Borders & Elektric shocks

Several years ago, I wanted to participate in an experiment of the university; you got paid very royal for some hours. There were electric shocks involved. Before they could start the experiment, they had to determine my pain treshold. I was too stubborn, maybe too unsure, to know when to say stop, so I let them raise the treshold until I fainted.

Today I told someone about this memory, and then I wondered... how far do you go if you don't know any borders? Until you get lost? Until it is too late? Or is there a pulling factor which has an end?

I have been on the other side of the world, at Cape Reinga in New Zealand. It is a cliff at the coming together of two oceans: according to the Maori legend a male and a female ocean. They call this place the womb of the world; where souls are born, and are also return. Yes, another cycle.

Then I wonder...

If we don't know any borders, do we just walk in cycles?

Silence... the Sound of my Romance

Yesterday morning I stood in the train station of Antwerp, waiting for my small journey to Gand, where I work for the Film Festival. (Yes, we also start to work in the weekend, because it starts next week.) 
It was so loud. The machines were so loud. People talk so loud as possible so everyone can hear them. There are everywhere ads, with violent colors. People hurry, people think "me, me, me", when they want to embark on the train, and even I am part of this whole cacophony. I am working too hard, and I feel how days become grey (and not only because the winter in Belgium is going to start). Then I realized what I really want. 

I want to be a quiet person. Point. No exclamation point.

The days before my cousin and I talked about our destinations in life. She wants to become a stylist, helping people to look better, by letting them feel better, and to advise them how they can change their food, colors of clothes and life style to feel better. She is 30 years old. She is going to start a blog soon: Letstalkaboutyouand...
She works as a shop assistant manager, and is already in this sector for 10 years. She studied photography, food consultancy, colors & style... and now she has found the perfect study. This is in Amsterdam, and as some of you know, it is expensive to study in the Netherlands. While university and other higher education has fees between 0 and 600 euros each year, it is 5000 euros in the Netherlands. It is still not so much if you compare the prices in UK and USA, but I don't want to talk about their ideas about equal chances. Even 5000 euros is too much for most people in Belgium, which is not really ranked as a "poor country". My cousin is a single mom. Amsterdam is 2hours by train from Antwerp, but it is expensive for her to travel, and also pay day (and night) care for her baby.

I am 24, and I don't know exactly what I want. I love geography, nature, writing, traveling, meeting people, silences, gazing at world maps, eating strawberries with my hands, tasting salt on my lips, dreaming about guys, you know... I studied some things, but I don't know what I want to be. I have dreams, ideas, values... like breaking stereotypes, taking care of nature... but there is so much to do I got lost. I want to take care of the nature, but my 2-3 jobs take me away of really being the "green" person I want to be. After this internship, I decided to work already part-time, and do more sports, yoga, gardening, spending time in my house, decorating and cleaning it, reading books... to become more the person I want... In fact, I want to worship Silence. When Loudness dominates my working world, I want to enjoy the Silence, the sound of my new romance, who is now neglected.

But then... I wonder... why can I not also worship Silence in the working days? Why can I not be silent, when I work? People expect you to be competitive, assertive... but that creates only stress.  It would be interesting if skills like "active listening", not striving for visual cool, but for visual beauty in your work, to have breaks... That is my strongest challenge... to learn to say no, and find a balance, not in dividing my week in "silent" and "loud" days, but to divide each second in a silent and loud part.

I still don't know where and what I want to work, but I promised myself that at least one criteria for choosing a job will be that I can see chances to be more myself, to be more in balance in this job, and can find place for Silence in my job, even if this job does not get good paid as others, where you will be overwhelmed by sounds in all seizes and meanings.

The thing is... I should not be afraid to be poor... because that makes you really poor...

Chipszak Boy

Een arm, dik allochtoon jongetje, 7jaar, krijgt van zijn arme ouders elke dag een zak chips mee als lunch. Zijn toekomst ziet er grijskleurig uit totdat hij op een dag een oude man ontmoet die chipszakken van de straat en vuilnisbakken plukt, en besluit deze te volgen.  

