what should i do

On what hinges our sanity? And what even is it, if you had to define it? A rational, healthy and stable mind perhaps, but at what point could we deem our thought patterns *unhealthy*? If it impedes our quality of life, or our ability to meet certain standards? I guess the latter is where subjectivity comes into play.. what standards must one meet, and who decides what is truly so important that deviation of said expectations would be seen as "insane"? Where does free will set in?

As I rolled out of the driveway wearing sweatpants and flipflops, piece of cold leftover pizza dangling in my mouth, on my way to get some coffee from my local shop, I thought of how disheveled I must look right now. However, I leaned into it; as I cranked up the car radio and rolled the windows down, I picked a random song to play and on comes Hocus Pocus by Focus, the manic pan-flute riddled musical equivalent of adding corn kernels to a skillet filled with too much hot smoking oil, and so chaos ensues in splatter and splendor, hot oil flinging about, messing up your clean kitchen and slightly singeing your skin upon contact.

As I drove around town, I felt deeply alive. The coffee shop is right next to a church and as people walked out in their sunday best I came out in my finest "i just woke up and threw this on" fit, complete with locally made green tee with a heron on it, which I got from an art fair, and fell in love with as soon as i noticed it.

This is a story about possible lives. It's funny how hindsight shows you the paths you could have taken. As if you stand on top of a hill, looking back on the trail you have walked up to that apex. You see the hill next to you, basking in sunlight and looking splendorous, and for a moment you feel a slight yearning to be there, perhaps a regret for the road you took. In your mind you transport yourself over there and envision fields full of vibrantly blue cornflowers and the tremolo of summer grasshoppers, holding on tightly to the stem of a wild oat as it dances in a warm breeze. How beautiful it might be to be there right now, soaking up the scene of seasonal evanescence.

But do you also remember the trail you walked? The wonder in your eyes as your attention gets pulled to the silent clap of a butterfly's wing as he bounces through the air as if stepping on invisible blocks of solid air, over your head, behind you, and beyond your sight as it disappears in between the trees like a forest spectre? Do you recall the chatter of the brook, it's cold and oxygenated waters rushing over rocks to get back to the source, conversing with the twittering chicadees and white-breasted nuthatches on it's way? Do you see the crack in the rocks around you, weathered by the cycle of freezing water and melting ice, split by the dance of passing time, and do you notice how the lichens eroded it's epidermis into a miniscule layer of soil, spreading like a flower opening in the first light of dawn?

It was 2:16 pm on a sunny afternoon in March when he finally sat down for lunch in the park. He put his backpack next to him on the wooden bench and reached inside to grab a plastic baggie with a ham and cheese croissant and a small carton of lime-flavored yogurt drink, made to enjoy on the go for nomadic students such as himself. The small, quick-to-grab minimarket stall was a convenient way to procure a lunch for under 3 euros. As he bit into his pastry, buttery flakes fell down his sweater and on the grass below him. He finished eating, took a swig from the carton, and let out a big sigh as he put his arm over the top of the bench and leaned back. The air was chilled and quiet. The sun hung halfway down a light blue sky, surrounded by an aura of light beams. Closing his eyes, he observed the deep, embryonic, orange hue of light falling on his eyelids. Through the vast emptiness of space, this light traveled only to be met by closed eyes, yet still, it was observed, felt, deeply, like the spring plants in the park around him that reached desperately for warmth and brightness. They could not see but moved towards it, just as he moved into a position of maximum absorption.

Sometimes this happens in a good way, y'know? My favorite part is going to some more wacky stores with huge inventories, they're like a museum for food. I could spend hours just browsing through what people apparently buy and use, because otherwise it wouldn't be there! Enough people are coming in for these odd-shaped jars of murky looking clam juice to be a stocked item, complete with bubbly textured glass exterior and retro white metal lid. And what about this flavor of Jell-O, are people really in here looking for that specific box of artificially flavored lime gelatin? I guess you could use it as decoration.. put some fairy lights through the alien green goo, like in a jar, add maybe some plastic figurines in it, put a lid on the jar..

