen ) he stayed ashore and needed to join the army, as a sniper. After two years he went working in the harbor. Full continu.

Sometimes I am early. Sometimes I am far too late. There is no need to give me a set of keys. I like it better without.

After thirty years he bought his own boat, and called it ‘Dreamer’, a little motor boat with sleeping capacity. My parents went to the Brielse Meer, the bottles of dry white wine stayed cool in the water, for my mother an important detail of this watersport.

I ran ten kilometers this morning. It took me one hour and twenty one minutes. An hour later I went shopping, far too much for my bicycle bags, so I had difficulties getting the groceries into those bags. An elderly lady stopped in order to assist me, while saying:’Youngsters need some help too, sometimes’. I was grateful towards her. I am fifty six.

My life as an amateur. Part 25.

 When I was a student, I had a job. It was at a youth building place in the north of Amsterdam where children could build their own house with pallets and other leftovers. These children came mainly from poor families, broken families, drunken families and other families with issues. So, you could say, the building place was a safe haven for most of them. Some were violent, to me and my colleagues.

It was long time ago, so I am not quite sure how old he was, but we became very close friends while working there. M. came to work every day with his van without a driving license . He lived on a little sailing boat. He was very poor and he was very fond of cheese. Every month on payday he went to the supermarket and while shopping he ate a pound of cheese for which was not paid yet. But he did finally of course. Sometimes we cycled to the ferry and just before embarking we stranded in a pub and drank Dutch gin all night long, eating a stroopwafel along. We slept together in a very small bed, spoonlike. That was all.

I stopped working at the building place because a little boy threatened to hit me with a bicycle chain.  Two years later, after sending M. an invitation for an exhibition, his girlfriend phoned to tell me M. died on his little sailing boat.

Stop.

My life as an amateur. Part 24.

 Last night I decided to become even slower than I already am. I intend to do the things in a slow motion manner, like reading ( very very very difficult with piles, mountains of books waiting impatiently for me ) and writing ( with which I mean to write down only the most necessary words ), painting ( one layer of paint a day and preparing another panel or stretched linen ) and running ( giving every step my hundred percent attention, and not more than five kilometers ).

This morning a sentence came into mind while running, but at home I had forgotten what it was. This happens all the time.

The good thing is that I don’t need to write. I even deleted the foregoing paragraph. After that we went to see a friend from a very long time ago, I don’t know how long ago, all I can say is that I noticed that his curly hair was straight and painted black and that his front teeth were missing and that his hands were shaking. He had been very ill. The first few minutes he didn’t seem to follow what we were telling him, as if his mind was trembling too. But then I thought, he has always been like that, it was just such a long time ago. When we went away again he said he liked our visit and that would like to visit us too. But not that soon. I think that’s great. A great afternoon.

My life as an amateur. Part 23.

 I am not to be trusted. Last night I heard music. A guitar was played with lots of dissonants. A hesitant violin. This was the world. This was me. Nothing more needed. Stop. 

We were traveling by car and the rest of the world was skybound. I thought of paint and painting and how I need other people’s works to feel a whole person, to be able to paint and not give a goddamn whatever of how it will end. This is what I need to say every quarter of the hour, and keep on moving. Last night I was reading The Lonely City written by Olivia Laing. It occurs to her that loneliness is not like hell because its like living within an ice cube. It is not a book to be used as a central heating to warm your back. I actually never do that with a book.

There is a long distance artist friend I ran into at an art fair last summer. We decided to work together. It's December now and I still need to send her a ‘something’ work. A minute ago I texted her that I am working on it, that I am very slow ( or thoughtful, which is nicer ) these days. So now I can postpone the work a little further.

About the wash softener, I think I bought the wrong kind again. I am very sensitive to smells, probably like most people, and after spending half of an hour putting my nose into the bottles of wash softener on the washing products section of the supermarket, my nose seemed not sensitive enough.