In my next short movie, called CHIPSZAK BOY, which I am writing now, and I want to film in rainy February or March, in the poor neighbourhoods of Belgium, I will tell a story about a poor, fat immigrant child who only has one chip bag for lunch and doesn't have many friends. His whole future seems full of grey clouds, until he notices an old man collecting chip bags from street and garbage bins...

In this short I want to address the problem that poor people often forget the most important case: good nutrition. I got aware of this problem, when a close friend, living in Brussels, and working with immigrants, told me about "the chipszak for lunch" phenomena in the poor streets of my capital. 

During my first travel outside Europe -when I was 18 years old- a local friend and I visited Durbuy Square in Nepal. I talked (or yes, my local friend had to translate) with street children. They told me they lived in the neighbourhood of the airport, and always came to this touristy place to find food. I gave a small girl, wearing no pants, cookies, but I wished I had brought her to a place, with healthy food. It was cheap for me to give cookies... or lazy... while I had time (and money) to invest in healthy food for these kids for maybe a whole week. These kids let a print in my head...

street children from Nepal, August 2007

I will go for cold, hard reality shots. Of course there will be a bit happiness, even if it is only hidden in the smile of a character. Happiness is everywhere. It is sometimes hard to find... even the most perfect person has dark moments. Some days ago I decided to polish the nails of my left hand dark, and keep the other blank. Someone asked me if I did this with a purpose. it is to remind me that every person has dark and good moments, and dark and good features...  It is important to be aware of both...

... not to learn more about you, but also to understand that every person you'll meet is fighting his own battle, has his good and dark days... and that one moment, one story... shouldn't be his or her only impression in your life... I try this, and I hope some people on the other side of the line will tolerate my dark days, and not only want to see my light moments and smile. 

I only show my dark nails to people I really trust...  but that is another story.

I like of course my blank, white nails more... and with this hand I will write the script. 

The Chipsbag also will be a dark symbol for malnutrition of body and soul... but also will have a good side... in the story. Stay tuned ;)

Death is part of the cycle

"Death exists, not as the opposite but as part of life"

By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be,

it was only one of the truths we had to learn. (...) 

No truth can cure the sadness 

we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no

strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is 

see that sadness through to the end and learn something

from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next

sadness that comes to us without warning. Hearing the waves

at night, listening to the sound of the wind, day after day I

focused on these thoughts of mine. Knapsack on my back, 

sand in my hair, I moved farther and farther west...

-Norwegian Wood, Murakami-

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When a tree has been felled,

you can see whole his story.

His joy, his pain, his anger, his dreams...

Life is like a cycle,

things come, things go...

Memories are whispers of leaves

fading away into nothing...

Who am I,

wandering around in the forest,

following shadows I don't know,

teasing the leaves under my soles... ?

Memories are dandelions in the air,

the wind of the mind blows it in every direction... 

But there are two things which I always find,

on every trip in the forest, during every dance in the flower field,

the rose, and you.

I love them both...

the rose for one day, because then nature comes,

and you forever, because some things are stronger than our human nature.

Icarus and Daedalus - or regrets of dying people

Some days ago a trainer of the Leadership Summer School forwarded this article. She told me it didn't contain the biggest wisdom, and it not written by a potential Nobel prize winner... but it is some article to remind us to things we don't do too often, and later will regret. 

In this article you can read the top 5 regrets of dying people. I'll write them over:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

I realized that I have regret because I try to express my feelings, stay in touch, try to live a life true to myself, go for dreams and ambitions... 

People think often I am the most blessed and happy girl I ever meet. After a great self-reflecting period in New Zealand, where I had great WWOOF-experiences, hitchhiked and hiked on my own... people thought I was a hippie, who is not in touch anymore with the reality, and that how higher you fly, how deeper you can fall. 
Some people, even friends from Belgium, saw me as a small female modern version of Icarus, trying to reach the sun, and thereby melting his wings, so he felt dead... I was a bit surprised that people saw my world travel as a trip in Wonderland, where life just freezes, and you don't think about reality. Traveling for me is also hard. I am not always happy. 
I feel bad because other people think I am going the wrong way. I work hard to please everybody. I don't express my feelings, because if you express you're in love, or happy, people ignore you or put you back on earth, saying "you're an Icarus"... I think I only am good in staying in touch with friends, but honestly I wished I had more contact with the half of the people, and had not so much contact with some other people... Also it does not help if some people do not reply back, "because it is in his or her nature, culture"... Staying in touch can not come from one side. Then you better can talk to a wall. Or write a blog... 