hi, it's been a while. i shouldn't feel guilty about it but i do. i sometimes get so caught up in content creation that i forget that the fun part is in the creating of it. so i am hoping that by lowering my own expectations for writing, i am going to shift focus away from the quality of the work and more towards the quality of the time i am spending while writing it. nice, right? having said that, lower your expectations for this blog as well.. hehe.

so it's been a long day, a long week, a long month, et cetera. some days you come home depleted, without even the tiniest smidge of motivation to do absolutely ANYTHING. you know what i'm talking about, i'm sure. well, today would normally warrant that kind of mindset, but since my partner isn't home today i can kind of do whatever i want, whenever i want. which can be nice in small dosages.

and so today we're going completely in the other direction! came home, spent a full 10 minutes telling my pets how good they are, took off my sweaty work clothes and ran the bath. while it was filling up, i got a nice drink from the fridge and looked at my houseplants, and it got me thinking.. i only really have plants in one room of the house, like most of them are in the living space with the big window, but i've always wanted to have a bathroom filled with houseplants as well..

to be weird, it is a bit strange that humans like houseplants so much. we decide that this living organism would look just absolutely perfect on a piece of furniture in our home. the more the merrier! give them cute little pots or hanging baskets so they have a place to keep their little bit of earth to live in, water them whenever we are kind enough to remember, and let them live with you until they perish from neglect or old age. do plants age? 🤔

it must be very strange from the plant's perspective, too. not that they can see or perceive like we do, but for the sake of this train of thought let's just choo-choo on with it... imagine being scooped up in a store by some random person, who now is in charge of your climate, almost like they're your god. they control the temperature, the rain, the light, how safe you are from the cat's rambunctiousness.. that's pretty strange.

come to think of it, plants are sedentary creatures. often they do not move from their spot, although i am sure there are exceptions, there always are.. but most of them sprout, live, thrive, wither and die all in the same spot. talk about living in the moment! and then here comes this human that just grabs this plant by the pot and zooooooms it around the room or a different house altogether! this plant must be screaming on the inside like "AAAAAA WHAT IS HAPPENING!? WHAT IS MOVEMENT!?!?"

....

good thing i prefaced this by lowering the bar.. anyway... as i was running my bath i thought, what is stopping me from just taking some plants over to the bathroom and having a little plant bath? so i did! and as i lowered myself in the tub, got all settled into the warm water, took a sip of my drink and looked at my plant i thought: "this is what life's all about"

and no, by that i don't mean that life is all about plant baths, although i might do it more often now, but it's about going just a tiny bit further to make something a tiny bit more special, and it can make all the difference in the world..

gonna marinate on that for a minute..

welcome to my blog

this is the first blog of my blog. BLOG.

while i am actually dutch, i prefer writing in english. a lot of the artistic input in my life has been english, like television that was not dubbed, music that was not dubbed either, luckily. imagine listening to a pink floyd song in dutch. those people arent chill enough for that, and way too fun.

i have always loved the idea of writing, i have heard that i am pretty good at it. at this point you might have realized that i do not use capital letters. that's because i do not believe that the first word is necessarily the most important one. in fact, it usually is just courtesy. i also don't like how in english, a lot of words are capitalised out of respect. words such as english, french, germany, japan, ouagadougou, frigidaire and most annoyingly, the word i.

why is i capitalized? i feel like it puts such importance on myself, as if i don't mention myself enough! i think that keeping the i small is a nice way of reminding myself that i am not that important. that what i do is not grand, not greatness. but that i have the potential to be a part of something bigger, just like the letter i in the word bigger. isn't that fun?

anyways, i hope that this blog will make you feel right at home. i will definitely take suggestions if you have any, but i am not going to expect too much of myself with this. this blog is meant for me, and i like sharing it because that way, it has the potential of being part of something bigger. art that i do not share is very special to me, i want to make something... ordinary. because sometimes life is ordinary, and there is a lot of beauty in that.

just like that, i hope that this blog will be extraordinarily ordinary. just like all of us, little walking miracles who just got used to how special we are, and how beautifully strange our world is.