I regret many things. It is funny that even you're aware of your regrets, it is daily fight. Even if you do things you would regret otherwise, sometimes you don't do them, and you regret. Every day there is something that I regret. It is a small monster feeding with fears, expectations and tears. And sometimes it explodes inside you, so you implode. That is maybe even worse than exploding. People think you're crazy when you're angry, or cry on the middle of the street, but it is more healthier and normal than if I would put a smile, and just absorb everything. I am a human, not a robot. Of course I have feelings. I shouldn't be afraid to express themselves.

The Dalai Lama said that to have great love and great achievements in life, you need to take great risks.
In our society it looks like expressing your true feelings, to live a true life to yourself, to find other values important than money (and working too hard)... is taking a big risk; people will think you're weird, or crazy, or insane... or an Icarus...

... but these people trying to live their true life, express their feelings, stay in touch with friends, work, but not too hard, and let themselves be happier, are not Icarus. They are the Daedalus in that same Greek legend, flying in the middle, between earth and sun, trying to be grounded, but also reaching for freedom and destinations in life. 

I hope one days people will accept the Daedelus-types more than the King Minos with the Golden Hand-people of the society. I wouldn't feel regret for things that are good for people... 

I think I would be then less frustrated... because now I feel like Daedalus, before he invented the wings, and took a flight, but in his period when he had to work, almost like a prisoner, for King Minos of Crete, and build a labyrinth for monsters like the Minotaur... causes I don't support... but I feel trapped in my own work...

The White Room

Colors are one of the most amazing presents of Mother Earth. Since Ancient Times, people believe that each color has his own power to heal and to make all the children of this Mother happy and alive. Sun, the source of all life, gives us light, which is a spectrum of all colors. In the film world, we work a lot with color symbolism, because every color has also a lot of symbolic meanings, associations... There is a famous book called "If it's Purple, Someone 's Gonna Die". In some beliefs, people connect each main color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet) with the seven chakra's, or energy centers in our bodies. I studied physics, as part of my Science studies, and I know every color has the properties of light, so has his own frequency, his own wave length... According to these beliefs, every color, every specific frequency of energy, is connected with color. 

This is the first story I'll write about Colors. I wrote one about "the Color Wizard and the White Queen", in Flemish, which some friends already read some years ago, but I'll translate it soon... 

It is called "The White Room"

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Some years ago a friend asked me several odd questions, which were part of his small informal psychological test. My favorite animal? ("That is how you want others see you," he explained.) Where do I prefer to swim? ("That gives more idea about your sex life.") How many flowers do I want in the garden? ("How many children do you want?") The last question is what I would do if I ever would wake up in a white room, without any escape. There are no windows, no doors... just white walls. What would be your first reaction?

Honduras, April 2011
I burnt my nose during this day, which was the beginning
of the development of impetigo. Or...  Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen
(song song of Baz Luhrmann:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

Years later I woke up in a white room I couldn't leave. There were big windows, and there was a door, yes, but a disease kept me inside this room. Honduras had given me a last souvenir: impetigo. It is a contagious childhood skin disease. It was not so dangerous, and it also didn't hurt. I just looked like the bride of Frankenstein's bride: I looked like a Dalmation dog, but with yellow spots, which produced some pus. It was disgusting. More and more spots came, like someone Divine Power was coloring me, under the influence of mushrooms. I think I survived one of the most dangerous cities in the world -  Guatemala City- where I stranded during my return at night, several hours before I expected to arrive, because I looked even to scary for bad spirits. Every disadvantage has his advantage, they say...

In this White Room, the nurse came twice a day, to disinfect every yellow spot. They helped me to wash myself in the shower, because I had 24 h/24h an infusion. The disease was developed so hard that only antibiotics directly in my blood would help. Again, I was not in danger. It also would heal after a month, but I would keep many scars, where all the spots came. I still have a scar of this disease, after more than 2 years, on the heel of my left foot.
I hated that infusion fact. I hate needles, and certainly when the infusion is almost empty and it starts to suck blood. From the moment I see the red liquid in the plastic tube, I fainted almost. I was not happy to take a shower, with that thing also in the shower. I remember I almost scared my own doctor, because when he took blood from my arm, I fainted, and almost pierced myself. Since that doctor's visit, he always let me lie on the bed, when I do a blood test. "Just in case," he always says.

In this White Room I woke up, and I couldn't leave. Some friends called me. My mother brought me some books, but not the books I asked. I ended up with childhood books, for 6 year olds.
It was so boring to sit there. The doctor told me I probably need to be in the hospital for a whole week. It seemed like an eternity.

When you're in a prison, in the first moments, you think you've the whole freedom to do everything you always wanted to do. But then, when you feel stuck, the air takes away all your breath, so dreams and plans just fade away into the nothing, and you just wait before you can leave this white room.

I knew I was going to leave this room, but I lost dreams. You start to think about things which doesn't really matter, but the eternity, the time...  becomes your biggest enemy. Fear that you'll never will leave this room, is like a poison, darkening your heart and your mind, and then you start imploding.

In the end I was not afraid to see my blood, the only colorful thing in this white room. It was full of life.

Honduras, April '11: This picture of the trees in these ruins,
would have been the cover of the novel. Maybe one day it will be a cover picture.
I am still writing about baobabs, dryads... and immortality.

In that time I started to write a novel, which I call "the baobabs from Madagascar". I think the idea is born there. It is fantasy, but I coupled the theme: "eternal life". Some characters choose, others are chosen for, to have an eternal life, as a dryad, a tree nymph. It is not only the fantasy I love to write about, the escapism, but also the question how you would react when you hear you live forever, when you really wake up in a white room. From the moment you got stuck in a white room, when you get stuck in some eternity, and the only escape is death, there is nothing worse. In this novel the story also started in the ruins of Honduras, which are dominated by big baobabs.


White rooms, without escape, are everywhere. It can be eternal life, it can be a hospital room, it can be a resting place, or it can be your own house, where dreams, plans fade away... because it all seems no sense. I left this white room, and was then more sure that I wanted to do this world travel, and find all the colors of the world, by traveling, and not getting stuck in any white room, or not for too long.

I remember what I replied to this friend. "I will try to find an escape."
He smiled, and said: "There is no escape. Don't think too much about it. How would you react? What is the first thing that pops in your mind?"
I saw this white room. Too high light exposure, so this image also blinded me.
"I guess I will be afraid... "
Then, he explained: "This is how you think about Death."

I thought that White Room I wake up, after my journey in Honduras, was not Death.
It was worse ...  It was fear...
Fear that I will never see all the apart, individual colors in, behind this white.
Maybe if fear really darkened your heart, maybe then you're really dead.
In some symbolic way.

Who can save yourself, then? Who can raise up people from the death?
Who can make Pinokkio, stuck in wood, and all his ropes, alive?

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The story the White Queen and The Color Wizard is more narrative than this, but I think this can be a good introduction, to understand this story. One of these days I'll publish it, and this will wear the label of "winter", while this has the label "fall", because here I went into the darkness, but by the other story we will go into the darkness, and then -together with the Color Wizard- find every color back. 

I also live back now in Belgium, in a big, beautiful house, alone, and I feel confronted with many white rooms. My grandmother moved to a resting home, and it is for her scary. But I already felt, she lived her whole life in a white room, becoming a plant, without too many dreams, passions... She never traveled. She really lived in that house, that street... I always tried to escape this house, to become the opposite of her, because I am so afraid to become a plant, but I always come back, for some reason. Life is like a cycle. And I feel a bit sad here, being alone, in a house I cannot share, but maybe the future will bring house mates. I have since today a car, so friends and family are not so far away... 
I am not a house person. I know :). In other times, I was maybe a Celtic bard, going from one town to another, singing stories and legends... 

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This story is for her, and for myself, declaring I'll make from this house something else than a white house. Soon, the ugly living room, will be transformed in a room full of colors,beauty, and music, played on a gramophon. A friend from the film school visited me this evening, and we talked this house can be used as a set for a future short film, as base for a dream (project)... so maybe the best reaction to "What will you do if you wake up in the White Room" can be that you'll just start painting it... 

Norwegian Wood

After an amazing week in Trollheimen, Norway I was at the border between reality and daydreams, while quick images of mountainous landscapes, the sparkling lakes and the wood of this Scandinavian country print in my mind. The train from Oppdal to Oslo took some hours, and instead of reading a book, I flipped through my memories...

Memory of the trekking in Norway, thanks to EGEA Trondheim

...until an old American couple came to the four seats, and I had to make place so they could sit. They answered me in an accent, which sounded North-American. I asked them if they were from Canada. 

"We're from the United States."

I smiled: sometimes people from the US forget America is a continent, and not a country. People from Mexico, Canada... don't like people use the word America if they only talk about US. 

They were from New York, and we started to talk about this city. I have been there. The woman decided to take a look where Edward was. After she left, her husband told me -on a softer tone- that they met a young man, who they met in Alesund, and had seen back on the platform of this train, after another week of division. "He is an handsome guy, who will study economics in Colombia University. He is called Edward the Fourth." I frowned my eyebrows. I only thought kings got a number. "I recommend you to marry him..."

Americans... I mean... US citizens... they are always so helpful. I didn't know this man well enough to know he was joking or not, but I smiled. The woman came back, with the announcement that Edward (the 4th) did find a place on the train, although it is known that you've to book train tickets in Norway in some advance. 

We started to talk about Norway, and from this country our stories started to travel over whole the world. 

The woman asked me if I planned every travel.

"Sometimes, in the beginning, yes, I had a plan, but then... you meet people, you get inspired, and whole your planned future changes. How is this expression? When you plan something, life happens?"

"I love this about life," the older woman replied, "Isn't it great that you always have the chance to change from route?"

"Exactly," I said, "but I guess sometimes friends don't like me always making new and other plans. Things just happen, and things don't go as planned..."

"Did travel change you?" the woman asked curiously. 

"I don't know. Some people say I did. Some people say I am just the same. I sometimes make still the same mistakes. I don't know. You are always your own company, and then you don't notice change so easily as people who only meet you once in a while."

"When we lived in Japan, I experienced so much, learnt so much... I totally become someone else," the woman said. Before she could give a further explanation, Edward IV appeared on stage. He didn't wear a crown... by the way.  

The old couple invited us for a beer, which is really a nice offer, if you know the prices of alcohol in Norway, and there she told more about Japan. 

"You know, there are people, writing blogs, telling that they know Japan after they have been there for two weeks. They mention geisha, shinto, sushi... in their story. I lived for more than 7 years in Japan, and trust me, after all these years I still don't understand the real Japan. Real Japanese people are afraid. They don't look in the eyes of strangers. Forget they will talk with strangers. The Japanese people who talk with you, are excluded by the real Japanese..."

"Aren't they also Japanese people?" Edward IV remarked. "I mean... since when are you a real Japanese? Since when is someone a real American?" Someone doesn't know America is a continent... but I thought he made a good remark. 

The woman smiled. "That is the point... Can you say that you know a country, or even a person, even if you know it, him or her for years? I don't think even Japanese people can really describe their country. They say there whole culture is based on shinto, but there aren't writings about this belief, this philosophy, in contrary of the islam, which has the Koran, or the Christians, who have the Bible."

She made a good point. We talked even later that sometimes stories change in history, just because memories fade away, or get another shape, because of the context of time, or just because minds filter a lot of information. Sometimes I wonder if I could describe myself perfect, because I already lost so many memories. I guess also some other people will see me differently than others. Is this the same about a country, a culture, other persons... ? Which story is then true? If my best friend talks about me, it will be even true, as I'll tell something about me. She wasn't in my presence for 24/24,7/7, but I also filter information conscious and unconscious. Look at facebook. It is so easy for me to show only the information I want other people to know, so they perceive me as the person I want. Is it possible to know everything?

I don't think so... but you can be critical, and realize that one perception is not enough.

Japan is also not only geisha's, shinto and sushi. 

Norway is also not only mountainous landscapes, sparkling lakes and wood .

ps I didn't marry (prince) Edward IV in the end of this fairytale ;).